Notes To My Mother

In my blog last week , I talked about my first day in Iceland and left the story when we arrived at Hraunfossar water falls. But that was by no means the end of our first day in Iceland. Just up stream from Hraunfossar is a really cool area called Barnafoss. The width of the river is narrower, deeper and swifter than at Hraunfossar. After shooting Hraunfossar I wandered up stream and found this little gem. My only regret is that I did not climb down the bank you see in the shot above and get a better composition with the water coming into the gorge. Just below this area the water moves swiftly and has carved out some very interesting contours. By the time I had finished with this shot it was getting pretty late and we had a long way to go to get back to Reykjavik, though none of us actually knew how far or which way to go exactly. The Storm Arrives We headed west knowing we should be able to find our way to highway one, the ring road that goes all the way a

If you take a flight to Iceland, chances are it will arrive around 6:30 am. Two friends and I met up there last year, one from Florida, one from Denver and me from San Francisco. We all arrived within 20 minutes of each other, right around 6:30 am. This meant we flew all night and had a full day ahead of us, so we decided we would stay up, make the most of that day and then get a good night’s sleep before embarking on our planned travels. Area Adjacent to Blue Lagoon Pools We wanted to photograph Hraunfossar, a beautiful set of waterfalls northeast of Reykjavik, so rented a 4x4 Jeep from Blue Car, took a quick trip over to the Blue Lagoon to photograph there.  Afer a couple of hours at the Blue Lagoon, we set off for Hraunfossar, not completely sure of which way to go, we decided to go northeast to Pingvellir and from there north on highway 52 to 550. Wide Open Spaces Image Taken with Tripod in the Wind.  We had no idea how desolate these roads were nor how de

What follows pertains getting sharp images in landscape photography not sports or action photography. These steps will apply any time you are shooting on a tripod, and from my view that applies to almost every time you are shooting a landscape. Coulter Bay, Jackson Lake                   Use a Tripod The first guideline is to use a tripod. Not just any tripod, but one that is sturdy enough to hold your camera steady in whatever conditions you plan to shoot. If you will have the legs of your tripod in moving water, or if it is windy, the sturdiness of the tripod becomes very important. Also, if you are using a long lens (powerful magnification) the need for a steady tripod increases. To test this out, put your camera with a long lens in live view and zoom in as far as you can and watch the screen. Now reach up and press the shutter release button.  Watch to see if there is movement. I was amazed at how sensitive my 400mm lens was to the slightest disturbance. With a stu

If you haven’t heard the term, “god rays”, it refers to those streams of light that emanate from the location of the sun and stream in all directions into and through the scene in front of you. Mostly we see these rays streaming down, but you will find situations where they are streaming in all directions. It all depends on the conditions present in the scene. Kapaa Beach In the image above taken on Kapaa Beach in Kauai, you can see that the rays are shooting up as well as down. The rays are visible because they are lighting up particles in the atmosphere. The light is filtered, that is, the light is interrupted by clouds in portions of the image and that is what gives the rays definition.  Take away the clouds and leave the particles in the sky and you would see what would look like a hazy glow. For an image like this one I recommend you use a tripod, turn off image stabilization, use mirror lockup or shoot in live view, use a hand held remote or your 2 second timer.  Me