Vision and Creativity
by Michael Frye | Jul 27, 2025 | Advanced Techniques, Vision and Creativity
Sea stack and swirling waves, Northern California coast. 55mm, 3 seconds at f/16, ISO 200, ND filter. Timing was vitally important in making this photograph. I made 92 exposures with this exact same composition and camera settings, but only one had this zigzag wave.
Back in early June, before, during, and after our redwoods workshop in Northern California, we had many days with low fog along the coast. That’s somewhat unusual up there. It’s more typical to see the fog layer rise up a bit, where it looks like a low overcast at sea level, but if you can climb higher you might be able to get into the clouds, and into the fog.
That higher stratus deck usually works better for finding fog in redwood groves, since redwoods don’t grow at low elevations near the shore (there’s too much salt spray for them). But I love photographing low fog along the coast, with sea stacks and rock outcrops looming out of the mist. Fog is so common in these coastal areas that photographing these scenes in fog actually seems more characteristic, more typical, than photographing them on a sunny day, or even with a great sunset. I think of these shores as brooding and mysterious, so I like working with weather that enhances that mood.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 15, 2025 | Light and Weather, Vision and Creativity
Sunlight, fog, and redwoods, Northern California
Claudia and I recently returned from two weeks in the far northwest corner of California among the redwoods. And we loved it there, as always. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet.
I love forests in general, including the hardwood forests in the eastern U.S., the conifer forests of Yosemite, aspens in the western mountains, and the moss-draped, old-growth forests of the Olympic Peninsula. They’re all great.
But the redwoods are extra-special to me. Among these giant trees, I feel like I’ve been transported back in time. It’s easy to imagine dinosaurs roaming forests like these – because they did. During the Cretaceous period, the height of the dinosaur’s reign, some 145 to 66 million years ago, ancestors of redwoods were abundant, covering large tracts of the northern and southern hemispheres. If redwood forests seem ancient and primeval to me, it’s because they really are ancient. That earthy smell of redwoods and ferns I notice when I enter a redwood forest was probably familiar to many dinosaurs.
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by Michael Frye | May 26, 2025 | Travels and Stories, Vision and Creativity
Clouds, sunbeams, and mountains, Antarctica. One of the things that surprised me about Antarctica was how bright it was. I expected some dramatic, even gloomy weather – and we got a little of that. But the days were long; it never got completely dark. And all that ice, snow, and water reflected lots of light, making everything luminous. So some of my favorite landscape images of Antarctica capture a bit of the drama of that incredible place, but also show some of the luminosity.
There’s value in photographing familiar places. Whether it’s somewhere near home, or a spot you visit repeatedly, the better you know an area, the better you’ll be able to know where to go under different conditions. And maybe more importantly, you can forge a deeper connection with that place, and that tends to manifest itself in your photographs.
On the other hand, it’s exciting to travel to new, unfamiliar destinations. We only have so much time on this earth, and most of us would like to see as much of this planet as we can while we’re here – if we have the opportunity to do so.
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by Michael Frye | May 9, 2025 | Travels and Stories, Vision and Creativity
Dogwood and mist at sunset, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina. This isn’t a photograph I expected to make. I almost always keep the sky out of forest compositions, and if I see an interesting sunset developing I’ll usually look for a more expansive view. But here I thought the pastel colors in the sky might complement the softness of the dogwood blossoms and lingering mist, and decided to stick with what was in front of me and see what I could do. It turned out to be one of my favorite images from the trip.
Before visiting the Smokies I’d seen many wonderful photographs of the southern Appalachian Mountains by people like Charles Cramer, Christopher Burkett, William Neill, and Nye Simmons. Their images mostly focused on the forests in spring and fall – understandably, since those eastern hardwood forests are so beautiful in those seasons. So I had certain expectations about what I might see, and the kind of photographs I might make, based on seeing their work.
I certainly hoped and expected to photograph dogwoods blooming. But spring came early to the lower elevations, and the dogwoods were mostly done by the time Claudia and I arrived a week before the conference. We did find a few dogwoods still blooming at higher elevations, so I made it a point to photograph those before they faded. But I realized that I wouldn’t be doing much dogwood photography on this trip, so I had to let go of that expectation and focus on other things.
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by Michael Frye | Sep 15, 2024 | Travels and Stories, Vision and Creativity
Sand clouds, White Sands NP, New Mexico
Back in April, on our way to view the solar eclipse in Arkansas, Claudia and I stopped to photograph sand dunes in southern California and New Mexico.
The difference between those two locations was striking. The California dunes were in a remote corner of the Mojave Desert, and we saw only a few other people there. Footprints were scarce. White Sands National Park in New Mexico was teeming with visitors, including many people sliding down steep-sided dunes with snow-sliding devices. While it was nice to see people enjoying the dunes, you had to hike quite a distance to photograph footprint-free sand.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 12, 2024 | Vision and Creativity
Misty evening light along the Oregon coast. I thought a slow shutter speed (1 second) complemented the soft, misty, painterly light in this scene.
If you want to make expressive photographs – ones that capture a mood, or tell a story – then light, composition, and timing (the moment you capture) are usually the most powerful tools in your arsenal. Those three essential elements largely define the message and feeling of a photograph.
But while these tools are vital, they’re not the only ones at our disposal. We also have camera controls, like shutter speed, aperture, and filters. And we can use processing to interpret and enhance the photograph’s message.
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