When I realized I’m living in one of the world’s most scenic areas. I am now striving to promote nature conservation through my outdoor photography, and I am also discovering the benefits of using Singh-Ray filters for optimum results when shooting landscapes. I first discovered the importance of using Singh-Ray Graduated ND filters (ND Grads) to produce landscape images with just the right balance between nature’s bright skies and shadowy foregrounds. More recently, I’ve discovered that my Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo is equally …
Capturing the alpine drama with two Singh-Ray filters
During that time I’ve gone through more than a few cameras and lenses, transitioned from film to digital, and mastered the digital darkroom. Through it all my vision has been the common thread driven by my passion for the natural landscape — and during that time, Singh-Ray Filters have played a significant role in helping me translate and preserve my unique view of the outdoor world. For example, the image above, which was made in Dusy Basin, Kings Canyon National …
Sharing some of my latest long-exposure images from recent trips
Since my last post, I have been on a number of trips and thought I’d share some images from them. Each of these long exposure images has something in common, the Singh-Ray Vari-ND and the Mor-Slo 5-Stop ND Filter. I was in the Sierras to attend the memorial of an old friend and mentor when I created this image. John was on my mind as I spent several days reminiscing about our times together and missing him. He loved the …
Explaining the very important advantages of the Singh-Ray LB Polarizer
For the most part, the students don’t exactly know what a polarizer does so they’re not at all sure when to use it. I start by explaining that Singh-Ray offers four different polarizers; two ‘standard’ types, the LB Warming Polarizer and LB Neutral, as well as the Gold-N-Blue and ColorCombo Polarizers. (Each of these filters is fully described on the Singh-Ray website.) Since my personal choice for about 85% of my images is the ColorCombo, that’s the filter I demonstrate …
Wet weather failed to dampen a well-planned visit to Olympic National Park
The next day, I met up with Dustin, a photographer buddy of mine from the Sacramento area. We jumped on the Bainbridge Ferry and headed to the Port Angeles and Olympic National Park area. Driving from the ferry to Second Beach in a heavy downpour, I wasn’t at all confident that I could capture any images. From the parking lot, we hiked about a mile through mud, rain and flimsy wooden bridges to reach Second Beach. What a sight! As …
Capturing a number of well-earned images of the residents of Salisbury Plain
I can not adequately describe how mind-blowing my visit was with these adorable king penguins. After spending a week sailing in horrendous seas with terrible weather, I finally arrived at my dream photography destination. Upon landing, most of the king penguins were somewhat skittish, but these guys walked right up to greet me! Oh, boy. It was cold, too. The fresh snow on the normally rocky beach, however, helped make this already dramatic scene even more photogenic. In order to photograph this spectacle, I …
Adventures in Costa Rica’s rain and cloud forests
What would be different about this particular trip, was that — despite the incredible photographic opportunities presented by Costa Rica’s vast biodiversity of wildlife — my focus would be on capturing landscapes of the rain and cloud forests of Monteverde. Our journey would also include a brief jaunt into the northern tropical dry forest area of Guanacaste and Santa Rosa National Park. Finding strong compositions within the tropical rain and cloud forests is challenging. Simply put, these forests are busy. There …
Iceland’s Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon
As I was packing for my trip to Iceland last winter, I decided at the very last second to include my Singh-Ray Vari-ND. I thought that maybe it would come in handy on some waterfalls. One of the major highlights of any trip to Iceland is visiting the magnificent Glacial Lagoon called Jokulsarlon on the southeastern shores of this island nation. This is an area where Europe’s largest Glacier, Vatnajokul, has an arm that extends toward the North Atlantic and …
How super-simple it is to create extremely-long exposures with the new 10-Stop Mor-Slo ND filter
There have been so many times when I’ve found myself at an impressive river scene or rocky coast line with the mid-day sun beaming straight down. Very bright light creates a challenge for me since I like to shoot rivers, streams, water falls, and seashore surf at very slow shutter speeds to get that soft-silky look to the moving water. In such situations, I like to expose my image for 10 seconds or longer. But even if I set my …
Report on shooting ‘volcano-scapes’ in South Africa’s Pilanberg National Park
Pilanesberg is a ‘super-seven’ park meaning that it has the ‘big-five’ animals (buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhino) plus cheetah and wild dogs, making up the seven animals most visitors want to see and photograph, but I have found this park to also be a prime spot for shooting landscapes — or what I call volcano-scapes. The park is situated on the remains of an extinct volcano that was active just a few thousand years ago. Unlike the Ngorongoro Crater …