Hello again from Seattle! Some of you may be wondering what I’m up to while we do our best to protect ourselves and one and other from the current pandemic. I’m better in front of a camera than I am a keyboard – so I’ll let it do the talking!
Watched it? Great! Feel free to leave comments below as to what you’re doing to keep your photography skills honed and your mind active; I’m sure we could all use various perspectives on how to use our time productively. I’ll be posting ideas to the blog on a regular basis as well, so stay tuned and most importantly, stay safe!
Greetings from Seattle! I won’t spend too much time talking about the elephant in the room, but I do want to wish each and every one of you the best through these difficult times and hope that you and yours are healthy and getting the support you need. In my limited excursions to get groceries and other necessities, I’ve witnessed nothing but kindness and support out there in the community, and that’s exactly what we need – we are truly in this together. I’m not one for standing still, and to that end I am working diligently to prepare some exciting new distance-based learning opportunities to unveil soon. Stay tuned!
One of my last trips before buckling down here was to Patagonia, with the primary goal of photographing pumas. These are notably solitary animals, whom rarely congregate or hunt with others until it’s time to breed. When cubs are born, they remain with their mother long enough to grow strong and learn to hunt before venturing out on their own. I was fortunate to capture not one but two such families on this trip – one with adorable young cubs, the other with rough-housing older siblings. To be able to follow these two groups and observe their similarities and differences kept me busy. They were surprisingly indifferent to my documentation of their days, whether they were lounging, scrapping, or enjoying some fine dining. Along the way I captured some other denizens of the area as well.
We are living in some crazy times, aren’t we? My thoughts are with you while we navigate all of this, and I’m heartened by what I’ve seen and heard of communities supporting one and other. How about just a little bit of bright news for the day?
The California Condor was down to just 27 individuals in 1987 due to lead poisoning (eating carrion containing lead shot), habitat loss and poaching. At that point an emergency was declared and every wild individual was captured and put into captive breeding programs in two zoos in California. Chicks were hatched and raised and several years later they began the delicate process of reintroducing them to the wild.
Today there are over 300 individuals in the wild with another 200 in captivity, and in 2019 the 1,000 chick was born in the wild in Zion National Park! This is fantastic news and shows just how powerfully we can impact the survival of species world-wide.
At this moment I am on my way to teach a workshop in Utah. We photographers who make travel our business are but a tiny subset of the overall tourism industry which generates 10.4% of global GDP and some 319 million jobs, but like everyone else we are closely watching this rapidly developing situation with the Novel Coronavirus. It is a huge understatement to say that getting the under control is critical.
While my life has been full of risk-taking, I don’t expect my clients to have the same threshold that I do. Already this month several of my speaking events have been rescheduled which I completely support. The health of my workshop participants is an absolute priority for me. My home, the beautiful Pacific Northwest, has become an epicenter, and is the location for my spring workshops
In light of this, I am postponing my photography workshops scheduled from later this month through the end of May. I will work with my students on rescheduling and deeply appreciate everyone’s flexibility and support as we explore options. If you are signed up for one of these workshops, my office will be contacting you soon with updates. In the mean time, feel free to email us if you have any specific questions or concerns.
My workshops later in the year are continuing as planned. For all workshops I strongly recommend travel insurance, and if you want the extra security, a CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) supplement.
While we’re all waiting for worry-free travel to return, I don’t want any of you to get rusty! Continue to hone your skills and prepare yourself for your dream trips. I will be releasing and streaming updated versions of my tutorial seminars. You’ll have the opportunity to get out in your immediate surrounds to practice and join our group review sessions. I plan to do the very same and it’ll be fun to do it together and challenge ourselves! Stay tuned to our newsletters and updates for these releases in the very near future!
Please take care of yourself, your family, and friends during this time of uncertainty and stress. We are all working to stay safe and healthy to travel another day. For up to date information on the Coronavirus, see the CDC and WHO websites.
2020 continues to fly by at a supersonic pace. Spring is just around the corner, and here in Washington things are starting to warm up. When I’m home and working in my garden I can definitely appreciate the longer days. Looking back at the past 15 years, photos from March tend to capture the colors and activity of those approaching spring months. With better weather and more hours to get things done, cultures world-wide begin to celebrate and festivals such as Holi in India have captured my attention over the years.
Enjoy the photos, and have a fantastic weekend – and for those of you in the affected time-zones, don’t forget to spring ahead this Sunday!
Happy World Wildlife Day! It’s also technique Tuesday, and today’s tip was inspired by a question from Lowell E., Who inquired via my contact page – how exactly DO photographers make things, like the sun for example, seem so much larger in a photograph than it does in real life?
