Thursday, November 30, 2017

Winter Wildlife Tips

This article reiterates some of the other tips for winter photography, but adds some other advice. The authors note that photographers should also keep in mind how to highlight the winter aspects of the scene and that photographers could also take the time to look at their scenes in the summer months and think about how they change in the winter months. The authors also emphasize the importance of considering how snow changes a photo. Tracks in the snow could also ruin the clean slate that snow provides, and can also disrupt the way that cameras expose pictures.

Exposure compensation is something that could be extremely difficult for amateurs to master and I would recommend that when beginning, photographers should take multiple shots with different exposures so there are options to play with later in post processing. As seen in multiple other places, it can also really pay off to research the behaviors of the subjects and migration patterns would also be useful information.

This is the article.

Monday, November 27, 2017

Final Project

 ISO 400, 194mm, f/5.6, 1/2000

 ISO100, 74mm, f/6.3, 1/10

ISO400, 250mm, f/5.6, 1/4000

ISO100, 85mm, f/5.6, 1/400


 ISO100, 85mm, f/5.6, 1/250

ISO100, 85mm, f/5.6, 1/250

 ISO100, 85mm, f/5.6, 1/320

ISO400, 250mm, f/5.6, 1/2000

ISO400, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/640

ISO400, 250mm, f/5.6, 1/2000

ISO100, 17mm, f/4.0, 1/320

ISO100, 17mm, f/4.0, 1/500

ISO400, 33mm, f/4.5, 1/4000

ISO200, 34mm, f/4.5, 1/640

ISO400, 55mm, f/4.5, 1/1600

ISO400, 250mm, f/5.6, 1/2000

ISO200, 55mm, f/7.1, 1/640

ISO200, 53mm, f/7.1, 1/800

 ISO200, 36mm, f/7.1, 1/800

ISO200, 55mm, f/7.1, 1/500

ISO100, 30mm, f/4.5, 1/100

ISO100, 96mm, f/25, 1.6

ISO100, 74mm, f/6.3, 1/10

ISO100, 56mm, f/5.6, 1/200


ISO100, 17mm, f/4.0, 1/500

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Winter Tips from Rick Sheremeta

This article has good insights that are especially applicable now, when the snow could happen at any time, no matter when you plan on taking pictures. Having experienced a few of things myself while we were in Yellowstone, these challenges should not be ignored and it is way more useful to gather information in advance than it is to learn on the spot when you could be missing good light or an animal.

The author talks about choosing good metering points to get correctly exposed photos, and some example shutter speeds that work well in falling snow (either to blur it or freeze it in motion). This was something that we had to learn in the job while shooting our bison, but I didn't think to make all of the adjustments he lists out, and I kicking myself for it now. It was also a learning curve when we got to the park and had to compensate for the snow in all of our shots.

I know we talked about these things in class, but I definitely learn better from being in a situation and having to do these things myself, and then I also have to learn from the consequences later rather than discussing them in theory. I think all of these things are best learned when you have the memories to attach to the photos and can also remember the easy corrections to make next time.

This is the article

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Share Two and Critique #4





This is slightly edited, but I liked the pose of the mountain goat here, it felt very natural.
I also picked this landscape because of the little bit of red brush, I thought it was a good eye catcher, so I tried to play up the color and also the color of the pine trees to add dimension. 

Tom Mangelsen

This article talks about a wildlife photographer, Tom Mangelsen. He has been in the business for many years and, even though he was older at the time of the article, he continues to use high standards for shooting wildlife. The author made it a point to mention that he doesn't photograph animals in captivity, he goes to national parks and other traditional environments to find his subjects. I think that this shows a good deal of integrity, especially when there are other people in the industry, who are decades younger who take shortcuts and still try to sell their photos in the same venues.

Throughout the interview, Tom also says repeatedly that he has learned the most about his camera and his approach during the winter. He calls this time "humbling" and really emphasizes the changes that have to occur for photographers in winter. I think we got a small taste of this when visiting Yellowstone, but I can't imagine what it takes to be a person dedicated enough to wait around all day to watch a wolf eat an elk (we only waited for an hour and I was losing steam) or for a bear to maybe cross your path. The fact that there is this element of patience in nature photography is something that I missed earlier in the course, but after this weekend, I feel like I have gained more respect for it.

This is the article

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Lightroom Editing Tips

This article goes through some different ideas of how to use various features of Lightroom. The author talks about a way to adjust multiple hues at once, which was a feature that I didn't even knew existed until reading the article. This would be an interesting feature to play with if you had a picture where you wanted to draw the viewer's attention by desaturating all of the other colors, except one subject.
The author also takes the time to review more about the sharpening feature, which explains why it wasn't quite working the way I wanted it to while editing photos the other day. He also has a different way of explaining noise and the noise reduction tool, which I found to be a very helpful review.

This is the article

Monday, October 23, 2017

Share Two and Critique #3

For my first one, I would also like to bring up the shadows to draw some more attention to the shore line of the creek. I also like the water moving through the shot.


For my second one, I have a landscape from just before the Beartooth Pass. I didn't quite line up the shot in line with the rule of thirds, but I could crop it in to bring the focus more on the mountain, and lighten the shadows a little.