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Night Sky Photography

Mt Hood Milky Way

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.

Making Money With Photography

Wedding Photography

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.

He’s too close for missiles Goose!

Full Manual Meme

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.

Leslie Gulch and The Owyhee River in Eastern Oregon

Leslie Gulch in Eastern Oregon

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.

My Photography Lens Filters

Little Creek Swirly

One of the most asked questions of me is one concerning lens filters. So let’s talk about filters for a minute.

Filters are round glass elements that screw onto the end of your lens, or in some cases glass or resin panels that are placed on front of the lens using a fixture. The purpose of these filters is to affect several different things when you’re taking a photo.

Ricketts Glen Pennsylvania Winter Waterfalls

Ricketts Glen Pennsylvania Waterfall

I just returned from a trip to Pennsylvania. For me this was more of a trip to spend time with my buddy Chris Byrne my new friend Neven Dries and to meet up with another new found friend, Zachary Bright. When we arrived at the park it was closed to the general public but the ranger allowed us in as long as we had crampons, the cleats that you put on your boots to keep you from slipping, ice axes and a section of rope. So we outfitted ourselves in anticipation of the hike.

Alaska Winter Bush Plane Glacier Adventure

Knik Glacier Alaska

This photo is of the huge ice face of the Knik Glacier in Alaska. I was able to photograph this miraculous location due to my good friend Bill Nafus and his amazing new hand built Super Cub bush plane. Bill built the airplane from the ground up and it’s perfect in every detail.