This past month I’ve begun revisiting my black and white collection. I’ve even been trying some new concepts and ideas with some of them. It’s come as a result of seeing some work that I was familiar with, but seeing it again at this point in time struck me with more motivation and inspiration than when I had originally looked at it.

One such example was Nick Brandt. A friend had posted on his Facebook profile yesterday a link to his work, and while I was already familiar with it, I didn’t really appreciate it until I looked at some examples again yesterday. While I certainly enjoyed the work I saw, it was one specific photo that caught my attention and had me more motivated than ever to try some new things. It’s interesting how you might simply like the way someone’s work looks at one point in your life, then you’re all of a sudden reminded of it years later and for whatever reason, it resonates with you. I believe this has much to do with your own personal evolution in whatever craft or field you choose to put emphasis in. As you grow in that particular field, your overall knowledge expands on the subject, and something that appeared interesting initially may have seemed too impossible at the time for you to accomplish, so simply admired it and continued at your own pace. In sticking with it, however, you learn more. In learning more, you evolve. In evolving, you find more inspiration in the works of others because once you have a firm understanding of all the tools at your disposal, it’s only then that you can experiment with a certain process that you feel might assist or even act as a catalyst in your own work. Perhaps it’s a similar concept as to why painters begin creating more impressionistic and/or abstract work once they’ve shown themselves that they can paint any scene realistically.

After seeing Nick Brandt’s work again yesterday, I felt the urge to revisit some of my recent wildlife shots, since prior, I have rarely had any inspiration to convert my wildlife shots to black and white. Using a few different techniques that I wouldn’t normally employ, I came away with a couple of new black and white photos that I really enjoy. I feel that there’s a certain depth and focus there (more so than the obvious) that the originals didn’t quite capture. Is it something you see too, or do you prefer the originals?

A bison makes its way through snow in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Many people think that just because they learn how to operate in Manual mode (M), that they need to keep it there to get the best shots. I can’t even begin to tell you how many great photos I would have missed if there were any truth to that.

The simple fact is, the other modes are there to help you get important shots when time is a factor, such as with wildlife. I’ll certainly use M if I have the time to set up something like a landscape. If I’m out shooting wildlife, however, I keep my camera set to Time Value (Tv), also known as Shutter Priority. This way, if I happen upon an animal, my camera is already set to a shutter speed that I know I can hold steady for crisp shots. Then all I need to do is pick up the camera, start shooting, and let the camera figure out the aperture. The ISO I’ll typically set on my way out the door depending on weather conditions or when conditions are changing.

Another handy trick is to reprogram some of your buttons. It may sound scary and too uncomfortable to bother with at first, but the benefits enormously outweigh the disadvantages. On most cameras, the default method for achieving focus is to push the shutter button halfway down. If an animal is moving toward you, or at some kind of diagonal direction, this means that by the time you push the shutter down, your shot will already be out of focus. Most cameras nowadays will allow you to set different functions for your buttons, thus allowing you more flexibility when you need it most. On my Canon 7D, I switched the AE Lock button to be my focus button. I combined that with switching out the Depth of Field button to switch the focusing mode to AI Servo. Since I normally leave it on One Shot by default, I can now instantaneously swap focusing modes to capture action should a bird take flight, for example, or if I didn’t even see it coming, as was the case with the above photo. Had I not had these settings ready to go, this shot would not exist.

It takes a little practice, but it’s a new combination that when done repeatedly will feel completely natural. Another advantage to swapping out the functions for the buttons is that now you can hold down the focus button and it will constantly focus, allowing you to snap away all you want and get the shots that make it all worth it.

Learn it, use it, and have a great weekend with it!

In a place like Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, it’s very easy to get spoiled by the amount of wildlife you can capture along the road. It can make for exciting drives, but at the same time it can veer us away from the entire reason we’re out looking for wildlife to begin with.

