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Back from Hokkaido

In Hokkaido, Postcards From..., Travel by David19 Comments

I got in from Japan yesterday and dove headlong into the blur of jetlag. By now I’m pretty good at the auto-pilot chores and the mindless digging out from the pile of things accumulated in my absence. It’s not just jetlag that makes it hard, but the more whole-body confusion that results from longing to be back where I just …

Postcards from Hokkaido

In Hokkaido, News & Stuff, Postcards From..., Travel by David13 Comments

When I came to Hokkaido for the first time for a wildlife tour in 2013, I fell in love with the place. It’s vast, wild, elegant, and her people live close to the land. I left with a longing to return, so when Martin Bailey asked me to come back and do this trip again, but with a landscape emphasis, …

Hokkaido Landscapes with Martin Bailey

In Hokkaido, Life Is Short, News & Stuff, Travel by David4 Comments

I fell in love with Hokkaido, Japan, last year. I joined Martin Bailey as a guest on his Winter Wonderland tour, and spent almost two weeks photographing monkeys, cranes, eagles, and beautiful landscapes. I wanted more of the landscapes and Martin and I talked long and hard about the possibilities. So the second he started getting serious about running a …

November Desktop Wallpaper

In Craft & Vision, Hokkaido, News & Stuff, Wallpapers by David9 Comments

Desktop Wallpaper from Hokkaido, Japan, last winter. Enjoy! I’ve just got back from a nice road trip – one that took me for the first time in almost two years over the US border. Let’s just say I’ve had some unnecessary issues stemming from a decision to live nomadically with no fixed address a couple years ago. Anyways, there’s some …

Hokkaido Steller’s Eagles

In Hokkaido, Images, Postcards From..., Travel by David15 Comments

These mornings with the Steller Eagles were painfully early. We pried ourselves off our futons in order to be out the door around 4:30am, dressed for temperatures that felt much colder than the actual -15C, and lugging our largest lenses. We drove down to the port, not sure if we’d even be heading out, knowing too much ice would keep …

Hokkaido Whooper Swans

In Hokkaido, Images, Postcards From..., Travel by David15 Comments

Since returning from Hokkaido it’s been a flurry of activity doing all those other things that fill our days so we can keep doing that thing we love – making photographs. That usually means I post a bunch of photographs immediately, and then nearly abandon you to posts about other things. I love those other things, and truthfully they’re what …

Printing Hokkaido

In Hokkaido, Lightroom & Workflow, Resources, The Craft, Thoughts & Theory, Tutorials &Technique, Workflow & Technical Issues by David

After narrowing down my Hokkaido work through my edit process, I’m now left with a collection of images to print. Here’s my rough process. 1. Image Prep. I take each image through a final pass in Lightroom’s Develop module. Here are the questions I’m asking myself as I go through the panels. Is my monitor recently calibrated? Am I completely …

Editing Hokkaido

In Hokkaido, Lightroom & Workflow, The Craft, Tutorials &Technique by David45 Comments

Coming home from Hokkaido with 8000 images to edit should seem intimidating, but it isn’t. I got a couple requests from people to share my editing process, which hadn’t even occurred to me until I got them, because I’m pretty much done already. So then I went and told Twitter and Facebook I’d show people how I do this painlessly …

Hokkaido Re-Cap

In Hokkaido, Images, Travel, Wallpapers, Workshops and Events by David21 Comments

I’m not one to pigeon-hole, but all the same, I’m no wildlife photographer. Of course I said that about landscapes three years ago as well, so what do I know? I’ve spent almost 2 weeks in Japan, mostly in Hokkaido, with birds and monkeys, often flopping around gracelessly and hip deep in snow, and almost always freezing my arse off. …