Twilight Voodoo - Mount Rainier National Park, Washington

Interested in learning about 10 of my favorite photography planning applications, websites, tools, and computer programs? Just click the link below you'll receive my latest eBook Dave's Top 10 Photography Planning Tools delivered to your inbox:) I use these every time I go out to shoot!

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I recently spent 6 days backpacking in Montana's Glacier National Park. We started up near the Canadian border on the East side of the park and hiked 36 miles South through Glacier's wild back country. There wasn't any close contact with bears so that's a plus!

Here are a few Behind the Scenes Photos from the trip. I'm currently working on editing some portfolio images from Glacier, let's just say, the skies are nice and dark in that part of the country! Milky Way galore.

My Brother Lee & I Hiking in Glacier National Park, Montana

Looking North Towards Canada from the Top of Red Gap Pass

The Shot
Anyone that's been to Mount Rainier probably knows this location. Back in 2013 I was driving past Reflection Lakes on the way home from a night of milky way photography and stumbled across near perfect conditions for a twilight shoot.

This shot was taken well before sunrise, but the camera still picked up a nice little glow out of the South East which can be seen in this composition. It comes from single RAW file which was lightly processed in both Lightroom & Photoshop using the following techniques. The total processing time took about 20 minutes.

Lightroom

• Provide "cool" feel to the photo using Temperature & Tint Sliders
• Recover Shadows & Blacks
• Minimal Vibrance Boost
• Lens Profile Correction & Remove Chromatic Aberration
• Export to full size TIFF file

Photoshop

• Apply Tony Kuypers Luminosity Masking Actions & Techniques to bring out the "mid-tones" and darker shadows in the photo. I also added slight global contrast. 
• Minimal selective color balance adjustments to give the photo a "cool" feel. 
• Selective adjustments on the "foggy" parts of the photo to bring up the brightness.
• Final Web Sharpening once again using the TK Actions noted above.
• Save for web as JPEG in sRGB color space. Good video tutorial on that topic HERE

It's somewhat hard to see on the web size version of this photo, but full size the water droplets on the grass in the foreground really sparkle and add depth to the photo:)

As always click the photo to see it full size on a black background

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Not of this World - Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Let's kick things off with a free eBook! 3 Tricks for Focusing at Night, is digitally published and ready to go. I'm excited to see what you think! Contained within the book are 3 of my favorite methods for focusing at night or in low light conditions.

Click Here to Access Your Free eBook

On to some other free goodies. Focus Stacking is a technique which I often use for an array of different shooting situations. This latest tutorial will take you step by step through the entire process, starting with shooting and ending with post processing. Best viewed in 1080P.


Summer is full swing here in the Pacific Northwest which means lots of backpacking, teaching star photography workshops & exploring / scouting new locations. Here are a few Behind the Scenes Shots from the past couple of months.

Paul Weeks Shooting in the Rain Forest during a 3 Day Backpacking Trip || Olympic National Park, Washington

Solo Hike Under the Super Moon Light || Mount Baker Wilderness, Washington

Another Successful Night Under the Stars - July 2014 Star Photography Workshop Group || Mount Rainier, Washington

The Shot
After 8 unsuccessful attempts the weather finally allowed me to take this shot. I've always loved this composition, but there is considerable light pollution which is usually seen in the same location the where Milky Way is rising in this photo. There is one solution to this light pollution problem, wait until extremely dense low lying fog / clouds cover the valley below the crater.

On this particular night the sun had set and the fog started to roll in very quickly over the valley as seen just above the horizon of this photo. These conditions removed a considerable amount of light pollution from the skyline & allowed me to finish off the rest in Lightroom & Photoshop.

The photo is composed of 4 different shots, all taken with my tripod in the exact same place. The first two shots are for field of view. The entire Milky Way Core and the Crater won't fit into a single frame of the Nikkor 14-24mm lens ( @ 14mm ) so a vertical pano was used. The last (2) shots were taken 30 minutes before the first two shots capturing the immediate foreground / mid-ground using focus stacking techniques. Using a long ( 2 min ) exposure for the last (2) shots it was also possible to keep nice detail without using a high ISO and inducing noise. Some of these techniques are covered in the Focus Stacking Video Tutorial provided above.

As always click the photo to see it full size on a black background

2015 & 2016 Star Photography Workshop Info // Moon Shadow - Mount Hood Oregon

ON SALE NOW! 2015 Star Photography Workshops

After a sold out year in 2014, I'm excited to announce my 2015 Star Photography Workshop Schedule. I'll also be releasing a workshop for Southern California and an international location within the next few months.

 

Click here & head over to my Star Photography Workshops Page for complete details. 

