Announcements
by Michael Frye | Nov 15, 2014 | Announcements
I know many of you have already purchased my ebook Exposure for Outdoor Photography, which I greatly appreciate – thank you so much!
If you don’t own this ebook yet, now is your chance to get a copy at a great price, because Craft & Vision has just put it on sale. Until midnight on Tuesday, November 18th, the book is half price – only $2.50! No discount code is required.
In this ebook I start with a comprehensive discussion of exposure fundamentals like shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and reading histograms, then go deeper by taking you through ten practical, real-life examples where I’ve used these basic principles to control the exposure, the sharpness, and the photograph’s message.
The examples go from easy to complex, and include using a histogram to find the right exposure, controlling depth of field, freezing and blurring motion, when to push the ISO, spot metering and the Zone System, and HDR and exposure blending. I also include several exercises to help improve your technique. It’s a concise, easy to understand, yet comprehensive course in mastering the most important skill in photography.
Again, no discount code is required – you just have to place your order before midnight on Tuesday. Click here to order your copy!
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: New eBook: Exposure for Outdoor Photography; My New eBook is Now Available!; Digital Photography Basics: Reading Histograms
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, Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers, 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 has 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 27, 2014 | Announcements, Digital Darkroom
El Capitan and the Merced River after an autumn snowstorm, Yosemite. In the excerpt from Outdoor Photographer magazine I take readers step-by-step through processing this high-contrast image in Lightroom.
It’s not often that Outdoor Photographer magazine excerpts an ebook, so I was pleased when they asked to run an excerpt from my Landscapes in Lightroom 5 ebook in their December issue. Although printed copies of the magazine won’t be available until mid-November, you can already find the online version here.
The excerpt is from the fourth example in the book, showing step-by-step how I processed this high-contrast image of El Capitan in Lightroom. Due to space constraints they couldn’t run all the screen shots and illustrations from the book, but I think they did a great job of including the most essential ones.
If you don’t have the ebook yet, the Outdoor Photographer excerpt gives a good taste of what you’ll find, although of course the ebook has much more: five more step-by-step examples, in-depth discussions of the tools and workflow in Lightroom’s Develop Module, eight accompanying video tutorials (including one about using the Graduated Filter tool that goes with the excerpted chapter), and links to download the original Raw files for hands-on learning as you follow along with the examples.
To purchase the ebook, just use the Add to Cart button below, or click here to find out more.
And to everyone who has already purchased the ebook, thank you so much! I really appreciate your support, and all the kind words many of you have sent to me about the book.
— Michael Frye
Landscapes in Lightroom 5: The Essential Step-by-Step Guide
PDF ebook with video tutorials
87 double-page spreads
14.95
by Michael Frye | Sep 4, 2014 | Announcements
In the early 2000s, my wife Claudia – then manager of The Ansel Adams Gallery – saw the need for small, inspirational books for the Yosemite visitor. She worked with Steve Medley, the president, publisher, and editor for the Yosemite Association (now Yosemite Conservancy), to find meaningful quotes about nature, conservation, and Yosemite, and pair those quotes with my photographs to create the original Yosemite Meditations book. Since then, Yosemite Meditations has gone through several reprints, and spawned two companion volumes: Yosemite Meditations for Women, and Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers.
Now the Yosemite Conservancy has released the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Yosemite Meditations. Again, Claudia did a great job of finding and pairing new quotes and photographs, mixing them with favorites from the first edition, and keeping the spirit and flavor of the original book.
If you order the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Yosemite Meditations directly from us through the “Add to Cart” button below, Claudia and I will both sign the book. You can also order directly from the publisher, the non-profit Yosemite Conservancy. In addition, the Conservancy has a 10% discount on Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers as their Retail Item of the Month (enter the code ADVENTURE on checkout).
There’s a nice review of the new edition of Yosemite Meditations on VividLife. Also, if you’re on Goodreads, we’re giving away (through the generosity of the Yosemite Conservancy) ten copies of this tenth anniversary edition.
