Glacier Point Sunset, Yosemite
Just a quick reminder that the holiday print sale ends tomorrow (Friday, November 16th) at midnight Pacific time, so you still have time to get 25% off on three images: Glacier Point Sunset, Yosemite; Milky Way over Sand Dunes, Death Valley; and Aspens and Ferns, Kebler Pass, Colorado.
In case you missed the earlier post, you can see the available sizes and sale prices underneath the descriptions of each image below.
Storm clouds at sunset, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
On our way back from Colorado last month, Claudia and I spent a couple of nights in southern Utah. We had dinner with one of Utah’s most talented and thoughtful photographers, Guy Tal, along with his wife Sarah. (If you’re not familiar with Guy’s photography and writing you should be!) And we enjoyed the change in scenery, going from the forested, snowy mountains of Colorado to the red-rock canyons.
Milky Way over Sand Dunes, Death Valley
The print sale has ended, but you can still order prints at the regular price below.
I’m pleased to announce that we’re having a holiday sale on three prints never offered before, at 25% off the normal price. For this sale we’ve selected three popular images: Milky Way over Sand Dunes, Death Valley; Glacier Point Sunset, Yosemite; and Aspens and Ferns, Kebler Pass, Colorado.
The discounted pricing will last until Friday, November 16th. You can see the available sizes and sale prices underneath the descriptions of each image below.
Firs and dogwoods, autumn, Yosemite. Dogwoods have proliferated in this area burned by the Rim Fire in 2013. 116mm, 15 seconds at f/16, ISO 100.
One afternoon about ten days ago Claudia and I headed up Highway 120, west of Yosemite Valley, to check on the fall color. We found some colorful dogwoods between the Valley and Crane Flat, but west of Crane Flat most of the dogwoods were brown, scorched by the Ferguson Fire last summer. Or, to be more accurate, they had been scorched by firing operations (back burns) performed by firefighters along the road.
We decided to hike down to the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias. While the Ferguson Fire didn’t reach the Tuolumne Grove, the Rim Fire did in 2013. The media latched onto this story, with headlines about the fire threatening these ancient trees.
Swirling dogwood blossoms, Yosemite. I used a slow shutter speed (1/2 second) to deliberately blur the motion of these dogwood blossoms, but usually I’m trying to make my photos as sharp as possible.
It’s always disappointing to find out that one of your photos isn’t sharp – especially if it’s an image you like (and you weren’t trying to deliberately blur the image). Yet we all make mistakes. Even professionals like me sometimes take unintentionally blurry photos (as you’ll see below!). But after you’ve swallowed your disappointment, it’s important to figure out why the image is soft so that you don’t make the same mistake again.
There are basically five causes of blurry photos: camera movement, subject movement, missed focus, insufficient depth of field, and lens softness.
Autumn Colors: Sunlit reflections of Aspens above Grant Lake, Inyo NF, CA, USA
I’m working on a longer post, but in the meantime here are some more autumn colors, this time from the eastern Sierra about ten days ago. This image was actually Claudia’s idea. It’s difficult to photograph directly toward sunlit reflections like this, but she liked the color palette of yellow, orange, green, red, and blue, so I decided to try it, and somehow it worked.
Sunbeams and aspens, Dallas Divide, Colorado. Claudia and I were headed to a more distant aspen grove, hoping to find snow on the trees, but saw some great sunbeams breaking through the clouds and decided to stop at Dallas Divide. We ended up staying for half an hour, with sunbeams moving across the landscape the whole time. For this image I bracketed five shots, two stops apart, and blended them with Lightroom’s HDR Merge.
In my last post I mentioned how much I love the transition from autumn to winter, with splashes of yellow amidst beautiful white aspen trunks, snow etching the trees, and the feeling of the long, cold winter settling in. Here are a few more attempts to capture that mood from the mountains of Colorado.
Hillside with aspens and conifers, Uncompahgre NF, CO, USA
We were in Colorado for two-and-a-half weeks, and during that time we watched the upper-elevation aspens lose most of their leaves. The lower-elevation aspens followed, going from green, to yellow and orange, and then, in some cases, bare. Rain and snow set in, and we saw the snow level drop from 11,000 feet down to 10,000 feet, then 9,000 feet, and even briefly down to 8,000 feet. It felt like winter was approaching rapidly.
Interesting weather: Autumn hillside in the fog, Uncompahgre NF, CO, USA
As I mentioned in my last post, we got some interesting weather while we were in Colorado – rain, mist, and even some snow. We stayed in the area longer than we originally planned to try to photograph some of this weather, hanging out with our friend Charlotte Gibb during some of that time, and enduring rain in hopes of photographing aspens in the fog or snow.
Aspen kaleidoscope, Uncompahgre NF, CO, USA
Claudia and I made our annual pilgrimage to Colorado to see the aspens, with a short detour into some Utah canyons. We’ve actually been traveling for three weeks, and just got home. During our trip we got up before sunrise almost every morning, and stayed out until after sunset nearly every evening. I kept thinking that I should post some photos, but there always seemed to be some interesting weather, and photos to be made, and barely enough time to eat, sleep, and then get up at 5:30 and do it all over again.
I’ve been using Lightroom since Adobe released the beta version in 2006. Over the years I’ve learned many shortcuts, and in this video I share some of my favorite tips – things I use all the time to streamline my workflow:
