Full Moon over Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska.
This was last night’s beautiful full moon rising over Mt. Alice. The bay was as calm as a lake!
Manual exposure of 10 seconds at f/8 and ISO 400. Canon 1DsIII and 24-105 lens at 47.
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From the category archives:
Travel
Wildflowers, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
I have been hearing lots of great reports from the Southern California deserts especially Anza-Borrego – the area has received a lot of rain and it is sounding like it could be a good to great wildflower year! I’m excited, and will start posting updates on the current conditions in Borrego in a couple of weeks.
I prefer the soft, gentle marketing approach and hate to resort to the hard sell car dealer like approach by saying you better sign up now before it’s too late, but – you better sign up now before it’s too late. 
Actually, the second weekend is now full, and I only have a few spots left for the first weekend. The permitting process will prevent me from offering any more, and will likely prevent other photographers from throwing together last minute tour / workshops. To learn more, check out: Anza-Borrego Photo Workshop.
With summer a ways off, there is a little less time urgency with my Alaska Photo Tours, although I only have one spot left for the private boat Kenai Fjords photo tour, and only two spots left for the Bear and Puffin photo tour – and recently, I received a number of inquires on the bear tour. And space is available for our private boat Prince William Sound tour.
If you have any questions about any of the tours, drop me a quick email, or give me a call.
This commercial break was sponsored by Niebrugge Image, now back to our regularly scheduled blog entries.
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Sunset over the San Jacinto Mountains which rises above Palm Springs, California
Thanks to Janine’s hard work, our website is now completely updated with photos from this past summer and fall! This includes a big addition to our section of Las Vegas photos, and a much needed expansion to our Joshua Tree National Park coverage – a place we pass by frequently, but often overlook. I hope to spend much more time there in the years to come.
We seem to work really hard to process and publish our images, and always manage to finish just before heading out on the next long trip. We then travel, and the process starts over. A part of me wouldn’t mind some extra time in the office to address all those little things we never have time for, but a much bigger part of me can’t wait to hit the road with my camera!
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The Green River as it flows through the Labyrinth area of the White Rim Trail, Island in the Sky District, Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah
Janine has now updated our sections of Moab Utah photos, including new photos of Canyonlands and Arches National Park.
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Sunrise over the Chugach National Forest, Seward, Alaska.
It has been a little while since I have posted a new photo from Seward. Here is a recent image captured out or front door of a view that never gets old!
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Hartman Rocks, Gunnison, Colorado
Janine is now done with our remaining portions of new Colorado photos!
Along with the sections I mentioned last week, we now have new sections for Crested Butte / Gunnision and from the North and South rims of the Black Canyon of Gunnision National Park.
For this photo I used my 24-105 at 65, f/16 at 1/3 of a second and a two stop soft edge graduated neutral density filter.
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San Juan Mountain, Colorado
Another day, and another new section on the website – photos of Ouray and the San Juan Mountains.
These are some of my favorite images from Colorado as it was where we had the best fall colors by far. Not to mention, the town of Ouray is about as picturesque as it gets.
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Rock Cut at the top of Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
Janine has been working very hard to update our website with our new photos from this past fall, and we now have the first of what should be many updates over the next couple of weeks, and that is a new section of Rocky Mountain National Park photos, along with a sub gallery of Estes Park photos.
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Wildflowers, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
This winter I’m going to offer two weekend photo workshops in the beautiful Anza-Borrego Desert in Southern California. You can read about all the details here: Anza-Borrego Photo Tour / Workshop.
The timing of the announcement is perfect because over the last two days Borrego Springs has received almost an inch of rain, with more forecasted for the rest of this week. An inch of rain my not sound like much, but that is a huge amount for this area. This, coupled with some earlier storms all but assures us that there will be some wildflowers. Even without wildflowers this is a wonderful area, but wildflowers can completely transform the desert.
Right after uploading the page, and before I had a chance to announce this workshop, someone spotted it on our website and has already signed up. I only have permits for two weekends, and only for 5 people at a time, so these could fill quickly – and when they do, that will be it. So check out the page and let me know if you have any questions!
In addition to this workshop, we also offer a number of Alaska photo tours.
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San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Another fall photo from Colorado!
This was captured at 1/5 of a second at f/14 and ISO 400. I used 400 because of the wind – I wanted to maximize the shutter speed, to minimize the movent in the brush. This as with my 24-105 at 50mm.
