Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Everyone has those days when it would be better if they just stayed in bed. Photographers also have them, and often things simply don’t go as you’ve planned. Thomas Heaton shows what it looks like when a landscape photographer has a bad day. And no matter what kind of photography you do, you’ve probably had a day like this, too.
Baikal is impressive. It’s the deepest and the cleanest lake on Earth. When we were planning a trip, we didn’t even suspect it is so wonderful, majestic and fairy. We were raptured over its beauty so much, that we almost didn’t sleep all 3 days we were here.
Lake Baikal is about 600km in length. The thickness of it reaches 1,5-2 meters. This ice can tolerate the vehicle of about 15 tonnes, but sometimes we saw cars that had been fallen down. Ice has different patterns in different parts of the lake. It happens because water is freezing layer by layer. Especially it is very interesting to find a fish or a branch in the ice. The ice in Baikal is the most transparent in the world! And this is true. You can see everything till the bottom: fish, green stones, plants and bluish gulf. The water in the lake is so clear, that you can see various objects on the depth of 40 meters.
Do you like traveling and taking travel photos? I know I do. But Elia and Naomi Locardi bring travel photography to a new level. They are travelers, artists and photographers who chose an interesting path. They are not just travelers, they are nomads, and they call themselves location-independent. In other words, they don’t have a single location they call home. Home is everywhere.
This is a story about their decisions and its beauties and challenges. It’s certainly an unusual lifestyle that takes a lot of bravery. In this nine-minute video, you’ll hear their story and see some of their great photos – and minutes will feel like seconds.
With the new year approaching people usually start thinking what they could do better or improve in within the new year. As a professional landscape photographer I thought it would be fun to give some tips to people starting out with landscape photography.
The human eye is incapable of seeing infrared light, so Infrared photography is truly a way to show your audience something they can never see with their own eyes. This guide serves as an introduction to getting started with digital infrared photography.
Looking back through my archives, I realized that I’ve covered topics like film selections and scanning film but to date I’ve skipped one really important part: metering and exposing color film. This is something I get quite a few questions about so bear with me while I try to be very thorough and cover topics from different lighting conditions and how I would meter with the various film types, both color negatives and slides. While graduated neutral density (GND) filters deserve an entire post for themselves, I’m going to have to touch on that topic as well since they are a critical part of my film exposures.
As a disclaimer, I’m going to be covering my methods for metering. These may not be the methods you’ll read about in most books but I’ve found them to be both effective and extremely quick which is crucial when the light is changing dramatically. It’s come to a point where metering is mostly second-nature to me and takes up a very small portion of my workflow.
When I’m heading out location scouting or to do a shoot, we often drive through rain 3 or 4 times before we get there. The weather around here is full of all sorts of different microclimates, some small, some large. So it’s not uncommon to see columns of rain coming down in the distance.
Rarely, though, are they as dramatically beautiful as they are in this video from photographer and filmmaker Mike Olbinski. This timelapse film took over 85,000 frames and 36 days of shooting to complete. It’s stunning work, I’m sure you’ll agree.
This is a topic that seems to come up every few years. As sensors increase in dynamic range, ND grads sometimes aren’t so essential. Raw processing software becomes more capable with each new release. Even filters that cut through haze aren’t always needed. But what about things like circular polarisers and big ND filters for super long exposures?
In this video, landscape photographer Thomas Heaton offers his insight and thoughts on the question. When it comes to polarisers, Thomas is of the opinion that they absolutely are necessary. It’s an opinion I share. The function that they serve just cannot be reproduced in post. But what about the rest? Watch the video to find out.
When photographers think of my country they think of windmills, Amsterdam and tulips. These are generally the most photographed subjects in the Netherlands. What they don’t know is that my country turns purple in August. It usually starts mid or early Augusts and ends till the end of August. It turns a lot of areas completely purple.
What am I talking about? The heather plants. Compare it to the France Lavender fields that start a couple of weeks earlier in July. The purple heather fields in the Netherlands are a dream for any landscape photographer. Combine them with mist and you’ve got yourself a dreamscape that looks to be coming straight out of a fairytale. The misty mornings usually start in August also, when it gets cold at night and warm during the day. The temperature along with humidity makes for low fog that looks great combined with the purple heather.
These days, most cameras and lens build quality is pretty high. Even if not completely weather sealed they can still take quite a lot of abuse from nature. Sometimes, though, you do want to take the extra step to protect your kit.
Landscape Photographer Benjamin Jaworskyj has a great tip to help cover your gear at virtually no cost. I used to use one of the more expensive solutions. It worked rather well, but it always did feel like overkill. This solution is much easier, and uses less room in your camera bag.
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