In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Nov 21, 2013 | Digital Darkroom
A creative cloud over the North Carolina/South Carolina border
Adobe is now offering its Photoshop Photography Program to everyone, not just those who own a license to a previous version of Photoshop. This program includes Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC for $9.99 per month. This new offer is only available until December 2nd. (If you own a license to Photoshop CS3 or later you still have until December 31st.)
For people who would like to try Photoshop, but don’t own a previous Photoshop license, this seems like a good deal. In the past you would have paid nearly $700 to buy a full version of Photoshop for the first time. Now you can get Photoshop, plus Lightroom, for $120 per year.
For those who already own a license to Photoshop CS5 or CS6 things are less clear cut. The pricing for this Lightroom-and-Photoshop package is attractive, but you’re still renting rather than owning, and if you stop your subscription you lose access to the software. Many people are choosing to stick with their older versions of Photoshop, since they own a perpetual license and will never lose access to it. I discussed some of the pros and cons of this deal in a previous post. (Be sure to read the comments, as there are lots of interesting thoughts there.)
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by Michael Frye | Nov 19, 2013 | Composition, Photography Tips, Vision and Creativity
Half Dome and the Merced River, 4:28 p.m.
Is it better to be active or static? To change your location and composition to suit the light, or hope that the light changes to suit your composition?
There’s this persistent myth that Ansel Adams would camp for days at one spot, waiting for the right light. Ironically, this myth is often repeated in relation to Clearing Winter Storm, which was made at Tunnel View, only a few miles from his warm home and comfortable bed in Yosemite Valley. In fact Ansel wrote, “I have always been mindful of Edward Weston’s remark, ‘If I wait for something here I may lose something better over there.’ I have found that keeping on the move is generally more rewarding.”
I have also found that keeping on the move is more rewarding. I’ve sometimes regretted moving, but more often regretted staying when I ignored the inner voice that told me the light would be better elsewhere. And when I do find myself in the right place at the right time, I’ve found that it pays to stay active with my camera and my compositions, and not get lazy about changing lenses or camera positions. If I decide in advance what my composition should be, and stick with that no matter what, I’ll probably miss some great opportunities.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 13, 2013 | Photography Tips
Half Dome and the Merced River, late afternoon, autumn, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Ansel Adams used to say that “chance favors the prepared mind.” His point was that photographs like Moonrise Hernandez and Clearing Winter Storm weren’t lucky accidents; he was able to capture those moments because he had honed his eye and his photographic technique, and was able to apply those skills when a special opportunity presented itself.
Last night a private workshop student and I had an opportunity to test our mental preparation. We got lucky, as the sun broke through a layer of clouds late in the afternoon. For 45 minutes we watched and photographed a spectacular light show, with beams of sunlight first illuminating the cottonwood trees along the Merced River, then moving upward to reach the Royal Arches, North Dome, and Half Dome itself.
Every landscape photographer hopes to get lucky and capture a beautiful light display like that. But when it happens, will you be prepared? Will you be able to do justice to the gift that’s presented to you?
The first part of that preparation comes with being in the right place at the right time. Luck plays a role here, of course, but so does the ability to anticipate and predict the weather.
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by Michael Frye | Nov 6, 2013 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
California black oaks in El Capitan Meadow, autumn, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
I’m flying to Dallas today to teach a Lightroom workshop for the Sun to Moon Gallery, but I wanted to give you a quick update on the fall color in Yosemite Valley. And there’s still plenty of color. The yellow big-leaf maples are mostly gone, and the dogwoods are also past peak, but the black oaks were close to peak when I left the valley on Saturday, and the cottonwoods were still at least 30% green. Leaves tend to linger on the oaks, so I expect both the oaks and cottonwoods will look good for at least another week.
I made the photograph above last Wednesday, and if you look closely you can see that there’s still a touch of green in some of the leaves. The image of cottonwoods below was captured on Thursday, and again you can still see some green leaves. It’s not uncommon for these trees to peak in early- or even mid-November in Yosemite Valley. Fall isn’t over yet!
— Michael Frye
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by Michael Frye | Oct 27, 2013 | Advanced Techniques, Photography Tips
Aspens and morning sunlight, Inyo NF, CA, USA
I’ve always felt that the best photographs capture a mood or feeling. It’s easier to convey a mood when the weather gets stormy, but how do you capture a mood on a clear, sunny day? The answer, I think, is to go with it—to emphasize the sun, the blue sky, and the brightness of the day. Find the visual elements that say “beautiful, sunny day,” and highlight them.
