In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Dec 31, 2020 | Announcements
Happy New Year!
It’s become a New Year’s tradition on this blog to pick my best images from the past year, and once again I’m inviting you to help me make these difficult choices. I’ve posted 45 of my best photographs from 2020 below, in chronological order. After you look through these, please use the form at the bottom of this post to list your ten favorites.
That right – we’re doing things differently this year. Please don’t post your votes in the comments, or send them by email, because they won’t be counted! Use the form at the bottom of this post instead.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 27, 2020 | Wildlife Photography
Sandhill crane takeoff, San Joaquin Valley, California. 327mm, 1/500 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 2000.
Every year Claudia and I photograph migratory birds wintering in California’s Central Valley. It’s a world of constant motion, with groups of birds taking off, landing, moving from fields to ponds (and back), skimming over marshes, or probing the water for food.
It’s that motion that we find so captivating, and it’s that motion that’s so challenging to photograph. It takes lots of practice to learn how to follow birds in flight, keep them in focus, adjust exposures on the fly, zoom in and out as needed, and make instant decisions about composition.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 24, 2020 | Announcements
Among the aspens in Colorado
While it’s been a difficult year for all of us, Claudia and I have found many silver linings, and a lot to be thankful for. We wish you health, happiness, and peace during this holiday season – and hope you’ve also found some silver linings.
— Claudia and Michael
by Michael Frye | Dec 13, 2020 | Light and Weather
El Capitan and the Merced River at sunset, Yosemite. One of my last photos of the day, as the sun broke through clouds and lit El Capitan. 26mm, three bracketed exposures blended with Lightroom’s HDR Merge, each at f/11, ISO 100.
It’s been a strange year, to say the least. Yesterday, Claudia and I went up to Yosemite Valley, and we had to think about the last time we’d been there. It was probably in early June, just after the park reopened. Over the rest of the summer we went to Glacier Point a few times, and up to the Yosemite high country on several occasions to photograph thunderstorms and Comet NEOWISE, but not to Yosemite Valley. In September and early October we traveled to Utah and Colorado. We spent most of November in Oregon and Washington. In between we stayed home while I finished launching my new Lightroom course.
During the spring the whole state was in lockdown, and the park was closed. And even in January and February there wasn’t a lot of weather, and therefore not much enticement to drive up to the valley to photograph a clearing storm. So I had hardly photographed Yosemite Valley the entire year.
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by Michael Frye | Dec 6, 2020 | Light and Weather
Crashing wave, Oregon Coast. To get a sense of scale, click on the image to view it larger and see if you can spot the person in the frame. He’s just to the left of the wave between some trees. It looks like the wave would have soaked this photographer, but it probably didn’t; the wave is actually between that person and the camera, and the spot he was standing on usually stays dry. This wasn’t the tallest splash we saw that day, but the light at that moment, along with the shape of the wave, made this image the clear winner in my mind. 50mm, 1/500th of a second at f/11, ISO 160.
After spending some time along the Oregon Coast, Claudia and I headed up to Bellingham, Washington, to visit family.
But I kept my eye on the weather forecasts for Oregon. One day stood out in particular, when waves were predicted to reach heights of 20 feet or more. We planned to work our way back to Oregon in time to see those waves.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 29, 2020 | Light and Weather
Sunset, Oregon Coast
Claudia and I have been on the road again. We made our way up the Oregon Coast, then to Bellingham, Washington, to visit family, then back to Oregon again.
We’ve been enjoying some wild weather along the coast. While California has been mostly dry, we’ve encountered clouds, rain, fog, wind, and big waves – all fun stuff for a landscape photographer, despite sometimes having to dodge sheets of rain blowing sideways.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 22, 2020 | Travels and Stories, Vision and Creativity
Dusk light, Grand Canyon, Arizona
In a recent post I described how Claudia and I made a spur-of-the-moment detour to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We arrived in the afternoon, and spent the rest of the day checking out various viewpoints.
As sunset approached we had just enough light to check out one more spot. We made it there just after sunset, and in the gathering dusk I thought the light in the canyon to the west was exquisite: soft, with a beautiful backlit glow, and a slight haze to add atmosphere and depth.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 10, 2020 | Announcements
Just a quick reminder that there’s still one day left to get a discount on my new Lightroom course, Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques. Use the coupon code FALL2020 to get 20% off all my Lightroom course until midnight tomorrow (November 11th):
Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques
The response to this new course has been amazing! A big thank you to everyone who already purchased it!
— Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Nov 8, 2020 | Advanced Techniques, Travels and Stories
Morning sunlight from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona. I used the “thumb technique” to reduce flare in this image; see the post for more details.
On our road trip last month Claudia and I found ourselves in Kanab, Utah. We cooked breakfast at a picnic table in a small park in town, and discussed our next move. There are a lot of options from Kanab. Should we head to Zion? Detour east toward the Paria River area? Drive the Cottonwood Canyon Road?
And then I thought, we’re pretty close to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. And neither of us had ever been there. So the North Rim it was.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 3, 2020 | Announcements
I’m excited to announce a new online course, called Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques.
I know many of you have purchased and used my original Lightroom course, Landscapes in Lightroom: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide. (I used to refer to this as an ebook, but it’s evolved into much more than that.) This new, advanced course takes you further, showing you how to add sophisticated touches to your images that you might have thought were only possible in Photoshop. Things like…
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