outdoor photography

Ring-Necked Duck Although I deeply enjoy birding, I still consider myself first and foremost a photographer.  As a birder, I want to find and enjoy new birds, observe their behavior, and document what I see on www.eBird.org.  As a photographer, I want to find the birds in good light and a pleasing background, and above all I want to come home with good photographs.  At the same time, I've noticed that the more I've come to enjoy birding, my photographic goals have changed and expanded as well.  In a very real sense, the more I know about birds and birding, the more challenging and rewarding photography has become for me.  I'm no longer fully satisfied if I come home with pretty pictures of pretty birds.  Of course, I want that, but now I want more too.  I want to come home with photos of birds that express something about who they are and how they behave.  I want my photographs to be interpretive of the birds, their behavior and their environm...

Reddish Egret Feeding One of the qualities of an image that can set it apart from others is its ability to interpret a subject.  It's always great to view a properly exposed and well-composed photograph.  But some photographs also reveal something about their subject matter that causes the viewer to think differently as a result of interacting with the photograph.  And that a very good thing. Of course, photographs can't generally explain their subject matter in words--even if there are words in the photo, the photograph depends on more than those words to communicate.  You must use your exposure and composition to portray what you wan to communicate.  There are three essential aspects to turning beautiful pictures into interpretive images: Knowledge of Your Subject:  You must understand your subject to interpret it.  What ever you're shooting, the more you know about the subject the more expressive you can be as you portray ideas in your ima...

Rose You know how your mother used to tell you that you had to finish your broccoli before you could have your dessert?  Now I like broccoli, don't get me wrong.  I know it's good for me, and I like it, but let's face it; broccoli isn't nearly as fun as ice cream. So I've been talking a lot about the mechanics of getting the right exposure for your photographs.  I like this stuff, but it's kind of like broccoli. Exposure mechanics are essential for your photographic health, but composition is the dessert that makes photography fun.  Well, at least it is for me.  So I'm going to take a fair amount of time to write posts on different aspects of composition. I'm going to use a fairly broad definition of composition.  Composition will include everything that goes into the look and feel of your photograph.  Photography is not simply about recording what you see in film.  The scene you're photographing is the canvass upon which you are workin...

We all take pictures, and we can often recognize that some photographs are "better" than others.  But what makes a photograph good?  There's a lot that goes into this question, and certainly to some extent, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  But at the same time, there are many things that distinguish photographs as being "good." There are at least three things that photographers should take into account: Exposure   is the amount of light that is recorded by your camera's sensor.  If too much light comes in, the photo will be too bright, and if not enough comes in, it will be too dark.  Proper exposure is the amount of light that gives you the results you want.  Your exposure is controlled by three factors:  the length of time the shutter is open ( shutter speed ), the size of the opening in your lens ( aperture ), and the speed of your camera sensor ( ISO ).  You can change any of these settings manually and balance that change by a...

People come to a blog like this for many reasons.  But among beginning photographers, I suspect two are more common than all the rest together.  On the one hand, perhaps you're taking lots of pictures with your camera. You take pictures of your kids, the places that you go on vacation, and the great events in your lives.  But perhaps you would like to do more--you would like for photography to become a means of artistic expression.  On the other hand, perhaps you bought your digital SLR because you want to make photography a serious hobby and learn the craft.  You want to use the manual settings on the camera, and not just rely on the automatic shooting modes that do much of the thinking for you. Of course, these two reasons are not unrelated.  They are intimately connected to each other.  Photography is a nexus of craft and art.  We must engage the right side of our brains to create artistic images, and we must use the left side of our brains...