Announcements

Natural Landscape Photography Awards

Misty sunrise from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

Misty sunrise from Tunnel View, Yosemite

If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new photography competition called the Natural Landscape Photography Awards. It is, in their words, a competition “celebrating the artistic achievements of landscape photographers who dedicate themselves to capturing the beauty of the landscape in a realistic manner.”

Now let me say up front that I don’t think art should have any limits, and people should be free to create anything they want, in any manner they want (as long as they’re not harming anyone or deliberately deceiving people about how an image was made).

But in my own work I try to celebrate the beauty and variety of nature. I think the natural world is wonderful and amazing, and I try to show that without enhancing my images in an unrealistic way. Plus, for me, part of the fun of landscape photography is trying to put myself in the right place at the right time to see some of the most beautiful places in the world at their most beautiful moments. It changes the game – and for me, decreases the enjoyment – if I can just add in a different sky later.

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Join Me at the Out of Death Valley Conference!


 

I’m thrilled to be joining the Out of Chicago team for another photography conference. This will be an in-person event – in Death Valley no less! – taking place next January 26-30, 2022.

The dunes and sculptured badlands of Death Valley are amazing, surreal, and beautiful locations for landscape photography. And I’ll be joining a wonderful cast of instructors, including Nick Page, David Kingham, Alex Noriega, Erin Babnik, Jennifer Renwick, John Barklay, Michael Gordon, Sarah Marino, Joshua Cripps, William Neill, Cole Thompson, Colleen Miniuk, TJ Thorne, and Eric Paré.

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Podcast Interview with David Johnston

El Capitan emerging from clouds, Yosemite NP, CA, USA

El Capitan emerging from clouds, Yosemite

I recently did an interview with David Johnston for his podcast The Landscape Photography Show, and it just got released today. David asked a lot of great questions, and I thought it was a fun and interesting conversation. We talked about my photographic journey, photographing the same place over and over, whether originality is overvalued, internal and external motivations for your work, and much more.

You can listen to the episode on David’s website, or through all the usual podcast sources like iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and so on.

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New Article in Elements Magazine

Redwoods, ferns, and rhododendrons near the northern California coast, USA

Redwoods, ferns, and rhododendrons near the northern California coast, USA

Elements magazine is a new digital publication devoted to landscape photography, produced by the team behind Medium Format magazine. They’ve only published a few issues of Elements so far, but the quality of the photographs, text, and design has been top notch. Contributors include William Neill, Erin Babnik, Christopher Burkett, Chuck Kimmerle, Hans Strand, Rachael Talibart, Bruce Barnbaum, and many others.

And I’m honored to have my work included in the latest issue of this beautiful magazine. My article in the June edition of Elements is called Capturing a Mood. That topic is fundamental to how I approach photographing landscapes, and this article is the most comprehensive piece I’ve yet written about this subject.

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Out of Chicago Live!


 

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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Planning and Serendipity: A Pre-Conference Photo Challenge


 

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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