OP – The Blog

Just returned from a welcome family vacation in Hawaii – a nice break from the recent cold snap in Seattle. To make it a true vacation, I took only one camera body and one lens (albeit the handy Nikon 18-200mm) rather than the usual 50-60 lbs of gear I normally haul around.  This is a  

Like most photographers, I like to challenge myself to create new images outside of my comfort zone. One of my favorite new shooting styles is photographing breaking shore waves. This style has been made popular in the last few years by Clark Little. I harbor no illusions that I am going  

After spending 2 adventurous weeks in American Samoa at the beginning of December, I flew back to Hawaii to meet my family for our winter vacation. The first island that we visited was Lanai. I had camped at Manele Bay several years ago and had always wanted to return. It is a  

Every winter I get this feeling about halfway through the month of January, I am ready for spring! This year winter  feels especially long, and in fact it has rather felt like spring most of the winter. It’s been mild, way too mild. No ice, no snow, no frozen waterfalls.  Without  

I spent much of my visit to the US National Park of American Samoa on Ofu Island photographing over-underwater split images. This is one of my favorites. I like the coral reef with the refracted light dancing across the sandy bottom below with the dramatic scenery and clouds above. There are  

(© Ian Plant) Although the fundamentals of good composition do not change with lens choice, different lenses can lead to significant differences in approach. In my last post, I discussed using telephoto lenses to isolate elements and simplify a scene. This approach requires one to think critically about which elements are important to a composition,  

Since I returned home last week, I have not had a lot of time to edit my new images, but this one is definitely worth sharing. I photographed this dramatic sunset while visiting the US National Park of American Samoa on Ofu Island last month. It took a lot of effort to  

In a post last Thursday I mentioned that there might be a good opportunity to photograph the moonrise from Glacier Point in Yosemite on Saturday evening. So Claudia and I went to Glacier Point that night, where we met lots of photographers. It was nice to see familiar faces, and meet some online acquaintances in person.  

Earlier this week Adobe Labs released the first Beta version of Lightroom 4. I am a huge user of Lightroom so I immediately downloaded this new version to have a look at what I can be expecting. I have to tell you that I was pleasantly surprised. As soon as you open the software up you  

I was traveling all of December, so forgive me for not having posted any new blog updates for awhile. However, I am excited to share that Outdoor Photographer published my “Discover Alaska Wildlife” article in the February issue! In my article, I give lots of advice about where and how to photograph