Rocks and surf at dawn, Wallis Sands State Park, Rye, New Hampshire. F16, 30 seconds. (Jerry Monkman)

If you live in the northern U.S., you are probably experiencing a low snow winter this year. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I live, we haven't had any appreciable snow since before Halloween! The gray and brown hues of a snowless landscape can definitely make it hard for a landscape photographer to be inspired enough to get out there and shoot. I feel fortunate that I chose his winter to start a new project I call 0630, where I go out every morning and make a picture at 6:30 (you can read more about the project in this post I made over at the Outdoor Photographer website.) The project has forced me to get out and shoot, when I normally would have stayed in bed, and it's really getting my creative juices flowing and giving me good practice on techniques I don't always use on a regular basis. For most of the last 6 weeks, I've been shooting primarily 30-45 minutes before sunrise, so here are some tips on what to do when it's winter, it's dark, and there's no snow.

An October snowfall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

With the snow coming in (here in the Northeast U.S. anyway), it seems like a good time to review some winter photography tips.

1) Stay powered. Cold temperatures reduce the length of time your camera's batteries will function. Always bring a spare or two, and use power-sapping features like auto focus, live view, and LCD playback sparingly.

2) Stay dry. Keep snow away from your camera and lenses as much as possible. While dry, fluffy snow isn't as bad as rain on your equipment, you should still blow or wipe it from your gear whenever necessary. Also, never bring a camera and lenses directly into a warm environment after it has been out in the cold. Pack them in your camera bag or plastic bags before heading inside and let them warm up to room temperature before taking them out. Otherwise, moisture will condense on the glass and metal surfaces, potentially damaging your gear.

3) Expose for your highlights – the snow. A snowy landscape will often throw off a camera's meter, sometimes to the point of underexposing your photo as much as two stops. When shooting in winter, take a test shot and check your histogram. You should have pixels stretching almost to the right side of the graph in order to ensure properly exposed snow. If you don't, add light to your exposures by using a slower shutter speed. However, if your histogram spikes on the right side (you'll probably have the blinkies too), then your photo is overexposed and you need to use a faster shutter speed.

So, what exactly is depth of field? Simply, it is the amount of detail, within the image that is in focus. You, the photographer must decide on how much depth of field (DOF) is desired. Do you want the entire image in focus? Do you want the background out of focus ( often referred to as blown out—-I don’t really like that term as “blown out” might refer to overexposed, not out of focus).

Once you make the decision on how much of the image you want in focus, you must understand the technique that must be used to achieve your goals.

Decisions on setting to attain Depth of field are:

• The F-Stop (see below) chosen to make the image
• The focal length of the lens
• Subject size (the depth of field decreases as you decrease the lens/subject distance
• How far away is the subject?

LENS OPTIONS

Choosing a lens will have a dramatic effect on your depth of field. Lenses below the 60mm range are capable of attaining a large depth of field. (wide angle lenses) The DOF affect attained with lenses above 60mm will be less and when combining a 160mm+ lens on a DSLR, perfect Depth of field is virtually impossible. This is a principle of physics.

 

Purple Finch on the branch of a Spruce Tree - Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 500mm F4L IS, Canon 1.4x & 2.0x Extender II, @1400mm - Gitzo 3541XLS with Jobu Design BWG-Pro Gimbal Head

Sitting in my living room, I suddenly heard an extremely enjoyable and melodious tone from outside. Hearing it repeated a few times over about 15 minutes was finally enough to lift my sorry carcass off of the couch and out onto the back patio. I discovered a male Purple Finch (he of the melodious tunes) along with a female partner going about the process of building a nest in the Spruce Tree just outside of the back door of my home.

I ran to get my tripod (a Gitzo 3541XLS with a Jobu Design BWG-Pro Gimbal head attached) and set it up with my Canon 500mm F4L IS lens attached along with the 1.4x Extender II that is pretty much welded to the lens. I say welded because if you do much wildlife photography at all you know that there is rarely such a thing as too big of a lens.

I took some shots of the joyful little singer but discovered that (and as is often the case with the little song birds) that he just wasn’t filling the view finder the way I wanted. And with that 1.4x teleconverter attached to the 500mm lens I was already shooting at the maximum minimum aperture for my 5D Mark II, F5.6; assuming I wanted to use autofocus. I have a 2.0x teleconverter too and thought briefly about just throwing that on and making the best of things with manual focus.

Sometime you want to take pictures without your feet on the ground. Here are some tips for keeping your gear safe while shooting from a kayak.  In this video, New Hampshire based conservation photographer Jerry Monkman explains how to keep your camera gear safe while shooting from a kayak.

Check out Jerry's fall Cape Cod workshop here:  Eco Photography

Until last year I had never enjoyed the thrill of making my own photographic prints.  When I needed a print, I’d send off a file (or slide) to whatever lab I was using at the time and they’d ship the print directly to me or my client.  With only a few exceptions my image viewing experience consisted of staring at a photo on a computer monitor.

