Photography related subjects
There are very few things that surpass the brilliance of the stars on a dark Summer night. Since I was a small boy I have slept outside whenever possible, even if only in my backyard. I’m fortunate to have lived in some places that have extremely dark night skies.
Robert Randolph and The Family Band in Portland – Darlene and I had an opportunity to photograph the Portland Oregon Waterfront Blues Festival with Robert Randolph and The Family Band as a headlining act.
Shaniko Oregon Ghost Town Photo Clinic – July 28, 2018 – Gary Randall Photography announces a day exploring the central Oregon ghost town of Shaniko.
Night Sky Photography – Summer is here. For a landscape photographer this time of the year means good weather, green forests, flowers, warmer nights and starry night skies. I enjoy heading out for a sunset and staying until the stars come out, and in many cases, staying out until sunrise. Sunsets and sunrises are always a wonderful time to get dramatic landscape photos, while landscape photos with an amazing Milky Way in the sky above can be unique and dramatic.
If making money with your photography is your goal, what’s holding you back?
It’s taken me a long time to realize that making money with your camera can be pretty simple, but one must be happy making a little in the beginning and realize that the dream of good money comes in time. Like all journeys the sooner that you start the sooner that you arrive where you want to be.
Pont du Parayre, Le Ruisseau d’Audiernes, Peyrusse le Roc, France. Meaning, “Bridge Parayre, The Stream of Audiernes, Peyrusse le Roc, France”.
This is one of my personal favorite photos. Perhaps due to the emotion that I feel when I think of the day that I spent with friends getting this shot at such an historic culturally rich location, but certainly this little bridge had a lot to do with it.
The story behind the photo.
I encourage everyone to shoot on Manual Mode, but I’m talking from the perspective of a landscape photographer. In landscape photography we are typically in no hurry and it’s important to control your camera settings to make sure that you have, what I call, the three essentials captured properly – focus, dof, and exposure. You don’t want to have the camera choose one or two or even all three of the settings that allow you to affect the three essentials. In most every case you will want to control all three by having absolute control over the critical settings, shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
Now with that being said, as photographer who practices more genres than landscape there are absolutely times when switching to an Automatic Mode on your DSLR helps greatly to increase your chances at getting great photos.
Rhododendron Gateway
I love Spring and early Summer. I love photographing the wildflowers that bloom around my home here near Mount Hood, especially the rhododendrons.
This is a view of Mount Hood from the northwest on a hilltop above Lost Lake.
My latest trip east included a stop at a place that I can never get tired of exploring, Leslie Gulch. Leslie Gulch is on Bureau of Land Management land located about an hour from the little town of Jordan Valley near the Oregon and Idaho border. Named for a poor fellow named Hiram E. Leslie who was struck by lightning there in 1882, it’s a part of a larger area that is a part of the many canyons that make up the Owyhee River drainage. It’s a canyon with towering rock spires and formations made of ancient volcanic tuff, a rock very similar to what’s found at the popular Smith Rock State Park, but times ten as there are huge formations surrounding you all the way through the canyon and up side canyons.
Finding Your Artistic Vision – I’m asked at times, typically by another artist, about my personal artistic vision. At first I had no idea at all what artistic vision was. And if I didn’t know what it was, how would I know if I even had one?