My favorite location to photograph sea turtles is at the Kaloko Honokohau National Historic Park on the Big Island of Hawaii. After a long day boating with my friends, I photographed this small sea turtle resting on the lava shoreline north of the small boat harbor at sunset. I was lucky that the sky lit up like this, because the vog and clouds often block the magic light at the end of the day in Kona. My friend and fellow photographer Stuart Westmorland was using a flash next to me, which fortunately added a bit of fill light to the otherwise backlit turtle. I normally dislike flash, but in this case the fill-light is perfectly balanced with the ambient light. I might have to buy myself a flash. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 35mm f2 ZE lens, and 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density filter. This image is a single-exposure which required a minimal amount of processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.
I am excited to share that my “Discover Digital Quick Tips” article is published in the April 2012 issue of Outdoor Photographer! OP’s Editor gave me this opportunity after telling me that he always considers my images to be among the most authentic and beautiful that he regularly sees. In my article, I offer my advice on what my top processing techniques are and how photographers can use them to make their own images look spectacular. Please let me know if you enjoyed reading it and feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below.
In other news, my regular readers, friends, fans, etc will probably have noted that I have not been online much in the last 2 months. I spent a wonderful, though, not super productive 3 weeks in Hawaii in February. I was barely home for a week before I flew down to Arizona to give 3 presentations about my Alaska photography at the Tucson, Paradise Valley, and Tempe REIs. (I will be at the San Diego, Portland, and Anchorage REIs in the coming month.) Last week, I moved my family into our gorgeous new house just south of Leschi. It is breathtaking to look out my windows anytime and see Lake Washington, the Cascades, and Mount Rainier. This week, I am finally settling into my new office which has its own separate entrance, new cork floors, furniture, and gallery track lighting. I have some large acrylic face-mounts being made by West Coast Imagining that will adorn my walls for when clients visit. Summer is also coming just around the corner. I have multiple trips planned to Alaska, plus my first trip to Tonga. This fall, I will also be joining a small sailboat expedition to South Georgia Island for 4 weeks. As you can see, I have a lot of exciting things going on and many new images to be created.
During my week long visit to Crystal River, I spent close to 36 hours in the water with the mantees. In that amount of time, I was only able to photograph this one moment where a manatee playfully rolled upside down asking me to rub its belly. If I spend enough time with wild animals, eventually I am able to photograph a unique moment or behavior. This beautiful portrait shows how blissful the manatees can be when they are not being pursued by tons of tourists in the water. We should all aspire to exhibit such joy and trust. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which was mostly processed using Aperture 3.0. I also cloned out particles floating in the water using Photoshop CS5.
Manatees are so ugly that they are adorable. This picture clearly illustrates that point. I spent hours in the water waiting for a manatee to pose for me like this. Whenever I photograph wild animals, I do not chase after or harass them. I can never force a picture to happen. That is why I wait patiently for them to reveal themselves to me. Eventually, an animal will become comfortable with my presence and I will be able to photograph a beautiful portrait like this. This manatee was actually nibbling on my toes, so it let me know that it was very friendly and curious. With my permit from the USF&WS, I was able to gently drop down to the bottom and allow the manatee to swim right up to my camera. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which was mostly processed using Aperture 3.0. I also cloned out particles floating in the water using Photoshop CS5.
I have just returned from photographing West Indian manatees at Crystal River State Park, Florida. It was a very interesting experience. I am usually the only photographer, let alone person, at the wilderness locations that I typically photograph. I knew that was not going to be the case with the rampant manatee exploitation at Crystal River, but I was totally unprepared for how many people, boats, and kayaks were in the water. Fortunately, I bumped into National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen who gave me a nice referral to the USF&WS so that I could get a special use permit. The permit did not solve my problem of all the people in my pictures harassing the manatees, but it did give me some special access and the ability to sink down to the bottom in order to shoot up towards the surface. My other challenge was giving myself a mild case of hypothermia by spending over 6 hours each day in the 70° water. I could barely hold my camera by the time that I got out of the water. However, through my diligence I was able to photograph some fantastic encounters with curious manatees when no one else was around. This is one of my favorite images from my ordeal. I really like how this manatee posed for me and even put its flippers together as if it were praying. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which was mostly processed using Aperture 3.0. I also cloned out particles floating in the water using Photoshop CS5.
