Photography

Dormant Oaks, Winter Mists Dormant Oaks, Winter Mists. Yosemite Valley, California. February 23, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved. Dormant oak trees silhouetted against winter morning mists and cliffs, Yosemite Valley, California This is an alternate version of a photograph that I shared earlier. Back in February I was in Yosemite Valley briefly for the opening of the annual Yosemite Renaissance exhibition, and this gave me one day to photograph there in interesting conditions. While the most familiar images of the Valley for most people probably involve waterfalls and spring or summer sunshine on granite (with a few well-known exceptions!), my favorite conditions involve snow, clouds, mist, and perhaps even a bit of rain. All of those were present on this day! I was up quite early, and since we stayed in the Valley it was only a matter of taking a short walk and I could begin shooting. For a place that can be impressively or even depressingly crowded at certain times of the year, it is possible to find near-solitude on a cold and wet winter morning just before dawn, even in places that would typically be quite crowded during popular times of the year. In fact, this photograph was made from a shuttle bus stop not far from Yosemite Falls! I had been photographing nearby meadows and trees when the mist turned to sprinkles and then to rain, and I went to the shuttle stop to find temporary cover under its roof – only to realize that some interesting shots might well be possible from under this shelter! G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell. Photographs, text and other media in this RSS news feed from the G Dan Mitchell Photography blog are © copyright G Dan Mitchell - all rights reserved. This web site news feed is for personal, non-commercial use only.

This was one of my first lightning pictures, and t ...Lightning strike!

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Understanding a camera's shutter speed will improve your photography. This explanation of fast and slow shutter speed, and how they work with the aperture, really will help you take better photos!

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Georgia O'Keefe (Hands), by Alfred Stieglitz. Sold for $1,470,000 in 2006. - "The rich are different from you and me." "Yes, they have more money." —Attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway respectively but not quite accurately. Of the 19 most expensive photographs sold to date, two are by Alfred Stieglitz and two are by Edward Weston. Also represented twice each on the list are Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, and Cindy Sherman. One is a "recontextualized" copy photograph, one a tatty old tintype of a mythical criminal, one a portrait of a famous art-world celebrity, and one a perfectly nondescript nature shot. At least one was extensively digitally manipulated. An interesting list. For one thing, the numbers aren't bunched; the dropoff from #1 ($4, 338,500) to #19 ($609,600) is pretty steep. (Sorry, I don't know what that concept would actually be called in proper economics terminology.) It strikes me that money = power and so large sums of money command a respectful attitude generally, which is somewhat difficult to look past in the case of just one picture. When a sale record is set, people tend to scrutinize the picture with great curiosity to see what might be there that they might not be seeing. Looked at collectively, however, one thing seems pretty clear: there's no hidden wisdom there. The art market has no better an idea of what constitutes a good photograph than anyone else does. It is no better at distilling excellence into a small sampling than any given collector, curator, or savant with a point of view would be. The list encourages a different conclusion: that value is ultimately a temporary and arbitrary confluence of chance and circumstance. Why that Atget, that Sherman, that Gursky? Well, because someone who had that much money to spend wanted it that much at that time, that's why. Mike(Thanks to Red Dog News) Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. TOP's links! (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from: No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

Yesterday we published a post from Hailey Bartholomew with Tips for Taking Portraits that Reflect the Character and Spirit of Your Subject that gave me the theme of this weeks challenge. Your challenge is to take and share an image on the theme of ‘Spirit’. Feel free to approach the theme in any way that you wish – you might want to take a portrait that shows someones true spirit or you could photograph something that is ‘Spiritual’ or even photograph something that represents your spirit. Be as creative as you’d like! Once you’ve taken your ‘Spirit’ Photos – choose your best 1-2, upload them to your favourite photo sharing site either share a link to them even better – embed them in the comments using the our new tool to do so. If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPSSPIRIT to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun. Also – don’t forget to check out some of the great shots posted in last weeks Curves challenge – there were some great shots submitted. Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips. Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips. Spirit: Weekly Photography Challenge

As well as the new layout and the new business model that it rolled out this week, Flickr also introduced 12 new default avatars for anyone who chooses not to upload her or his own identifying image to attach to their homepage and comments. Designed by Charis Tsevis, they’re bright, blocky, and I have to say I rather like them. The designs fall into the genre that Tsevis calls ‘Neo-Futurism’ or ‘Neo-Cubism’ and feature stylised cameras that include Canon or Nikon dSLRs; medium format, twin lens reflex, and old-fashioned polaroid cameras; mirror-less cameras that might be from Olympus, Nikon, and maybe Sony; as well as compact cameras resembling Fujis and Sonys; and of course the smartphone. He goes into more detail on the brief and his design process on his blog. I think I might start a round of Flickr avatar bingo. Anyone up for it? (Headsup to Design Taxi) This article was originally posted at Have you seen Flickr’s new avatars? , on Photocritic. PLEASE NOTE -- The contents of the Photocritic blog is strictly copyrighted, and this feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites is a copyright infringement, so you should only ever be able to read this text in a feed reader. Digital Fingerprint: d07805f964d211dfdfe227d609f7448f