 

The Shot
In my opinion this is one of Mount Hood's most under rated vantage points, especially in the winter months. We arrived just after midnight as the rising moon was sitting low in the sky casting shadows and amazing light over most of the landscape.

With a tall snow embankment on my left, the moon's light didn't touch the foreground but blazed it's light across the remainder of the landscape. Slight cloud cover gives a nice glow to the stars with Mount Hood looming in the background. When printed full size you can see the snow flakes sparkle in the light, but standing there it almost felt like there were small blinking lights covering the ground.

This photo is composed of two shots ( same composition ), 1 at a short exposure time / high ISO to capture the stars without creating star trails. Another shot was taken at lower ISO and longer exposure time to capture the rest of the scene without generating as much noise. These two shots were taken seconds apart to capture what I saw that night. Fresh snow + night skies = Good times!

As always, click the photo to see it full size on a black background:)

Click here to purchase a print of this photo

The Wild Coast - Olympic National Park, Washington

I've been spending a massive amount of time on the Olympic Peninsula lately. Last weekend we backpacked a few days into the rain forest to capture the streams and lush greens that spring brings to this part of the country.

Here is a quick video I took with my Nexus 5 this past weekend while hiking in the rain forest. If you listen closely you can hear a bunch of bird noises in the back ground. Click 1080P for best resolution:)


The Behind the Scenes shot shown below was taken from the same location as my Portfolio image ( included at the bottom of this blog post ) after the moon had risen a bit more. This particular weekend the weather was really nice so I threw my hammock in the trees right by the fire. With the waves crashing, and a nice breeze coming off the ocean, it was unbeatable.

Camping on the Pacific Coast / Taken at very high ISO, hand held, just after midnight.

The Shot
I've been scouting this location for a while, trying to get something new and unique as there are a ton of great shots from the beach seen in the foreground. This time of year The Milky Way rises in the South late in the evening. This still wouldn't really give off enough light to illuminate the awesome landscape of the Pacific Coast.

Just the right soft light was necessary to show off all the small details and sea stacks cover the coast in this region of the country. After an attempt early in the year with a crescent moon there still wasn't enough light.

Going back to the same location again with a 96% moon seemed to do the trick. As the moon rose from the East ( just out of the top left corner of this photo ), it lit up most of the landscape and threw some amazing shadows over everything else. The colors were soft, and a light fog / mist from the ocean's surf started to cover the coast line. Multiple exposures were taken to experiment with exposure time, and the effect that these exposure times had on the color and feel / texture of the water.

Finally everything came together... an almost silvery moon glow coming off the ocean in the immediate foreground, a soft haze rising from the coast as it fades into the background, and the over all dreamy feel that the Pacific Coast provides at night, under a nearly full moon. 

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Painted in the Sky - Lost Lake, Oregon

I have a ton of new stuff to share with you all that I've been working on for the past few weeks including some magazine article & cover features along with a few new photos and some hiking / traveling tips for trip planning that I found to be really cool.

Recently, I had the pleasure of working with David duChemin & his team over at Craft & Vision on a photography interview which is included in their latest issue of Photograph Magazine. Along with the interview there are a bunch of Milky Way and star photography photos included as well. If you're interested in picking up a copy you can click here to purchase Photograph Issue No. 7. There are a bunch of other good articles in the issue as well that prove to be good reads.

I've also recently collaborated with Washington State Magazine to provide them with the front cover of their Summer 2014 Edition.

This time of year is really exciting for me because all of the great mountainous locations in the Pacific Northwest, Montana, and Canada are starting to open up providing unlimited photography and travel locations. Pouring over maps every day I've been able to nail down a bunch of good stuff to add to my Summer To Do List.

Paul Weeks & I are headed to Glacier National Park to hike 4 days in the back country along with 3 more days exploring some of the day hikes that the park has to offer. GNP ( Glacier National Park ) is a massive region and almost impossible to navigate with out expert help or hours upon hours of research.  After a few days of research I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the entire trip, until I found the Hike734 website which is run by Jake Bramante. When it comes to planning an awesome trip in GNP's back country look no further than this website. Using some topographic maps and the videos and info he provided I was able to nail down an awesome 4 day excursion in the middle of no where.

Summer Star Photography Workshops Update
After the last update nearly all of the workshop spots sold out. I now have 3 open spots left for the Friday August 29th Star Photography Workshop @ Mount Rainier National Park. After these are gone no I won't offer any other workshops til 2015. These will go very fast, so grab your spots ASAP if you're interested.