The next time you’re out looking for a wildlife shot along the road, or even just a nice landscape, pull off of the road and turn your car off. If possible, get away from any highway noise and traffic. Get out of your car, and then wait. Within minutes, you’ll hear birds beginning to chirp, followed by other forms of nature that were waiting for the intruding noise to go away: coyotes howling; elk bugling; etc. Once you hear it all, you’re reminded of why you were driving around looking for another shot to begin with. It’s that reconnection with nature that we’re all after; the photos we capture serving as a reminder of a particular sublime moment in time with it.

Getting out and hiking, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing is, of course, much more fun than driving around. Sometimes, though, we’re just out for a short while looking for a quick shot. The Internet, however, has spoiled us into expecting things instantly. Naturally, nature doesn’t always comply with that. Instead, sometimes your best shots come from just sitting with nature and allowing the shot to be revealed to you through patience and appreciation for why you’re out there to begin with. Most of the time we’re only taking advantage of one of our senses to find a shot. Open your other senses up and get them involved in the process.

The next time you’re out driving around, looking for something to shoot, get away from traffic and main roads, turn your car off, get out, and allow nature to show you a shot by simply appreciating that you have that natural area to get away to in the first place.

A full month has officially passed in 2012. How are you resolutions coming along? Are you lulling yourself back into your habitual patterns, or are you moving forward, full-steam ahead with exciting plans to change your life for the better? Many people don’t feel accomplishing your goals is possible because of "today’s economy."

"Today’s economy" is a phrase that I typically avoid because it paints a very bleak picture with little hope for anyone outside of the elite rich. If you look a little closer though, you see much more going on than just businesses all over the country collapsing.

While you certainly do see large businesses taking a significant hit, you also see something amazing happening with individuals: sole proprietors and smaller, locally-owned businesses are thriving! Even in just photography, you see more photographers than ever successfully pursuing their passions, among many other fields. You can even see it outside of the creative realm; employees of larger companies simply quitting because the call of being self-employed is simply too tempting to ignore. With so many people making a successful transition as well, the fear of failure is also diminishing.

So what is going on here? If the economy is really collapsing, then how come so many self-employed people are thriving the way they are? It’s simple. I personally see "today’s economy" as the world simply changing the way it does business. You can see that companies that don’t fully grasp the Internet and social media are the ones that are getting left behind. What does that mean for you? It means there has never been a better time in history to follow your dreams and pursue your passion because thanks to the diversity of life on the Internet, there is now a market for absolutely any kind of niche you might have. Coupled with social media practices that, compared to marketing practices prior to the Internet, take hardly any time to learn, you have any and all opportunities just waiting for you to pounce on them. Every creative idea "in today’s economy" has enormous potential for success. Even Allen Murabayashi of PhotoShelter believes that this is the golden age of photography.

As John Muir once said, "The power of imagination makes us infinite." We’re now one month into 2012. What are you doing to accelerate your business and life? Where are you going to allow your imagination to take you in "today’s economy"?

For those of us who are either near or farsighted, glasses are a very nice convenience when you don’t feel like bothering with contact lenses, nor do they wind up irritating our eyes after a certain amount of time. Despite the conveniences though, I’ve become much more motivated to wear contacts more while shooting out in the cold after yesterday’s experience.

My plan was to drive up into Grand Teton National Park to do a snowshoe hike to try to catch a few landscapes and hope to have a run-in with a critter or two. I parked at my eventual destination and found my roommate there looking into the trees with his camera, so I knew he had spotted something of interest. Sure enough, he was fixed on a great gray owl in the trees who flew back toward the base of a hill just as I had gotten out of my car. I figured I could postpone my hike for a few minutes to try to get a good shot the owl, so I snowshoed in a bit to get a better fix on him. He had perched himself on a relatively low branch, making for great photo opportunities in that sense, but had apparently chosen to take a nap.

