You knew this was coming

… because it’s the month’s end, of course.


And naturally I had to use another shot from the trip – I’ll probably be finding excuses for that for a while yet.

It’s easy to believe this one has been altered, but not really – this is how it came from the camera. Like I said earlier, I had contrast and saturation boosted a little to enhance the colors, but no read more

Color week Saturday


And so we wrap up the color week with a relatively recent one – most of the rest had been prepared for 2015, when I was doing a weekly color post, and had never been used, so now I can remove the ‘Color’ folder from my blog records. There will still be photos/posts dedicated largely towards color, but it will be as I come across them.

This was sunrise at the end of April, the same read more

Color week Wednesday

Today we go back to February 2014, as the cherry trees in a local park came into bloom. Seems like a simple shot, but it required finding a photogenic branch with a blossom catching the light from the right angle, and a short depth-of-field to have the other branches present but not distracting (enhancing the idea of a full tree instead of a lone branch,) and of course the blue sky for contrast. read more

Monday color. And monochrome


We’re going to go beyond a simple color post with this one, because it’s more interesting that way. I started off with a macro shot of a small (as yet unidentified) pond lily, which loses a little bit when displayed at this size because the contrast in focus is distinctive at a larger scale, but so be it. The contrast in color is distinctive too, and it’s images read more

On the negative side 7

It’s been a busy week, and I haven’t had much time to even look at some of the drafts I have in the folder, much less tackle anything new to write, and I’m not sure this will improve before christmas. So for now, we’ll step onto the Wayback Crack and break causality’s back. And here, you didn’t think I could turn a metaphor…

In a read more

Monday color 18

This is one example of matching light to your subject. I often recommend that, when the light is bright and high-contrast, photographers should seek low-contrast subjects, and this is an example of the opposite: a high-contrast subject shot in low-contrast, near overcast lighting. The shadows are kept under control, but more importantly, the highlights don’t get too strong read more

But of course

This autumn has proven to be one that I’ve rarely had the chance to take advantage of: a fairly good display of colors, peaking during clear weather, with no storms or even high winds to strip the leaves from the trees. So while this area has few vantages that provide the best display of colors – generally something that overlooks rolling hills with a wide variety of read more

Pics from the oceanfront


A friend of mine in Kansas (you know, the one who won’t go to a water park,) wanted to one-up me on the frost pics, which is fine, since mine were extremely limited. We’ve always had this minor competition going on since he got into nature photography, a nice motivation to keep improving as read more

On composition, part 20: Contrast


I find it hard to believe that I never actually tackled this in a separate post before – I guess I kept thinking I’d done it early on, and have certainly touched on it in numerous posts. But it’s such an important part of photography that it really deserves its own specific, detailed treatment.

First and foremost, and something I teach my students right off the bat, is that photographs read more

A matter of timing


I’ve been watching the autumn colors developing slowly, wondering what this year’s conditions are going to be like. The pursuit of “peak colors” is a routine activity for anyone who chases landscape images, and some photographers and painters are quite dedicated to it, ensuring that they’re in a prime location in time to see the best displays. I’m read more

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