The Shot
For night photographers this is the time of year when the Milky Way starts to come back into view in the Pacific Northwest. Last weekend I was able to take a one on one workshop participant to Lost Lake to capture some of the amazing star action that's going on. After scouting out exactly where the Milky Way would rise we set up our tripods and started to shoot. The night ended up turning out in our favor, along with some amazing clear skies with an added cloud here and there for good measure which I think added some nice detail. Although most of the time was spent teaching and enjoying the scenery, I was able to sneak one shot in before we packed up and called it a night.

You can thank Smugmug for the small photo resolution seen below. They seem to be having some trouble with their website that they are not able to fix at the time. Hopefully I'll be back to posting in 900px wide as soon as possible:)

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Night Mystic - Abisko, Sweden

Spring is full force here in the Pacific Northwest, which has given me plenty of opportunities to spend my time outside camping, hiking and exploring the landscapes that surround this region. My goal for the season is to backpack / hike to as many places as possible that don't get photographed by the masses. Most of these locations require 15-20 miles of hiking which is great if you enjoy escaping for a bit.

There are also some really neat weekend hikes that I'd highly recommend to anyone. TDH Mountain Hike near Portland is a great day trip, with some nice views for either sunrise or sunset. For anyone that likes the coastal regions, Second & Third Beach Hikes on the Olympic Peninsula are also great.

SUMMER STAR PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS UPDATE:
For anyone that may still be interested I have 6 total spots left for the 2014 season. They are all for the August workshops which are held at Mount Rainier National Park. We also do a sunrise and sunset session which is included in the workshop providing you with 8+ hours of photography instruction. Click here for full details & signup.

Although I don't usually have cell phone service while hiking, I always like to carry my phone along for videos and photos ( most are posted to my Behind the Scenes Album ). Here is a photo from this past weekends hike in the Mount Hood Wilderness. My buddy Chase made a really cool video from our weekend hike. You can also find a video I took here, which is a bit shaky and lacks in comparison to Chase's but you might enjoy it anyway:)

Hiking in the Mount Hood Wilderness / Nexus 5 + VSCO Cam

The Shot 
It usually takes me weeks after a big photography trip to sit down and organize all of the photos. After getting back from the Arctic Circle it took more like 2 months. None the less I feel that organizing your photos and getting all of the ones you REALLY like compiled into a big collection is a huge help. There is nothing worse than sitting down with a head full of inspiration to process some photos, only to see a bunch photos you don't really like. I prefer to sit down, click on my "Ready to Process" folder in Lightroom and get to work on something that I already know I'd like to work on.

Conor MacNeill and I landed in Kiruna Sweden early in the morning and were on the road scouting for sunset locations within the hour. With endless fields of snow, small icy creeks, and pine forests we were in heaven. After sunset we started our drive towards Norway where we planned to explore for the next week. On the way we got a pretty good display of the Aurora on our first night. Here is one of the many shots I took that night.When you're out under the Aurora everything is bathed in a soft glow of greens, purples and yellows. Over a 5-15 second exposure these colors and lights show up even more than can be depicted by the human eye.

As for all of my shots, they display much better on a black background, so please click the photo to view:)

What Dreams Become - Crater Lake, Oregon

Over the past 2 weeks I've been working on a few projects which include an exclusive / in depth Star Photography Tutorial for PetaPixel & an interview with Astrum People. Make sure you head on over and check them both out when you get a chance.

For anyone else that may be interested my Summer Star Photography Workshops @ Mount Rainier National Park still have a few open spots for August. There are about 5 left so grab one while you still can! Both July workshops are sold out, but you can email me to be placed on the wait list. 

The Shot

My buddy Paul Weeks and I drove from Seattle last Friday night and arrived at Crater Lake around 3AM. This gave us just enough time to snowshoe out for some predawn and sunrise shots. The next day we ended up hiking a few more miles and camping on on the top of the Watchman Lookout which gives a full view of the lake from above. This time of year at Crater Lake is amazing as there are hardly any people up there.

As far as shooting goes I took 2 shots for depth of field, and another shot for the stars about 30 minutes before the other 2 shots. The (2) focus shots were blended by hand in Photoshop for depth of field, and the shot for the stars was blended using Photoshop Lighten Blend Mode with a few extra adjustments.

Solace - Xingping, China

After a month intermission from the website, internet and business side of photography I'm back in action. There's nothing better than a nice long break to clear the mind. Over the break I was fortunate enough to visit Norway, Sweden, New York City, and Oregon.

The main goal of visiting Norway and Sweden was to step foot inside the Arctic Circle and see the Northern Lights. To do so we Flew into Kiruna, Sweden and rented a car. From there we took 10 days and drove over 2000 miles around the Fjords and into Norway. Due to a stagnant weather system with clouds that constantly followed us we kept an eye on the weather, finally finding some clear skies and the Aurora. Out of the entire trip we were able to see the light 3 times, all of which had some pretty nice activity.

