January/February 2008
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How-To
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A Photographer's Guide: Getting Ready To Travel
Follow these tips to help you plan your next photography trip, so you‚’ll be ready to get the shot
By David Cardinal
Great photographs don’t usually happen by accident. Being in the right place at the right time is an essential element of successful photography. When you’re traveling to a new location, advance research, preparation and scouting can make all the difference between grabbing a few snapshots and making great images. Depending on the location you’re visiting, how much time you have and in what type of photography you’re interested, there are a variety of techniques you can use to make the most of your destination.
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Lightroom For Nature Photographers
Adobe's newest entry in digital imaging is a powerful tool for outdoor shooters
By Rob Sheppard
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has gained well-deserved attention in the short time it has been on the market, and it’s the true photographer-centric way the program has been designed that makes it so inviting.
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Making A Conversion
A professional landscape photographer tells why and how using advanced capabilities in software can give new life to color images by converting them to black-and-white
By James Kay
Whenever the terms "black-and-white" and "landscape photography" are mentioned in the same sentence, most of us conjure up the dramatic work of Ansel Adams or perhaps Edward Weston. Along with several other photographers, Adams and Weston formed the ƒ/64 group in the early 1930s and set the aesthetic standard for American photography for years to come.
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The Art Of Exhibition
Putting your work on display, whether in a gallery, museum, local coffeehouse or your living room, is a rewarding opportunity to tell a visual story
By Deborah Klochko
You’ve been shooting for awhile and have perfected your printing, so now it’s time to step back and really look at what you’ve created. When you have a body of work that you feel good about, it’s time to think about presenting your photographs to outside eyes. Whether you decide to present your work as an exhibition or a portfolio, there are a number of choices to be made. What to display? Should the exhibition be an overview of work you’ve shot or should it tell a single story?
Gear
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Gadget Bag: Image Stability
Get sharp handheld exposures with image-stabilization technology
By Adam Crawford
Shooting at fully extended telephoto lengths without a tripod is a recipe for a blurry shot—unless you have image-stabilization technology. With image stabilization, you can get sharp handheld exposures at longer focal lengths and slower shutter speeds.
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In Focus: January/February 2008
Shoot with a pair of newly designed high-end, wide-angle Nikon zooms built for digital photography. The AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm ƒ/2.8G ED lens lets you go for that ultrawide landscape shot, while the AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm ƒ/2.8G ED lens can be used for capturing various types of photographs. Both feature Nikon’s Silent Wave Motor, which delivers fast autofocusing without much noise. Extra-low-dispersion glass elements prevent chromatic aberrations, so you capture sharp, clear images with great contrast.
Locations
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Sentinels Of The High Country
Seeking out the bristlecone pine in the rarified air of the mountain Southwest, David Muench finds both spiritual pilgrimage and everlasting challenge
By James Lawrence
Anchored to the steep, rocky flanks of a peak in California’s White Mountains stands a bristlecone pine so utterly exposed to the extreme climate and withering winds, it seems incredible that it ever germinated, much less matured. That this tortuously wrought living entity endured the extremes of nature’s fury for more than 4,800 years is downright miraculous.
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The Last Frontier
Grizzly bears, old-growth rain forest and state-sized glaciers are just a few of the photo opportunities in Alaska‚’s Chugach Mountains
By Tom Bol
Looking out the window of the small, red Super Cub, Alaska’s two-person version of an air taxi, I’m awed at the jagged, snowy peaks rising out of the dense, temperate rain forest. There are no roads, buildings or signs of humans—just mile after mile of thick green forest, turquoise lakes, alpine meadows and crevasse-laced glaciers. Having guided wilderness trips for years around the globe, I’m struggling to remember a location to match the raw beauty below. This pristine landscape consists of some of the most rugged mountains anywhere. Known as the Chugach Mountains, this Alaskan wilderness is an outdoor photographer’s paradise.
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Whiteout
A new book shows how the planet's changing climate is affecting life in the Arctic
By Kim Castleberry
Six years after first traveling to the Arctic Circle, nature photographer Mireille de la Lez and author Fredrik Granath have created a stunning visual record showing what the earth’s changing environment means in this part of the world. In 130 large-format, color photographs, Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic (Abrams Books, 2007) is as much a celebration of the landscape and wildlife living in this dramatic setting as it is a firsthand account of global warming.
Columns
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A Photographer's Treasure Map
Discover your best outdoor photographs when you learn to use topographic maps
By Bruce B. Junek
We’re on Island Pass in the Ansel Adams Wilderness in the Sierra Nevada, California. It’s evening. The tripod is locked, the camera is focused, and the 4x5 film holders are in hand. Conditions are perfect; it’s a photographer’s dream. The last of evening light flushes across the foreground, lights up the peaks and the film is exposed. It’s a jump-up-and-down, "high-five!" shot. Photographic paradise was ours, and we were taking it home on film. Easy? With a little research and practice, you too can find and photograph paradise by learning to read a topographical map.
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After Sunset
Nature photographers shooting digital can capture striking scenes after the sun has gone below the horizon
By Rob Sheppard
If you haven’t tried shooting after sunset with a digital camera, you might think this is absurd. This fall, I was doing a workshop in Moab, Utah, and after the light had gone from the fall-colored cottonwood in a low area of Arches National Park, some of the group wanted to keep going and head up to Balanced Rock, which wasn’t far away.
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Burnout
When a creative slump happens, change your visual diet
By Bill Hatcher
All of us have those moments in photography where we face a creative block. The subject matter that we love and have always found interesting to shoot now suddenly seems boring and uninspiring. For both the working pro as well as the weekend warrior, you can’t risk having these dry spells.
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Catching Lightning In A Camera
Lightning Trigger‚ Printer Basics, D-SLR Advantages, Zooms Vs. Fixed-Focal-Lengths, Upsizing Files
By George D. Lepp
I’ve heard of a product that helps capture lightning in the middle of the day. At night, I set exposures as long as several minutes to catch any lightning flash that might occur while the shutter is open. How could that work in daylight?
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Dodging The Magic Bullet
It's not the number of megapixels in your camera, it's what you do with them
By Bob Krist
Every time there’s a spate of new releases of the latest and greatest digital camera or software, I’m reminded of a story that famous
Life Magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was fond of recounting. Eisenstaedt, whom many considered to be the father of modern photojournalism, was at the opening of a retrospective show of his work at a major museum.
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Playing Ansel
New possibilities for the classic craft of black-and-white
By William Neill
I was very fortunate early in my career to have known Ansel Adams and worked for The Ansel Adams Gallery (www.anseladams.com) in Yosemite Valley. For five years, I was exposed to all things Ansel, including showing his fine-art prints, visiting with him at his home and attending many sessions at his famous workshops.
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Sugarcreek Metropark, Ohio
By Dave Fischer
Sugarcreek MetroPark is located near the town of Bellbrook, 13 miles southeast of Dayton in southwestern Ohio. This family-friendly nature preserve is part of the Five Rivers MetroParks system of the Greater Dayton area. It surrounds a long stretch of scenic Sugar Creek and consists of several miles of easy to moderately difficult hiking trails along the creek and through the wooded hillsides. Specific trails lead to park features like the Three Sisters (a group of 550-year-old giant oak trees), the Osage Orange Tunnel, Sycamore Ridge, a stand of beechwoods and a tall-grass prairie.
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