Portrait in the Park
Update July 24: I decided to take a second look at this portrait and I turned it into an article on Simple Steps to Better Portraits.
It all started Saturday when this young lady said to her mother “We have great portrait light today. Is Jim available?” It is interesting to note that she knew from past photo shoots that cloudy bright days made for beautiful portrait light.
Dandelion Puffball
I was walking my dog in a dandelion filled park this week and I saw a few puffballs. My mind jumped immediately to a scene in a movie featuring Dewitt Jones, so I grabbed my iPhone and went to work creating the above image. Who is Dewitt Jones? I am glad you asked.
Early Morning Snow at Bryce Canyon
I was reminded once again this week that having both horizontal and vertical versions of the same scene can be the difference between dollars in your pocket and nothing at all. Magazine editors usually prefer vertical photos for the cover. Calendar editors usually want horizontal photos (depending on the format of the calendar).
Nature Photography Workshop – Grand Rapids Michigan
CAPTURING NATURE’S WONDERS
Photography Workshop with Jim Doty, Jr.
Georgetown Township near Grand Rapids, Michigan
May 17, 2014 – 9:00 am to 9:30 pm
Photography Workshop – OSU Mansfield (Ohio)
CAPTURING NATURE’S WONDERS
Photography Workshop with Jim Doty, Jr.
The Ohio State University – Mansfield Campus
May 10, 2014 – 9:00 am to 9:00 pm
Landscape, Nature, and Wildlife Images
Now is the time to order one of my fine art landscape and nature prints and get free shipping on your order. Just head on over to my Zenfolio site, choose the image and size you want, and go through the check out process to order your print. The free shipping is automatic, now through Wednesday April 23.
Sunset, The Window, Big Bend National Park
Late April through early May is a great time of year to be in Big Bend National Park. Flowers are in bloom (assuming some rain), temperatures are warm but not yet insufferable, and best of all, the sun sets in “The Window”.
My brother and I on the road to Gothic Colorado. Top: 1950s. Bottom October 2012.
The most important photos won’t win any prizes. Two years ago my brother had a “cardiac event”. His heart stopped, he quit breathing, and he was in a coma for over a week. I looked for and found the top photo to have with me on the 10 hour drive to the hospital.
Is it a special deal, or is it a rip-off?
Is it a great deal? Or is it a rip-off? You are searching online for a good price and you come across a terrific deal. Are you about to get burned? There are ways you can tell.
The Heartbleed Bug has created vulnerabilities in about 66% of all internet online servers, including major sites like Yahoo. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11 according to security experts. The odds are good that one of the sites you have logged in to has been affected, exposing your personal information (name, user name, password, credit card information etc.).
Natural Light Portrait
You can do a lot in just a few minutes, especially if you and your subject have worked together before.
The best of the best cameras, accessories, photo books and more.
On a regular basis I put together a collection of articles recommending the best photo gear, books, DVDs, software, calendars, online photo labs, and a whole lot more. The list follows.
Bruce Munro: Light. Franklin Park Conservatory
Jewel Box Lighting is the art of combining lights, lighted buildings, or lighted objects with a deep blue evening sky. It is a great way to do photography and the exhibit this week at the Franklin Park Observatory is a wonderful opportunity to practice this technique and come away with some unique and memorable images.
Bruce Munro: Light. Franklin Park Conservatory
This is the last week to see “Bruce Munro: Light” at the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus Ohio. The exhibit ends March 30.
Flower Modified with Painteresque
I was walking our dog yesterday and spotted the first flowers to pop up in our neighborhood. It is starting to look like spring! This is an iPhone photo modified by Painteresque, one of my favorite iPhone apps.
California Poppies. Fremont, California.
There are a lot of places to photograph flowers in April, but one of the two best destinations for nature photographers is California for the poppies. (The other destination is the Texas Hill Country.)Â April is prime time although you can find poppies as early as late March in some areas. As an added bonus, there are a host of wildflowers blooming all across the Southwest from California to Texas.
Wyoming Ground Squirrel. Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park.
The calendar says today is the first day of spring, but is it really? Depends on where you live. It still looks like a lot like winter in far northern climes and up at high elevations. No matter where you are, Happy First Day of Spring!
FB Post
This totally unexpected comment showed up on my Facebook photography timeline this evening. Kristina is an agency represented professional model/actor and we have worked together on several photo shoots, the most recent being Christmas Eve. So this comment totally made my day. In fact it made my week!
Mount Rundle, Two Jack Lake
Today I was asked by a client where I was when I took some photos in Banff National Park. I was able to provide him with the exact locations, complete with marked satellite images. It is a good idea to known where you were when you created your most important images, and the more specific the information the better. It is good info to have for your own use and sometimes it can make the difference between whether or not one of your images is published.
Framed prints in a car.
I took down my photography exhibit at “Changes” so the back seat, “passenger seat”, and trunk of my car are filled with prints. It’s a good time to talk about how to move and store framed prints.
20×30 Inch Cougar Print
One of my 20×30 inch prints before it was matted and framed for my current photo exhibit.
Jim Doty, Entrance to Photo Exhibit at Changes
This is your last chance to see my photo exhibit at Changes Salon & Spa in Columbus. There are three days left. Details follow.
From the L.A. Times
Do you want to decide on the web sites you visit on the internet, or do you want someone else to control your choices? “Net neutrality” is more at risk now than ever before. Powerful economic interests want to limit what you see on the internet and your freedom of internet choices will be restricted. Read the “Net Neutrality is Dead” article linked below.
Sarah – Window Blind Shadows Portrait
There are a lot of creative options when creating portraits using sunlight streaming through window blinds.
Kristina – Window Blind Shadows Portrait
One of the things I like about winter is the sunlight streaming through my studio windows at a low enough angle to create portraits using window blind shadows. In the summer the sun is too high for me to do this and get the angles I want.
Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams was born February 20, 2002. He is “the” icon of American landscape photography. Trained as a concert pianist, his love of photography and time spent in Yosemite National Park led him to a career change.
Vermilion Lakes Sunset, new (top) and old (bottom) ACR “process versions”. Click on the photo to see a larger image.
Adobe has a new “process version” for Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). This means better image processing for your RAW camera files.
Snow Hummocks, Merced River
Just like metering daytime winter scenes, the key to metering evening winter scenes is knowing what to meter and deciding how much exposure compensation to use.
Elk in the Snow, Horseshoe Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Metering dark toned wildlife in the snow is a major exposure challenge. It is usually best to avoid large “burned out” areas (washed out, featureless white) in a nature or landscape photograph, but with properly exposed snow, the wildlife can be so dark as to lose all texture. On other hand, metering for the wildlife can burn out the snow.
Kristina in the Snow
The snow in a winter scene will often fool a camera meter into underexposing a photo, so here are the steps to take to get the right exposure. I throw in a few portrait suggestions too.