Author Archives: Jim

“Where exactly was I when I took those photos?”

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Ludington Dunes in the moonlight. Click the image for a larger version.

My primary camera, a DSLR, does not record the GPS location of my photos. Why does it matter? Some photo editors will not publish a photo unless you provide accurate GPS coordinates of the image location. Of course I knew I was a couple of hundred yards up the beach from the parking lot, but not precisely where I was.  Plus I am curious. Some of my photos are taken in less obvious locations and I like to know where I was when I clicked the shutter.

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Anoush in Flowers

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Anoush in flowers, Burgess Corners, Michigan.

I usually do portraits with a DSLR, but every once in a while I do a portrait with my iPhone just to see how it does. In this case, my phone did a pretty good job. We stopped at Burgess Corners Michigan because there is a 1920s era grocery store and gas station on the corner. (I will post gas station photos later.) After taking some photos at the gas station we decided to take advantage of the flowers on the other side of the highway.

Anoush: The Green Towel

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Anoush Anou, Manistique River.

This is the latest in the “green towel” series. This towel lives in my car for whenever I am doing water portraits.  It is also in my car for the times I need to dry off after I have to wade out into water to get the photo angle I want, or to dry off my tripod legs. There are more green towel photos here.

OSU’s Stone Lab Photo Workshop, July 22, 2011

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Morning field trip. Photography workshop at OSU's Gibraltar in Lake Erie, Ohio.

Sunrise at OSU’s Gibraltar Island, Lake Erie, Ohio. July 22,2011, 6:26 am.

July 22, 2011 was a very special day. Jeremy Bruskotter and I were leading our very first weekend photography workshop for OSU’s Stone Laboratory. Home base for our workshop was Gibraltar Island, OSU’s island in Lake Erie. We did this weekend workshop once every summer for several years.

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Tiana

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Tiana, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

If you are out hiking and a beautiful woman asks you to take her picture, you should probably says yes! We should all be so lucky, right? Well, we didn’t really meet by chance. Tiana is a first class model and photographer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Great Places in the U.S. to Take Pictures

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A while back I wrote about all of the people that like to go take pictures at the same spot where Ansel Adams created his image “Tetons and the Snake River”.  I was curious about other places people like to take picture so I did a Google search for “famous us photo locations”.  Google came back with “Most photographed places in the U.S.”

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Why Take So Many Photos of One Event?

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Most of the parade photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark III and a 70-300mm lens. Click the image to see a larger version.

Why do event and assignment photographers take so many images?  I am asked that question on a regular basis.  For this year’s 4th of July parade I captured 138 images. 135 of them were taken with a pair of DSLR cameras and 3 with my iPhone.

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4th of July Parade, Lamoni Iowa

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The color guard with the U.S. flag leading the 4th of July parade.

Each year for fun I photograph the 4th of July parade in Lamoni Iowa, and I send photos to the local newspaper. Here are some photos from this year’s parade, along with a few parade photography tips.

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The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

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Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

From the Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776. Written by Thomas Jefferson (1762-1826). 3rd US President (1801-09).

More images (including Thomas Jefferson’s original draft) and the complete text of the declaration are after the break.

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Photo Location: Thorne Swift Nature Preserve in Northern Michigan

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Thorne Swift Photo Collage. Click the collage for a larger version.

Thorne Swift Nature Preserve is one of my favorite photo locations in Michigan and it is well worth visiting from spring through fall. It is just 3 1/2 miles north of Harbor Springs in northern Michigan via M-119, the Tunnel of Trees, and Lower Shore Drive. Directions and maps are at the end of this article. It is one of the field trip options for my nature photography workshops in Northern Michigan.

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National Camera Day!

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Kodak 126 Instamatic Camera and Kodachrome 64 film cartridge.

I just learned today is National Camera Day. Who knew?

This Kodak 126 Instamatic cartridge camera was my first camera. It was a gift from my parents when I was in high school. I used print film cartridges for about 3 years. It was not until I was in college that I made the switch to slide film cartridges.

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Visiting Classic Photo Locations

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Google image search. Just a few of the hundreds of results.

Yesterday I wrote: “There are all kinds of photographers who like to plant their tripods where other photographers have taken famous pictures, like hundreds of photographers who have recreated Ansel Adams’ classic image of the Grand Tetons and Snake River.” I was confident that was not an exaggeration. But I decided to look.

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The Infamous “Road To Roscoe”

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The infamous Road to Roscoe. Photo by Dr. John Janovy, Jr. 2015.

