In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog
by Michael Frye | Mar 12, 2023 | Light and Weather, Travels and Stories
Snowy mountain above salt flats, Death Valley NP, California
I love winter, and I love snow. But when Claudia and I learned that our house might get two or more feet of snow during the last weekend of February we knew things might get difficult.
We’ve lived in our house in Mariposa since 2005, and several times have received eight inches of snow, and once even got ten inches. Our road and driveway don’t get plowed, and feature a couple of steep hills, but with high clearance and four-wheel-drive we can get in and out with eight or ten inches of snow. But not more than that. With two feet of snow we’d be stuck for awhile.
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by Michael Frye | Feb 19, 2023 | Light and Weather, Travels and Stories
Frosted cottonwood, Mono Lake, California
In winter, Mono Lake sometimes gets socked in with fog. Locally it’s called “poconip” fog, though it’s more widely known in parts of the western U.S. as “pogonip” fog (an English corruption of a Paiute word).
The Mono Basin can get quite cold in winter. But Mono Lake never freezes, due to its high concentrations of salt. So on cold nights relatively warm, moist air rises off the surface of the lake, meets that colder surrounding air, cools, and the moisture (water vapor) condenses into microscopic water droplets, forming a low-level cloud – in other words, fog.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 30, 2023 | Announcements
Comet NEOWISE over a Sierra peak, Yosemite NP, CA, USA
There’s still time to register for the Night Photo Summit next weekend, and for the Winter Speaker Series.
The Night Photo Summit online conference takes place February 3rd through 5th. I’ll be joining over 35 other distinguished instructors for this conference, including Albert Dros, Elia Locardi, Royce Bair, Rachel Jones Ross, Katrina Brown, Lance Keimig, Tim Cooper, Susan Magnano, Chris Nicholson, Kevin Adams, and many more. My presentation is about star-stacking – one of the best ways to reduce noise in nighttime photographs.
The first two editions of this conference have been really fun, and I’m looking forward to this weekend! You can learn more and sign up here:
Night Photo Summit, February 3-5, 2023
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by Michael Frye | Jan 10, 2023 | Announcements
I’m happy to be joining the National Parks at Night team for the third annual Night Photo Summit next month!
This will be my third time presenting at the Night Photo Summit, and the previous two have been really fun, so I’m excited to be invited back! This online conference is devoted exclusively to night photography, and I’ll be joining over 35 other distinguished instructors, including Albert Dros, Elia Locardi, Royce Bair, Rachel Jones Ross, Katrina Brown, Lance Keimig, Tim Cooper, Susan Magnano, Chris Nicholson, Kevin Adams, and many more.
I’ll be presenting Reducing Noise With Star-Stacking. Star-stacking is one of the best ways to reduce noise in nighttime photographs. By blending multiple frames together you can average out random noise to create cleaner, sharper images – yet still make the stars points of light, rather than streaks. I’ll be covering the whole process from start to finish, from capturing the images in the field to blending them together later. And more importantly, you’ll learn how this technique can open up new creative avenues for nighttime photographs that wouldn’t be possible with single exposures.
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by Michael Frye | Jan 9, 2023 | Announcements
Sunbeams, mist, Half Dome, and the Merced River, Yosemite National Park, California
Just a reminder that next Monday I’ll be doing a presentation about Lightroom Masking for Nature Photography Classes as part of of their Winter Speaker Series. (That’s Monday, January 16th, at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time.) This winter series also includes online presentations by David Kingham, Nick Page, and Sean Bagshaw – all focused on image processing.
You can sign up for these talks individually for $27 each, or register for all four speakers for $87 (which seems like a great bargain). And 10% of the proceeds go to individual charities chosen by the speaker (I’ve chosen the Yosemite Conservancy):
Click here to register for the Winter Speaker Series.
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