Being dressed more for exercise in 20 degrees rather than standing in 20 degrees, I began to feel the cold making its way through my layers, and was about ready to leave for a hike, when I realized that my roommate and I had already been standing there for two hours waiting for it to move. At a certain point, you realize you have too much time invested in an animal, so your priorities begin to shift so that you don’t miss the opportunity that you sat (or in my case, stood) around waiting for. Two hours turned into three, which turned into four. At four hours (which oddly enough seemed to go by quicker than you’d think), I opted to try to find a different angle as I saw some light breaking through the clouds and hitting his side. I was able to get a few great shots with the light and noticed his eyes eventually beginning to open, which prompted his head to begin looking around much more. Since the largest opening was back on the other side, I anticipated that he’d fly from over there, so I made my way back, and moments later he turned around on the branch, scouring the landscape that was previously behind him.

Approaching five hours now, I moved around some trees to be right in front of his path because I was now determined to get something from all the waiting. After all, seeing a great gray owl fly is a very beautiful action to witness, but watching one take a nap does tend to get boring. With my excitement beginning to build back up, I made my way nearby him, but was still close enough to a tree to not be obstructing him should he choose to fly in my direction. With my fingers now approaching numbness even with gloves, I did my best to keep them warm between getting some closeup shots and zooming out in case he would choose to fly. Over and over again I practiced feeling the buttons I would need to have my fingers ready to push to alter my settings should he fly out: AI Servo mode, focus, and of course, the shutter. I even left my lens zoomed out so I was ready in every case to catch it, or so I thought.

Finally, he began to perch up and sure enough, he spread his wings and took flight! I had everything set on my camera just right to catch him and all that practice while waiting was paying off. To make it even better, he was flying directly toward me. Despite the overwhelming optimism I was feeling, I was still able to keep everything under control in the fractions of a second that were passing as he left the branch. There was one thing I hadn’t accounted for though: with my camera pressed firmly against my left eye, my glasses began to immediately fog up. Almost as soon as the owl left the branch, the scene was a complete blur and I lost him as he blended with trees and brush in the background broken up with large white splotches of snow. The above image is the last image that came out in focus before he dropped a couple of feet and realizing I had lost him, I pulled my camera down just a bit to see what had happened and noticed out of the corner of my eye, him flying within one foot to the right of my head. It was bittersweet as the rush of getting buzzed (for the second time in a year) by a great gray owl made me giddy, but missing the best of the shots of it were a bit upsetting.

Nevertheless, I was very happy to see this shot come out beautifully, and I learned a valuable lesson about wearing glasses in freezing weather. If you aren’t blessed with 20/20 vision and you live in a cold climate during the winter, you may want to keep that in mind.

It’s easy to enjoy receiving feedback from others, and in many cases, it provides helpful tips and techniques to help us evolve. There are times, however, where we let other peoples’ opinions dictate how we should be following our passion. Consistently following their advice, no matter what their rank or recognition or how well-meaning they mean to be, can be detrimental to your work.

The title of this blog post could be misinterpreted to mean create a body of work that awes and inspires them, rather than giving them something to critique. Yet I don’t mean that at all. When I say "silence your critics," I mean let them say whatever they want, but don’t let somebody else’s subjective opinions define how you should express yourself.

You’re working in your way because you have your own voice to share. When someone says that you should follow process A, or make your work look more like Role Model B, then that completely contradicts the entire reason you’re trying to establish yourself in the art world. Every single person has their own unique way of portraying their passion through their work. When you allow others’ feedback to alter that flow of creativity, then you’re stalling on the evolution of your own body of work simply to make one other person happy. It’s ok though. Eventually you’ll learn that you can’t please that one person no matter what you do, and soon enough you’ll learn that there’s no point in pleasing anybody with your work because they’re all going to want you to express yourself the way they wish they could express themselves.

I’m not saying don’t ever take feedback. Sometimes somebody has a tip that might help you evolve in a quicker way than you would have. What I’m saying is just don’t begin creating work to please somebody else. It’s your art and your expression. Every single person is here to express themselves in their own unique way. "So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." (-Mark Twain) Do so in the way that feels the best and most appropriate to you, and you’re much more likely to leave something that lasts for ages.

