Behind the Scenes

A number of years ago Jim had a delightful photo session with five Siberian husky puppies. This one, in particular, would strike amusing poses, so Jim had a lot of fun capitalizing on his attitude. The puppy tolerated the sunglasses for just a couple of seconds, but he was able to get this shot of him reclining on the bench looking like Mr. Cool. The terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea is behind a hotel in Salobrena, Spain, and the cat Jim had also photographed in Spain. All three of these elements were photographed with film, and each 6x7cm transparency was scanned...

Long telephoto lenses produce dramatic images with a large sun. It's a powerful visual look, but there are two important technical issues to keep in mind. First, depth of field is very shallow with a 500mm telephoto like Jim used here. That means if you want the sun sharp as well as the silhouetted tree and leopard, a fairly small lens aperture has to be used. Second, even if you are using a tripod (or in this case a bean bag), a fast enough shutter speed is required to ensure a sharp image. With that much magnification, the slightest movement degrades the...

In eastern Oregon there is a very unique park for landscape photography. It's called John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The land forms and the unusual colors of the minerals that make up the dirt are amazing. To embellish this alien-like landscape, Jim added an ultra-dramatic sky in Photoshop (this is why you need to learn Photoshop instead of relying on Lightroom for post-processing -- LR is too limited). Jim photographed these very angry clouds from his home the morning TN had a Biblical flood in Nashville, Tennessee in 2010, and then he added the rays of light.

Jim had the opportunity to photograph 7-week old Siberian husky puppies this past weekend. It was so much fun. He'd never had puppies who were so cooperative. Sure, they squirmed around a bit, but mostly they would stay where they posed them. It takes 2 or 3 helpers to arrange the dogs, push them together, and if one of them is hidden by another, that has to be fixed. To make it easy (and because Jim was lazy and didn't want to st up an indoor studio), he photographed them on his 'puppy bench' that I bought for $50 in Indonesia. Jim placed the bench on...

This is an African white pelican in Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. Jim rarely likes blurred pictures of birds in flight, but he experimented at the lake hoping to get something artistically pleasing. What is particularly interesting about this picture is that the pelican was flying past tens of thousands of pink flamingos. That's what comprises the colorful abstract background, and that's why he tried a different kind of technique here. Jim lowered the ISO to 100 and closed the lens down to f/18 in order to end up with a shutter speed slow enough to create this kind of blur. The shutter speed...