In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Jun 11, 2014 | Photography Tips
Fog at the mouth of the Klamath River, Redwood NP, CA; 30 seconds
The far northern coast of California has many wonderful, wild coastal areas, providing great opportunities to make moody photographs of ocean scenes. It can be challenging to photograph these scenes, however, because things are constantly changing. In addition to that usual variable – the weather – you have to think about the tides and movement of the waves. Timing can be critical for catching a wave, or pattern of waves, in just the right position, and sometimes you need a lot of patience to wait for the right moment.
Any moving subject – including waves – can lend itself to using slow shutter speeds. With ocean scenes, the blurred motion created by slow shutter speeds can convey a sense of motion more strongly than a frozen image would, or give the water an ethereal quality that adds to the mood of the image. Here’s a small portfolio of my slow-shutter-speed ocean photographs from before, during, and after our workshop, with the shutter speeds included in the captions for each image.
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by Michael Frye | Jun 8, 2014 | Workshops
Sunbeams and corona in a redwood forest, northern California, USA
Claudia and I have been up in the redwood country, in far northern California, for the past two weeks. We had such a great time during my Mystic Forest workshop. Like last year, we stayed at the Requa Inn, with its great food, relaxing atmosphere, and beautiful views. We had a wonderful group of people, and I already miss the energy of the group learning and photographing together. And we had great weather, with lots of fog! Here’s one image from our first morning, with the sun breaking through the fog and creating a spectacular triple corona. I’ll post more photographs soon as I get time to process them.
— Michael Frye
Related Posts: In Redwood Country; Back From the Redwoods, and the Lightroom 5 Release
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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 | May 26, 2014 | Photography Tips
Setting sun, Tuolumne Meadows, 7:39 p.m. Thursday (as the sun sank behind the ridge)
Last week some unseasonal showers reached Yosemite. The showers didn’t bring heavy amounts of precipitation, but enough snow fell at higher elevations to temporarily close Tioga Pass and the Glacier Point Road.
On Thursday the Tioga Road reopened. Since Claudia and I are heading up to the northern coast of California soon for my redwoods workshop, we thought this might be our last chance to go up to the Yosemite high country for awhile, so we decided to drive up to Tuolumne Meadows for the afternoon. There were still some clouds and showers in the area, so the prospect of some interesting weather made the idea even more enticing.
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by Michael Frye | May 18, 2014 | Photography Tips
Minnehaha Falls, GA; 1 sec., f/16, ISO 100
Waterfalls are abundant in the southern Appalachians. It seems like you can hardly throw a stick without hitting one.
Of course I’ve spent the last 30 years in Yosemite, which might have the most spectacular collection of waterfalls in the world. But they’re different. Yosemite’s waterfalls are big and dramatic, and often leap hundreds of feet in a single drop. The waterfalls in the southern Appalachians are smaller, more intimate, and more complex, often containing multiple tiers and channels. This complexity can make them both more challenging and more rewarding to photograph – challenging because there’s rarely an immediately-obvious composition, but rewarding because once you start looking you might find a dozen or more good compositions in a single cascade.
During our last trip, one of the first places we visited was Minnehaha Falls in northern Georgia. Since this fall is on the cover of two different waterfall guidebooks it seemed worth checking out. And we weren’t disappointed. Minnehaha is graceful enough to lend itself to overall views, and intricate enough to offer many smaller-scale compositions. The day was overcast, which is often ideal for these kind of waterfalls. I spent an hour and a half there working just one side of the cascade before we had to move on.
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by Michael Frye | May 11, 2014 | Light and Weather
Rainbow and Looking Glass Rock from the Blue Ridge Parkway, NC, USA
On our recent trip to the Carolinas Claudia and I visited the southern section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and what a treat that was.
Before our trip I asked my friend Charlie Cramer about the area, as I knew he’d spent some time there, and he told me he loved the southern stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and pointed me toward some good areas for dogwoods. He also put me in touch with his friend Nye Simmons, author of Best of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Nye generously gave me some photography suggestions over the phone, as well as an advance copy of the Photographer’s Edition of Best of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was a great resource. I’m not sure when this edition will be available, but I highly recommend it to photographers visiting the Blue Ridge Parkway, both for the information and the photographic inspiration. And for further inspiration, check out Nye’s beautiful coffee-table book, Blue Ridge Parkway Celebration (see a preview here, or order from Amazon here).
During our first day along the parkway, while scouting for our workshop, it was raining off and on, and at higher elevations the road climbed into the clouds, where we encountered thick fog. It was interesting to stop at some of the viewpoints the parkway is famous for and not be able to see more than 50 feet. But I loved it, because interesting weather makes interesting photographs, and I relished the opportunity to photograph trees in the fog.
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