Lewis Kemper Talks Nature Photography, Photoshop, and The Photography Business

Lewis Kemper has been photographing the natural beauty of North America, and its parklands for over 30 years. During his extensive travels, he has been to 47 states from Alaska to Florida.   His work has been exhibited and published in magazines, books, and calendars worldwide.

Chase Jarvis Shares How He Filmed an REI TV Commercial

I have had the pleasure of meeting, drinking a round (or two), and teaching at the same venue in Dubai with Chase Jarvis. If you are not familiar with Chase, you should be as he is in many ways, an International ‘Phenom’ in the photography world.

Chase began his career as a adventure and ski photographer (as far as I know) and has become one of the hottest advertising photographers on the planet with an impressive client list. One of those clients is REI, the outdoor equipment and apparel company. Chase shoots photography and video production for REI and he recently posted the commercial and how he shot it in a series of posts on his blog. If you are expanding your services to include video you might enjoy these behind the scenes posts by Chase. Continue reading for links to the blog posts.

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Don’t Recycle Your Christmas Tree Until You Create Images Like These

Now that Christmas has passed, there is still time to plan some photographs using Christmas theme. And one great topic revolves around the Christmas Tree. So before you recycle your Christmas Tree you might want to consider using is as a prop for Holiday themed images that you can later license as stock and use for next years Christmas card.

I have photographed quite a few outdoor Holiday concepts over the years and had several planned for this Holiday season, but we have no snow yet for what I have planned.

There are the usual ideas such as the Christmas tree in a living room window with Christmas lights, both inside and outside, turned on. And the tree near a glowing fireplace. I have done those but find I enjoy the outdoor concept better.

Snow has not arrived where I live yet so I will have to wait myself, but in the mean time, here are a few ideas that are easy to do with your used tree before you recycle it.

How you shoot your Christmas tree in the outdoors depends on where you live. I live in the mountains and can easily shoot in the forest after the next snowfall. But I think there are excellent concept images that can take place anywhere from a front yard to placing the lit tree in the desert somewhere.

I am always brainstorming concepts that are not the norm such as a tree in the desert and this could be a marketable concept since you don’t normally see deciduous trees in the desert. What about a lit Christmas tree in an auto junkyard? Or a tree along a river bank surrounded by forest? The ideas are of course unlimited and it is your concept and idea that will make the image marketable. Here are some ideas I have shot in the past. … Continue Reading

Happy Holidays from ProNature & How I Photographed Santa

Happy Holidays from PNP. Read on for how I took this shot. … Continue Reading

Beautiful Time Lapse Video: Finding Oregon by Uncage The Soul Productions

Here is a very well done time lapse video by Uncage the Soul video production company. Finding Oregon features beautiful scenery from across the state and includes some great night photography mixed will a little video footage as well. Note the excellent camera moves!

Finding Oregon from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo.

Should You Even Bother Photographing These 5 Locations?

For nature photographers who compete in the business of licensing stock photos, the question should be asked regularly: “what should I be shooting?”

With more photographers than ever competing and the markets saturated with nature imagery, photographers should be researching the markets to assist in determining what subjects will have a fighting chance in those markets.

I ask myself this very question when I plan each year for the locations and subjects I think will succeed in the markets.

While I answered this question I also wonder just what subjects and locations I should not shoot and the easiest way was to search various websites and evaluate the results.

So, I randomly selected 5 locations that I have seen widely published and regularly online when I look at others websites.  These locations are: … Continue Reading

How to Use The ‘Cookie Cutter’ Approach to Extending Dynamic Range

This is a pretty cool technique for those needing to extend image latitude or dynamic range. I tried it on several images and it worked well on some and not at all on others. It is certainly worth a try before moving on to HDR or other methods.

This technique is from Ellon Anon’s great book: Photoshop for Nature Photographers and its titled: The Cookbook Approach to Expanding Latitude. This is a very good book by the way, specifically aimed at nature photographers and you can buy it here.

To start, open two images in Photoshop, a dark one which has the perfect exposure for the sky or clouds or any areas that are important. Then open the bright one image which has detail for areas that were to dark in the other image.

I opened these two images from Arches National Park: one is the main exposure which has good detail throughout and is what could be considered the perfect exposure for the image. The second image is for the shadow areas and is a good exposure for those areas. There is a two stop difference between the two images: 1/8th second and 1/30 second. … Continue Reading

VM Release: A Model Release App for the iPhone

VM Release has created a new APP for the iPhone allowing photographers to capture model releases from those they photograph and all digitally using the iPhone. This is pretty cool and certainly has its usefulness for those photographing people and private property.

The app has a Adult Release, a Minor Release for the kids, and a Property Release for that farm photo you just took. The app maintains a database of releases that can be downloaded and archived on your computer as well as sent from the iPhone.  It has the ability to enter the photographers signature after the shoot, the models, and a witness signature as well. You can also create a jpg or pdf of the release to submit with the original images. The price is great as well at $9.95.

The site and video states the releases are perfectly legal but it does not state who decided a digital release was legal. I assume they are legal documents since Getty and Alamy have signed on and promote the app to members. I cant help but wonder about the legality as it has always been my understanidng that you needed a paper release with the signature written with real ink.

About 5 years ago I was hired by an out of state lawyer to go to the hospital in my town and photograph a womans injuries as she recovered from a head on car collision. The lawyer told me I could not shoot digitally and had to shoot film and send the negatives with the prints. He said with all the potential image manipulation taking place that the court would not accept digital pictures of the woman’s injuries.

Is there a difference between a digital photo and a digital model release as far as the courts are concerned? I am not sure. Any lawyers out there? … Continue Reading

Photographing Butterflies by Connie Toops

This article is an excerpt, posted with permission, from the new Peterson Field Guides/Backyard Bird Guides ~ Hummingbirds and Butterflies by Bill Thompson III and Connie Toops © 2011

As you attract butterflies to your backyard, you may discover photography assists in their identification or enables you to share their beauty with others. Patience and willingness to experiment can result in stunning butterfly images. To master butterfly photography, you’ll need reliable equipment and you’ll want to perfect techniques that insure great photos.

Simple Equipment

Excellent digital “point-and-shoot” cameras are currently available at very reasonable prices. Standard features now would have been unimaginable to professional photographers only a decade ago.  A versatile digital model in the $250 to $500 price range should fulfill the needs of most casual butterfly photographers. Digital cameras record their images on small memory cards that are ultimately downloaded into computers for editing and printing. If you plan to travel widely as you photograph, you may need an extra memory card or a portable storage device to hold large numbers of images until you can process them. … Continue Reading

The Art of Photographing Mud

There is so much in nature to photograph! National Parks, wild areas, and even our own backyards! We have an infinite amount of subjects to capture and in amazing ways.

But it is not necessarily where we photograph as it is what we photograph that makes for a pleasing image which results in images that please us. These might be subjects we discover or others we pursue that are subjects close to out hearts. And one of my favorites can be found just about anywhere.

I am here to admit: I love mud! And I love photographing it. Cracked mud in particular!

Everywhere I go, if I see mud, and especially cracked mud, I immediately stop and look for a place with NO mud to set down my camera pack and get to work.

Let’s face it; mud is all around us!  From alpine settings to a rain forest, a drought stricken desert or a city park, there is a good chance there is mud of some sort. All mud is not the same either since it depends on the makeup of the content. I have seen red mud, green mud, brown mud, and probably more colors as I have wandered around the Southwest.
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