Featured Download!

Today, for the first time on our blog, we're featuring an image from our FREE wallpaper downloads. We have a wide variety of images available for free downloads from our websites, and we are planning to start posting one here on our blog every now and then. This shot is from Horseshoe Bend in Arizona. The shot, titled Meander, was a finalist in this year's Expose Your World competition. It was also used as one of the cover images for the Competition Winners book.
Horseshoe bend is a popular spot for landscape photographers - but make sure you bring along a wide angle lens. And if you are afraid of heights, forget it. You're looking at a drop of more than 600 meters (about 2000 ft)... no guard rails. Keep kids and pets on a tight leash. ;)
Choose a link below to download this free wallpaper at the appropriate size for your monitor:

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These images are provided for personal use as computer wallpaper or backgrounds ONLY. Copyright belongs to the photographer, and photographs cannot be used, redistributed, or recreated in print or on the web or on any other medium without written permission from the photographer.

Reflecting on Jasper

When the right light and right location come together the results are nothing short of spectacular. While shooting at Beauty Creek we ran into cloud formations that produced some of the most brilliant light display of our trip to Canadian Rockies. I have to give credit to our host Darwin and Samantha for showing us this location. Be sure to check their website (DarwinWigget.com, Chrysalizzphotography) and their blog. Both Darwin and Samantha offer workshops in Canadian Rockies.



To capture this photograph I used a 0.9 Hard Edge GND filter. Because I was shooting looking directly into the sun, even with a 0.9 ND filter I had to bracket my shots. These bracketed shots were combined using our iHDR work flow to bring out the colors and details in both the sky and reflection.

I hope you like the photograph. Please feel free to comment and give me suggestion for improving the photo. Thanks you for stopping by.

-Jay

Ruby Beach

I'm feeling a bit guilty about neglecting my blog this summer. I'm sorry about that. I try to make sure my priorities are in the right place when my children are home from school... and that means that I'm most likely to be found in the pool or the park during the day. I love having my kids home during the summer, but it means that I have very little time for wilderness photography - or updating my website or blog.

I hope you'll all put up with my absences until the end of August, when the kids are back in school. I'll have quite a lot of catching up to do - but I can't complain. This is what life is all about.

I did manage to process a shot a few weeks ago... this one is from our trip to Washington state. Ruby beach is fantastic - and the light was awfully nice that night. :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer - wherever you are.

Sunset

Absolutely bang-on sunset tonight. I couldn't be happier. :) And now... to sleep. 5 am wake up call.

Yellowstone

This shot was taken in Yellowstone National Park near the end of our trip. Storms moved through the region all afternoon and evening, and we saw four or five rainbows in different locations as we drove along. As the sun neared the horizon, we pulled over and parked the car near a beautiful meadow. The kids listened to music in the car, while Jay and I took a few shots. We were rather glad that the sky didn't do this every evening - with the kids along, we wouldn't have been able to shoot regularly.

I shot with a GND filter (click here for a brief explanation of GND filters) - but no polarizer. The GND let me capture the detail in both the shadows on the ground and the highlights in the sky. I nearly always use a GND filter to shoot sunrise and sunset. The dynamic range is simply to broad to be captured otherwise. In some cases, I use a circular polarizer when I'm photographing water. The polarizer cuts through glare and reflection, and allows me to see beneath the water. In this case, I wanted to see the colorful reflection in the water. And, you can't shoot a rainbow with a circular polarizer. The rainbow will disappear. :)