It all started October 8, 2022 when John Janovy re-posted a photo of the infamous Road to Roscoe that he had taken in 2015.  I was intrigued by the washboard nature of the road. Not only that, in just 4 days on a trip from Iowa to Colorado, I would be just a few miles from where John took this photo. I met Dr. Janovy when I was a student at the University of Nebraska and he was a parasitologist in the biology department. We both share an interest in photography and the natural world, we occasionally send messages to each other, and we are friends on Facebook.

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How to Protect Your Camera Gear in Hot Weather

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Covered camera during a shooting break.

Hot weather is here in most of the country so it is time for a “save your camera gear” reminder. High end professional camera gear has a temperature and humidity rating. A top of the line Canon camera body has a limit of 115°F and 85% or less humidity. A black camera on a hot day can easily exceed that limit. Less expensive cameras of any brand have lower limits so it is important to protect your gear.

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A Custom White Balance Is the Key to Better, More Accurate Colors

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Before and After Setting A Custom White Balance

Setting a custom white balance is the key to better, more accurate colors. I took the photo on the left before setting a custom white balance. The lights in the room give everything a slight yellow-green color cast. Your eye-brain compensates for the color cast but your camera does not. I set a custom white balance on my camera and then took the picture on the right. The colors are now accurate and the photo looks much better as a result.

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Video of Ronald Reagan’s Speech On the 40th Anniversary of D-Day

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President Reagan’s 13 minute speech at the U.S. Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc is considered to be one of the great speeches in American History. In addition to President Reagan, these world leaders were present: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, King Olav V of Norway, King Baudouin I of Belgium, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada.

Links

The text of Reagan’s D-Day speech at The History Place

Video of Reagan’s D-Day speech at YouTube

The Text of Ronald Reagan’s Speech On the 40th Anniversary of D-Day

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Ronald Reagan, 40th Anniversary of D-Day, June 4, 1984.

President Reagan’s 13 minute speech at the U.S. Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc is considered to be one of the great speeches in American History. In addition to President Reagan, these world leaders were present: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, King Olav V of Norway, King Baudouin I of Belgium, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada.

The text of Reagan’s speech follows.

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Video: The Story Behind Robert Capa’s D-Day Photos

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John Morris, Capa’s London photo editor, tells the story behind Robert Capa’s D-Day photos, including the terrible darkroom mistake that ruined most of the photos. The high resolution video is best viewed full screen. You can see a contact sheet of the nine surviving negatives (ripped sprocket holes and all), Capa’s photo notes, and hear the story of the rush to get the prints back to the U.S. for publication in Life more. Fascinating imagery.

Link

Robert Capa and D-Day, June 6, 1944

Robert Capa and D-Day, June 6, 1944

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Robert Capa: Normandy. June 6th, 1944. Landing of the American troops on Omaha Beach.

Robert Capa: Normandy. June 6th, 1944.

June 6, 1944 was the allied invasion of Normandy, the largest seaborne invasion in history. 24,000 allied troops parachuted into France shorty after midnight. The next morning beginning at 6:30 am over 150,000 American, British, and Canadian troops landed. There were 10,000 casualties and 4,414 confirmed dead.

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Seven Spectacular Southern Utah “Parks” in 46 Hours

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Early Morning Snow at Bryce Canyon

Early Morning Snow at Bryce Canyon, April 25, 2001.

When I left home in the Midwest and headed for Northern California I had no intentions of being in Southern Utah. By the time I reached Denver, snow in the forecast for N. Utah, Nevada, and the mountain passes in N. California made a detour much more appealing than fighting snow on I-80, especially since I have never been to the spectacular parks and monuments in southern Utah.

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Q&A: How To Restore Old, Faded, Original Prints

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Old fading wedding photo and digitally corrected version.

I received this question via email from a person worrying about old, fading prints in her scrapbooks:

“I have noticed some of my older photos look like they may be degrading; if I only have the photo itself, what is the best way to restore the print? Do I just take another photo and send it in to reprint? And one other thing, your opinion of Walgreens photo quality?”

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How To Optimize a Photo with Adobe Camera Raw

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Soleece, before and after Adobe Camera Raw.

Cameras, no matter how expensive, do not capture “visual reality”.  In other words, what you see with your eyes is not what the camera captures when you click the shutter. The photo on the right is what my eyes saw when I clicked the shutter. The photo on the left is what my camera gave me. I used ACR to turn the camera image on the left into the image on the right. Plus I cropped the final image. The process of turning the camera image into the image you want only takes a minute or two.

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