Mule deer browsing oak leaves, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
To all who celebrate it, Claudia and I wish you a very Merry Christmas! We hope everyone is warm and safe, enjoying good food and the company of family and friends during this season.
— Michael Frye
California black oaks after a snowstorm, Yosemite Valley. With forest scenes, it’s important to find as much spacing and separation between tree trunks as possible.
If light is the most important element in photography, composition is just a whisker behind. They’re both essential, and can’t be completely separated: a good composition has to take lighting into account, and you can’t think about light without considering how the light complements the subject. I already highlighted my post from last January about creating depth, but I also wrote three more posts this year about composition.
I’ve seen many otherwise excellent photographs ruined by a visual merger between important elements of the composition. When Separation is a Good Thing explains how to become conscious of these mergers and avoid this problem.
In Courting Luck, Part 2: Adapting Your Composition to the Conditions, I talk about what why I think it’s more productive to keep your compositions fluid and flexible when the light is changing quickly. And What’s the Least Interesting Part of This Photograph? is an exercise to help you tighten and strengthen your compositions.
— Michael Frye
Mist rising from cottonwood trees, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Looking back through this year, I realized I’d written many posts about light. But this isn’t really surprising, because photography is the art and craft of capturing light. Nothing will help your photography more than understanding this most essential element of the medium.
While many photographers watch and anticipate how the light might strike Half Dome, or El Capitan, or other big landscape scenes, we often overlook the profound affect light can have on smaller scenes. Light and Mood With Intimate Landscapes, from March, looks at how to find and anticipate small-scale lighting events, and use them to add emotional power to your photographs.
But many times intimate landscapes can work with just soft light – shade or overcast. In Praise of Soft Light explains how to create extraordinary images with this most ordinary kind of light.
In May and June I spent several weeks in the redwood country along the northern California coast. Photographing a redwood grove in dappled, late-afternoon sun prompted me to write about how to capture this difficult but beautiful lighting situation for this post called In Redwood Country.
Redwoods, ferns, and rhododendrons near the northern California coast, USA
Continuing our look at back at the most popular posts of 2013, here’s one that’s been extremely popular – in fact it’s my most-read post ever. It’s from January 2013, and it’s called Creating Depth: Beyond the Wide-Angle Formula.
This post looks at some alternatives to the popular, wide-angle, near-far look that you see in so many landscape photographs – alternatives like atmospheric effects, subtle perspective clues, and size comparisons. And the article also explains why many photographs and paintings with a sense of depth have something in common that’s not immediately obvious.
To all of you who read this article, commented, or wrote me an email response, thanks very much! Your participation makes writing this blog fun, and I know your comments make reading it more enjoyable for everyone.
— Michael Frye
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author or principal photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, Yosemite Meditations for Women, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters. He has also written three eBooks: Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, Exposure for Outdoor Photography, and Landscapes in Lightroom 5: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide. Michael written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.
Three Brothers reflected in the Merced River on a moonlit night, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
As we count down to the new year, I thought this might be a good time to look back at my most popular blog posts of 2013. We’ll start with a post from early January of this year showcasing my best images from 2012, as chosen by you, my readers. The top vote-getter, by a wide margin, was this photograph of Three Brothers by moonlight, but you can see all of the top ten for 2012 here, and see all the original nominees here.
I’ll be doing this again – letting my readers pick my best images from 2013. But the year isn’t over yet, and there’s still time for me to make a few more photographs, so look for the post with the nominees after the first of the year. And in the meantime I look forward to highlighting more of my top articles from this year, including the most popular ever next time.
Thanks to all of you for helping to make this a great year, and Happy Holidays!
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: 2012: My Top Ten Images; 2012: Picking My Best Images
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Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author or principal photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, Yosemite Meditations for Women, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters. He has also written three eBooks: Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, Exposure for Outdoor Photography, and Landscapes in Lightroom 5: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide. Michael written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.
Just a reminder that there are less than 36 hours left in our Black Friday Sale, with 35% off my Landscapes in Lightroom 5 ebook and video package, and 40% off The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite iPhone and iPad app. The sale ends at midnight Pacific time tomorrow, December 2nd. Again, you don’t need to enter any special codes – those are just the prices until the sale is over.
I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!
— Michael Frye
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:
