Outdoor Photography How To

If you want a shot of inspiration to motivate you to go out and shoot great photos, check out the beautiful video below, titled “Before You Wake Up.”

Carleton Watkins was perhaps America’s greatest 19^th century landscape photographer yet today he’s largely unknown. His breathtaking landscapes of the Yosemite Valley were instrumental in preserving the valley for future generations and paving the way for both the National Parks system and the environmental movement.

I recently received a copy of the University of New Hampshire Magazine and was immediately struck by the cover image of a rock climber dangling from a cliff over water. I not only noticed the storytelling aspects of the image but, as a photographer, that this guy hanging from his fingertips was somehow lit from some unseen light source. My first reaction: how did he do that?

“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.