Then, I bought an Epson Stylus Photo R2880 printer and everything changed.  If that sounds like a dramatic statement – it is.  It’s also quite true.  I started making my own prints.  Whenever I wanted.  On whatever paper I wanted.  It didn’t take long and I was addicted to the smell of fresh ink on photographic paper as a new print rolled off the printer, landing ever so gently in the catch tray.  Is there a difference between viewing an image on a computer monitor and holding an actual print, that you made, in your hands?  You’d better believe it.

As an artist I like to have complete control over my work from start to finish.  While it is true that you maintain a degree of control when you do all the post-processing on your photos before sending them off to a lab, you’re really not closing the loop.  The ultimate control comes when you conclude the image making process by crafting your own print.  Today’s inkjet printers are capable of producing professional quality archival prints that rival and, in my opinion, exceed those made using more traditional methods like Cibachromes.  They’re sharper, more detailed, just as colorful and can be made using a diversity of papers.

Skiing with the Cotton Carrier Camera Vest.

A couple of months ago I was asked by OPG to try out a new camera carrying system by Cotton Carrier.

Their Camera Vest system works much like a Baby Bjorn for cameras, holding a camera snug to your chest and distributing the weight comfortably on your shoulders and torso. When I am on my shooting adventures, I usually carry my camera and a spare lens or two in a waist pouch, which I position so that the gear compartment is in front of me. This has always seemed to be the best way to have my camera easily accessible for action shots, but either I'm getting older (o.k., I know I am) or my gear is getting heavier because I'm finding the waist pouch option is increasingly putting pressure on my lower back. I was eager to try out the Cotton Carrier vest to see if it fit my shooting style. After a few outings over the winter and this spring, I've decided it will be my "go to" system for adventure shooting.

Long lens landscape photography isn’t as easy nor is it as natural as using a wide angle lens to compose a landscape photograph. Our eyes don’t see at 200, 300 or even 400mm. Normal human vision is similar to the field of view of a 50mm lens. The most challenging aspect of using a telephoto lens to photograph landscapes is learning to see like a telephoto lens. Your goal is to extract small, interesting sections from a much larger landscape. As if that isn’t difficult enough to do with the naked eye, a telephoto lens will also dramatically compress the distance between foreground and background elements. Factor in the technical challenges of working with a long lens and you might be tempted to just throw in the towel. Don’t do it! Here’s why.

Last week I read a great article on friend and photographer Gary Crabbe’s blog about the reality of working a photo assignment.  Gary’s article, and my own experience last year on assignment in Goblin Valley State Park, inspired me to write about a technique you might try next time your creative fire needs a little stoking.

If you’re lucky enough to land a photo assignment, it means that someone thought enough of your work to pay you to create photos of a specific subject for them.  The key word at work in that sentence is photos – as in more than one.  Perhaps there are exceptions but every assignment I’ve ever worked required that I provide a healthy collection of images to the client upon completion of the job.  Adding to the pressure to deliver is the fact that you are likely given a short time in which to make the images.  You’re probably charging a day rate.  Unless you’re a brilliant negotiator your client probably didn’t tell you to take as many days as needed and to send a bill when you’re done.  No, it is more likely that you’re told that there’s only enough money in the budget for a couple of days.  This means that during the “couple of days” you’d better be able to fill some memory cards with enough images to satisfy your client’s needs.

Earlier I wrote about the best advice I’ve received from other photographers during the last 12 years of my career.  I thought I’d go the opposite direction and share a few mistakes that, after all that time in the field and great advice, I still can’t seem to avoid.  Some are humorous and others are just downright annoying.  What mistakes do you find yourself making over and over again?

That Pesky Lens Cap - I can’t tell you how many times I’ll put the viewfinder to my eye only to see…nothing.  Yeah, I forget to take the lens cap off all the time.  Fortunately, I realize the error before pressing the shutter button.  I don’t feel too bad about this as years ago I read that Ansel Adams once forgot to put film in his camera during a workshop he was teaching.  Okay, so the great one only made such a silly mistake once. 

Invincible Tripod Syndrome (ITS) - We’ve all done this.  Some of us learned from our mistakes while others (me) still haven’t.  We set up our tripod, mount our camera and expensive lenses to it and then walk away.  Do this enough times and eventually gravity will rear it’s ugly head.  I’ve had cameras blown over in the wind, knocked over in the water and I’ve even tripped over my own tripod leg.  I saved that one from near death.  I know the consequences and yet I continue to roll the very expensive dice.  That qualifies for stupid, right?

Image Stabilization Times Two - What is a tripod?  It’s image stabilization.  There’s no such thing as too much image stabilization, right?  Wrong.  Many lenses that feature built-in image stabilization/vibration reduction are likely to produce blurry images if you leave the IS/VR turned on while your camera is locked tight on a tripod.  You see, when your camera is secure in a ballhead and IS/VR kicks on, the movement of the gyro inside the lens is enough to introduce vibrations that may result in blurry images.  I’ve blown more images than I care to remember because of this bonehead move.  Whether or not the IS/VR will cause blurry images is a function of luck, shutter speed and the lens you’re using.  Why chance it?  Make it a habit to turn off IS/VR before using a tripod. 

