A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on a river, happily photographing grizzly bears. After a two-day drive and a quick turnaround at home, I was off to San Francisco to sign 1,000 copies of the hardcover special edition of my new book, Light, Space, & Time: Essays on Camera Craft and Creativity. I also spent time with my publisher and …
Show Me Less to Show Me More
As a photographer who learned his craft before autofocus became a truly reliable technology, my earliest challenge was focusing the lens. Those who picked up photography after the cameras could focus faster than we would ever be able to do ourselves won’t know the frustration of that particular learning curve. But focusing the lens was never so hard as learning …
Stronger Photographs With Just One Decision
Watch the short video above, or keep reading if you prefer the written word. I think a lot photographers put all their creative eggs in too few baskets. They look to the work they do with the camera as job one, which it is. But it’s not the only job. It’s the sexy job, for sure. But it’s insufficient. Some …
3 Ways To Give Your Images Their Best Chance
Watch the 7-minute video above, or keep reading if you prefer the written word. In my last video I resumed a conversation I’ve been dying to come back to. Specifically: Why do photographers get so intimidated by the edit and the “now what?” that comes once we put the camera down? And are we missing important creative opportunities? For years, …
A Better Edit Makes Better Photographs
Take a few minutes to watch the video above or, if you’re more of a written word person, keep reading. When I came home from Kenya last year, I had a hard drive filled to busting with 30,000 images. I’d been photographing for 30 days, so that’s a daily average of 1,000 photographs which, it turns out, is really easy …
Artists & Explorers
This one is a longer one, but I think it’s worth it. Put the coffee on, find a place to settle in. And then scroll to the bottom to see some images from my recent wolf expedition A month ago, I found myself in a tuxedo, eating ants and mealworms (but not the scorpions, grubs, or tarantulas also on offer) …
Three Questions For Choosing Your Gear
In two days, I pack the truck and head north up Vancouver Island to meet my wolf guide, Tom, before spending two weeks camped on a remote island, waiting for coastal wolves to wander in front of my cameras. 🤞 Maybe some otters, bears, or eagles, too. I can’t wait. Packing for a trip is always a mix of excitement and indecision. …
A Word About Art-Making
One of the happy perils of posting your work online is the very real possibility of criticism. I suppose posting it anywhere exposes you, but the internet gives people both a microphone and anonymity. Things get said online that would never be said in person to another soul. The internet, especially social media, emboldens us. But it’s not only the internet. …
Postcards from Kenya
My work in Kenya didn’t go as planned. Story of my life, right? But I’m not referring to the fact that my first two days in Kenya were spent in bed in a tent in the bush, with an IV fluid and antibiotic drip, trying to get a fever down. I’m not referring to the fact that unseasonable rains changed everything, …
Crank It Up! (Or How I Stopped Fearing The Noise Monster)
My first “real” digital camera was a Canon EOS Digital Rebel. All black, with a vertical battery grip and an impressive 6.3 megapixel sensor, it felt like a tiny miracle. But take that ISO up to 800 and the resulting images were less than miraculous; they were so noisy you’d need earplugs. That was 20 years ago, and while so much has changed …