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    Behind The Shot: Spin Cycle

    Photo By Michael Despines When I moved to Vermont, I had for the first time the opportunity to photograph a New England icon—the eastern moose. My photo project began with “desk research.” I scoured the internet for moose images to get a sense of what was possible. The best images I found...
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    The Allure Of Drones For Photography

    There is a good reason why so many of us have dozens, if not hundreds, of mobile phone photos taken from the tiny windows of airplane cabins. There is an undeniable beauty in seeing our planet from hundreds or thousands of feet above the ground. Patterns and textures that couldn’t possibly be...
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    Take Better Travel Photos

    There are a lot of ways to improve your chances of creating crisp, vibrant and stunning travel photos. These are some of the techniques I teach my guests on my photography tours to places like Japan, Italy, Jordan and Myanmar to help them take better travel photos. Hamnøy, Norway. Fujifilm GFX...
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    Develop An Eye For An Eye In Portraiture, Part 3

    In part 1 and part 2 of this three-part series, I covered numerous considerations of how to develop an “Eye for an Eye” in portrait photography. In this final installment, we’ll take a look at how to make the light work for your portraits, no matter if your subject is people or animals. My...
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    Embrace Your Obstacles In Photography

    An exercise that I often do when I find myself in a creative funk is to review all of the photos that I’ve worked on and shared in one form or another, starting with the oldest. Many times, I’ll pick up on a theme or evolutionary change that invariably sparks my creativity and gets me out of...
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    Using Juxtaposition In Your Photos

    Juxtaposition, or the act of placing two things side-by-side to compare them, is a very powerful compositional tool to consider whenever you’re shooting. I’m a big fan of finding ways to allow compositional elements to contrast against each other. One of my favorite examples of this, especially...
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    The Art Of Seeing, Part 2

    In the first article of this three-part series, we began to explore the “vocabulary” of composition in landscape photography and considered elements of composition such as the “viewer’s path” and aspect ratio. In this article, we’ll continue with additional elements to keep in mind when framing...
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    Tips For Great Sunburst Photos

    Who doesn’t love to see a beautiful, sharp sunburst in a photo? It’s a compositional element that almost always draws wide-eyed reactions from viewers, and for good reason. The inclusion of the sun can be a very powerful element to add impact to your photos, especially when you have fun with it...
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    Try A Photo Study To Focus On Finer Details

    I moved to southern Utah a few months ago and one of the things that I’m most excited about is being able to explore the myriad slot canyons in this area—once the daily temps aren’t high enough to where you can literally fry an egg on the pavement. Of all the slot canyons here, perhaps the most...
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    Get Creative With Natural Frames In Your Photos

    For many years, especially in my early photography days, I didn’t give much thought to the relationship between my primary point of focus and its surroundings. In most cases, it never had much of an impact (or at least I don’t think it did). However, as I grew into landscape photography, the...
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    Develop An Eye For An Eye In Portraiture, Part 1

    Throughout the history of the art world, major changes and advancements have occurred. During the evolution, it’s seen both revolution and realignments. Regardless of the changes, one aspect has remained constant—portraiture has remained a common subject. Starting with petroglyphs of hunted...
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    Make A Wide Shot With A Tele Lens

    Last week, I decided to let one of my favorite and most underrated lenses get some quality time on my camera while exploring a new national forest (well, it was new to me). Lately, I’ve been falling back onto the safety of my wide-angle lenses and I began feeling creatively stifled. So, it was...
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    A Love Letter To My Fisheye Lens

    Next to the tilt/shift lens, I’d wager that the fisheye lens is the most underrated piece of glass, especially when it comes to landscape photography. Sure, it’s probably an unorthodox choice and one that falls pretty low on the list. As landscape photographers, we’ve been conditioned to grab...
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    Try A Telephoto Lens For Landscapes

    I had the good fortune of visiting Italy’s Dolomites region in early 2019 to photograph the winter conditions of that most-impressive mountain range. Historically, my kneejerk reaction to photographing mountains has been to grab a camera and my widest lens available. It makes sense, after all...
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    Tips For Great Aurora Photos

    Of all the naturally occurring phenomena that one could photograph, aurora photos are perhaps the most awe-inspiring. It’s even more impressive when you get a better idea of what this natural light show is all about and where it occurs. In the most basic sense, the aurora is a natural event that...
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    Natural Framing In Landscape Photography

    Natural framing is a popular technique in landscape photography where the photographer deliberately places the primary subject in a position where accompanying elements surround it, highlight it or call attention to it. A connection between the objects framing the subject and the subject itself...
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    Bring On The Bad Weather For Photography

    How does that old saying go, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” I suspect that with landscape photography, you can easily rephrase it around weather. To be honest, I’ve never understood when I’ve heard photographers complain about bad weather and pine on about wanting “beautiful”...
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    Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

    Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, located about 90 minutes south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a dream location for bird photographers. The Rio Grande River cuts through this oasis in the desert, with the bulk of the photo locations in the 57,331-acre refuge located just minutes from...
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    Don’t Forget To Look Down

    A few years ago, in the dead of winter, I took a trip up to the Nordegg, Alberta, region of Canada in hopes of photographing those methane bubbles frozen under several feet of ice throughout Abraham Lake. Every time I saw someone share a photo of that subject, I told myself that I needed to make...
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    Focus On The Intimate Landscape

    I love to make images of the grand scenic. There’s nothing like the warm light of sunrise or sunset to bathe a mountain, desert vista, seascape, winter scene or forest in gorgeous golden color. The dilemma behind this is most grand scenics are iconic and have been photographed numerous times...


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