Posts belonging to Category Photography Techniques

Image of the Month: October 2012

Sometimes we can find beauty in less-obvious locations. Instead of photographing these aspen in fall foliage head-on, I looked for a different, perhaps more interesting composition during a recent autumn trip to the mountains. A reflection in a lake provided that opportunity. I hope that photographers will look for abstract photos as well as the […]

Image of the Month: March 2012

Here’s an image taken from one of my favorite viewpoints in Loveland near where I went to elementary school. The rocky hill on the lower right is Mariana Butte (on the other side of the butte there is now a golf course) with Palisade Mountain on the upper right, Mummy Mountain, Hagues Peak and other […]

Top 10 photos of 2011

During the holiday season and as New Years Day approaches it’s that time again when we often look back at our accomplishments of the past year. 2011 was an unusual year for me. Several of the photos I took this year were in the traditional “grand landscape” style I’ve been used to shooting in over […]

How to be selective with color

Vibrant color is one of the most important trademarks of my photography. I love viewing the lush variegated green tones of forest scenes, the luminescent red clouds in a sunset sky or the piercing blue eyes of a portrait subject. I’d like to share my favorite Photoshop secret for enhancing the color of my images. […]

5 Tips for Wonderful Wildflower Photos

It’s been a long winter here in Colorado. While photographers in the desert southwest and other regions of the U.S. have been taking photos of hillsides filled with wildflowers as early as February we’ve waited patiently for a large snowpack to melt and our own flowers to begin appearing. That time is finally here. Late […]

A Tour of Mesa Verde National Park

Note: This post can also be found on the Viewfinder Media Location Guide page! Some of the photos here and many more scenic images of the state can also be found in my book Classic Colorado. Introduction Mesa Verde, Spanish for “Green Table,” is the first national park established to protect works of man rather […]

Image of the Month: July 2011 Fireworks Time Lapse

embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt July’s Image of the Month is of yesterday’s 4th of July firework show in Loveland, Colorado as seen from a hill on the southeast side of the city. Instead of one image, this selection actually includes more than 1,000 photographs combined to form a time lapse video. I used my […]

20 portrait tips told with some of the best baseball card photos

Tasked with teaching a new course in portrait photography I was challenged to think of how to condense such a broad, complicated subject into one class. With spring in the air and the baseball season in full swing I was reminded of my childhood hobby of baseball card collecting. I remembered some incredible photography which […]

Correct distortion with the Photoshop “Sheer” filter

This is a digital panoramic stitch taken at Picnic Rock Park on the Cache La Poudre River northwest of Fort Collins. I took it on a late afternoon in June 2010 (the water level was quite high back then). Since this is near the bottom of the canyon, the rocks get their last light a […]

Shadow detail or die: Have we forgotten the art of the silhouette?

While browsing a nature photography forum recently I came across an image that reminded me of one of Galen Rowell’s photos from the Northern California coast. I found it interesting that many of those on the forum who critiqued the photo seemed to feel it was a necessity for the photographer to reprocess the image […]