I've included a few "snapshots" that I took while traveling below as well as a video. Currently the portfolio shots are in work and I'll be posting a few in the coming weeks.

Sunset in Northern Norway

Foggy Afternoon along the Norwegian Coastline

Massive Peaks at 68 Degrees North

Reine Norway

A Random Shot the Paul Weeks Just Gave Me. Taken in Hong Kong

The Shot
After returning from my trips I was really to get back on the computer and start post processing some shots. This shot comes from one of the best places I've ever traveled to, Xingping, China. We set out early one morning while it was still dark to take some shots of the fisherman at sunrise. After venturing up the Lijiang River in the dark/mist/rain the sun popped out for a few seconds and allowed us time to get some good shots.

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Spirit Dance - Lost Lake, Oregon

I've come to realize that not nearly enough night photos have been posted to this website lately. I have a huge stash pile of unprocessed night shots on my computer, but really got sucked into post processing landscape photos lately and working on a few new workflows that go along with them.

In regards to night photography, has anyone traveled to Sweden to shoot the Aurora? I've been researching Abisko National Park there and it looks down right amazing. Just looking for any insider tips that anyone may have. I've pretty much got the whole thing scoped out, but it never hurts to grab a few tips from others before a trip.

The Shot
I made two trips to lost lake this past summer. The second attempt was too late in the year for any Milky Way action over Mount Hood, but it did yield some light aurora / air glow color around the horizon. I messed around with the ISO settings as much as I could to capture a bunch of "reflective light" in the water. Usually for star shots without the Milky Way I tend to keep the ISO much lower, but this time a high ISO setting yielded so much more star light in the water.

A Place We Call Home - Alvord Desert, Oregon

I've been attempting to bring new topics to the table with each blog post and adding a little bit of what I know and even including some resources I used to find this information. This week I want to touch a bit on data / computer backup. No matter who you are ( photographer or not ) if you've got important data on your computer of any kind, being finances, family pictures, photography portfolios and so on it's very important that you back this data up. Even the best hard drives and best computers in the world fail at times. Unfortunately a single bad hard drive or disk failure and you've lost everything... most likely forever. That's where a good backup solution comes in.

I backup in a few different ways to cover all my bases. First there is at home backup which is done in my actual office. To do so I use (2) 6TB Western Digital Hard Drives which mirror ( are a direct copy of one another ) each other. You can do this with any size hard drive, I just chose to use big hard drives since I have a lot of data to store now and in the future. If you don't have a lot of data right now, hold off on a huge hard drive, since they do get much cheaper each year.

My personal preference for running this mirror back up is Mac's Time Machine which works really well. It actually allows you to jump back to a certain point/date in your computer's life and restore anything and everything that you had at that point. You can restore it all or just restore selective parts. This could include settings, files, and anything else that is possible to screw up. If I ever make a mistake I can revert to how things were in the past. My computer is currently setup to backup once a day on my home storage drives.

In lieu of mirror backups which require you to have double the amount of hard drive space as data you wish to back up there are also other disk configurations that do save you a small bit of space when backing HUGE amounts of data. These are known as RAID backup configurations. After reading up on these I decided the good old mirror back up was good enough for me at this point. But depending on your situation ( especially for time lapse photographers ) you may want to look into this.

The next line of back up I use is Crash Plan which is an unlimited online backup solution. The current plan I use costs around 5$ a month and allows for unlimited backup of your data. You can determine how often you would like Crash Plan to back up the files on your computer and even specify which files you do and don't want to backup. Personally I just have them backup my entire computer. 

If you decide to use Crash Plan and have a large amount of data to initially backup you will need to order a Seed Drive which costs a few extra bucks. In my case I had 2 TB of data which would have taken 40 days to upload to the Crash Plan Servers using high speed internet, so a faster more efficient Seed Drive was necessary. Once you order this drive Crash Plan sends you a hard drive in the mail which they claim to hold 1TB ( I found it to be more like 1.3TB ), you in turn put as much data from your computer on this hard drive as you can and send it back to them. After a few days it's on their servers. Now all you have to do is turn on the Crash Plan Program on your computer, now it only took a day for me to fully back up all my remaining data to their servers. From there on out it's all automatic and on their cloud.

In the case of a fire, robbery, or any other freak accident, all my data is now on the Crash Plan servers and backed up each night via high speed internet.

That pretty much covers my entire backup plan making sure that I never lose any sort of data no matter what problems may come at me. It seems like a lot of work, but is always well worth the cost.

