The Wildfires Of Boulder and published by The AP

For anyone who has been watching the news lately, one of the headlines has been the Fourmile Canyon Wildfire, which is burning above and behind Boulder, Colorado. This week has been a pretty a busy one for Colorado shooters who have been busy getting photographs of the fire. I have always wanted to photograph a forest fire, and well, I did. It is very bittersweet, seeing something so beautiful yet also very deadly and destructive at the same time. Photographing it from a distance gave us a unique view and vantage point, and using a super telephoto like my Tamron 200-400mm really made for some interesting things.

What floored me the most is when I came home and I posted one of my images on twitter using TwitPic Before I knew what was going on, I started seeing tons of people "re-tweet' the photo I took, and by the next morning it went pretty much viral, landing in front of the photography editors at the news desk of The Associated Press & The Huffington Post. After speaking with The AP's editors in NYC, the photo is now on the AP news wire and being shown all over the world, from Fox News to Yahoo News, to AOL News, to newspapers country and world all over.

Needless to say I am pretty speechless.

I have a whole gallery of photographs from the Fourmile Wildfire located on my website here  if you wanted to see them all. I still have a LOT to process yet and those will be up in the coming days. For now, here are a few below. Please click for larger version.


This is the image which has been published by The Associated Press after going viral on Twitter.

















Technorati Tags: photography, photo, boulder, wildfire, fourmile canyon, colorado, nature, fire, sky, smoke, forest, trees

August means one thing...SUNFLOWERS!

Make no mistake about it, I have a complete love affair with Sunflowers and Sunsets, and every beginning of August I try to find where the fields are at, this year Longmont, Colorado seem to play host to the largest fields I have seen in quite some time now. Still, there are others that haven't even reached their blooming point yet, and are about a week out still, one of those fields is the field which I call an iconic location, where many photographers show up, often in droves, shooting. Thankfully we met the property owner earlier this week who said we can come back and actually on get on the property and shoot once they are in bloom. Something that will give us a unique vantage point compared to everyone else.

There is just something about standing, looking at these flowers for as far as the eye can see just about, with the Colorado Rockies playing a backdrop to these endless fields. Next up, around the corner, Fall will be here, and that is my other busiest time of the year, and I am dearly looking forward to it!

So I thought I would share a few shots with you all to show you all what I have been up to. If you must know, these were shot on my Sony a550 using a variety of lenses, tripod, filters, remote shutter, etc. Clicking on teh links will take you to the larger images on my website.  So who wants to come out and shoot these next year?

---John













Technorati Tags: photography, outdoors, photo, nature, Colorado, sunflowers

Using a super telephoto for intimacy

It used to be I didn't have anything longer in my arsenal than my Minolta 70-300 which I dearly love, but in all honesty I don't use it a lot these days, since I got my Tamron 200-400mm. I really love this lens and having had it for a about a year and a half now, I can fully say that I use it a lot. This past full saw it put through it paces while photographing the Elk Rut in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. It is a big lens and built like a tank, it isn't the fastest at f5.6 continuous but it is sharp. Best thing about the Tamron 200-400mm lenses, is that they can be had for a song over at KEH usually around the mere $200 mark or less. Sure they are used, but you aren't going to get a lens at that price/performance, let alone focal length from anything else pretty much. So if you are looking for something tio start you off in wildlife photography, then I highly recommend this lens.

that is just the thing though. Wildlife photography. That is what generally most think of when you start getting up there in focal length like 400mm. It is pretty much a natural. however, one thing this lens has that many others don't, is 1:2 Macro ability. Close focusing goodness, which, as I have come to find out, can make for some very interesting images at 400mm.

This has opened up basically a whole other world of photography for me, with a whole other shooting style, being able to do things which before, I had never really done, either because I didn't have the focal length, or because I honestly failed to ever see it/notice it. As photographers, we are always evolving, looking for ways to shoot differently, to be more creative with our work, and to try something which we have never tried. When I first got this lens, my sole intention was birding, and it then that I realized what I had been missing on one of the first photoshoots I ever did with the lens. I was looking through the viewfinder of my camera, and I locked on to something which I wasn't trying to lock on to, some cat Tails in a marsh, and then, it just sort of came to me. The wheels in my head started turning, and I started scanning at 400mm with the lens, seeing things, seeing the intimate details of nature which I had never noticed before.

