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What’s Wrong With This Photo?

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Rough-legged Hawk / Photo by Vic Berardi
Rough-legged Hawk / Photo by Vic Berardi

This is a photo of a Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus). It breeds in the arctic and migrates southward down into the far southern areas of western Canada and throughout much of the United States where it spends most of the winter. Its journey southward and back again is long and arduous. This particular photo was taken in southern Wisconsin in early March.

Before we get into what’s wrong with this photo, let’s discuss a few good things about it.

At first glance, this is exactly the type of photograph that gets the most attention on forums, listservs and social networks. It might even be a photo that could potentially win a photo contest. Why? Because it captures a dramatic scene that instantly makes the observer feel some kind of emotion. [Read more…] about What’s Wrong With This Photo?

How To Merge Two Exposures

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
One of the most common problems in landscape photography occurs when photographing a sunrise or sunset: the sky is always super bright and the foreground is always super dark. This causes some trouble for your camera because it can’t handle that dramatic range of brightness.

There’s a few ways to solve this problem, but one solution is to shoot two exposures: one exposed for the sky and one exposed for the foreground. Then, you can merge these exposures later in Photoshop.

Here are some details on how to accomplish this: [Read more…] about How To Merge Two Exposures

6 Tips For Photographing Shorebirds

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Sanderling / Photo by Steve Berardi
Sanderling / Photo by Steve Berardi
We’ve talked a lot about photographing birds here on PN: how to photograph them in flight, how to photograph perched birds, and even a few tips for photographing hummingbirds. But, we haven’t talked a whole lot about shorebirds specifically, so I thought it’d be good to share a few tips for photographing these types of birds:

#1 – Get down low to the ground

The single most important thing to do when photographing shorebirds is to get down to their level. This usually means lying down on the ground, so it’s helpful to bring a towel or something to lie down on. Photographing the birds at their eye level does two things: it makes the image more intimate and it usually results in a better background (because from this low angle, the background will usually be farther away). [Read more…] about 6 Tips For Photographing Shorebirds

In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World (Book Review)

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In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World / Eliot PorterEliot Porter was a famous nature photographer, who gained widespread attention after publishing his great book, In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World, back in 1962. It’s still known as one of the most important nature photography books ever published, but until recently it was out of print.

Luckily, Ammo Books just started publishing this book again, and I was happy to accept a review copy to check out this new edition.

The book is much more than a simple collection of photographs. The photographs are organized by seasons of the year, and each photo is accompanied by a journal entry from Henry David Thoreau. [Read more…] about In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World (Book Review)

Do You Have a Photography New Years Resolution?

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Joshua Tree / Photo by Steve Berardi
Joshua Tree / Photo by Steve Berardi
So, today is the first day of 2013. Happy New Year!! It’s a great day to reflect on the previous year, and to build hopes and dreams for this great new year we have ahead of us.

Setting goals is a great way to motivate yourself to learn something new, or reach a major milestone in your pursuit of a bigger goal. They don’t necessarily have to be anything super big, like quitting your day job and making a living as a professional photographer. They could be as simple as getting one of your photos published in a local newspaper. [Read more…] about Do You Have a Photography New Years Resolution?

5 Great Quotes From 5 Great Photographers

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Ansel AdamsWhenever I need inspiration, one of my favorite things to do is read some of my favorite quotes on photography, from some of the greatest photographers. So, I thought it’d be nice to share some of those quotes:

Ansel Adams

“We don’t make a photograph just with a camera, we bring to the act of photography all the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the music we have heard, the people we have loved.”
―Ansel Adams

[Read more…] about 5 Great Quotes From 5 Great Photographers