Outdoor Photography How To

According to a photo industry writer I know, I do something that’s a bit unusual: I freely admit that sometimes I’m too close to my own photographs to judge them objectively, and because of that, I ask for help.

In May, 2010, during one of his many trips to Tanzania, Norton was informed by local Maasai tribesmen of government plans to build a highway bisecting the northern part of the Serengeti, the storied 5700 square-mile national park listed among the 10 wonders of the world.

“Photography is always a bit random in the UK because the weather is so changeable,” Martin Turner says. When he and his friends arrived late in the afternoon at the Weston-super-Mare seaside resort in North Somerset, they were greeted by “absolute, gorgeous sunshine.” Which lasted about 45 minutes. “All of a sudden the sky went black,” Turner says, “and we had to stand underneath the pier whilst it chucked down rain for quite a while.” Then the clouds broke, and at about 8:00 in the evening he was able to capture this sunset image.

Every photographer has a personal vision and a particular taste in composition, light, color and so on. For example, many photographers chose nature’s details simply to abstract the color and form they find. Others like to use extremely shallow depth of field—also called selective focus—so only a sliver of the subject is sharp while the rest of it is soft. People who are intrigued by the beauty, intricacy and complexity of nature usually shoot with the opposite approach. They want to reveal as much detail in the subjects as possible so those who view their work can appreciate the designs and the patterns in the images with tack sharp clarity.

In 2004 I was out late one night for a walk on the beach, as I often did to de-stress from a long day at work. This night was particularly beautiful, with a full moon shining overhead, so I decided to bring my camera and tripod along to take some oceanscapes. I found the perfect location, set up my gear, and opened the shutter of my camera for a long exposure. While the exposure was running I accidentally bumped my camera. When I checked the image and saw that the light from the moon had left a streak going across the sky I had an epiphany. My mind raced at the possibilities of using my camera and the moonlight to draw images in the sky, and from that moment on I was a light painter.

Mark Alberhasky, for one. Put him in a great situation where he can take very cool photographs and he’ll nail them nine times out of 10. Chances are, though, that won’t be enough. Just because the photos he’s making look good doesn’t mean he won’t be thinking about what he can do to create even better ones. You can attribute that drive to several factors, one of which is his early realization that if he took a straightforward photo of what everyone else was seeing, no matter how good a photo it was, it would be just that: what everyone else was seeing. The goal was to come up with his own ideas and add them to the creative process, and many of Mark’s photos are the result of taking that e