David’s Blog
Spring Trees
There are lots of things to photograph in Spring other than wildflowers (even though I Love to photograph flowers!). One of my other favorite things to photograph is usually overlooked- the first tree leaves of Spring. I like to do portraits of the very first little tree leaves when they first come out- they are so soft and velvety- they are beautifully...
Over-Doing It
I just finished a workshop on the Oregon coast and realized an important addition to my last post about personal resolution. In that article I was encouraging photographers to increase their own personal resolution by improving their photographic technique. But on the workshop I realized that some photographers have too much resolution! How is this...
A Bit of News
Well, its been an traumatic 7 months for me- I've lost my dad, my mother-in-law and my surrogate grandfather. Each one is a huge loss for me but each one was ready to go and went peacefully on their own terms. Sad but very much a blessing. And each one would stubbornly insist that life go on. So if I seem more fortified and a bit more resolute than ever...
Your Resolution
What is Your Resolution? I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon (that is not entirely true) but what is it these days with this unholy quest for ever-higher resolution? It wasn’t too long ago when we were pretty happy about a 2000 ppi scanner, that is until the 4000 ppi scanners came out. But at least we were really happy with the 4000 scanners. With 4000 pixels...
Hugh
Hugh Bromley died early this morning in his sleep in the same room in his house that his wife, Joan, died 4 years ago. He was in his 96th year, as he would say, the last of the sixth generation of Bromley dairy farmers in Danby. All but four of his years he spent on the farm watching as the first gas and then electric lights came into the valley, the first...
Oregon Coast Workshop
I wanted to let you all know that there are still a few places left on my Oregon Coast workshop. The workshop is in Newport, Oregon on the central coast July 18 - 22. Sign-ups are through The Santa Fe Workshops. This workshop is one of my favorite summer workshops and I love being on the Oregon Coast in July- there is usually fog in the morning and at...
Critique-speak
Over the last almost 30 years of doing critiques at my workshops I have come to realize that I say the same few things over and over again. It is not because I am unimaginative or at a loss for better words. And it is not because I don't see some really great images every workshops (I do!) Its more that all photographers (including me sometimes) make the...
Common Mistakes Photographers Make
Photographers... 1. Include too much in picture Photographers are to prone add compositional elements to their initial creative vision- more foreground, the trees over there, the sky, that barn, the tree tops- but it is invariably a bad choice to make. The strongest photos are ones that can be described by a phrase; these are simple and obvious...
Travel (hand held) Composition
In my previous post I wrote all about the technical side of travel (hand-held) photography- low light, high ISO, more open f-stops, faster shutter speeds, smaller depth of field, etc. All good stuff and important to understand and use next time you are out hand holding your camera. For this post I wanted to tell you about a strategy of professional travel...
Travel Photography
I just finished teaching a travel photography workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Santa Fe workshops. It was a good class, with great participants, perfect weather and lots and lots of things to photograph in and around Santa Fe. I do love that town; it is very art- and food- centric, its got two Whole Foods and the pre-trip scouting took me to...
Setting Up Your Camera
It is workshop season once again for me and I am starting to notice some commonalities amongst my students. In every workshop I have done lately I have found that at least half of the cameras I get my hands on are set up less than optimally. By 'set up' I mean that the options selected in the menu are not the best. And no what I am about to mention are not...