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How to Give Your Photography a Turbo Boost

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Lake Tahoe
Photo by Steve Berardi
You know those turbo boosts that you get in car racing video games? You’ll be driving along, struggling to get out of 9th place, but then you use a few turbos and BOOM––all of a sudden you’re cruising in 1st place! Woohoo!

Do you ever wish you could use those turbos in real life too?

Well, in photography, you can! Sort of.

The secret is to dedicate at least one full week to nothing but photographing nature. It’s kind of like a mini photography boot camp.

Take a week off work, and go on a long road trip, visiting places you’ve never been before, but have always wanted to check out. It’s important for these places to be “fresh” to you, because it’ll excite you to visit someplace new and that usually translates to a stronger urge to create a photograph. [Read more…] about How to Give Your Photography a Turbo Boost

The Perfect Tripod For a Hiking Photographer

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After the camera and lens, the tripod is the most important piece of camera gear you’ll own. In some of my favorite words from Scott Kelby, you should “become married to your tripod.”

Nothing will keep your camera more still than a tripod. If you want the sharpest photos possible, then you gotta use one whenever possible. Tripods have another benefit too though: they force you to slow down and think more about your composition.

But, carrying around a tripod can also be pretty annoying. They’re big, they’re heavy, and it usually takes a while to get it in the exact position you need it. So, it’s helpful to get a tripod that’s easy to setup and carry around. [Read more…] about The Perfect Tripod For a Hiking Photographer

How to Fix a Washed Out Sky In Photoshop

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Photo by Steve Berardi
One of the common problems you’ll run into while using a wide-angle lens with a polarizer is a partly washed out sky. The photo on the left illustrates this ugly problem.

It happens because the polarizer works better on some parts of the sky than others. And, since you’re capturing such a wide part of the sky with a wide-angle lens, you’re almost always going to run into this problem.

Sure, you could avoid this problem all together by not using a polarizer on a wide-angle lens, but then you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the other great benefits of the polarizer: reducing unwanted reflections, and saturating colors. [Read more…] about How to Fix a Washed Out Sky In Photoshop

7 Tips For Photographing Landscapes In Extreme Wind

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
I recently found myself on an extremely windy mountaintop trying to photograph a distant rock spire. The wind was blowing at 45 mph, with gusts over 60 mph!

I’m used to dealing with some light 15 mph winds when photographing wildflowers, but this 60 mph stuff was strong enough to start shaking my tripod. So, I had to think quickly about how to keep my camera still and come away with a sharp photo of the beautiful sunset that was approaching.

Here are a few things I came up with to ensure I got an acceptably sharp photo: [Read more…] about 7 Tips For Photographing Landscapes In Extreme Wind

What a TV Show Can Teach You About Photography

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TV
Photo by Michael Pereckas / Used under the CC-Attr license
A few months ago, I was lucky enough to have one of my favorite TV shows (Dexter) filmed right outside my apartment building. They filmed a scene in the alley of my building, and I was able to watch the whole thing from my porch! If you’re a fan of the show, pay close attention to that scene in the alley of Episode 4 in Season 5–that’s my alley!

Anyway, I watched them film the scene for a few hours and actually learned a couple of things about photography: [Read more…] about What a TV Show Can Teach You About Photography

Learn by Example in my new eBook!

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Today, I’m happy to announce that my new eBook, Examples, is now available. It’s a collection of 23 of my images and the stories of how those images were made.

The idea was inspired by my firm belief that the best way to learn something is by example. As Albert Einstein put it, “Learning by example isn’t the best way to learn. It’s the only way to learn.”

I remember countless times back in school when I was struggling to understand something, but as soon as the teacher gave us an example or stepped through a problem detail by detail, I finally began to understand.

Examples help us pull concepts together and see how those concepts apply to actual problems. And, that’s my goal for this eBook. Throughout the book, you’ll find a number of links to blog posts I’ve written, or other helpful websites I’ve found that explain a concept I used to create an image. [Read more…] about Learn by Example in my new eBook!