Announcements
by Michael Frye | Jun 29, 2012 | Announcements, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Many people have been asking me when the new edition of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite will be available. Well as I write this an actual, real, physical copy is sitting on my desk. It’s an advance copy, which means it was shipped by air—the rest are on a boat from China, and should be here and on bookshelves in about a month. So the wait is almost over!
The new edition has three new locations, and completely revised and updated information for the entire park. You’ll find new tips specifically designed for digital photography, including Digital Camera Settings, White Balance, Exposure, and HDR and Exposure Blending, plus Depth of Field, Filters, Night Photography, and much more. Most of the 100+ photographs are new too, and the reproductions are excellent—a pleasant surprise for an inexpensive guidebook.
Of course I’ll let you know when the book goes on sale. And if you can’t wait, or prefer the convenience of having all the information in your smart phone or tablet, all the information in the new book is in the iPhone and iPad app.
Thanks to all of you who have purchased The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite over the years. So many people have taken the time to let me know how much they love the book, and I really appreciate that. I hope you’ll like the new edition just as much!
A Note to Subscribers
I’m using a new service (AWeber) to send out blog subscriptions, so if you subscribe to this blog by email you might notice that the format looks a little different when you view this post in your inbox. You don’t need to do anything; if you already subscribe you’ll continue to get the posts by email. Thank you so much for subscribing!
—Michael Frye
Related Posts: The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite iPhone App is Available Today!; The iPad Version is Here!
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He 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 | Apr 15, 2012 | Announcements
Unfiltered Object #4 by Jeff Grandy
Planning to visit Yosemite in the next few weeks for the waterfalls and dogwood bloom? While you’re there, stop by The Ansel Adams Gallery and see the current exhibit by Jeff Grandy, featuring prints from his exquisite Unfiltered Series. The show will be on display until May 10th.
Jeff is a long-time friend, and I’ve always loved his classic landscape images, but this new work of his is quite different. He’s focused on the colors and textures of water, and created a series of abstract and imaginative images. You can see some samples on Jeff’s website.
There will be reception for the artist April 21st from 3:00-5:00 and I plan to attend. Hope to see you there!
— Michael Frye
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBooks Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom, and Exposure for Outdoor Photography. He 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 | Mar 7, 2012 | Announcements, Digital Darkroom
Redbud and oaks, Merced River Canyon, processed in Lightroom 3
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that I’m a big fan of Lightroom. It’s easy to use, yet powerful, which makes it a great tool for both beginning and advanced photographers. I teach workshops about Lightroom, and wrote an eBook about it, because I think it’s a tool that can help many photographers. Personally, as Lightroom’s processing tools have grown more sophisticated I’ve used Lightroom more and more and Photoshop less and less.
As many of you probably know, Lightroom 4 went on sale yesterday. In this new version Adobe has completely revamped the Basic panel, with significant improvements in highlight and shadow recovery. I’ve already used the beta version of Lightroom 4 to take advantage of those improvements. For example, I was able to get smoother transitions around the sun in one of the photographs from this post (“Ross’s geese taking flight at sunset”).
The Basic panel tools have completely changed in both operation and behavior, which may require some modifications in they way we work in Lightroom. I’m looking forward to exploring these new tools, and telling you about my discoveries, but unfortunately I’ve encountered a frustrating roadblock—a bug in Lightroom 4 that causes all of my Tone Curve settings for images previously processed in Lightroom 3 to disappear! All I see is the default Tone Curve for the camera, and, since I do most of the tonal adjustments for every image with curves, my images look rather flat (the accompanying images show one example of this). And I don’t want to re-create the curve for thousands of images!
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by Michael Frye | Feb 22, 2012 | Announcements
In case you didn’t catch this yet, I was interviewed about Horsetail Fall for NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday. You can listen to the piece here. All I can say is that they did a good job of editing this! It was a lot of fun and quite an honor to be on this premier radio program.
—Michael Frye
by Michael Frye | Feb 16, 2012 | Announcements, Photography Tips
Exposure for Outdoor Photogoraphy
I’m pleased to announce the release of my second ebook: Exposure for Outdoor Photography.
In photography, creativity and technical skill are both essential. It’s great to have a wonderful eye and imagination, but no one will appreciate your genius if your images are washed out and blurry.
The most essential technical skill a photographer must master is exposure. On the surface, exposure seems easy. It’s simply a matter of making the image bright enough—not too dark, and not too light. But the endless variety of light makes exposure challenging. No two situations are the same, so there can be no exact formula for getting the right exposure. On the other hand, exposure doesn’t need to be overly complicated. The fundamental controls—shutter speed, aperture, ISO, light meters—are easy to understand.
Previously on this blog I’ve written about some of these fundamentals, like reading histograms and adjusting exposure. In this ebook I start with a more comprehensive discussion of these essentials, 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.
Like all Craft & Vision ebooks, Exposure for Outdoor Photography is normally only five dollars. But for the next four days you can get it for only four dollars. Just use the code EXPOSURE4 at checkout. Or use the code EXPOSURE20 to get 20 percent off if you buy five or more Craft & Vision ebooks—including my previous volume, Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom.
Exposure for Outdoor Photography is temporarily unavailable. Stay tuned for updates on a revised version.
—Michael Frye
Related Posts: Light & Land eBook Available Today!; Digital Photography Basics: Reading Histograms; Digital Photography Basics: Adjusting Exposure
Michael Frye is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He is the author and photographer of The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite, Yosemite Meditations, and Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters, plus the eBook Light & Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom. He 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 | Jan 6, 2012 | Announcements
The votes are in, and here are my top ten photographs for 2011 as chosen by you, the readers!
The response was truly extraordinary. 225 people looked through my initial selection of 41 images and posted their picks here on the blog, on Facebook, Google+, and by email. My deepest thanks to all of you who took the time to look through these photographs and voice your opinions. I really appreciate your help in making these difficult choices! And thanks to my most excellent assistant Claudia for tallying all those votes and running the print contest.
Did I say contest? Yes! We were so blown away by the response from all of you that we wanted to express our appreciation by giving away a print. We assigned a number to everyone who voted and used a random number generator to pick the recipient. And the winner is… (drumroll please) Earl Robicheaux! Earl will receive a signed, numbered, matted 16×20 print of his choice from among the 41 original selections. Congratulations Earl!
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