Life is beautiful! Here’s a touch of fresh new life to give you a little pleasure as you wait for Spring! I took this photograph in Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

I wanted the flower to stand out, so I blocked all the light except for a little beam that was falling directly on the flower. The light on the flower is completely natural, but there were other spots of light in the scene as well. I had to use my body and my camera bag to block the light that I didn’t want to include in the image. I wanted just one trillium flower in the frame. I chose the title to match the image…Glow of Life!

Share on Facebook

Price: $10.00

Format: eBook, PDF format, 37 pages

Size: 21.9 MB

Requirement: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 or greater

Description

This in-depth guide to histograms provides all the information you’ll need to learn to make the most of one of the most powerful  - and often overlooked – tools in digital photography. A quick glance at this little graph on the back of your camera can tell you if  you have captured detail in the shadows, if your highlights are blown, if you need to bracket your images, and if your image is properly exposed. Professional nature photographers and accomplished teachers, Varina and Jay Patel will walk you through the process of reading, interpreting, and using histograms – while you are in the field and during post-processing in Adobe Photoshop. They use simple language and a wealth of real-world examples to teach you how to use your histogram.

Click on thumbnails below to see sample pages from this eBook:

Share on Facebook

Yellowstone Falls from Artist Point is a sight to behold, but at this particular moment the view was extraordinary. The sun broke through heavy clouds, bathing the falls with light, and leaving the rest of the valley cloaked in soft shadow.

This was a waiting game…I watched the clouds for over 3 hours on this cold and rainy day before the spotlight illuminated Yellowstone Falls. I chose to under expose the image to ensure that the bright highlights in the water were not blown out. Even with under exposure, the falls were so bright that I had to process a single RAW image twice, and than combine them using our iHDR workflow.

By the time I was ready to put away my camera, my gloves were wet and my fingers were cold and numb. But it was worth the result… I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

Share on Facebook

On my first visit to Yellowstone, we stopped for lunch and my daughter fell in LOVE with the orange juice. And so, right in the middle of nowhere (somewhere along the Idaho/Wyoming border- farmland stretching for miles in every direction) she REALLY had to go. Well, here is a photo from that road-side stop.

This image highlights the emotional impact of human beings in a photograph. If I were to remove the two small figures from the photograph would this photograph have the same impact? It would be just another pretty landscape photo of a field and clouds. I chose the composition because I wanted to remember the time (clouds and sky) and the place (nothing for miles but freshly planted fields).

Share on Facebook

Where would you rather be? Sitting in an office or on this boardwalk exploring the coastal rain forests of Olympic National Park? There’s nothing wrong with having a desk job… the trick is to find a way to take “the road less traveled” before it is too late.

How was this photograph created?

This photograph highlights the use of a human element in composition. Many nature competitions adhere to strict rules that no “hand of man” should be visible in the photograph… but sometime a man-made element provides a  bit of impact.  Without the board walk, would the image be as effective?

Share on Facebook

I took this shot on the side of the road in Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming). This shot sold – along with two others – as part of a collection for a “peaceful” display for a hospital chapel. The selection was not based upon location – but on mood.

I processed a single image twice in order to bring out the details in both the sky and the foreground. I blended using our iHDR workflow. I did not use any filters for this shot.

I wanted to capture both the reflections in the water and the brilliant colors in the sky. So, I placed the horizon close to the center – ignoring the rule of thirds. Heck – you have to break the rules sometimes, right? I did place the rainbow using the rule of thirds.

Share on Facebook

Click to Download

Jökulsárlón in Iceland is a breathtaking place. On one side of the road is a beautiful blue, glacial lagoon. On the other side is a black sand beach where giant icebergs lie scattered along the shore. This beauty come with its own peril – I found out the hard way. Right after I took this shot, a rogue wave knocked my off my feet and pushed me underwater. I managed to hold on to my Canon 5D MKII and tripod, but both the camera and lens were destroyed. Thank goodness for my backup camera! And the memory card was not damaged… so I didn’t lose any photographs. Thank goodness! (For more about that singularly disastrous day in Iceland, see Iceland: Day 5.)