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Sunrise, Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
We are done converting and adjusting our photos from our end of summer and fall travels, and we should be updating our website soon, including a new section on Colorado. Until then, I thought I would share a few more photos from that trip.
Sharp eyed viewers might spot the bull elk.
I promised to start adding the settings for each photo, and then proceeded to forget on the very next post. This was 6 seconds at f/18 and iso 100. I don’t remember, but I’m guessing I used a two stop soft edge graduated neutral density filter.
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California History The Journal of the California Historical Society.
I wasn’t sure what I would write about today until I made my daily walk to the Post Office and found this in the box! It is a thrill and honor to be on the cover of such a wonderful publication.
This photo was captured along the California’s Central Coast near Big Sur a few years ago – I would love to spend some more time along the beautiful stretch of coastline.
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Mule deer buck, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
This guy was huge! Rocky Mountain National Park is sure a great place to watch and photograph elk and deer. This was from our Fall visit.
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Full moon rising over Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.
As I was working on my favorite images from last year, Janine mentioned this was one of her favorites – she really liked the mood and feel of the photo, so I though I would make it today’s blog.
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Resurrection Peaks, Chugach National Forest, near Seward, Alaska.
Here is another photo taken from just a few steps out the front door during another beautiful morning. This was captured last week on the same day as the photo of ice patterns.
I know, I have thousands of photos of these mountains, and have posted dozens of them here on the blog over the years, but I just can’t help myself, they are just too beautiful! I’m sure I will take thousands of more in the years to come.
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When photographing directly into the sun, especially with zoom lenses, it seems like lens flare is almost impossible to avoid. I thought I would share a little trick that I have used for the last few years for eliminating flare.
I capture two images, one that includes the sun and flare, and one where I block the sun and eliminate the flare as you can see above. I then combine the two images using photomerge in Photoshop keeping most of the image on the right except for the portion of the image where you see my fingers. Here is the end result:
Landscape Arch, Arches National Park, Utah.
It is important that both images are of the same exposure – I make sure I’m working in manual mode because your camera’s meter is going to come up with two very different exposures for these two scenes. And of course a tripod so that the two images contain identical compositions is imperative.
I used to stand in front of my camera and block the sun with a lens cap. The lens cap made a perfectly round shadow that I could then position just barely over the front of the lens. When it comes to your eyes, I’m sure this is the safest way of doing it, but it does take more work in Photoshop. Lately, I have been looking through the camera with my hand out in front until it is positioned to block the sun – I wonder what passerby’s must be thinking as they see me doing this – is he really photographing his fingers in front of that pretty arch?
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Courthouse Wash, Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.
Over the last week or so we have been very busy converting and adjusting photos from our Fall trip, we hope to be done with this job sometime this week. I will likely share more photos from this trip over the next few days or weeks.
It has been a really nice winter in Alaska, and I have been very content to be working at home, cross-country skiing, and enjoying the winter pace. But, as I start the pour over photos from our recent travels, it re-ignites the urge to explore and photograph new regions, and revisit old favorites.
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Ice Patterns, Seward, Alaska.
These ice patterns were on the side window of my pickup yesterday. With the heat off, I carefully drove into position so that the sunset would back-light the patterns. Nature can sure create some wonderful designs!
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From a recent morning in Seward, Alaska.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings everyone!
The next week will probably be a bit slow here on the blog thanks to the holidays.
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Least Sandpiper, Seward, Alaska.
Megan from Costa Rica had an ask Ron question about bokeh. Here it is:
Hi Ron, I had a quick question for your Ask Ron series. I was wondering about your opinion of bokeh. I have a basic understanding of the concept from online research, but it seems that some professional photographers absolutely love it, while others barely use it at all. Also seems that subject matter doesn’t necessarily determine who likes it or not; in other words, I see some landscape artists use it all the time, and others never. I’m contemplating buying my first fixed focal lens for my Nikon D60, and am curious what your take is, when and how you decide to “go for bokeh” (ha), etc.
Thanks!
Megan in Costa Rica
For those that aren’t familiar with the term, here is the Wikipedia definition for bokeh: In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.
For me, I often use it for wildlife portraits, and close-up work like flowers – it allows me to isolate the subject from the rest of the scene and effectively “remove” distracting elements. I think the bird portrait above is a good example. Here I am actually laying in the cold water with the front of the lens and camera just barely out of the water in order to throw the background out of focus. If I was just a foot higher off the ground, I could be warm and dry, but the background of mud would come into focus and could be a distraction.
