OP – The Blog

(If you’re getting this post through email, click here to view the video.) As I wrote last week, Lightroom 4 represents a big change—the biggest change to Adobe’s Raw processing engine since Adobe Camera Raw was introduced in 2003. They’ve completely revamped the underlying algorithms for all of the tonal controls, and changed the behavior, and  

My wife Claudia and I are in Humboldt County this week visiting our son Kevin, who’s a junior at Humboldt State University. This is redwood country, along the far northern coast of California. It’s a temperate rain forest, and it sure seems like it this week. It’s been raining—a lot. Yesterday we had a  

Everyone develops routines and habits: waking up at the same time every day, eating the same thing for breakfast, taking the same route to work… and on and on. Routines are beneficial in some ways—they help us avoid spending time and energy making small, unimportant decisions every day. In photography, routines can help with the technical,  

I’m a big fan of Lightroom. It’s easy to use, yet powerful, which makes it a great tool for both beginning and advanced photographers. I teach workshops about Lightroom, and wrote an eBook about it, because I think it’s a tool that can help many photographers. Personally, as Lightroom’s processing tools have grown more sophisticated I’ve  

I’m pleased to announce the release of my second eBook: Exposure for Outdoor Photography. In photography, creativity and technical skill are both essential. It’s great to have a wonderful eye and imagination, but no one will appreciate your genius if your images are washed out and blurry. The most essential technical skill a photographer must master is  

I’ve had a love affair and obsession with snow geese, along with their close cousins Ross’s geese, for 25 years. Watching a large flock of these birds take flight, filling the sky from horizon to horizon while deafening your ears with their calls, is an unforgettable, transcendent experience. I’ve photographed these birds in every way imaginable  

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.  

Yes, the critiques are back—finally! This critique features a beautiful forest image called “Mist,” by David Eaton. The photograph was made in an area called The Chase near Birmingham, England. This is my second video critique, and I’ve broken it into two parts. The first video discusses the processing (briefly), light, composition, exposure, and sharpness. In  

For me the hardest part about photographing last Saturday morning’s lunar eclipse was finding a good location. The fully-eclipsed moon would be close to the horizon in the west-northwest, so I needed a clear view in that direction, ideally with an interesting object in the foreground. No place in Yosemite seemed to fit—too many mountains in  

Before dawn this Saturday, December 10th, viewers in the Western U.S. and Canada will be able to see a total lunar eclipse. If you live in the eastern half of the U.S. unfortunately you’ll only be able to see a partial eclipse. People in most of Europe, Asia, and Australia will also be able to