Next to a camera, a tripod is the landscape photographer's best friend. It holds the camera steady so you can control your exposure and composition. What if you want to photograph a landscape from a place where using a tripod is not feasible, like a kayak?
How A Landscape Can Be More Than Just Terrain Photographs of a flat landscape like the New Jersey Pine Barrens made with very wide angle lenses tend to be more about the sky than the landscape. I've photographed quite a few scenes like this one under all sorts of dramatic skies and now tend to photograph more intimate scenes. More trees, less [...]
The Home Field Advantage Landscape photography is a crowded field. When I first started out in the 1980's, there were a couple of dozen well known landscape photographers out there. Now you can't go to a scenic spot in a national park without having to work your way through a sea of tripods. Do a web search on those places and the [...]
Exploring A Special Swamp Note: All of the images in this post were made before the New Jersey closed the parks and state forests. One of the most unusual features of the New Jersey Pine Barrens are the swamps. Atlantic White Cedar swamps in particular. These are dark and wet places. Being in one is like entering a timeless, eerie and mystical [...]
Big Sur California We first visited Big Sur California in 2012 and recently made a second trip there. More than one person I know emphatically states that Big Sur is the most beautiful place in the world. I'll just let the images speak for themselves. Usually these posts have an instructional element to them, but with this one it felt better to [...]
Photographing Mist and Fog My friend Ron recently coined a new spelling for mysticism. It's "Mistycism" which describes what misty mornings do to the New Jersey Pine Barrens landscape. It tends to turn that landscape, especially the cedar swamps into a mystical, or "mistycal" world. Here are some examples and a bit of a tutorial on photographing mist and fog. Soft backlit [...]
As a photographer, 2019 was pretty significant for me. It was successful for print sales, workshops and speaking engagements, but I'm most happy with my growth as a photographer. Instead of just showing my favorite photographs from 2019, I'd like to share why they were made which may help you on your journey as a photographer and artist. . Inspiration This year, [...]
Fall Cedars by Richard Lewis 2019 A Week on the Mullica River Fall in the New Jersey Barrens is special. The leaves on the deciduous trees that grow among the pines turn beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow making the Pine Barrens look like it is gift wrapped. This year Fall came a little early and didn't stick around [...]
As landscape photographers, sometimes we need to let the landscape tell the story and provide our interpretation in how we compose our photographs.
Do No Harm With Your Photography Lancaster County in Pennsylvania is known for its Amish and Mennonite religious sects. The Amish are a closed sect that shun the modern trappings of life and choose to live without electricity and the machinery driven by it. They farm with horses and travel in horse drawn buggies which makes them particularly attractive to photographers. But, [...]
As landscape photographers, sometimes we need to let the landscape tell the story and provide our interpretation in how we compose our photographs.
I know this is a photography blog but recently a problem on a trip to Lake Tahoe opened the door to an amazing experience.
Here are some recent photographs of Spring in the New Jersey Pinelands.
Preserving the Black Run Preserve with a Controlled Burn When a crew of New Jersey Forest Service Firefighters show up at the 1200 acre Black Run Preserve in the Pine Barrens, you'd think they were there to fight a fire, not start one. However, that was what they were there to do. Fire in the Pine Barrens is part of the natural [...]
What many sunset peepers don't realize is that the show is just starting as the sun dips below the horizon. The afterglow, also called alpenglow, caused by the sun reflecting from below the horizon can be even more intense than the actual sunset.
Journey Into Night at Ryan Ranch Our recent trip back to Joshua Tree National Park was a great time to explore the night. Thanks to some handy jetlag, I was wide awake at 3:30am and hiked to the ruins of Ryan Ranch. The moonlight was bright enough to make wearing a headlamp unnecessary. Ryan Ranch was built by JD Ryan who ran [...]