Robert Capa: Normandy. June 6th, 1944.
June 6, 1944 was the allied invasion of Normandy, the largest seaborne invasion in history. 24,000 allied troops parachuted into France shorty after midnight. The next morning beginning at 6:30 am over 150,000 American, British, and Canadian troops landed. There were 10,000 casualties and 4,414 confirmed dead.
Ansel Adams in front of “Monolith: The Face of Half Dome, 1927”. Photographed in his home Dec. 2, 1980.
Ansel Adams was born 122 years ago today, February 20, 1902. He is “the” icon of American landscape photography. Trained as a concert pianist, his love of photography and time spent in Yosemite National Park led him to a career change. Continue reading
12 Sunsets by Ciro Russo
I love this collage. It has gone viral. 12 photos of sunset from the same location, January through December. I found the site that says the photographer is Ciro Russo (he signed the collage twice), but gives no additional information about him. As nearly as I can tell, he is Italian, but I have been unable to find a web site with more details about this set of images.
Jim Cathey Comes Home
This evocative, Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Todd Heisler has been widely shared on the internet. Jim Sheeler’s deeply moving story that accompanies the photo (a Pulitzer Prize winning article) isn’t nearly so widely known. His article follows. Heisler and Sheeler both worked for the Rocky Mountain News at the time.
Today is a terrible anniversary. On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh’s truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 men, women, and children.
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Bill Biggart’s final photograph. He was killed when the second World Trade Center tower collapsed on top of him. He was 53 years old.
John Moore was at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, 2007. He had visited with Mary McHugh earlier in the day. She had come to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of her fiance, James Regan, who had stepped on a roadside bomb a few months earlier in Afghanistan. Later on he saw her laying in the grass and talking to the marble headstone. He captured this image. The whole story is here.
It is with sadness that I note the passing of Patrick Demarchelier. He was one of the best fashion and portrait photographers. He worked with the best of the best fashion models, as well as celebrities. Princess Diana called him “a dream” to work with. When she learned of his death, Cindy Crawford posted an image Demarchelier created of her in India (see below) and wrote: “Thanks for so many great memories and beautiful, timeless images.”
Ansel Adams in front of “Monolith: The Face of Half Dome, 1927”. Photographed in his home Dec. 2, 1980.
Ansel Adams was born 120 years ago today, February 20, 1902. He is “the” icon of American landscape photography. Trained as a concert pianist, his love of photography and time spent in Yosemite National Park led him to a career change.
California Golden Poppies, Fremont California. April 3, 2001.
Quite by chance I spotted some California Golden Poppies on the campus of Ohlone College in Fremont California. This was an unexpected treasure. I stopped in a nearby parking lot, put a 15mm semi-fisheye lens on my camera, put my camera almost on the ground and started shooting up at the flowers with the sun in the background. The side of my head was in the dirt as I looked up through the camera’s viewfinder to get things lined up. Tim Fitzharris gets some credit for inspiring images like this.
Joseph Wachira, a keeper at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, says goodbye to Sudan before he died in 2018. Sudan was the last male Northern White Rhino in existence. He became, for a while, one of the most beloved animals on the planet. Weighing 2,000 pounds, he was as docile as a Golden Retriever. People came from all over the word to see him, to touch him. Then they would return to their cars and cry. He is survived by Najin and Fatu, his daughter and granddaughter, the last female Northern White Rhinos.
“In-Camera Compositing with Canon Explorer of Light Lindsay Adler”
This is your chance to see how an exceptionally good portrait photographer works in the studio. Even if you don’t have expensive studio gear, you can learn a lot about using lights and working with your subject.
I was aware of some of Peter Lindbergh’s famous images, like “5 Supermodels” but I did not know until recently that Peter Lindbergh is the photographer that created those images. This documentary is about Lindbergh and his work and you see a number of his stunning images.
This series of articles is devoted to several photographers and one painter that inspire me. Some of them I have known for decades. Others I have discovered in the last few years. Books by and about them line my bookshelves. Each article has examples of my work and their work. That does not mean I am as good as they are. But I keep trying. Their work has somehow become a part of me. We can all learn from people who do such outstanding work.
Northern Lights over Lake Michigan, August 15, 2015.
I was leading a photography workshop in Northern Michigan and we were out on a night sky field trip at Lake Michigan. We started seeing some flickering in the northern sky which developed into this display of the Northern Lights. It was a great night at the lakeshore.
Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park. December 30, 1990.
Few photographers have had as much of an influence on me for as long a period of time as Galen Rowell. When I became seriously interested in nature photography I read his articles in Outdoor Photographer and his book Mountain Light was one of the most important books in helping me up my game as a nature photographer. I still consider it one of the three most important books any budding nature photographer should read. So my first visit to Yosemite was like a trip to the Promised Land and I felt like I was walking in Galen’s footsteps.
I was working in the studio with the beautiful Lela Rae. This is an example of cross lighting which creates nice contours and shadows. There is one light to her left and one to her right, almost directly opposite each other. I decided to use colored gels over the lights which I thought would enhance the look of the image..
This jumping spider is one of my favorite closeup images. The full story story (with photos) behind this image is here and begins in a garden center and ends in my front yard.
This is one of my all time favorite images. The whole story behind the capture of this image is here. I have several people to thank for providing me with the skills to create this image, one of the most important in terms of bird photography advice being Arthur Morris.
George Lepp is directly responsible for this image and he was standing just a few feet away from me as I clicked the shutter. There is a story leading up to this trip and the capture of this image.
I was walking our dog Sunny and he wanted to go to a nearby park. The park was filled with dandelions and a few puffballs. I was soon down on the ground creating images of dandelions.
It was a beautiful winter morning and Bob (my brother-in-law and photo buddy) and I were up long before sunrise to capture the early morning light at the Grand Canyon. It was our good fortune that it had snowed a bit overnight. The light was beautiful. With the coming of the sun the snow disappeared, as did the magic of the light.
The Maroon Bells is considered to be one of the top scenic photo locations in Colorado, and it certainly one of the most popular. The Maroon Bells and Maroon Lake are a stunning sight by both day and night (photo below).
The windchill was -40° Fahrenheit at Wildlife Prairie Park. It was bone chillingly cold, even with Sorel Pac boots, thermal underwear, and layers. I had to take a break about once an hour or two to warm up. But it was worth it.
My brother-in-law, who is also my photo buddy, were at Brainard Lake in Colorado. It was a cloudy day so we were photographing wildflowers. I was hopeful the clouds would part for a nice sunset but that did not happen.
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I have been a fan of Edward Weston for decades. Late in the fall of 2007 I saw an announcement that January 1, 2008 would mark the 50th anniversary of Weston’s death, was fast approaching. I wanted to do an homage in honor of his work. Lela Rae is an art model who is also a Weston fan so we decided to work together to create some images similar to some of Weston’s classic images.
A couple of months ago I did not know who Peter Lindbergh is, but I did know some of his famous images, like his famous photo of five super models (see below). I just didn’t know that Lindbergh was the photographer.
I was driving north on Vermont Highway 7A and came to this cemetery and chapel near Shaftsbury Vermont. Dark clouds were quickly coming in from the west and the sun was rising in the east.
Over the last several years I have developed an appreciation and love for the paintings of Andrew Wyeth.
Dorothea Lange, one of my favorite photographers, is famous for several iconic images, “Migrant Mother”, California, 1936, being one of the most famous.