If you want to see how I backup and store data in a very safe yet minimal way while on the road check out my post on Using Your Nexus 10 or Nexus 7 to Transfer Picture Files from Your Camera's Memory Card to an External Hard Drive.

The Shot
I've recently been going through my shots from this past year and stumbled across the Alvord Desert Album. I almost forgot about these pictures, which is funny since they are some of my favorites from the year. This particular night the sunset early and the Milky Way was bright by 8PM. I saw some clouds starting to roll in so it was time to get as much shooting done as possible before clouds encompassed the desert. After taking 15 or 20 different night sky compositions there was no longer any view of the stars or even the sky for that matter. This was one of my favorites from the nite. If you're interested in learning how I post processed or took this shot head on over to www.LearnStarPhotography.com for my Free Star Photography Tutorial and Star Photography Post Processing Video Tutorial.

Click here to purchase a print

Sounds of the City - San Francisco, CA

Are there any web sharpening gurus out there? It's really nice to be able to share photos online and have them look exactly like they do on your computer screen at home. Unfortunately most sites compress your uploaded photos down to a maximum size which in turn really degrades the image. Due to this fact I find myself uploading to most social media sites at a maximum of 900 pixels wide lately, although I would really like to upload much bigger, say 2048 pixels wide.

The only place I really upload full size anymore is to Smugmug which holds my photo portfolio. They have some pretty good web functionality that sharpens your picture depending on the size at which it's being viewed. This allows me to upload my full resolution image and still get pretty good results no matter what size I view it at. I have noticed even Smugmug's sharpening is not quite as sharp as the real thing as viewed on my computers screen. If you have Smugmug you can turn on this functionality by going into your gallery settings and changing the sharpening amount from 0.200 to 0.400. That seems to do the trick, at least for me. That being said, if you really want to view my pictures in full detail instead of viewing them on this page, go ahead and click the picture below to see it over in my portfolio.

I personally love using TK Actions Web Sharpening Tools ( select "Special Offers" upon clicking the link to pick up a copy of your own ) to get my photos ready to post online. I recently found a video Sean Bagshaw posted about using these actions that's really informative for anyone that wants to give it a shot.


The Shot
This is one of those iconic locations that everyone seems to have a shot of. Usually I stray away from this sort of location, but once in a while it's fun to give them a run. We had a tricky time getting down there and encountered some signs and warnings along the way, but none the less here is one of the shots I came away with...

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Learn Star Photography.com Launch

A few months ago while updating some stuff on my website I had an idea... an idea that I thought would make a cool website and change the way people learn about star photography.

When it comes down to it, those of us that want to create pictures or art for that matter shouldn't have to look far and wide to find a way to get started or learn some new and informative tips and tricks. My goal was to create a place for beginners and even well accomplished photographers to come if they wanted to learn more about star and night sky photography or just connect with others that have the same goals in mind.

I know when I started getting into photography it would take me hours to dig through internet articles, tutorials, text, websites and every other option known to man in order to figure out one or two things I wanted to know about photography. Through trial and error eventually I was able to learn enough to produce a picture or two of my liking, but only after wasting a ton of creative energy along the way.
 
In response to these problems I decided to contact one of my favorite star photographers, Michael Shainblum, and see if he was interested in joining up with me to give everyone the information they are looking for in one easy to find place...

Overall photography, art, or any other creative process should not be so much about finding the information needed to get started, but instead devoting that energy to the creation of something you love and want to share with others.

That being said, Michael and I are excited to announce the launch of www.LearnStarPhotography.com which focuses on night sky & star photography education, tutorials, mentoring and workshops. No matter if you're a beginner, intermediate, or expert looking for advice in the shooting or post processing aspects of star photography we got ya covered!

Now that you no longer have to spend countless hours searching for a few tips and tricks to get started, you can get out there and start creating some awesome stuff on your own!

We hope you enjoy the website. What are you waiting for head on over to www.LearnStarPhotography.com and check it out!

The Shot

Well with the launch of the new site, I guess it's only fitting to share a new star picture. This was taken in Big Sur California at McWay Falls. At this point I hadn't yet tested out the D800's ability to take long exposures at high ISO settings, so what better time to give it a run? This shot was captured at ISO640 and an exposure time of 628 seconds. Less a few noisy areas in the photo ( Noise reduction took care of almost all of it ) I was highly impressed with the outcome for such a long exposure. For those of you interested in doing it on your own, all the skill sets required are provided on the new website:) Enjoy! 

Synesthesia - San Francisco, California

I am excited to announce that www.LearnStarPhotography.com is now up and running!

