I can’t even begin to tell you the anguish I endured as a result of being attacked by sand fleas while shooting this image. After the initial attack, I probably had over 100 bites on my arms and legs. I asked everyone for remedies…grocery store owners, friends, Mayan mystics…you name it. They all offered preventive measures. However, it was too late. The damage had been done. Do you have any remedies for sand flea attacks?

Photographer’s Note – This is a single image shot with the legendary Nikon 14-24 2.8. The little light sparkles are a result of a dirty lens. Everything shows up on that bad boy. I wanted to clean it, but I was under attack. But I’m not really a stickler for that kind of stuff anyway. When you post as many photos as I do, and try to encourage others to make some magic of their own. A little lens flare just adds interest to the adventure. Right?

Howdy! I hope you all are had a great weekend. The weather has been beautiful here in Colorado. Today we are looking at the famous Fisher Towers just outside of Moab, UT. I thought I would share them with you to illustrate the use of a polarizing filer. IF you are new to photography, you are might be considering which filter to get. If I had to pick just one, it would be a polarizer. I actually forgot mine on this trip, but my man Mark Garbowski lent me one. Thanks Mark! Below is the non-polarized version. What a difference! One thing to note about polarizers…they will make your sky very uneven looking on really wide lenses. Hope that quick lesson helps you on your own creative adventure.

Howdy! Sorry for the slight delay today, I was a concert last night. More specifically I was at my Mom’s concert. The final one of the season. It was full of pyrotechnics and 80s super rock ending. Well, not really. It did have guest artists which were simply amazing. These kids played with incredible passion. A middle school girl on violin and a sophomore boy on cello. To say they were amazing is an understatement….they were both testaments to human potential.

Photo Notes – I posted a few instagr.ams from this week. I wanted to let you know that I have been sharing photo tips over on IG. IF you are an IGer, you’ve seen my tips. However, if you’re not, you can follow me through their relatively new web interface:

http://instagram.com/justinbalog

The tips are quick hitters, and I hope they help you on your own creative adventure. I’ll see you back here on Monday. Get out there and make some magic my friends!

The is my man Bob Lussier. He recently sent me a cool photo for my ‘about me’ page, so I thought I would share a photo that I shot of him while we were at #nXnw 2013. Bob has many claims to fame, but the fact he can run a sub three hour marathon, pretty much makes his a super hero in my book. Make sure to check out his work here.

I haven’t posted much from Denver lately, so I decided to go waaaay back into the archive today. This is the famous Ship’s Tavern, which is the quaint little pub in the world famous Brown Palace. A must see while visiting Denver.

Photographer’s Note & Other Geeky Stuff – When I’m shooting at night, I try to overexpose my images. Partly because the camera will tend to underexpose them. Even if I lose some detail in the highlights, I can easily recover that information in Lightroom. What it does give me is an information rich file to work with. This allows me be creatively style my night scenes with Nik Filters. Hope that helps you on your own creative journey!

Ahh….California Street in the mystical City By The Bay. Oh how I love San Francisco. The architecture, the sea, the people….I love everything about this great city. You can easily walk around and see iconic landmark after iconic landmark. I actually conducted an experiment when I was there last. I walked around town for a week shooting with exclusively with my Nikon D700 and 28-300 VR. Well, that and some iPhone. You can read about the experiment over on my review of the Nikon 28-300 VR.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and Mother’s Day. We spent the day planting flowers and it was awesome…because my mom is awesome!

Today’s Photo

I will often go through these little mental exercises where I try to imagine all the stories of the world both past and present. In all honesty, it freaks me out a bit. It’s overwhelming to think we have our own story to tell that is just as cool as every other story being told. Billions of stories happening simultaneously. Each one as genuine as the next. The exercise feels a bit like Leibniz’s feeling he described about standing on the precipice of infinite greatness and infinite smallness (paraphrased). I wonder what this gentleman’s story is. I photographed him in a local Belizean market where he was trading vegetables with another farmer. Sure, we could say he is a framer…but life, his life, your life, our lives are much more than that.

Howdy everyone! These are a few iPhone images from last week’s trip to the National Parks of Utah. They were all processed using Snapseed. If you missed the Snapseed video I did for the good folks at Google, you can watch it here (make sure to visit the site to see the embedded YouTube player).

Free Workshop! I wanted to let you know I will be giving away a few hundred free passes to my Snapseed course on Udemy.com next week in my newsletter so make sure you sign up. Click Here to sign up. It’s totally free, full of cool stuff and I promise to never spam you!

For the long time visitors here you know that I have a passion for SCUBA diving, and that passion manifests itself as encouraging others to do it! Trust me, you will fall in love with it instantly. SCUBA diving is the closest you will come to being an astronaut. Although, private space travel is making it easier. The cool thing about diving is you don’t have to go very deep to see really cool things. I shot this image around 15 feet. When you are diving at 15 feet, you can stay underwater for almost two hours, or as long as your air will last. Being weightless, surrounded by amazing creatures for that long is an experience you will never forget.

Also, I thought this image might make a cool desktop for the ocean fans out there. Just click it, then click the size you would like about the image, the set it as your desktop. I hope you enjoy it and it brightens your day!

Do you ever step out, just after you order dinner, to shoot some photos of the restaurant? I’m guessing many of my friends that visit here do. We like that kind of stuff. This is the Almond Beach resort in Hopkins Belize. I had just ordered some food and decided it would be great light to shoot a photo in. I think these types of photographs are fun. Sure, they aren’t going to win photo contest, but who cares about that. Going out and adventuring around is fun and then, when you process them (which might be a year later) you will have all those fond memories of the adventure rushing back to you. THAT IS COOL! I guess the reason I’m sharing this is to remind you, don’t just photograph the grandscapes. Photography is about your life. Your life is unique and beautiful so make sure you take some pictures!