Perseid Meteor photographed from Rose Hill Cemetery west of Lamoni, Iowa. 4:55 am CDT, August 13, 2018.
Tonight (January 3-4) is the night of the Quandrantid Meteor Shower. This article will tell you what you need to know to see and photograph the first meteor shower of 2019. Predictions are always just estimates, but this shower is predicted to produce about 25 meteors per hour. Best of all, this will be a dark sky night without interference from the moon.
Kristina at Christmas
On Christmas eve I found myself doing Christmas portraits for Kristina’s portfolio. She is a friend of mine who is a model and actress in L.A.. There isn’t a lot of space in my studio when the Christmas tree is up so I had to improvise a bit with the lighting and I needed to get the right mix of flash and ambient light for the look I wanted.
Christmas Lights, Easton Shopping Center, Columbus, OH
‘Tis the season and there are a lot of Christmas lights out there to photograph. It is fun and easy, and with a few tricks up your sleeve there are creative things you can do. Many of these techniques can be used on other lights throughout the year, so this is a good time to practice your skills for photographing lights.
Kroger Panorama. Graceland Shopping Center, Columbus Ohio. November 12, 2013. Click for a larger version.
I’ve done a lot of commercial panoramas for clients as diverse as KOA Campgrounds and Crown Plaza Hotels. When I am on a commercial assignment I follow all the right steps and use all the right equipment. For the Kroger pano above I did everything right.
But there are times when you are doing your own thing and decide at the last minute you want to try a pano. You might get lucky trying to do a handheld panorama. I will tell you how to increase your odds of getting a good handheld pano.
Perseid Meteor photographed from Rose Hill Cemetery west of Lamoni, Iowa. 4:55 am CDT, August 13, 2018. Cropped from the original image.
Tonight (Dec 13-14) is the night of the Geminid Meteor Shower. This article will tell you what you need to know to photograph what should be the best meteor shower of 2018.
Graham Parsons and the Go Rounds. The Strutt. Kalamazoo Michigan. Dec 4, 2009.
I was in Kalamazoo for a fashion show followed by a series of local bands in concert. This photo of Graham Parson and the Go Rounds ended up being my favorite photo of the evening, and one of only two favorite photos for this date in my “favorite photos” folder.
Photographers with red headlamps. Field Trip, Sprague Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
A red headlamp is an essential tool for night photography. Before you rush out and buy one, make sure it has the most essential feature (other than the red LED). Some inexpensive headlamps have this feature and some very expensive ones don’t, so cost is not the issue.
Elephant Rock, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada. Friday, Nov 20, 1998.
There is only one photo in my “favorite photos” folder for November 20, but it is one of my all time favorite images.
Family Portrait, Virginia. November 3, 2014.
Today’s favorite photo was such an easy pick. A few years ago our oldest son wanted a family portrait. We went to a wooded area not far from his home and created some images.
Margarita, Columbus, Ohio. October 30, 2009.
All of the photos in my “favorite photos” folder for October 30 are portraits. It must be a portrait kind of day.
Ellie-Marie. August 23, 2007. Three photos digitally combined.
My favorite photo for August 23 was another easy choice. I was doing a photo shoot with Ellie Marie at Battelle Riverfront Park in downtown Columbus, Ohio.
Green Frog, Seney National Wildlife Refuge, Michigan’s U.P.
If you want a nice image of a frog, you have to go where the frogs are. And that means getting down in the swamp or bog or whatever other wet place the frog happens to be.
Whites Sands New Mexico
Controlling depth of field is one of a photographer’s most powerful creative tools. That is why my photography book devotes two chapters and 40 pages to tools and techniques you can use to control depth of field.
O’Haver Lake, Mt. Ouray, Colorado.
You have heard it said a lot, and maybe said it yourself: “This picture doesn’t do the scene justice.” That is often true and for several reasons. One is that digital cameras do not capture reality. No matter how fancy or expensive, digital cameras simply do not capture what your eyes see. That is also true with film cameras. All color photographic films have different color characteristics. Some have better reds, others have better greens or blues. Some are more saturated and others less saturated. But none of them are totally color realistic. So why don’t digital cameras give you realistic images and what can you do about it?
Originally posted December 16, 2015. Revised, expanded, and re-posted May 4, 2018. Updated October 31, 2018.
Great Egret. Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Fremont, California.
When I posted this photo on one of my Facebook pages, a friend posted this happy comment:
“I LOVE this egret photo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look at the right wing trailing in the water. How DO you capture these?!”
Good question.
Doris. The digitized copy of an original print.
You can create high quality, high resolution digital images of analog prints, and you can do it on the road without having a flatbed scanner and computer with you. You probably have everything you need with the possible exception of a couple of small, inexpensive accessories (less than $10 each). This article will show you what to do, step by step.
