In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Apr 20, 2021 | Digital Darkroom, Vision and Creativity
Aspens in fog, White River NF, Colorado. I used a bit of negative Dehaze to slightly soften this image.
In preparing my recent presentation for the Out of Chicago Live conference, I was digging through my archives for examples to use, and found some interesting images I had overlooked. In some cases I had put them aside, too busy to process them at the time, and then just forgot about them. In other cases I think my perceptions had changed. And sometimes I could see the potential to process an image differently, using new tools and new skills.
One of those tools is the Dehaze slider in Lightroom. It’s not that new (2015), but didn’t exist when I initially processed some images, and can sometimes make a big difference – especially with fog. I’m a big fan of fog for forest scenes, and these days I’m often using Dehaze selectively with the Adjustment Brush to cut through fog in one part of an image, or thicken fog in another area to hide or deemphasize something. (Just to be clear, you can’t create fog where none existed; there has to be some fog to begin with. But you can make some tenuous fog look a little more substantial. I show how to do all this in my latest Lightroom course, Landscapes in Lightroom: Advanced Techniques.)
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by Michael Frye | Apr 1, 2021 | Announcements
I hope you can join me at the upcoming Out of Chicago Live online photo conference!
I really enjoyed both of the Out of Chicago online conferences last year. It was a lot of fun interacting with everyone, and I loved watching all the presentations from the other instructors.
The next edition of Out of Chicago Live is coming up soon: April 9-11. They’ve gathered an amazing lineup of instructors in all genres of photography. In the landscape-photography world that includes Alister Benn, Brooks Jensen, Charlotte Gibb, Chuck Kimmerle, Cole Thompson, Colleen Miniuk, Daniel Kordan, Francesco Gola, David Cobb, David Johnston, David Kingham, Eric Bennett, Erin Babnik, Franka Gabler, Ian Plant, Jennifer Renwick, John Barclay, Joshua Cripps, Mark Denney, Martin Bailey, TJ Thorne, Nick Page, Sarah Marino, Sean Bagshaw, and William Neill. It’s a quite a lineup, and it’s an honor to be part of this group.
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by Michael Frye | Mar 28, 2021 | Light and Weather
Oak in a snowstorm, Yosemite. 253mm, 1/15 sec. at f/11, ISO 400.
In my last post I described how the most recent snowstorm led to some beautiful light and clouds – especially late in the day.
But when I arrived in the valley that morning it was still snowing. So I did what I always do: I asked myself, “What’s happening now?” In other words, what was interesting or unusual about that moment? What was unique and special in this place I’ve photographed so many times before?
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by Michael Frye | Mar 21, 2021 | Light and Weather
El Capitan emerging from clouds, Yosemite. 78mm, three bracketed frames, each at f/11, ISO 100, blended with Lightroom’s HDR Merge.
You can make a photograph without a camera, or lens, but you can’t make a photograph without light. The word “photograph” literally means “drawing with light.” Light is the essence of photography.
If light is our medium, it stands to reason that exceptional light has the potential to lead to exceptional photographs. It’s not a guarantee, of course; you still need to find a composition that works with that light, and execute the photograph technically. But the potential is there.
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by Michael Frye | Mar 14, 2021 | Light and Weather
Raven, trees, and crags, Yosemite
One of the most difficult tasks in landscape photography is deciding where to go. It seems simple, but it’s anything but, especially when the weather is changing quickly. Would I be better off staying put, or trying someplace else? Where (and when) will the light be most interesting?
It helps to know an area well, so you have a better idea about which spots might give you the best opportunities under different conditions. It also helps to know local weather patterns. And when cell service allows, I’ll use satellite, radar, and webcam images to see beyond my immediate field of view, and make a short-term weather prediction.
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by Michael Frye | Mar 9, 2021 | Wildlife Photography
Sandhill cranes at sunrise, San Joaquin Valley, California
During this past winter Claudia and I spent a lot of time in California’s Central Valley. This area isn’t known for its scenic beauty, but we found a lot of beauty there.
This was once a vast region of seasonal wetlands and flower-filled prairies, teeming with waterfowl, elk, pronghorn antelope, wolves, grizzly bears, and endless acres of springtime flowers. It’s estimated that 500,000 tule elk once roamed this region, and early visitors described flocks of wintering geese so large and dense they darkened the midday sky. This “American Serengeti” existed less than 200 years ago, in an area now occupied by farmlands, towns, and cities.
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by Michael Frye | Feb 26, 2021 | Announcements
I’m excited to be teaching at the Out of Chicago Live 2021 online photo conference! The first edition last spring was a lot of fun for both instructors and participants. I had a great time, so I’m looking forward to doing it again.
To kick things off, the Out of Chicago team will be conducting a series of pre-conference photo challenges, and I’ll be leading one of them next Tuesday, March 2nd, at 2:00 p.m. Central Time (noon Pacific Time) called Planning and Serendipity in Photography.
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by Michael Frye | Feb 21, 2021 | Light and Weather, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Three Brothers, Sentinel Rock, and the Merced River at sunrise, Yosemite. On Saturday morning the sun broke through the clouds just after sunrise to light the Three Brothers. 19mm, 1/20 sec. at f/11, ISO 100.
Aside from one big storm in late January, it’s been another dry winter here in central California. So any forecast for precipitation – even a small amount – piques my interest.
On Monday Yosemite Valley got two-tenths of an inch of rain, then another two-tenths early Saturday morning. That’s pretty meager, and often such small storms don’t add enough moisture to the atmosphere to generate any mist. But surprisingly, both of these small systems created lots of mist in the valley.
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by Michael Frye | Feb 7, 2021 | Night Photography
Moonlit clouds, Sierra Nevada, California. 70mm, three bracketed frames, two stops apart, each at f/5.6, ISO 800, blended with Lightroom’s HDR Merge.
Every so often I’ll be outside at night and see some interesting clouds passing in front of the moon. This can be quite a beautiful sight, especially with a pattern of small, puffy clouds stretching across the sky. And under these conditions you can often see a rainbow-like corona around the moon.
I’ve tried to photograph moonlit clouds like this a few times, with mixed results. Usually by the time I get out my camera, find a suitable viewpoint, compose, focus, and figure out an exposure, the clouds are gone – or at least less interesting.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 31, 2021 | Light and Weather, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Snow-covered pines, Mariposa County, California. I found some snow-plastered trees in the fog as the storm was clearing.
Last week’s big storm played out mostly as predicted, dropping large amounts of rain and snow throughout much of California. The Yosemite area was right in the bullseye of the atmospheric river, but all of the Sierra Nevada got a healthy dose of rain and snow. Yosemite Valley’s rain gauge measured 6.67 inches. Other nearby areas received amounts ranging from four to eight inches, with one weather station just south of Yosemite recording slightly over ten inches.
Coastal mountains areas from Santa Cruz down to Santa Barbara reported impressive rainfall totals, with ten inches of rain in many gauges, and one spot along the Big Sur Coast, Chalk Peak, recording over 15 inches of rain in three days. A mudslide near Salinas damaged a number of buildings, and a section of Highway 1 south of Big Sur got washed out, but I think we were lucky to escape this big storm without more widespread damage.
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