This post is from guest blogger, freelance editor, & my lovely wife, Jennifer “Daisy” Cornforth. Please contact her with questions or for help editing your blog posts, Web content, articles, newsletters, or book projects.

As the wife of a photographer, I read a lot of photographers’ blogs.  Y’all have amazing stories to tell!  However, too often the meat of your story gets lost in a sea of weak verbs, redundant modifiers, passive constructions, and self-focused storytelling.  So after listening to me enumerate the faults of his and his colleagues’ writing, Jon suggested that I write a post to share my suggestions.

1. Read through your piece from the beginning and find the sentence that cuts to the quick. Delete all the gobbledygook that precedes that sentence.

2. Take out unnecessary words. Phrases like the fact that, it seemed that, I thought that, it felt like can almost always be dropped and result in clearer, stronger writing.  Likewise, most intensifiers can, and should, be dropped.  Very, so, really, extremely, completely and the like add very little to your story.

Not so hot: It is with great appreciation that I would like to announce…
Warmer: It is with great appreciation that I announce…

3. Excise the verb To Be. Is, was, were, and are bore the reader. There is usually a better way to construct a sentence than by using is.

So-so: There are two black eyes staring back.
Better: Two black eyes stare back.

4. Replace wussy verbs like to have and to be with action verbs.

Uncool: I was running through the woods, and I had my pack in my hands.
Better: I ran through the woods, clutching my pack.

5. Replace passive constructions with active ones. Passive constructions include phrases like “The suitcase was packed by me.” as opposed to “I packed the suitcase.”

Annoying: The truck was driven up the winding road and was parked by the ledge.
Far better: I drove the truck up the winding road and parked it by the ledge.

6. Weed out unnecessary, flimsy, and distracting adverbs. Take a discerning look at every –ly word on your piece.  Most adverbs either (1) prop up weak, overused, or vague adjectives or verbs, or (2) attempt (failingly) to provide additional information.  Better word choices and adequate factual information remove the need to beef up writing with adverbs.

Worse: The air was extremely hot.
Better: The air was scorching.  (Better word choice.)

Worse: We ran quickly up the trail.
Better: We scurried (dashed, bolted, flew, rocketed, planed) up the trail. (More precise word choice.)

Worse: The trail was completely impassable.
Better: Torrential rain had flooded the trail the day before day, knocking out all three footbridges, and leaving the trail impassable. (More information.)

7. Don’t tell the reader how to feel! The most consistent and irritating problem I see with photographers is that they tell the readers what to see, think, or feel, rather than showing the reader the scene and allowing the reader to generate their own feelings.  Phrases like you feel a surge of awe as you, it is breathtaking to see, and one is shocked to find weaken, rather than strengthen, the reader’s emotions.  Use words to paint the picture, and allow the reader to decide if it’s breathtaking!

Cloying: No one can deny the surge of sympathy you feel when you see these tiny chicks cheeping alone on the outcropping.
Better:  The tiny chicks cheep-cheep-cheep, abandoned on the outcropping.

8. Flesh out the story with details. Don’t say, “The road was long.” say “The road stretched 20 miles.” Don’t tell me “the sunset was very, very, extremely gorgeous,” describe how the light reflected off the surroundings, what the air smelled like, what the colors resembled, or how long it lasted.  Fight the temptation to cop-out with adjectives.  If you say something was short, the reader wants to know “How short was it?”

9. Use tropes to describe the indescribable. The images and environments in your stories are outside the realm of most people’s experience.  So help the reader “see” more clearly by using metaphors, similes, and other tropes they can relate to.

Run-of-the-mill: unbelievably pink sunset, beautiful fluffy clouds
Punchy: a flamenco pink sunset, clouds like cotton candy

10. End sentences with a bang. The natural emphasis of a sentence falls at the end, so make sure your last word is worth emphasizing.

I saw, leaping out if the river, hundreds of sockeye salmon. (Emphasizes salmon)
I saw hundreds of sockeye salmon leaping out of the river. (Emphasizes river)

Use the last word to set up your next sentence, to underline your point, or to crystallize the perfect image.

Here it is!  My favorite photo from my backpacking trip into the Tonquin Valley last week.  Out of 500 images from 2 days of getting up at 5am for sunrise, backpacking over 40km while carrying my 50lb pack, & driving 1280 miles round-trip, this is the one that caught my attention the most.  I can probably process and edit about 20 more images for my stock & publishing needs on top of the 4 that I have already posted here, but this is the one that I am most proud of.  Why you ask?

1. Amethyst Lake was almost completely calm from where I was standing all the way across to the Ramparts, giving me a perfect mirror reflection.

2. The clouds were particularly symmetric above the Ramparts, but also in the reflection.  I also like the way that the summits of the peaks are just barely in shadow, too.  Very mysterious.

3. I like the dark gray color of the clouds and the direct front light on the mountains.  This combination of yellow light & gray skies always looks very ominous and dramatic.  Also, I find that publishers & art clients prefer blue skies, white clouds, & earth tones over the neon red/orange/yellow images that are more popular with photo contests.

4. The foreground rocks have a pleasant warm tone to them.  Behind me, the sun was blocked by a large cloud which acted like a giant soft-box in the sky.  During these few minutes, the sun would occasionally pop out and cause my shadow to be cast on the rocks, which I found distracting.

So, what do you think?

This spectacular image from the Tonquin Valley was taken about 15 minutes after I took what I consider to be my best image from my backpacking trip in Jasper National Park last week.  About an hour and a half after sunrise, the light, clouds, & shadows gave me a brilliant series of images to choose from.  I was so enthralled by the scene before me, that I had to remember to shoot, let alone switch from horizontal to vertical compositions.  Most of the time the reflection was ideal with only small ripples, but at some moments it was absolutely still giving a mirror image of the Ramparts!  What an awesome place to shoot without a single other photographer around.  Keep that in mind next time you are taking pictures at a popular national park viewpoint!

Here is my best early morning image from my first sunrise at Amethyst Lake in the Tonquin Valley.  It was quite cloudy, so the early alpenglow was blocked by clouds, but about 20 minutes after sunrise, this beautiful light started to hit the Ramparts themselves.  I shot almost 250 images this morning, so I got a lot of variety, but it still came down to just a few images where the clouds & reflection just came together for me.

As promised, here is my second image of the week from my backpacking trip into the Tonquin Valley in Jasper National Park.  (As long as I have internet access in Whistler this week, I’ll be able to post the next 3 images after today.)  This images was created an hour after sunrise on the same morning as my previous post.  The sky was a brilliant blue, but there were almost no clouds to add any drama.  I learned long ago that anytime I have a perfect mountain reflection in a lake, I SHOOT IT!!!!!  (Especially when it requires a 40 km round-trip backpacking adventure, and 1280 miles of driving.)  Luckily, a couple of wispy clouds on the eastern horizon began to block the sun, casting some pretty fantastic shadow patterns on the Ramparts.  It was amazing to watch the shadows dance across the face of this enormous escarpment.  This is my favorite image from the second morning’s shoot.  My next few posts will be from the first morning when I had some clouds!

I’ve been working on an initial edit of my images from last week in the Canadian Rockies.  My plan is to post 1 image each day this week of my favorite images from the Tonquin Valley.  Here is the first one!  This is from the second sunrise that I spent at Surprise Point.  I got up that morning to perfect calm conditions on Amethyst Lake for a reflection, but there were no clouds at all.  So I did my best and this is a beautiful image from about 30 minutes after sunrise.