Total Lunar Eclipse, Super Blood Moon, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, September 27, 2015
Here in North America, Wednesday morning, January 31, you have your chance to photograph the first supermoon total lunar eclipse since September 2015. This article will show you how. Continue reading
Setting a “Custom White Balance” at the beginning of a photo shoot will save you a lot of time. It will only take a minute or so and can save you a lot of work later on. Think how long it would take you to color correct 250 images.
Posted April 22, 2015. Revised and re-posted Jan. 5, 2018.
Most digital cameras give you a choice of several pre-set white balance settings (daylight, tungsten, cloudy, shade, and others), but they won’t give you the most accurate white balance in a mixed lighting situation. If you choose a pre-set, the colors in your images will be off.
Reflected light can be beautiful. When you catch a rare moment with great light, take advantage of it.
Snowy Owl looking for prey.
If there are cold enough temperatures and plenty of snow cover on the ground, the northern United States has a winter invasion of Snowy Owls. These are magnificent creatures and well worth your photographic time and attention. This series is filled with tips on how to find and photograph snowy owls.
Snowy Owl, Photo Location P1
When I am traveling with my highly trained and high paid photographic assistant it is his job to remove trash barrels when they are in the way, cut down trees that spoil my view, run out into the meadow and scare off the cow elk that are in front of the bull elk I want to photograph, rip boards off of old barns that don’t look quite distressed enough, pull on the whiskers of a sleeping cougar to wake it up, and cut down utility lines that are obstructing a clear view of my subject. But he wasn’t with me on this trip due to sitting in jail over a minor incident in Yosemite. So I had a challenge on my hands that I had to solve myself.
I am kidding, of course. The prior paragraph was inspired by really crazy things a few photographers do but shouldn’t be doing.
Snowy Owl, Photo Location P1
A simple change of background can turn a disappointing wildlife photo into a great one. Professional wildlife photographers think about backgrounds all the time and do everything they can to improve the background. Less experienced wildlife photographers are so excited to find an interesting creature that they give the background precious little thought.
Snowy Owl
What is a Snowy Owl expedition really like? This article is your chance to find out. Join me for a two day photo safari! I give you tips and photo suggestions along the way, and you get to see how I prepare, plan, and adapt on a photo trip. This is also about what to do when things don’t go according to plan.
Snowy Owl Sightings, January 2016
Winter is your opportunity to photograph Snowy Owls. When it is cold enough and there is enough snow cover, snowy owl move down into the northern U.S. The colder it is the farther south they move. If conditions are right, don’t delay. If the winter turns warmer the snowy owls will head farther north.
This is the first in an ongoing series of articles on Snowy Owl photography. Originally posted January 25, 2016. Revised and re-posted Jan. 1, 2018. Updated January 10, 2019.
Christmas Lights, iPhone Photo
The photo abilities of smartphones have improved dramatically in the last few years, especially in low light situations. Just point your camera phone at the lights and click the shutter. Exposure can be a bit iffy. If the photo looks too light or too dark and your phone will allow you to alter the exposure, take advantage of that feature.
Kristina. Sunlight coming from the right. Halo softbox with Yongnuo speedlite providing light from the left.
After testing a Bob Davis 45 inch Halo Softbox and Yongnuo YN600EX-RT radio flash on my most available model (my dog), I needed to test it out on a real model. Opportunity called in the form of a message from Kristina, a professional model based in Los Angeles (and an absolute delight to work with). She would be in Ohio for Thanksgiving and she wanted to schedule a shoot. I was leaving town for Thanksgiving, but fortunately for us we had one day to shoot after she arrived and before I left.
Dawn, scenic overlook. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Exposure for the sky.
In a single exposure your camera can’t capture everything your eyes see in high contrast situations with a wide range of tonalities. HDR photography gives you more options.
Sunrise, Gibraltar Island. HDR Image.
Compared to the human eye, digital cameras have a very limited dynamic range. Your digital camera simply can’t capture the range of tones from light to dark that your eyes can see. That is why HDR photography has become so popular with so many photographers, and absolutely essential for some commercial photographers.
Three different exposure combinations at Brandywine Falls, all of them cropped from larger images. Click for a larger version.
Another photographer and I were shooting together yesterday at Brandywine Falls in Cuyahoga National Park. During the time we were there we saw dozens of people taking pictures of the waterfall. Most of them were in full auto-exposure mode, making no personal changes in their exposure settings whether they were photographing the waterfall, each other, or the leaves in the trees. I bet most of them had no idea that they had turned important artistic decisions over to a computer chip.