Hey Gang,

I first met Chris Klapheke, founder/owner/operator of Outdoor Photo Gear, during a workshop I was co-leading in December 2008, in Bosque del Apache, New Mexico. We met during the event that Chris eloquently describes below, and exquisitely illustrates above.

I was new to the area, but Chris had been there several times before.

Day one of the workshop: Not only was I freezing, but I needed some help with finding the best shooting locations. Chris took me under his wing, so to speak, and helped me, and all the members of the group, get some knockout images.

Chris is a humble dude. You never hear him brag about his photographs, yet he is one of the best outdoor photographers I know. Recently, I asked him to jot down a caption for the image you see here. Well, Chris is the kind of guy who goes above and beyond in everything he does (most recently when it comes to customer service at Outdoor Photo Gear). Below is the “caption” that Chris sent me.

• • •

My alarm clock went off at 4:30 am in the Super 8 motel in Socorro, New Mexico. A sleepy little town about an hour south of Albuquerque, Socorro is the gateway town to the Bosque del Apache national wildlife refuge.

At 4:30 in the morning in Socorro in December, it’s darn cold. Fumbling awake, I checked the temperature:  12 below zero. Great. No, wait a minute—Great! Yesterday was a nice warm day in Bosque, with plenty of sun. That means, with this brutally cold morning, that any water that was shallow enough to warm up would be emitting a rare substance in the desert winter—steam.

When you get a nice warm day and a shivering cold morning, you can have steam rising from some of the ponds in Bosque. And when you get that steam and a clear sunrise, you have a chance to capture one of the “holy grail” shots from Bosque —birds in a golden mist of light.

Sunrise at Dorr Point in Maine's Acadia National Park.

October 1st marked nine years since I quit working on Maggie’s Farm.  In my case, “Maggie’s Farm” was a cubicle at a large insurance company that was just the last of several identical cubicles I worked in over the course of eleven years as a software engineer.  I never liked this job, though it made me a decent income and the stress was relatively low.  I realize that software engineer wouldn’t make many lists detailing the crappiest jobs in the world – in fact, most would consider it a pretty cushy gig – but I was never satisfied.  I yearned to spend more time outside, and I felt there must be a way to channel my creative energy for something more important and beneficial to my mental health and the world in general.  I spent the last five years of this “career” begging for as much time off as possible to get out and make pictures, and I’m fortunate to have had managers and colleagues who supported my crazy photo obsession.  After 9/11, and with a new baby at home, it became obvious to me that it was time to quit the job that made me good money, but left me unhappy, and I took the plunge as a freelance photographer.

If you’re one of those people who feels stuck in a job, but you have loftier aspirations, all I can say is “Go For It!”  It will change your life. Don’t just take my word for it either.  I was inspired to write this post after reading “Five Ways Photography Changed My Life” by Moab, Utah based adventure and nature photographer Bret Edge. All of what Bret says in his post is applicable to me, and probably most other photographers as well.  I really encourage you to read it.

Last month I embarked upon a 4 day, 3 night motorcycle trip to Crested Butte, Aspen and beyond.  I didn’t have a set itinerary, although I knew I wanted to photograph an autumn sunrise of the Maroon Bells reflecting in the placid waters of Maroon Lake.  On the evening before the final day of my trip I arrived in Aspen and took the road leading to the Bells.  I found an idyllic campsite in the Silver Queen campground only a couple miles from the lake.  Once camp was set up I headed to the lake to scout compositions for sunrise the next morning.

Having heard stories from friends about dozens of photographers lining the lake with their tripods overlapping I knew I’d need to arrive early the next morning to stake my claim.  I awoke early, threw on layers of warm clothing to protect me from the chilly 34 degree ride and proceeded to the lake. Arriving a full half hour before sunrise, I was a bit surprised to find seven cars already in the parking lot.

A couple rock climbing near the top of Cathedral Ledge. Echo Lake State Park in North Conway, New Hampshire. White Mountains.

This last April I attended the American Society of Picture Professionals’ reinvention weekend in Boston, and the major theme was finding ways for those working in the picture industry to keep working while the landscape of the industry is rapidly changing.  Both stock and assignment prices have been deteriorating for years, if not decades, challenging both stock agencies and photographers to change business tactics in order to survive.  It’s no secret what is causing the decline in prices – digital technology. To some extent, digital cameras have leveled the playing field on the content creation side of things.  More importantly, digital distribution has drastically reduced the cost of selling images.  On the stock side of the business, digital distribution (first in the form of royalty-free CDs, then with the advent of microstock) has enabled stock companies to be profitable without charging large rights-managed fees as the administrative costs of managing a large stock library have been drastically reduced due to digital image management and distribution.  Lower stock prices have also led to lower assignment fees, both on the commercial and editorial side of the business, though to a greater extent in the editorial world, as newspapers and magazines are downsizing and going out of business.