Crafting Photographs

I love B&W prints. After practicing making B&W prints in the darkroom in my high school years. Seeing the beautiful tonal renditions it is capable of, then being drawn in by the prints of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, I have been hooked ever since. While many people prefer color photography [...]

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One of the most common mistakes I see on workshops is students making lots of local changes, but ignoring the global changes. When they ask me how I would approach their photo, I typically get it right where they want it with basic global changes and a few local changes.
I’m convinced [...]

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The fundamentals of photography haven’t changed since the first photograph was made, only the tools with which we achieve them.

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I think any photographer can learn how to make creative adjustments to their photographs so the prints look the way they intend…and I think it’s actually an easy thing to do.
When I look at my printing methodology (which is the same approach we’ve used at West Coast Imaging for tens of thousands of photographs, and [...]

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What goes into making a great print? How do you work on a file in Photoshop to make it communicate what you want?
 
The best way I can teach how to make a beautiful print is by showing you. With this in mind, I’ve embarked on making a set of YouTube videos [...]

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I am continuing on last week’s theme so I can talk about some more of the unique aspects of the Sierra autumn, to help you get the most from photographing this spectacular display.
 
Chasing the Color
In the eastern United States, color starts up north and moves south as the season progresses. In the Sierra, color starts [...]

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I love autumn, and always have. When autumn color begins, the world looks and feels different, and it makes me very happy at a level I can’t easily describe. 
It should be no small surprise then, that autumn is one of my favorite times to be out in creation making photographs. Photographs let me share that [...]

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Making hard proofs (a proof on the same paper and device you will use for final prints) is a central part of my approach to fine printmaking. Therefore, the light sources I use to view proofs are also very important, because not all light sources are accurate for my needs. If I can’t view the [...]

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There is an idea out there amongst some teachers and students of photography that the method of making a great photograph can be reduced to a formula. It’s an easy trap to fall into, because a lot of teachers and students actually believe in this fairy tale. It sneaks in to our consciousness because large [...]

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I love a fireworks show. There is nothing like the mixture of its color and sound painted against the night sky, and if you’re lucky, reflected in a lake or river. It’s an incredible sensory experience, and it’s something I want to photograph, even if I have no idea what I’ll do with the resulting [...]

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