One way of doing this is to include the sun in the frame. Nothing says “sunny and bright” like the sun itself. But putting the sun in your photograph brings challenges. First, you’re likely to get lens flare. This is not the end of the world—in fact, many photographs use lens flare to great effect—but sometimes the flare can be distracting. The other challenge is getting the exposure right.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 25, 2013 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Autumn along a creek in the eastern Sierra Nevada, Inyo NF, CA, USA
I just returned home after spending nearly two weeks on the eastern side of the Sierra. It was fun spending so much time among all the yellow and orange leaves, and we had two wonderful groups for our workshops.
We had cooler-than-average weather in September and early October, which set things turning early this year. Despite that, there was still a lot of color around the June Lake Loop and lower Lundy Canyon when we left on Wednesday. This image, from Wednesday morning, shows the diversity of eastern-Sierra habitats, with a creek, aspens, willows, and sagebrush-covered hillside.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 20, 2013 | Digital Photography Basics
Sunrise on a peak in the eastern Sierra, Inyo NF, CA, USA
I made this photograph yesterday morning during my first Eastern Sierra Fall Color workshop. It’s just so beautiful over here! We had a great time, and I’m looking forward to the second one.
With sidelight like this, a polarizing filter can actually lighten a reflection if it’s adjusted correctly. By lightening the refection and darkening the sky the polarizer helped to balance the contrast of this scene, and from there it was relatively easy to process this image in Lightroom using Highlights, Shadows, and the Graduated Filter tool.
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: A Landscape Transformed; Autumn Snow
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Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author or principal photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, Yosemite Meditations for Women, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters. He has also written three eBooks: Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, Exposure for Outdoor Photography, and Landscapes in Lightroom 5: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide. Michael written numerous magazine articles on the art and technique of photography, and his images have been published in over thirty countries around the world. Michael has lived either in or near Yosemite National Park since 1983, currently residing just outside the park in Mariposa, California.
by Michael Frye | Oct 13, 2013 | Photography Tips
Autumn aspens, Conway Summit, Inyo NF, CA, USA
Here are two photographs I made last week near Conway Summit on the eastern side of the Sierra. The first one, above, is from Tuesday afternoon, with soft backlight filtering through thin clouds and making the leaves glow. The second image, below, was made Wednesday morning under overcast skies as the snow started to fall. I used a fast shutter speed (1/90th sec.) to freeze the motion of the snowflakes, which created a faint white dot pattern across the frame.
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by Michael Frye | Oct 11, 2013 | Yosemite Photo Conditions
Bands of sunlight on Laurel Mountain from Convict Lake, Inyo NF, CA, USA
On Tuesday Claudia and I headed over Tioga Pass to Lee Vining. Forecasts called for snow above 7000 feet on Wednesday, so we were trying to get over the pass before the road closed to photograph the snowstorm and its aftermath.
And snow it did. Five or six inches fell at higher elevations on Wednesday, covering the mountains, pines, and aspens. I was like a kid in a candy store; I saw photographs everywhere I looked. I haven’t had time to process or post anything until now because I’ve been spending every spare minute behind the camera, but here are two images from Thursday morning at Convict Lake, and I’ll post more when I get the chance.
Tioga Pass reopened today, so we’re headed back home to Mariposa for a couple of days, but so far the cold and snow haven’t adversely affected the aspens. While the color at some of the higher elevations areas is past peak, many of my favorite lower-elevation areas like June Lake Loop and Lee Vining Canyon still have a mix of green and yellow leaves, so it looks like the color should last a while longer.
— Michael Frye
Related Post: Signs of Autumn
Autumn color along the shore of Convict Lake, Inyo NF, CA, USA
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by Michael Frye | Oct 2, 2013 | Digital Darkroom
Sunset clouds, Tenaya Lake, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Back in June I wrote about Adobe’s new subscription-only model for licensing Photoshop, called the Creative Cloud. Let’s just say that I wasn’t happy about it. But recently, as I’m sure many of you know, Adobe announced a new Photoshop Photography Program. For $9.99 per month you can get both Photoshop CC (Creative Cloud) and Lightroom, and it’s not an introductory price that will go up after a year. That doesn’t mean that it will never go up, but Adobe says that they don’t have any plans to increase the price at this time. (The offer is only available to people who currently own Photoshop CS3 or later, and it expires on December 31st.)
I have to say that this is a more attractive offer. $9.99 per month comes out to less than I’ve been paying for upgrades to both Lightroom and Photoshop. Of course I already own a license to Lightroom 5, so in the short term I’d really be paying just for Photoshop CC. But at least the price wouldn’t automatically go up after a year, and when Lightroom 6 comes out I’d get it for no extra charge.
Unfortunately this program won’t help you if you don’t already own Photoshop CS3 or later. It’s possible that Adobe might offer a version of this package (probably a more expensive version), to people who don’t already own Photoshop, but there’s no word of that yet. You can still buy Photoshop CS6 from places like Amazon and B&H, and that would then qualify you to get this Photoshop/Lightroom bundle, but that’s an expensive way to go, since CS6 is going for more than $600.
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