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by Michael Frye | Jul 27, 2014 | Announcements
El Portal Fire from the Glacier Point Road; 1:51 a.m., 7/27/14
We had no inkling that anything was wrong until we reached Crane Flat, where a ranger told us the road down to Yosemite Valley was closed.
Claudia had said that the wildflowers were nice in the Yosemite high country, so we decided to go for a hike up there yesterday afternoon. We drove through El Portal sometime between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m. and continued up the Big Oak Flat Road to Crane Flat. Everything seemed normal. Near Yosemite Creek we passed the Dark Hole Fire. This is a lightning-caused fire that the park service is letting burn, but it looked pretty active yesterday afternoon, with a big smoke plume.
We continued on past Tuolumne Meadows, started our hike, and found some gorgeous wildflowers (you can see a photograph below). Then we returned to the car, and started home at about 10 p.m. Near Yosemite Creek I decided to stop and photograph the Dark Hole Fire (below), then we continued west back to Crane Flat, where we saw a ranger vehicle blocking the road down to Yosemite Valley.
We were surprised that the road was closed, since we’d just driven up it a few hours earlier. The ranger let us through, since we had a park sticker, but he told us there was no stopping, and to watch out for fire crews. Fire crews? We knew these crews weren’t for the Dark Hole Fire, as that was miles away, and still pretty small. What had happened?
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by Michael Frye | Jun 30, 2014 | Announcements
Storm clouds over Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
Within National Parks is room – glorious room – room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve.
— Enos A. Mills
Exactly 150 years ago, on June 30th, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, giving Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to the state of California to be preserved. This is the first instance of park land being set aside specifically for preservation and public use by action of the U.S. federal government, and set a precedent for the 1872 creation of Yellowstone as the first national park. (Yosemite National Park was created in 1890 to protect the lands surrounding Yosemite Valley, and in 1906 the valley and Mariposa Grove were returned to the federal government and incorporated into the national park.)
Photography played a vital role in the creation and passing of the Yosemite Grant legislation. The public thought that the early stories about Yosemite Valley were exaggerated, and drawings and paintings could be manipulated, so people only began to appreciate the magnificence of the valley when they saw proof in the form of photographs by Charles Weed and Carleton Watkins. Watkins’ photographs of Yosemite were displayed in the halls of Congress, and may also have been shown to president Lincoln by Senator John Conness. (You can see an exhibit of Watkins’ photographs at Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area through August 17th.)
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by Michael Frye | Jun 18, 2014 | Announcements
Yosemite has long attracted adventurous people who come to climb, hang glide, ski, or hike through its rugged, wild terrain. Our latest book, Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers, celebrates this spirit of adventure with 45 of my photographs, paired with inspirational quotes about adventure and wild places from people like Galen Rowell, Bill Bryson, Terry Tempest Williams, Yvon Chouinard, Edward Abbey, John Muir, Cheryl Strayed, Lynn Hill, Ron Kauk, and many others, plus a forward by Royal Robbins.
This is the third book in the Yosemite Meditations series, following the original Yosemite Meditations, and Yosemite Meditations for Women. As in the previous editions, my wife Claudia did a great job of editing the book, finding great quotes, and pairing them with the photographs. You’ll find a few sample pages below.
You can hear a bit more about the new book in an interview I did for the Valley Edition show on KVPR, Fresno’s public radio station. The show aired yesterday, but you can listen to it online at their website (my segment starts at minute 28 and lasts about ten minutes).
If you order Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers directly from us through the “Add to Cart” button below, Claudia and I will both sign the book(s). You can also order from the publisher, the non-profit Yosemite Conservancy, or from Amazon.
We hope you like the book, and really appreciate your support! We also want to give our thanks to the Yosemite Conservancy for their continuing commitment to publishing high quality books about the park, and for all the great work they do to help Yosemite.
— Michael Frye
Yosemite Meditations for Adventurers
Hardcover with jacket; approx. 6×5 inches; 96 pages
9.95
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