"Mountains of Color" fall photography workshop registration is now OPEN

Tree Portrait-Dolly Sods National Recreation AreaHello!  I am very excited to announce that the registration for the "Mountains of Color" fall photography workshop is now OPEN.  Please review the website and if this workshop looks like one you would like, please register early and secure your hotel or camping accomodations early as spaces are filling up fast.  This is  one of the golden times to be in the highlands of West Virginia.  Not only will we be in the midst of beautiful scenery, we will be learning some great photography approaches and developing friendships with fellow photographers.  It is a great fun learning environment.  If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me.  I hope you can join us for this great weekend of beautiful photography.  

Lindy Point Sunset

Our workshop group was treated to many great sites and one was this sunset from Lindy Point.  My favorite time for sunsets is actually after sunset to see if we get beautiful light on the clouds.  While we do mostly photograph flowing water, we seek out great light and opportunities in other landscapes during the workshop.  You can see the full size image along with other images from the workshop at this link.  

Lindy Point Sunset

Student Gallery Now Open

I am very excited to open the new "Student Gallery."  Here is where we will present images by students from our workshops.  Today we see the images from Bill Carey and Dennis Hanson added to the gallery from the recent Flowing Water workshop.  It was a pleasure meeting both of them and working with them in the field.  We all learn something from each other while photographing.   

The two galleries are quite interesting in that Bill tended to work with wide and normal lenses while Dennis preferred to work with telephoto lenses.  It is a great example of how the similar scenes may be interpreted entirely differently by individual photographers with different gear.  Please take a moment to peruse the images and I hope you will join us on a future workshop so that we may add your images to the gallery as well.  

Student Gallery Link

Workshop Exercises: Interpreting the Scene

Below are some comments I wrote in a follow-up to our workshop students from Flowing Water held one week ago.  We work on many skill enhancement exercises while in the field.  This particular exercise reinforces the importance of interpreting the scene as one feels it and sees it vs. how the camera sees the scene.  Here are the comments regarding a specific forest scene in which we were photographing.  

One particular skill we we worked on involved interpreting the scene.  Sometimes we must reconcile what the camera "sees" with what we are "seeing and feeling" at the moment of capture.  We discussed the importance of noting when the camera records a scene in a way that is radically different from the one you experienced.  

You may recall one particular scene that really exemplified the importance of noting the differences between what the eye sees vs. what the camera records. The scene pictured here is from Cathedral Forest where we had moments of very nice warm morning light. The left image is exactly how the camera interpreted the scene.  While you were reviewing the image on your LCD screen you may have wondered "why does this light seem much brighter and less colorful than what I am seeing?"  Many times we are photographing in mixed light.  Just like in this scene where we have cool open shade light as well as direct horizontal morning light.  It is very challenging for the camera to automatically interpret the scene accurately, let alone how we felt in the scene at the moment of capture.  That is really what it is about, capturing the scene as we saw and felt it at the moment of capture.  There is no doubt that the light was very nice in this scene and we all responded to it by taking photos. 

So what can we do?  In this case it is a simple technical adjustment that can make all of the difference.  The camera recorded the scene with a temperature of 3839 and a tint of 24.  As you can see I hung the White Balance card in the scene where the light was touching the tree.  Simply using this card as my white balance reference the scene changes completely to the accurate presentation in the image on the right.  Now the temperature is 4850 and the tint is 15.  The white balance card doesn't always work, but in this case I think it has done a nice job in interpreting the scene of warm morning light with the greens of the forest. 

This is just one example of the skill enhancement exercises we worked on during our time together.  I encourage you to continue to utilize the skill enhancement exercises in your daily photographic adventures.  Again if you need any other help we can work together either via VOIP or phone or you can attend another workshop.  

Flamingo Sunsets

In the winter of this year I had the opportunity to visit the Everglades for a week of photography.  I journeyed over most of the park from the eastern entrances everyday from pre-sunrise to post-sunset.  One location quickly became my favorite after my very first visit.  Flamingo is about 38 miles from the east entrance to the park.  I wasn't setup for camping so I made the drive every day to Flamingo for sunset.

I was looking for a western exposure to the open water where I had a feeling that magical light could happen around sunset.  My first trip to Flamingo was a stark reminder of the the official bird of Florida-the mosquito.  They nearly carried me away that night and I never left my Deep Woods Off at home after that.  The evening was very special as the Florida Bay was dead still and the post-sunset sky glow was reflecting off of the water like a mirror.  This evening was colored by pink and blue pastels in the sky.  The next evening was a little overcast and didn't provide much in the way of special light.  My third evening was specactular.  The pre-sunset sky was full of popcorn clouds and a brilliant sun reflecting off of the bay.  Then it followed up with fantastic post-sunset sky glow and clouds that really made the trip special.  

So it goes without saying that I have found a favorite photo location in the Everglades and will visit this spot every time I am in the area.  

I invite you to view the full size images of Flamingo Sunsets at this link.