I have a few good friends who occasionally allow me the opportunity to plug in to their longer lenses. During this time, it’s tempting to get as much as I can from one of those lenses, even if it might not necessarily be the best lens for the specific scene.

Prior to today, winter had seemed to be put on hold as temperatures were unusually warm, rising into the 20s and 30s, melting what little snow was already on the ground. Flat Creek in the National Elk Refuge was certainly no exception. Normally completely frozen over, an area just outside of town was mostly thawed out, attracting many birds and smaller wildlife that normally move to more open water. Otters in particular have been spotted fairly regularly now, attracting a growing fondness from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Animals like these are particularly tempting to use the longest focal length on, but as you can see from the above image, wouldn’t make nearly as interesting a photo.

The above image was taken at 320mm on my Canon 7D, using a 100-400mm lens. Had it been taken on a 600mm, it would have completely cropped out the entire top portion of the photo, which is one of the key factors that makes this photo so interesting. The otter itself might not be as big as it would be in a 600mm, but there’s still plenty of information for you to see what it is, as well as put it into perspective of its habitat.

Before you plug into a larger lens, check a few compositions to make sure it’s the right lens.

We’re now fresh into a new year, and perhaps it’s just the energy surrounding such a point in time, but I feel, like many, to push the limits of what I was able to accomplish last year. It might be just another day, but with it representing such a long period of time, it’s used almost as a placebo to reinvigorate change in our lives. It causes many to reflect on what they did or did not accomplish in the prior year and reevaluate their goals, both short and long term.

In reflecting back on my last year, I found it to be successful, but I saw a great deal of room for improvement. While I was often out on my own, there were certainly times where I procrastinated in doing more and venturing out to find my own wildlife experiences just in case I were to get word of a specific sighting, mostly grizzly bear, from a friend in close proximity. This year I intend to go out into Grand Teton National Park with a different attitude, which is simply, you can’t rely on friends to create opportunities for you, no matter how close to you or well-meaning they are. It’s one thing if you’re on your way in that general direction, and they tell you about something you were already heading toward, or vice versa, but it’s another thing to sit around all day waiting for something to happen. Instead, life is much more exciting when you simply get out and start creating your own opportunities and experiences!

I have everything in place to make this year much better than the last by doing just that, and I have no intention to hold back on any of it. What are some things you plan on doing to make this better?

Just something to think about for the new year.

Turn pretty much anywhere and you can find hype of "the end of the world." Is there really anything to be worried about, or is it just Y2K all over again? My opinion based on what I’ve read about the Mayans (which was quite a bit a few years back) is what follows.

The world as we know it will, in fact, end on the winter solstice of 2012. However, this does not mean that the world will end, nor civilization or anything like that. Anybody who says the contrary is probably just trying to sell you a movie ticket you’ll regret accepting, or something along those lines. The accurate translation is that our fear-based way of life that has persisted for thousands of years will end, ushering in a new era of cooperation and love-based mindsets. In fact, it’s already started. Compare the last 20 years with the last 200 years. Look at all the revolutions that have taken place and the way advertising has shifted to reflect this, just to name a couple of examples.

It’s not that one day, we’re going to wake up on the winter solstice of 2012 and see a completely different world. Instead, what’s happening around us today and in the years prior is leading up to a revolution in our consciousness that will climax on that date. You can see examples all around us: revolutions in the Middle East; the Occupy Wall Street Movement, fed up with how secretive governments operate; advertising based on love rather than fear; and much more.

So, is this what’s actually going to happen? No one knows for certain. This is just what I believe based on what I’ve read and I’ve certainly seen enough evidence to account for it, but we all have our own points of view. My advice to you is, if it really is the end of the world, then live like it’s your last year on Earth. If everything keeps going into 2013 as I’ve described, or even unchanged, then you’ll not only have had best year of your life, but you’ll also have a good blueprint for continuing that enjoyment.