I was traveling all of December, so forgive me for not having posted any new blog updates for awhile. However, I am excited to share that Outdoor Photographer published my “Discover Alaska Wildlife” article in the February issue! In my article, I give lots of advice about where and how to photograph many of Alaska’s most sought after animals. I especially like the opening full page image of the lynx that I encountered while leaving Denali National Park last July. I have dedicated most of my last 5 summers to photographing Alaska, and look forward to another productive summer up north starting in May. Please let me know if you read that article and what you think.
I am incredibly excited to have 2 of my new acrylic face mount prints on permanent display at Etheridge Family Dentistry in Seattle, WA. The 35×50 Laguna de los Tres Sunrise 5 print above is from my trip to Patagonia last January and the 35×50 False Clownfish 23 image below is from my trip to Raja Ampat last March. They look absolutely stunning (even with Dr Ty standing in front of them). Both of these acrylic face mounts were created by West Coast Imaging. WCI offers several paper options. I chose the Epson premium glossy paper, because it most closely matched the colors of my own Epson printer. They are mounted directly to 1/4″ acrylic, backed with a white dibond backer, a metal hanging system is attached, and the edges are flame polished. I have not finalized my price list for these spectacular prints, but they will cost about 2 to 3 times the price of my current Museo silver rag prints. To celebrate the 2011 holiday season, I will offer these ready to hang prints at the introductory price of 2 times my current print prices. It takes about 3 weeks to create them, so all orders that are placed no later than next Friday December 2 will be guaranteed to arrive in time for Christmas.
I was very happy with my first encounters with polar bears while co-leading my Polar Bear Photography Tour this fall. These amazing creatures are incredibly photogenic and life-changing to see in the wild. I’m currently updating my website with information about next year’s tours, but for anyone that is interested our scheduled dates are September 24-27, September 28-October 1, and October 2-5. The cost will be $5400 all inclusive from Fairbanks, except for the optional $175 per boat ride paid directly to our native guides. We are also able to offer a multiple tour discount to anyone that is interested in extending their photographic opportunities by joining back-to-back tours.
During this year’s tours, my clients and I photographed these two-year old cubs playing in the Arctic Ocean from the safety of our native guide’s boat. They appeared to be having a ton of fun as they played with each other for several hours. Their interactions were frequently so comical that we all chuckled out loud. We were also fortunate to be able to photograph them in beautiful golden sunlight. I created this image with a Canon 1DmkIV and my 400mm f4 DO IS lens. It is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.
I’ve been working at home for almost 2 months, which is making me pretty antsy to get back outdoors, but especially underwater. So, I thought that I would share another one of my favorite Atlantic spotted dolphin images from my liveaboard expedition to the Bahamas last summer. I’ve previously described how athletically difficult it is to take an underwater picture like this. Technically, all I do is put my camera in aperture priority mode and pick an aperture & ISO that will give me a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action. Of course, the whole point of this trip was to spend time swimming in the wild with these graceful creatures. I created this image using my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.
I spent 3 long days attempting to photograph brown bears fishing underwater while visiting Kuliak Bay. I did not succeed. However, I had 6 opportunities where a bear sniffed the back of my underwater camera rather than the front. If I were a cartoon, I would have had one of those bubbles over my head with something like !@#$%^&%$#@* inside. Oh, well, I can try again in a few years. With my underwater camera positioned in the river all day, I took a lot of pictures of the salmon swimming in front of it. This is my favorite image of the mostly pink salmon with a few sockeye mixed in. I really like the reflection of the salmon on the surface of the water as well as the beautiful green color. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter inside my Aquatech 5DmkII housing with a Aquatech 8″ dome port which I remotely triggered with a PocketWizard in an Aquatech PocketWizard housing. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.
I was very happy with my first encounters with polar bears while co-leading my 
I’ve been working at home for almost 2 months, which is making me pretty antsy to get back outdoors, but especially underwater. So, I thought that I would share another one of my favorite Atlantic spotted dolphin images from my liveaboard expedition to the Bahamas last summer. I’ve previously described how athletically difficult it is to take an underwater picture like this. Technically, all I do is put my camera in aperture priority mode and pick an aperture & ISO that will give me a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action. Of course, the whole point of this trip was to spend time swimming in the wild with these graceful creatures. I created this image using my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my 