The background is often ignored, but can often make or break an image. As I’m setting up on birds like this, I’m not just watching the birds movement and the direction of the light, but I am constantly evaluating the background. A bright spot, even if it is out of focus will draw your eye right away from the subject and to the background bright spot.
Now I don’t always try to throw the background out of focus, there are times that it can enhance an image, and provide the viewer with a feeling for the habitat and surrounding environment. This photo of a desert bighorn near Moab, Utah is one example that comes to mind.
Now you mention landscape photography, and myself, I chose to maximize depth of field and keep everything in focus. I know some photographers utilize limited depth of field as a personal style, it seems to have gained in popularity in recent years. I encourage you to experiment. A prime lens with a large aperture can be a lot of fun creatively.
Thanks for the question – you live in a beautiful country!
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Pedersen Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
It has been awhile since I have answered any Ask Ron questions. As a reminder, I will answer any photography question as best I can.
A couple of weeks ago I received this question:
I love how you capture a foreground, middle ground background with such great depth.
Do you typically try to accomplish this with a 24 T/S or the 24 1.4L?
Thanks, Ray
To answer your question, yes I do use Canon’s tilt shift lenses a fair amount. By tilting the plane of focus I am better able to position the depth of field from near to far without sacrificing a lot of shutter speed. I go into more detail in this post on tilt with Canon’s tilt shift lenses. These lenses are especially valuable when you have something really close, say within a couple of feet, and still want to keep distant objects in focus.
But, I don’t use those lenses as much as I should. It is so much easier, faster and lighter to carry one 24-105 then three tilt shift lenses. In these circumstances, I use a small aperture to maximize depth of field – usually around f/16. I then focus about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way into the scene. I also almost always will use a tripod, mirror lock up and the 2 second self timer to minimize any movement as much as possible. This is about as good as it gets without tilt. If something still has to be a bit out of focus I would rather it be distant objects – I believe prominent foreground elements have to be sharp – distant objects like mountains can be more forgiving.
Tomorrow I will answer another recent question on depth of field – this one regarding bokeh.
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Janine at Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
I was very surprised to see my name and blog being mentioned by Amazon on Twitter last week, I clicked on the link and saw that for $1 per month, you can have my blog sent directly to your Kindle Wireless Reading Device 
I then remembered submitting my blog to Amazon about a year ago and having to wait for approval. If they emailed back, I missed it, and completely forgot about it. I don’t remember the details, but I get some percentage of that dollar, probably not enough to retire on. It wasn’t about the money, I viewed it as another nice new way to subscribe to the blog.
This summer we sat next to a nice lady on one of our flights who showed us her Kindle, those things are really cool – and very easy on the eyes, nothing like a computer screen Now admittedly, my blog relies far more on colorful photos then words, and I don’t know how those will translate to the black and white screen. But, they do offer a free 14 day trial so there is nothing to lose. If you do get a Kindle for Christmas, check it out, and let me know how it works!
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Alberta Falls, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
I haven’t mention it here before, but along with a handful of Alaska photo tours, I am now also offering private one-on-one workshops and tours. With a private tour the instruction will be tailored specifically towards your needs and interests. It can be anything from working on composition and exposures in the field, to using Photoshop in the office, or maybe a combination of topics. I will travel anywhere for these workshops, they can be here in Seward, your town, or at a favorite destination. Click on the link above for details.
I didn’t even think of promoting this option on my recent post of Christmas ideas for Photographers, but fortunately others are way ahead of me on that idea. In just the last couple of days we have sold 5 days of private tours for next summer as Christmas gifts. So if you still haven’t come up with that last minute gift…
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Cover, 2010 Milepost.
O man, I’m really excited to report that I have the cover of the Milepost for the 4th year in a row! Growing up in Glennallen everyone who passed through our restaurant had a copy in hand or on their dash. I dreamed of having the cover one day, I never imaged having 4 in a row! Now I dread the day I don’t have the cover – I’m going to have to work extra hard next summer!
Now that I travel so much I know why The Milepost is such a valuable resource. It has mile by mile detail on every road and community throughout Alaska, and on every route and community between Alaska and the Lower 48. My copy never leaves my truck. I have been recommending this guide for years on photography forums and on travel forums like RV.net
The main photo is actually of Janine and I with my parents, as we enjoyed an evening campfire at the Chugach National Forest Williwaw Campground near Portage. By the way, Williwaw is one of the nicest campground in Alaska. I used a self timer to trigger the camera. The smaller photo is of Janine in front of Denali (Mt. McKinley).
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