Michael and I just got done recording a new set of video tutorials that will cover both of our complete star photography workflows and provide a picture for you to work along with us at home. You can buy both video tutorials in our Star Photography Post Processing Master Class and get my Under the Stars Lightroom Presets as a free and added bonus. These video tutorials include Lightroom and Photoshop skill sets such as RAW file adjustment, digital blending and a full section dedicated entirely to luminosity masking.

Thanks for checking out the new website, we really hope you enjoy it:)

The Shot

On a recent trip up the California Coast we decided to gun it from Big Sur to San Francisco hoping to catch a nice sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge. Thankfully we did because this sunrise was one of the best I've seen. As we waited for the sun to come up the crescent moon sat right over the top of the bridge and brought some amazing shots in the twilight hours. About 30 minutes before sunrise the sky started to get extremely colorful and that's when I captured this image. Click here for a quick video I recorded right before sunrise:)
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Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Lenticulars - Alvord Desert Oregon

There are some awesome shots from the Alvord Desert so this past summer I decided it was time to knock it off the old To Do list. The drive down there is pretty lengthy from Seattle so it seemed best to stay down there for 3-4 days. Needless to say there is absolutely nothing out there and that includes people. For 3 days I sat around, read, drank beer and tried to stay out of the nasty wind storms that constantly bombard the playa. Each night with sunset came along some of the nicest light I've ever witnessed and then... The Milky Way. Alvord Desert is an awesome place that I highly recommend to any photographer or explorer.

Here are a few Behind the Scenes shots that I took while wasting the days away down there.

The Shot
Up to this point in my life I've never seen a really good lenticular cloud in person.... Well it happened. This one was huge and made Steens Mountain ( 9,722 ft ) look minuscule in comparison. Thankfully this guy stayed around for sunset as well.

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Visions of the Arctic - West Fjords, Iceland

I've tried a lot of different business card companies in the past, but finally nailed it down to one that I really like. I've used Moo Business Cards for my last two orders of 400 cards and both times they came out looking really nice. Their print colors are actually spot on with what my calibrated home monitor renders which I was also thoroughly impressed with. I went with a glossy, all white card with pictures on the front and text on the back. Here is a quick behind the scenes video from my card selection meeting. The featured pictures were uploaded directly from Smugmug, text was added, and 10 minutes later the order is complete. Easy!

The Shot
This is another photo from the vaults, meaning I took it nearly two years ago, a few weeks after I got my D800. It's kinda funny looking through old pictures, especially the camera settings, many of which I would think twice before I shot at these days. This one for example was single RAW file taken at f/22 to get that nice silky water. Well shooting at f/22 really degrades the nice sharp details of the shot. In retrospect I would have liked to snap this off at f/8 for the full landscape then blend that f/22 water back in using Photoshop. I could go into full detail on my aperture selection methods, but browsing the web while writing this post I found a really nice website with full explanation on why I don't usually shoot beyond f/11.

None the less it's a good thing to keep learning and improving. I find that a lot of my pictures that I took even last month are lacking skill sets that I currently use. Hopefully this will continue for a long time.

This shot is from the West Fjords of Iceland. Unlike a lot of the locations which I can't pin point on a map when I get home, this one was very memorable. We stopped randomly along the side of the road and strolled down this small stream which took us to the ocean. At these latitudes of 65.6 degrees North, you're nearly in the Arctic Circle. The water almost looks like the warm Caribbean with it's beautiful blue glow, but trust me that stuff is cold!

Click here to buy a print

Naiad's Ghost - Spirit Falls, Washington

Last night I was on Drink and Click with Lotus Carroll and Juan Gonzalez along with some other great photographers discussing star / night / Milky Way Photography. I have included the YouTube recording below for anyone that missed out. There were some really nice pictures shared from everyone on the show.

During the show I also make an announcement about a special project Michael Shainblum and I have been working on for a while. So tune in!


UPDATE: I'm holding an Online Star Photography Post Processing Group Workshop this Sunday for anyone that wants to follow along as I process a star shot from start to finish. Full details, and sign up HERE.


The Shot
This was another one of those shots that I just couldn't get right. Going back and back again to make more final adjustments it just wasn't happening. After a month of sitting on my computer I opened it up today and decided it was done. For anyone that hasn't been to Spirit Falls yet it seems to be getting much more popular. The location really isn't hard to find, but the hike down can be a bit tricky / dangerous. TJ Thorne did a nice Behind the Scenes Write up and Video that I looked at before venturing down there on my own.

Since I've seen so many pictures coming out of the area, many of them being vertical compositions, I wanted to try the horizontal view. It took some hanging off ledges and setting up my tripod in some strange configurations, but I finally came away with this shot that I snapped off  an hour before sunset as the light painted the trees in color.

