Woodland Park HS Photo Club

I had the priviledge of presenting a segment on "Improving Your Composition" at the Woodland Park High School Photography Club last February. I always enjoy the chance to share my passion for nature photography with others. Photos by Josh Tracy.

Garden of the Gods - Part 2

Here's one more shot of gateway Rocks with storm clouds brewing behind.

Garden of the Gods - Saturday, April 15th

Garden of the Gods Park is located just at the western edge of Colorado Springs and is a favorite shooting location among local and visiting photographers. Here's a good reason why shooting in rainy weather can pan out with unexpected results. I left home very early and it was sprinkling pretty hard. As I drove down Ute Pass towards the Springs, it turned torrential. I was hoping to catch a nice sunrise, but I really started to wonder as I drove along. By the time I arrived at the visitor center parking lot, it had stopped raining, so I waited (patience is a virtue for nature photographers, they say!). Soon, the rocks started to glow faintly. Then the sun peaked through a narrow opening in the clouds and just lit up the rocks! Everything else was left in shadow.

I decided to create a panoramic by taking a sequence of five overlapping images and stitching them together using a low-cost piece of software called Panorama Maker 3.0. This program does a wonderful job in figuring out just where to assemble the separate images. After a final crop, I used Photoshop to back off the saturation in order to match what I remember seeing, opened up the shadows slightly with the Shadow/Highlight control and gave it a little sharpening using Unsharp Mask.

Here's the result. Nice 'eh?

Rent your lenses!

Here's a nifty idea. Why buy an expensive lens costing several hundred (or thousands) of dollars that may only be used a few times, when you can rent one for one, or more, weeks for a fraction of the cost? Rent Glass (www.rentglass.com) currently has several Canon lenses (Nikon coming soon) at very moderate rental prices. No big telephotos, though. Check 'em out...

Nature's Best Photography Experience - Denver

The Nature's Best Photography Experience is coming to Denver this coming April 9th! This educational seminar is being presented by Blue Pixel. Instructor Daniel Cox is a profesional nature photographer whose images have appeared in Nature's Best photography, National Geographic and has appeared on Animal Planet a number of times. For more info: http://bluepixel.net/naturesbest. Price for the full day seminar is $149 for on-line registration or $169 at the door.

Daniel was one of the keynote speakers at the recent NANPA Summit and his presentation on his grey spotted owl project was spectacular.

Balanced Rock Lightpainting

Here's a shot of Balanced Rock in Arches N.P. taken last Feb. where I seriously tried my hand at light painting for the first time. I used a $20 battery-operated spot light and set the camera for a 30 second exposure in manual mode with an aperture of f4. The white balance was set to incandescent. Notice the constellation Orion just above the rock. I swept the base of the rock to give a sense of "base".

With digital, it's so very nice to be able to check your shot immediately for these unusual lighting situations. It turned out that with a shutter speed of 30 seconds and sweeping the light constantly during that whole period, the exposure seemed just right.

One variation I'll try for the future is to leave the shutter open for 1 to 2 hours in order to pick up the "star trails". I think that would look very cool.

Try it some time!

Malaysian Sunrise

Here's a sunrise I shot out the window of my hotel in Palau Penang, an island just off the coast of Malaysia and a popular location for a lot of U.S. electronics manufacturers. I didn't fool with the color adjustments at all. These are accurate representations of what I saw. I believe the highly pastel coloring was due to the high humidity level. Both images were taken with the new Canon 5D with (believe it or not) a Tamron 28-300mm at around 200mm. JPEG Fine and manual exposure. There was so much water vapor in the air, you could literally stare at the sun without any problem. It was like shooting through a very dense "tobacco" filter. And yes, near the equator, the sun really does rise straight up and sets straight down! Enjoy, Ken

Images of Greatness

While perusing through my local Big Lots store (don't ask!), I came across the book, Images of Greatness - An Intimate Look at the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, by Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza. This is a classic coffee table book and portfolio of one of the photographic greats. This normally $35 book was being closed out at $1.99. It's worth grabbing.

"Golden River" image featured on NANPA home page

One of my two images accepted for the 2006 NANPA Showcase was selected to be displayed today on the home page of the NANPA website!

2006 Seminar and Tour Schedule Posted

I just posted my 2006 seminar and tour schedule today. The next seminar will be the ever popular Digital Photography in Nature the evening of March 7th. Sign up through the Woodland Park Parks & Recreation Dept. at (719) 687-5225. For details on this and the others, go to: www.wyattphoto.com and click on "seminars" or "tours".

NANPA Summit

The NANPA Summit this year was held in Denver and I thought it one of the best yet. The weather was pretty decent all week. Sat in on a terrific seminar on creative photography, taught by Tony Sweet. Also attended Rob Sheppard's How to Write Magazine Articles - another very good one.

I was ready to plunk down $1k for a panoramic setup and new Arca-Swiss-style clamps for my two tripods, but neither Kirk, nor Really Right Stuff showed up this year, so I walked away with a Canon 5D (full frame 12.8 megapixel) digital body and a couple lenses instead. Hunt's just made me an offer I couln't refuse!

It was fun meeting many old friends and making new ones. Next Summit will be held in Palm Springs, so mark it down on your calanders.

