The Future Professional Outdoor Photographer is………

…a storyteller!

You have certainly heard, maybe even said it yourself; anybody can take a picture! While that has always been true even before digital, the level of high quality photography is more prevalent today and easier to achieve. Why is that?

It is a combo of many things. Digital technology has made the ability to capture and process an image very easy. Software has brought many tools for interpreting a RAW file into a unique personal vision for the photographer. The web has brought us the greatest learning tools ever known. It simply is not that hard to learn how to create wonderful photography.

Yet one thing has always been there challenging professional photographers. It has been there from the early days of film to the today’s digital world. It is the biggest roadblock to success in photography.

Maintaining a current business model! … Continue Reading

Watch This Stunning Kayaking Video

If you are an avid, or not, photographer looking to make movies with your video capable dSLR, then you probably spend time looking at the work of others. I do because I want to learn how great adventure and nature filmmakers create their moving images. Simply to learn.

I look at camera angles, lighting, movements, high speed motion vs. slow speed motion, audio, music, and most importantly; the story. I spotted this video  on Chase Jarvis site that brilliantly shows all those ingredients I mentioned, masterfully molded into a 7 minute film on kayaking in Mexico. The A-team is Anson Fogel and Skip Armstrong of NRS and Forge Films, collaborating on this project; Cascada. Take a minute and be inspired.

CASCADA from NRS Films on Vimeo. … Continue Reading

Shoot Adventure Silhouettes for More Marketable Imagery

Often when we photograph we are concerned about good light throughout our subjects and light that provides enough detail to tell the story we want told. We might use reflectors, flash, or HDR techniques to maintain important detail with strongly lit subjects.

But there are also times when we can create simpler photographs that tell a strong story and silhouettes are easy way to do that. They can tell just as effective of a story, set a mood, or create mystery and it’s those storytelling images that buyers of imagery look for when licensing images.

Last year we ran a post on creating nature images using the silhouette technique. These images included Sajuaro cactus,  lighthouses, forests, and windmills. What’s different is these images are adventure images and add the human element, a proven ingredient of top selling images. If you are an adventure photographer then silhouettes are one more approach to telling the adventure story and create more marketable images. … Continue Reading

How to Photograph a Grand Canyon Rafting Trip

by Charlie Borland

We launched our raft into the swift moving current and grabbed the paddles to quickly navigate towards river center and line up for the rapid. The river flow was picking up speed as we neared the tongue of this monstrous mix of boiling, turbulent, whitewater. My excitement to again be on Colorado River adventure gave way to more rational thinking of “what the heck am I doing here?” as I observed the massive river waves, seemingly taller than us, quickly creeping closer.

This rapid was Lava Falls, the biggest, baddest, most feared and most talked about rapid on this 277-mile rafting adventure. It is rated between 8 and 10 on a scale that only goes to 10. That is a big rapid! We were well into our second week in the canyon and were all ‘tuned in and going with the rivers flow’ by this time. That also meant we had two weeks to think about Lava Falls and ‘guesstimate’ what type of ride the rapid would give us at this water level. For me, I wondered what action photos I could capture from within the boat. Would I have to hang on for dear life or could I snap away? … Continue Reading

Stunning Aerial Footage from RC Helicopter

The explosive growth in aerial photography and video using RC Helicopters is providing some stunning videos. In this video shot by a team including photographer Corey Rich for Mammut, the team went to the Trango Towers in Pakistan and captured some breathtaking angles of the climbers.

Related Posts: Adventure Sports Photographer Corey Rich Shoots a Budweiser Campaign,  Chase Jarvis Shares How He Filmed an REI TV Commercial

‘We Have To Get Out Now’: Kyle Hammons Photo Safari Becomes Escape From The Congo

There was no time to ask questions; we took off at a sprint to our bungalow overlooking Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We packed our bags as quickly as possible and loaded into a large transport vehicle to begin our evacuation from the park.  Led by a truck loaded with six armed rangers, our convoy raced away from park headquarters down the bumpy dirt roads past villagers who just stared at the foreigners fleeing the scene.  Along the way, the park’s tourism director, Cai Willink, calmly explained that a rebel army of 1,500 men under the command of Bosco Ntaganda (known as “The Terminator) had entered the park during the night and crossed a detachment of Congolese soldiers, sparking a violent confrontation and forcing our immediate evacuation.  … Continue Reading

How to Photograph a Mountain Man Rendezvous

You can get Topaz Adjust here. … Continue Reading

How to Be An Underwater Photographer Without Getting in The Water

There are so many cool toys in photography and video. Something innovative arrives all the time and here is another one.  Maybe you have always dreamed of being an underwater filmmaker or photographer but you never became a certified diver or you don’t like the water that much.

Well the folks over at Aquabotix have solved your problem. They have developed the Hydroview underwater high definition video camera and this thing is really cool.

It is a sleek and futuristic submarine type submersible housing with two battery powered electric motors that allow it to glide around underwater and up to a depth of 150 feet. It carries a high definition 1080 video camera and it has an LED light for the darker depths.

The submersible is controlled by your iPad on the surface using a 75’ tethered cable providing full control over its underwater movements. The software for the iPad allows you to see a live view of underwater scenery and there are also optional 150’ and 300’ cable.

While a few of my diving friends have filmed the great white shark, I have not found that to appealing. This device however would allow anybody to film sharks or anything else under water from the safety of the boat.

With a little more imagination you could certainly find plenty of uses for the Hydroview. It comes with a $4000 price tag and you can find it right here.

Have you used one of these? please leave a comment. … Continue Reading

Mike Tittel Describes How He Photographed a Subaru-Trek Campaign

Q: So, you have been marketing to this client for some time and it finally paid off with this nice project. How much time did you have to plan and what pre-production requirements were there?

This assignment came about rather quickly so we had very little time for planning and pre-production. Luckily for us, Trek had a very clear vision of what they were after and where they wanted to shoot. Really it was a simple as pulling my crew together (more on that later) and pulling permits for the desired locations. Thankfully the permitting office in Boulder was extremely efficient and made that process fairly painless. Since this was a team shoot pretty much all of the logistics relating to riders and bikes were handled by the team manager and mechanic. Without their help it would have been extremely difficult to pull everything together in the amount of time we had.

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Mark Tipple’s Totally Awesome Underwater Wave Photography

I have featured many professional photographers here and posted about what I feel is one of the most important aspects to success in today’s markets: being a niche photographer!

Finding something that you love to photograph and then pushing the boundaries can, if done well, quickly bring you wide spread attention. That is just what happened to Australian photographer Mark Tipple.

His Underwater Project has gone viral and rocketed him to global recognition in just a few short years and his work is getting published in places like The Australian, The Telegraph, The BBC, The Independent, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel.

Mark has completed many projects, but it is the Underwater Project that has gotten a lot of attention lately and when you see the images, you’ll understand why. The Underwater Project has purpose and meaning beyond a collection of images, but it is the images themselves that captivate viewers and brought Mark recognition and even won some awards.

Here, Mark tells us about the project and how he accomplished it:

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