Here are the post processing details for anyone interested!

Post Processing Info ( Grab some discount codes to the programs below at bottom of About Me Page )
Processing Time: 1 hour
Music: Lee Burridge Burning Man Set
Drink: A few different Ninkasi beers

Lightroom 4

• Two RAW files were used to make this picture. One for the full scene and then one for the water movement.
• Lighten up the shadows and blacks
• adjust white balance
• + Vibrance & - Saturation 
• Sync both RAW files for all settings
• Final adjustments using clarity brush on the "water" RAW file.
• Export both pictures to TIFF

 Photoshop CS6

•  Blend both picture files together using layer masks.
• Apply Tony Kuypers Luminosity Masking Actions & Techniques to bring out the "mid-tones" and "highlights" in the water and color in the trees 
• Curves to selectively balance light across the entire photo.
• Apply color correction using "Color Balance" adjustment.
• Apply selective color balance to the water and the trees.
• Nik Color Efex Pro Contrast, Sunlight, and warmth / glow selectively through out the photo.
• Nik Output Sharpener ( selectively )
• Noiseware Professional by Imagenomic, the best NR software out there...
• Slight global vignette application
• Clone stamp tool on a bunch of sensor dirt and little things that annoyed me;)
• Save to JPEG.

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Wires - San Francisco, California

I play this game once in a while when scouting for new spots to shoot that involves finding random pictures that I like then trying to pin down the exact location where they were taken. Obviously this isn't very hard if you've been to the city or location before, but it becomes much more interesting when the location you're looking for is on the other side of the world. There are obviously lots of clue like time, day, location of the sun, moon or stars, along with other man made clues that you may see in the image. Using Google Maps / World makes this task infinity easier, but at times I think I nailed the location, then show up to the actually spot where I though the picture was snapped and find it to be way off.

That scenario was just the case when trying to nail down the spot in the picture below. I had everything mapped out, but on arrival found there were a bunch of different locations within that same area in which to shoot. Needless to say, it always pays off to arrive an hour+ before sunrise or sunset to do some scouting. I always pack a few beers and a book just in case:)

Just after sunset in San Francisco / / Nexus 5

The Shot 
After a long night of shooting Milky Way / star trails in Big Sur, we decided it was a good idea to drive through the night and catch sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. We arrived around 4 AM to get some nice night / blue hour scenes with the moon rising over the bridge. Once the sun started to rise it became apparent that this was going to be an amazing morning. The fog level on the bay was near perfect, and over the next 2 hours I captured some of my favorite shots from the trip. I really wanted to grab some lesser known compositions so I pushed myself to do so through out the morning, grabbing an "iconic" shot here and there for good measure.
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Wild World - Cannon Beach, Oregon

It's been a year and a half now since I took my first Milky Way shot, and around a year since the original version of my Free Star Photography Tutorial was posted online. Until 3 days ago I had never taken a star trail shot or processed one for that matter. On this recent trip I decided those days should end, so star trails it was. After doing a bit of messing around in the field and getting some stuff I liked on the camera and in post processing it's due time that a star trails section is added to the Free Star Photography Tutorial. After clicking "Publish" on this post I'll start writing it, so you can look for it in the next day or two, I'll also provide a link in the next blog post! Just like the current star photography tutorial for Milky Way shots, this will be very in depth and provide everything you need to know.

The Shot
Another morning on Cannon Beach, I thought this one was gonna be a dude, and then.... Thankfully we waited a bit after the sun came up and things started to get a bit more interesting. The one nice thing about this place, no matter how many times you go, there is always something different to shoot or explore. The tides seem to play a huge roll in this and constantly changes the visible landscape. On this particular morning I found this rock and the little tide pool that had formed around it. As usual I took a little walk around the thing to get a glance from all angles and tried to nail down an interesting composition. When the light started to get nice and contrasted the clouds and water I started clicking away. If you look closely at the rock on the right you can see a star fish clinging for his life.

In terms of post processing this was mostly carried out in Lightroom, with some final vignette and contrast adjustments in Photoshop & 10 minutes later the photo was done. This is one advantage of shooting away from the sun. A single RAW files easily does the trick:)

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Forbidden - Beijing, China

Paul & I just touched down in Seattle from a week long trip up the California Coast starting in Los Angeles on to Big Sur, and then San Francisco. The weather was nothing less than great. I've  never seen 6 perfect sunrises and sunsets in a row up until this point, add some amazing Milky Way action to the equation and you can call the trip a success.

