I recently took a trip into the Humboldt county redwoods park. Avenue of the Giants! Absolutely incredible visuals. To think, some of these trees were alive while Christ was on earth and while the pyramids were being built. Wow! Naturally, I brought my photo gear for some ancient forest photography.

I made a huge mistake in the beginning ... I forgot my tripod! I couldn't believe it! I had to work with limited options. For landspace shots, you want a small aperture to maximize your depth of field. Anywhere from f8 to f16 would be great for super wide to standard telephoto lenses. Unfortunately, I could barely get above f4.5 (and that's with ISO800 and 1/60sec shutter speed!)

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I've read a lot of magazines talking about lighting up landscapes at night for some dramatic shots. Same goes for macro photography! The key is to take many shots with different lighting angles, because you never know which shot is the winner until you pull it up on the computer screen. A few obvious things have to be observed when shooting nighttime macros:

• Manually focus your shots
• Use long exposures (tripod is an obvious requirement!)
• Observe the wind conditions carefully
• Flashlight is required

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I love the 4th of July. It's a great holiday. It's the United States birthday, people light off fireworks, and we have backyard barbecues! When I think of photographing fireworks, I usually think of the big ones. This year we had the small variety (California approved) ... the whistler, phantom, tuber, snake, jack rabbit, snow ball, golden shower, and on and on and on! I decided to grab my Canon Rebel XT and try out photographing the light show in various apertures and shutter speeds (hand held).

The interesting challenge in photographing fireworks is the tradeoff between long shutter speeds and dynamic range. The fireworks are bright, VERY bright. Too long of a shutter speed and you get huge over-exposed spots. Too fast of a shutter speed and you only capture specks of the explosion.

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I took this photo back in May on a short sunset hike. I wanted to shoot the oak trees in a field next to Folsom, CA. When I pulled this photo up in Aperature, I really felt like it captured the feeling of fatherhood.

My brother in law, Jason, was holding his 3 year old daughter while we were hiking in the field. (more...)

I had to share this photo. It's my cat Merlin giving "I'm going to whoop your ass" eyes. I love how black & white can show so much personality. In the raw format, it's a boring photo that lacks contrast. In B&W, BAM! It pops, and makes a statement. (more...)