As always, these images are provided for personal use as computer wallpaper or backgrounds ONLY. Copyright belongs to the photographer, and photographs cannot be used, redistributed, or recreated in print or on the web or on any other medium without written permission from the photographer.

Share on Facebook

We have only visited the Grand Canyon a couple of times… and each time for just a few hours. On our last visit, we were lucky enough to get this magnificent sunrise.

How was this image created?

The sun star you see in this image was created in camera…No Photoshop required. How? To create a sun star like this, you need a small aperture. For this particular image I used an aperture of F22. I placed the sun star and the horizon using the rule of the thirds.

Share on Facebook

“Why do you need a full frame camera?”

We have heard many different answers to this question… “Because most pros use Full frame camera.” “Because a full frame camera is better than a crop factor camera.” “Because a full frame camera has better dynamic range or tonality.” “Because my photos come out better on a full frame camera.” We believe that both crop factor and full frame cameras have their pros and cons, and we often use one over the other when the situation calls for it.

Let’s start with the full frame camera. Because of its larger pixel size, when compared with its crop-factor counterpart, it is typically associated with lower noise levels at higher ISO settings. (We are comparing cameras that appeared on the market at about the same time… not ones that were introduced several years apart). So, our first choice for shooting low-light or night photography would be the full frame camera because of it’s high ISO capabilities. There are also more options for prime lenses that fit a full frame camera – including tilt-shift (T/S) lenses in the wide-angle range. Sure, these prime lenses can be used on a crop factor body… but their effective focal length will be longer. When shooting with a wide-angle T/S lens, we prefer to use a full frame camera.

Night Shot with Full Frame Camera

What about a crop factor camera? One of the biggest drawbacks of the crop factor camera is also its biggest advantage - the multiplier effect. The crop sensor increases the effective focal length of the lens you are using. The crop factor makes a wide-angle lens longer (an 18mm lens with a 1.6 crop factor has an effective focal length of 28mm) – and a long lens even longer (a 400mm lens on a 1.6x crop camera has an effective focal length of 640mm)! That means that a crop factor camera is an excellent choice when you are shooting wildlife. Macro photographers also benefit, because the multiplier effect gives the photographer a larger working distances and more DOF for the same field of view.

300mm lens with 1.6x = 480mm effective focal length

When using a wide-angle lens on a crop factor body, the near DOF limit is a lot closer than the equivalent focal length lens with a full frame camera. As a result, a crop factor camera can get closer to the subject than a Full frame camera for the same field of view. Crop factor cameras are great when you want to get really close to your subject and still shoot wide. We were awfully happy to have a crop factor camera in Utah’s slot canyons!

10mm with 1.6x = 16mm effective focal length

So the choice between a crop factor camera and a full frame comes down to the situation. There’s no “right” answer here! We like to have one of each so that when we are in the field, we can choose the right lens for the job.

Share on Facebook

2011 was a great year for our Photography business – but there were highs and lows. There were many FIRSTS for us over the past year.

In 2011, for the first time…

• we published a full year’s worth of eBooks.
• we visited Iceland, where…
• Varina got hit by multiple icebergs. Ouch.
• we destroyed 2 cameras and 2 lenses in a matter of 20 minutes. Ouch again.
• we are parents of THREE teenagers. Triple ouch.
• we closed a business… and started a new one in the same month. (We closed the doors on Visual Wilderness, and started selling our ebooks on our own websites.)
• we were unable to get a permit to run a workshop in a National Park.
• we did not visit Death Valley. (We’ve been to Death Valley at least once a year, every year since 2005.)
• we joined Google+, and gained thousands of friends and followers almost overnight.

So, there you go. It’s been a crazy year…but it was great fun. Here are some of our images from 2011:

We are looking forward to 2012, and have an ambitious schedule laid out before us. We hope you’ll come along for the ride!

Share on Facebook