Along the way we stopped at some really cool spots including Griffith Observatory, McWay Falls, Pfeiffer Beach, Garrapata State Park and one of my favorites Point Lobos Reserve. Our home base in Carmel / Big Sur was Carmel Mission Inn which is a great setup for photographers or anyone wanting to explore the near by beaches of Big Sur. They also have a hot tub and all your can eat breakfast buffet, so you really can't go wrong there!

Here are a few of the Behind the Scenes shots I took with my Google Nexus 5 while out exploring. I like the camera included with the phone, but I find it to give some pictures a strange green tint once in a while. Not sure what that's about, but hopefully there is a white balance setting I can change some where or another. Anyone else having this issue?

Paul Shooting Sunset @ McWay Falls in Big Sur // Nikon D800

Sunrise in Big Sur // Google Nexus 5

After taking some Milky Way shots in Big Sur we drove through the night to San Francisco and stumbled upon an amazing sunrise overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge where the fog was perfection and the crescent moon was just starting to rise.

Foggy Sunrise at the Golden Gate Bridge under the Crescent Moon // Google Nexus 5

From there we checked into the La Luna Inn which I would also highly recommend to photographers staying in the area. It has great access to lots of awesome locations and comes with a cheap price. This isn't a fancy hotel, but it is clean and provides some really comfortable beds with in walking distance lots of food and shooting locations + free wi fi.

I hope to post a few D800 shots from the trip in the coming weeks!

The Shot
After living in China for 3 months back in 2010, I was really excited to return with my camera and capture as much as the country as possible in a 10 day time frame. We started out in Beijing and stayed for 3 days getting up for at 4:30AM each morning to make the walk to which ever location we decided to shoot.

The Forbidden City, where this shot was taken, is located about 1.5 miles from our room at the Days Inn. We arrived an hour before sunrise to get some nice blue hour action and plan out the best spot to watch the sun come over the smoggy horizon. Here is one of the shots I took after the sun came up. There were some nice clouds in the sky but I added a bit of texture blending on my own! Enjoy.

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Silent Witness - The Great Wall of China, Jinshaling

I read an amazing blog post today from Patrick Difruscia, that I highly suggest to any artists that use social media. In the post he discusses how many photographers now value their photos only after seeing the response from social media networks & allow this social media response to change how they felt or really feel about this image or art. Fortunately and unfortunately social media has become apart of all photographers lives in one way or another. For some this global response truly matters, and without a great response, comes a feeling of worthlessness or self doubt for a picture they may have loved prior to posting it online. For others, they could care less, and will continue to use social media for what it is, a tool. I guess this is the risk we all take when sharing things we create, just remember, it can turn for better or worse, and only depends on how you twist it in your mind.

Picking up a camera in November of 2011 I've never known any world except that of social media for the purposes of photo sharing. In this realm I was able to find inspiration along with some great photographers that I could mimic as I learned the skills that were necessary for me to create my own style. That being said, there was a time when I really REALLY cared how many "likes" or "+1s" were placed on a certain photos that I posted online. Why, because when you pour your heart into something, you want everyone to see it and share in your enjoyment. This isn't a learned behavior, but something we are born with, more of an animal instinct. As my experience grew, and I created a style of my own, the feeling faded and I was less inclined to put the value of my own work on the shoulders of millions that I didn't know. I have  come to a realize, that keeping myself happy and creating unique photos that I love will in turn inspire others to do the same, and really, that's the bigger picture.

Now don't get me wrong, I truly appreciate the response on photos and enjoy interacting with others all around the world. It is a truly unique and eye opening experience, but this is by no means what brings me to the table of photography.

Let's just think about it, what drives you to do the things that your brain tells you "you love"? For me it's the challenge of planning some adventure that will take place on the other side of the planet from where I am typing this sentence right now. Then comes the fun part, executing that plan, and with a little luck, coming back with some amazing photos, stories, and memories that will be hard to forget. That unknown challenge is why I enjoy taking pictures and love traveling. I think we all have something that makes us tick, sometimes it's just hard to find.

No matter what you do, create, teach or love, take a step back and make sure you're enjoying the ride, because in the end, that's the only thing that really matters.


The Shot
From time to time I'll post a picture that's really special to me, this is one of those pictures. I think it's something that happens as a combination of a great trip where you capture the picture and the enjoyment that comes from bringing back those memories while editing the photo on your computer later in time. Paul Weeks was nice enough to take this photo of me shooting sunset on the great wall earlier that night.

Sitting out there on the great wall watching the sun set and the stars appear one by one, it's hard not to think back on the events that happened at the same location 10, 100, or 2000 years ago. When it comes down to it, not much has changed in that exact spot where I stood, even tho the world around it has in more ways than anyone could have ever imagined.  But one day when it's all said and done, those stars, those same stars, they witnessed it all.

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