On composition, part 30: Timing


The moment someone talks about timing when discussing photography, most people immediately think of tripping the shutter, getting the photo at the key moment that ideal action or positioning occurs, and this is certainly one aspect that’s important, and thus, the first that I’ll discuss – which tells you there’s more coming along, too.

Timing the shutter trip is not just about read more

You wanted to know

“Hey, Al,” started the thousands of e-mails I received the past couple of days, more-or-less-kinda (which means absolutely not,) “how come you haven’t posted anything for almost a week? This is prime season – why aren’t you out shooting?” Though no one nearby actually asked that (no duh,) because they knew what the local conditions were like: read more

Brand spanking

It’s about 2:30 AM as I type this – again, my sleep ‘schedule’ is totally wacked and yet, completely typical for me. And knowing that the posting date will show and that some astute reader may refer to this for confirmation of conditions, I feel somehow obligated to refer to events as ‘yesterday’ even though they were a few hours back and all that. But yeah.

Saturday read more

Podcast: Motivation

It’s been a while since the last podcast, and in fact, this year has been notably thin on that front, this only being the fifth for the year – just haven’t had either the subjects or the time. So perhaps today’s topic is a little ironic, even if it’s timely with the season slowing down, because we’re going to talk about motivation.

Walkabout read more

Podcast: Composition


Yes, it’s finally here! The podcast I’ve been trying to finish for literally weeks! It will surely live up to the hype and anticipation…

Walkabout podcast – Composition

First off, since I’m speaking in generic composition terms within the podcast, you can click here for the entire list read more

Podcast: Photo trips

So, this post actually serves two purposes. The primary one is contained in the header: it’s advice and what to expect when planning a trip dedicated to nature photography. But also, by way of example, it’s a continuation of the beach trip stories, the good and the bad, the Sturm und Drang (perhaps – I don’t actually know what that means since I read more

On composition, part 24: Planning the shot


It’s been a while since the last composition post, so let’s waste no further time and get into planning. Wait, somehow that doesn’t seem quite right…

No matter what the preferred style, sooner or later every photographer gets into planning a shot envisioning exactly how they want it to appear, and then endeavoring to actually bring this out in the image. read more

On composition, part 18: Illustration


This one was inspired by this recent post, but let’s look a little closer at using photos for illustration.

While all of photography might be considered illustration to some extent, there’s also a more specific purpose, separating it from genres such as portraiture, journalism, art, and so on. If it helps, the idea is to visually represent something explained in accompanying read more