My Plan to Make 2012 Better Than 2011

We are almost a month into 2012 and I have been pondering what I want the year to look like and which goals I will set for myself.

I have read many posts and articles from other photographers with some emphasizing that 2011 goes down as their worst year ever and I can relate to some degree. It sure was not my best!

While the economy is certainly the main reason for many, it is the changing world of professional photography that has played a large role in the downturn for many photographers.

There are others who write that this new era requires a new business model and they are right, but just what is that business model?

I am not sure myself so I have brainstormed this issue for sometime and compiled my own list of challenges and how I plan to address them.

Shoot more!

2011 was my lowest year of shooting that I can ever recall. I need to do that for my peace of mind and to rejuvenate the artist in me, and of course, to produce images for license. But I will change my strategy when it comes to what and where I shoot.

15 years ago I had a six figure income from stock image sales and today only a fraction of that. My shooting then fit the business model of the times: production! I traveled and shot the Lower 48 three times in 15 years and added adventure and recreational sports into the mix as well. … Continue Reading

How To Emphasize Action When Shooting Outdoor Adventures

Sometimes images do well in the market if they convey a sense of motion and action. As photographers we are storytellers and our images need to convey that story.

If you are into photographing action subjects like skiing, mountain biking, running, water sports, or any moving subject, you can enhance an image and story by emphasizing that movement.

There are essentially two ways to show motion: you move the camera with the subject or you move the subject while the camera is still.

You might think that freezing a moving subject in place tells a better story and it will in some cases like a skier in the air or any subject better displayed as ‘frozen’ in place.

This image works better as a frozen subject: … Continue Reading

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

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

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.
… Continue Reading

Image Manipulation: Have I Gone Too Far on This One?

In my post here I discussed how I think the debate over image manipulation was mostly a waste of time. Nature photographers are artists who use nature to create art using a camera.

I have said it before: I am not a photo journalist documenting the ‘news that is occurring in nature,’ but am instead using nature as my palette to create nature art. Instead of using a brush and paints, I use a camera and Photoshop.

I am not shooting for the natural history publications. I want to create commercially viable images of nature that succeed in the market.

What’s got me a little fired up is what some are calling the Photoshop Law. I don’t know a lot about it but I am hearing it would require full disclosure of images that have been ‘Photoshopped.’

I think they are mainly going after fashion and cosmetics advertising and if they succeed, at some point that might expose all photography using any image editing tools. Every single digital photo, shot in RAW needs to be ‘Photoshopped’ to make it useful.

That prompted me to revisit this subject. I recently hiked to my favorite waterfall in the world and photographed it again. I discovered a new perspective (for me) and shot it and it had a lot of dead debris I removed. More on that coming up! … Continue Reading

Floris van Breugel Captures Amazing Marine Bioluminescence

We love to discover amazing nature photography and that is just what we found when looking at Seattle photographer Floris van Bruegel recent blog post.

He captured a natural phenomenon known as Marine Bioluminescence where living marine organisms emit light like Firefly’s.

He captured numerous images in different states of Luminescence and then created a great storytelling image that is stunning.

Here is Floris’s entire article on the process of capturing the image, re-posted with permission. … Continue Reading

How To Photograph Lightning and Live to Tell About It

by Jeff Colburn

The wind blew at over 40 MPH as lightning hit the ground about two miles away. It was getting closer than I liked.

My only emergency warning system, the hairs on my arms standing up, was useless in this wind. Suddenly, the wind died down to about 20 MPH, and my arm hairs were at full attention. That means that a charge rising from the ground was going through me, and attracting lightning.

I grabbed the camera and tripod and jumped into the car. Two seconds later there was a blinding flash and deafening thunder clap about 100 feet away. I had cheated Death, and my own stupidity, again.

Photographing lightning is the most amazing type of photography you will ever do. And probably the dumbest thing you can do with a camera, but I love it.Here are some tips on lightning and safety: … Continue Reading