In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
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
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to this blog and get every new post delivered right to your inbox!
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 | Jan 14, 2013 | Announcements, Workshops
Aspen grove, late afternoon, Lee Vining Canyon, Inyo NF, CA, USA
If you’re not subscribed to my email list you missed the announcement of my Eastern Sierra Fall Color: Composition and Creativity Among the Aspens workshop next fall. We had such a great response to this offering that it sold out the first day! But the good news is that we decided to run a second edition of this course from October 20-23, 2013, and there are still a few spots available.
I made the accompanying photograph during the first edition of this workshop last October. We photographed this aspen grove late in the afternoon as the lowering sun backlit the yellow leaves. This was my favorite image from that spot, but I saw many interesting, unusual compositions by everyone else that afternoon, both on the back of people’s cameras and later during image reviews. You can see some of the participant’s photographs in this Flickr group.
(more…)
by Michael Frye | Dec 26, 2012
The drive from Yosemite Valley across Tioga Pass is a two-hour journey to another world. Meadows and waterfalls turn to sand, sagebrush, and the alkaline waters of Mono Lake. Plateaus of dense conifer forests give way to canyons filled with quaking aspens. The confined beauty of Yosemite Valley opens out into long, empty horizons.
During the twenty-five years I’ve lived in the Yosemite area, the “eastside” has been my second home. During the brief five months that Tioga Pass is open each year I photograph these striking and diverse landscapes every chance I get. And each October I make at least one pilgrimage to those canyons full of yellow aspens.
All images are available as prints. Please visit our print ordering page for available sizes and prices.
by Michael Frye | Oct 24, 2012 | Vision and Creativity, Yosemite Photo Conditions
Backlit aspens, Saturday afternoon
Mike Osborne and I just completed our Eastern Sierra Fall Color workshop this past weekend. It was a lot of fun—wonderful people, beautiful weather, and lots of color.
The focus of this workshop was composition and creativity, and it was great to see the participants growing and learning during the class. I saw a lot of beautiful compositions and imaginative ideas on the back of people’s cameras and in the evening image-review sessions.
One of the things we talked about during this class was the creative process. This process varies from one person to another, of course, and can also change depending on the situation and subject. Sometimes—especially with my nighttime work—I plan out every detail in advance. At other times—particularly if I’m in what Mike calls a “target-rich environment,” with interesting subjects and light—then I tend to work quickly, reacting to the changing light and photographing whatever catches my eye at that moment.
The accompanying photographs show a small demonstration of that “reactive” process in an aspen grove on Saturday afternoon. When we first arrived at this spot the trees were in the sun, and the backlit orange leaves against the blue sky were a striking sight. We all tried different compositions—looking up, looking into the sun, using both wide-angle and telephoto lenses. Of my own images, I ended up liking the wide-angle frame at the top of this post the best, with the sun about to dip behind the background ridge.
(more…)
by Michael Frye | Oct 2, 2012 | Announcements
Redbud reflection in the Merced River
This is just a quick reminder that I’ll be participating in the Sierra Art Trails open studios event this weekend. I’ll be at Casto Oaks Fine Wine and Art in downtown Mariposa Friday through Sunday, so if you’re headed to Yosemite or over to the eastern Sierra I hope you’ll stop by and say hello!
I’ll be showing a wide variety of work, including classic daytime landscapes, nighttime photographs, and high-key images. This is my first time doing an open-studio event like this, and during this weekend only I’ll have special pricing on prints that have been returned recently from galleries and museums, so this is a chance to get one of my limited-edition fine prints at a discount. I’ll also have my small matted prints available, plus signed books and posters.
And if that’s not incentive enough, Casto Oaks will be offering free wine tasting, and 10% off all of their wines during Sierra Art Trails, including their 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2012 San Francisco Chronicle Gold Medal winner.
The $18 Sierra Art Trails catalog is your admission ticket for the weekend, and includes information about all 108 artists and maps to the studios. You can purchase a catalog at Casto Oaks, or at one of the other locations listed here.
Hope to see you this weekend!
—Michael Frye
Related Posts: Art and Wine in the Sierra Foothills, October 5-7
(more…)
