I'm sitting at The Ark in Aberdare National Park in Kenya, watching Cape Buffaloes, warthogs, elephants and a range of birds at the watering hole adjacent to the lodge. I'm about 7 days into a 12 day photographic safari and I have shot (with camera)...
Part 2: Travel and photography in the land of the long white cloud Those of you following this series will know that Part 1 focused on photographic equipment and shooting locations in the South Island. The thing about New Zealand is that you could easily turn your...
Part 1: What was in the bag and where did I shoot? I'm just back from a photographic expedition in New Zealand and I thought I'd share some thoughts on shooting travel landscapes in New Zealand. It was an inspiring (nay, mind-blowing) trip and I'll guarantee...
Shutter blending isn't new in photography (digital or otherwise) but I'm often surprised that not many photographers make use of it. Most of us would already be familiar with exposure blending: taking bracketed exposures of the same composition and then blending them to ensure that the...
While photography is a relatively recent invention, photographers have much to learn from the other visual arts -- notably painting. In an article entitled "What the Mona Lisa Can Teach Us About Taking Great Portraits", Darren Rowse explains how an analysis of this enigmatic portrait...
If you're a beginner photographer, then chances are you're a bit stumped by the relationship between the aperture value and the size of the aperture. Beginners who have attended the Getting Started in DSLR Photography workshop we run will be familiar with this relationship and...
At a recent Flash Photography Fasttrack workshop, a participating photographer noted that when he dialed the flash exposure compensation (FEC) on his flash down to a negative value, the range shown on the distance scale on his flash increased. At this point, if you're scratching your...
Have a look at the photos below. They're both taken at the same time and location - however, they both present the scene very differently. The first is your typical location snap - taken hand held at a fairly fast shutter speed because there's plenty of...
The end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next is always an occasion for pause and reflection. As photographers, we have a tendency to assess the development of our work over the past 12 months and to look at the direction we'd...
Some photographers argue that the light meter is an obsolete tool in this age of digital photography. After all, the histogram gives you more accurate and useful information on exposure, information you can use to adjust lighting intensity when shooting with strobes. Others argue that the...