Great Question Lowell!
The simple answer – use a telephoto lens! Now, it should be noted the sun itself is not getting larger, rather it’s an optical trick where your subject is appearing larger as your lens dials in on it. Photographing a subject a quarter of a mile away, for example, is relatively a short distance compared to the sun at 93 million miles away.
For more information, here’s an excerpt from The New Art of Photographing Nature:
AW: As I was driving down the Flathead Valley in the Montana Rockies, I noticed this homestead set against the distant mountains. The first shot was taken with a 50mm and most closely resembles what I saw from the car as I drove by. I recognized the possibilities, but this clearly was not it. It incorporated too much sky, too much foreground, and the dark furrow of earth leads your eye away from what was most important to me in the composition.
In the second shot, I zoomed in with a 300mm lens, creating a telescopic effect, and brought the mountains closer in relation to the farm. I knew this was what I wanted–the farm with the looming backdrop of mountains. I placed the farm in the bottom and cropped so only mountains were above it, creating a sense of dramatic vertical rise. For the last shot I used a 400mm with a 1.4 teleconverter resulting in 560mm focal length, bringing me even closer. By making the image a vertical I was able to emphasize the rise of the mountains, and using a polarizer allowed me to create a little more drama. For my money, this is the strongest image in the series.
MH: Here again is a good example of what the camera can do that the eye cannot. The only way we could approximate this image would be to hike a long way to get very close to the farm. But even then you would not have the same perspective, with the farm and the mountains so strongly juxtaposed. This sense of drama is created by the compression of distance only achieved by using a powerful telephoto lens.
Think you have a great question that might prompt it’s own Technique Tuesday post? Submit a question via the contact page!
Here are some other great resources relating to the subject:
I hadn’t been to Easter Island since 1986 and if you’ve checked out Photographs From the Edge, you’ll know that despite my “scientific” western brain, I had quite the spiritual experience here, miles away from the closest human and surrounded by monuments of ages passed. It is places like these where despite our different backgrounds one can come and feel an almost metaphysical presence that was partially my inspiration for an upcoming book on international faith and ritual.
For that project, among others, I thought it would be great to revisit it during the Tapati Festival. Rightly so, Rapa Nui people are very proud of their heritage and this festival highlights their culture. Of course, everyone is familiar with the moai, monumental statues of ancestors. We got up at three in the morning to photograph them under the Milky Way, running around with flashlights to illuminate them in various ways.
I was also able to pull photograph three Rapa Nui men in traditional garb, overlooking the ocean. In the past, men would brave the currents and swim out to the small island in the distance and bring back seabird eggs. If they succeeded they would be regarded as heroes for their efforts.
Enjoy the photos, and stay tuned to the blog for more photos from my first couple months of 2020 travel!
Blue whale populations were decimated by whaling, exterminating an estimated 97% of their numbers until a moratorium was placed on whaling in 1986. When whalers first descended on their summer feeding grounds around South Georgia Island off Antarctica they would see “whales by the thousands” in the area. An estimated 176,000 whales were taken over 60 years.
In 2018 a lone pair of Blue Whales was spotted in the area, adding to just one or two sightings over the last 40-50 years. And then in 2020 – on their most recent survey – 55 Blue Whales were counted feeding in the area! An amazing swell in the numbers in such a short time.
I’m excited and honored to announce that I’ll be a keynote speaker at this year’s OPTIC West event presented by B&H Photo Video and Lindblad Expeditions. I’ll be taking the stage with Frans Lanting and other speakers delivering both information and inspiration – register for free today!
Along with the speakers, get hands-on demonstrations of the newest technologies, day and evening photo walks, participate in critiques and reviews of your shots, learn tried and true workflow strategies, and much more!
Hope to see you there – again, this event is FREE but you must register ASAP to attend, as space is limited. Don’t miss out!
Better late than never and it’s still February; where’s the year going??? More importantly, where have the past 15 years gone? It’s always interesting to look back at the various phases of my career to be reminded of my previous goals, successes and of course. . the very very occasional failures. If you’re ever struggling to come up with something to say with your photography, there are plenty of resources around to step back and take a look at. I’m an avid book collector and I’m always on the look-out for compendiums of the passions of others that may help spark an idea of my own.
There is something to be said for being your own inspiration, however – especially if it’s been some time since you’ve looked back on your own photos and/or artwork. Perhaps time and experience will give you a new angle on an old idea, or you may find the simple purity of your original concepts got lost among new technologies, software, or just the clutter of life in general.
Enjoy the photos, and stay tuned to the blog for some exciting upcoming events!
