Tag Archives: POTD

POTD: Badlands in the Blue

Blue Hour in Badlands National Park

Badlands Blue Hour
Twilight in Badlands National Park, South Dakota.

It’s no secret that twilight (blue hour) offers amazing colors when shooting landscapes or cityscapes. The Badlands are no exception. You can read how I added the drop shadow effect to this image here.

Tech Specs

Nikon D850 with 24-120mm f/4 AFS G VR Nikkor
6 seconds, f/13, ISO 125
Gitzo 3-series tripod with RRS BH-55 ball-head

POTD: Textured Sneezeweed

royalty-free texture images
Sneezeweed flowers, Crested Butte, CO

I’m enjoying working with my latest set of royalty-free texture images. They work great with flowers and other images where the background is either out of focus or even blown-out.

I captured this image of sneezeweed flowers in Colorado last year on my Wildflower Safari (spaces available for 2018), and I used Adobe Photoshop to overlay the texture image. If you don’t have Photoshop, you can use Luminar to do the texture blending, too!

POTD: Full Moon Over White Sands

White Sands Moon
The full moon rises over yuccas and the gypsum dunes of White Sands, New Mexico (click to enlarge).

I’ve just returned from my final instructional photo safari of 2017, and  things couldn’t have gone any better. My group of 8 photo enthusiasts spent several days shooting sunrises and sunsets at the gypsum dunes in White Sands National Monument. What a place! The simplicity of the landscape there is just perfect for working on improving compositional techniques. We also found out that having a full moon at dusk doesn’t hurt, either.

Tech Specs