Returned from Arches/Canyonlands and NANPA Summit

I just returned from the Moab area where we toured around some good friends from Canada. We made several trips into Arches and the Island District of Canyonlands to photograph. The routine was get out on location before dawn - shoot sunrise - return for breakfast - head out again (with wives this time) for more shooting and scouting - stay long enough for the sunset - then return for a late dinner. Then repeat! Although temps were on the cool side, we had a great time shooting - and no crowds! Pictures will be posted soon.

From Utah, we headed back to Colorado Springs to spend the next morning shooting in Garden of the Gods Park - then headed up to Denver for the week to attend the NANPA Summit. This one was one of the best ever and will deserve it's own article.

Last Call! "Where on Eartha" Challenge

Last call for entries in my replay of Delorme's "Where on Eartha" challenge... See posting under Jan 2 for details. The winner who guesses the closest by Jan 31st wins one of my 8x10 prints of their choice.

Adorama Academy

It's been a while since the last time I checked the Adorama Academy Web site and if you haven't been there, it's probably time for a visit.

There's a huge number of short tutorial articles on various aspects of photography. For example, many of you have requested more information on flash techniques. They also have a lot of interesting Photoshop techniques. Take some time to check it out!

http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?op=academy

Tim Grey's Digital Darkroom Questions

If you'd like to learn more about Photoshop printing techniques, you need to subscribe to Tim Grey's free (almost) daily Digital Darkroom Questions (DDQ) email newsletter. Tim used to work for George Lepp's Digital Photography Institute, but recently found employment at Microsoft as their digital photography expert. He currently manages Microsoft's "Pro Photo" part of their Web (link below).

Pictured is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniac (l) and Tim Grey (r), who both attended the Portland NANPA Summit in 2004.

Tim will be leading a day-long digital workflow seminar at the Summit in Denver (www.nanpa.org) this coming February.

To subscribe to DDQ, go to http://www.timgrey.com/index.htm.

Microsoft pro Photo Web: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/default.mspx.

Nikon School

The Nikon School is again holding two day-long workshops in Denver this year. I took this course a few years ago and was quite impressed with the level of instruction. I felt the cost was well worth it. Best of all, you don't need a Nikon camera to participate! :-)

• Nikon School of Photography: Introduction to Digital SLR Photography, Denver, Feb. 11, 2006. Cost $119. Includes Nikon School of Photography Handbook, Nikon Guide to SLR Photography and Nikon Guide to Digital Photography.
• Next Steps in Digital Photography: Streamlined Workflow Techniques, Denver, Feb. 12, 2006. Cost $159. Includes Nikon School of Photography Handbook and Nikon Guide to Creative Lighting techniques.

For further info, check out: http://www.nikonschool.com/. I'd advise registering quickly, as these sessions sell out fast.

National Geographic Traveler Workshops

As an avid traveler all my life, I've subscribed to the National Geographic Traveler Magazine for many years now and like it better than any other. They really do a first-class job!

When I heard they were going to hold a series of workshops all around the U.S. in partnership with Santa Fe Workshops, I jumped at the chance to learn from the masters. As I'm getting closer to retirement from my "day job", I expect to be writing more travel articles. We "baby boomers" are all about to enter retirement over the next few years and I believe there will be an insatiable demand for good quality travel information.

For more info check out: http://santafeworkshops.com/traveler/index.cfm. I'll be participating in the photo workshop in Houston (March) and writing workshop in Santa Fe (June).

Looking forward to having you younger folks help support my passion! :-)

Colorado Nature Photographers

I've been a member of the Naturephotographers.net (www.naturephotographers.net) for some years now - and recently joining the regional Colorado Nature photographers group. This is a group of serious amateur and professional nature photographers - most living along the Front Range area. They get together for improptue photo outings all year long. If you'd like to join a group of friendly like-minded folks, I'd encourage you to check out their forum section. If you join, you are also given an area to post your portfolio. They may be found at http://colorado.naturephotographers.net/index.shtml.

Their annual get together is happening Jan. 28th at 5:30 pm up in Denver. Check out the details on the forums section!

NANPA Deadline Extended

LATE BREAKING NEWS! - NANPA Earlybird registration extended through Jan 13th!

2006 NANPA SUMMIT - NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association) is a group of amateur and professional nature photographers, as well as representatives from the photo industry and photo editors. Each year we all get together for a week-long c! onference (or Summit) in various parts of the country - held around January or February. This year, it will be held in Denver!

I'd urge you to seriously consider participating in the program this year. You'll find numerous seminars presented by some of the biggest names in the business. There will also be a trade show with most of the major manufacturers displaying the latest photo equipment (genberally at discount prices!), along with photo tour companies and many others. Every day there will be keynote speakers and evening programs. You will also have a chance to network with others of similar interest, as well as neighboring with some of the big names in nature photography.

Check out the program at www.nanpa.org. The cost may seem a bit pricy at first, but I've found this conference to be well worth it. Early-bird pricing ends January 13th, so get registered right away!

Photo Stamps

Were you aware there was a company that will take your image and print a set of real postage stamps? Obviously, there's an extra charge for this, but for those "special" people in your life, cost is no object - right?

Check out: www.photo.stamps.com for more info...