One of the fun things to do with this lens is landscapes from a distance, it is amazing what you can see which the naked eye can not, it has opened up a whole other world essentially which I otherwise would have completely missed. The trees on the mountainside, subtle changes in light, winter weather conditions, etc. Florals also can be a lot of fun, especially in what would be otherwise harsh lighting conditions, where I would never even think of doing a landscape image. Backlighting can be fun to work with.

So the next time you are out with with a super telephoto, don't forget to take a minute and notice the smaller, more intimate details around you. You very well might be amazed at what you find!
--John

Images below shot using my Tamron 200-400mm lens on Sony and Minolta dslr's.



















Technorati Tags: photography, photo, technique, tamron, telephoto, intimacy

Springtime In The Rockies

Springtime in the Colorado Rockies, a time of the year which I have always loved. Recently went up to the Mount Evans Wilderness area to try and capture the change of the seasons and to see if winter was still holding on. In some places it certainly was, to say the least. Though Spring was certainly in the air and the combination of the 2 seasons made for some interesting conditions. What astonished me was a couple tourists wading through the river where I shot the long exposure shots at....folks that water is freezing cold! Probably barely above freezing, and the result of spring melt off from the mountains....no thanks I will pass with doing that anytime soon in bare feet! A great time though, and it was nice to experience the resulting conditions!

How art touches us

This post in it's original form, appeared originally in my journal on devaintART located here I have modified it some the re-write here.

Today, while checking my comments on my work on deviantART, I was stopped cold in my tracks by a comment that left on one of my photographs. I came upon a comment left by =Wrath-n-Ruin that really just stopped me cold in my tracks.
It was left on my photograph "The End Of The Day" which is below here.

=Wrath-n-Ruin "I just wanted you to know that I bought this print for my mother a few days after my father died to remind her of him (sunflowers were his favorite)...she never got the chance to frame it because she died a mere 7 weeks later, but she loved it dearly. She loves it so much, in fact, that the flowers we used for their funerals were inspired by this piece.

This picture now hangs above their photos in my bedroom.

I can't even express to you how much I love this photo and the meaning it now holds for me and my family, which makes it all the more special. When I presented the print to my mother, she said that it reminded her of hope, that there is still beauty even in the darkest of places. Thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful piece."

Never in my life....would I have ever thought that one of MY photographs would have that kind of power, and I don't even know what to say, I am beyond floored. Literally speechless, completely.

Art touches us in so many ways, like few things in life ever can. It touches our soul, it touches our hearts, it has the ability to take us somewhere else, if even for just a little while, to let us get away...and it leaves us with a forever lasting impression. Few things in life can do this on such a regular basis. Few.

When I read that comment, I was left feeling completely smacked upside my head. Not knowing how I should respond to her, in fact, I haven't yet. Maybe I will just link her to this journal, I don't know....I mean how to your respond to something like that? That isn't a comment, that is a reality check full of power.

Comments like that, make being an artist worth it all. To know, that one of my own photographs touched people like that, is just a serious "wow" moment that leaves me laying on the floor.

I just wanted to share this all with you. Amazing, what one single piece of art can do isn't it? Art=life, as I have always said.
---John

thoughts, photography, art, emotion, impression, photo

The Long Landscape

  A couple days ago I had the chance to once again shoot up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Naturally I jumped at the chance at being able to visit one of my favorite photo destinations. What awaited was a display of Winter battling Spring in full force, with snow showers, full on snow storms, combined with sunlight at times, making for just very dramatic atmosphere. I really love the time of the year in the Rockies of Colorado.

  It got me thinking though as I was shooting around Hallet Peak, as I shot with my 400mm surveying things, panning for interesting detail and composition. Today I thought that i would take a few minutes and write my thoughts down and share some examples of this photo shoot with you all....so about the title of this blog post "The Long Landscape"....

  How many of you own a lens that is 300mm or greater? Usually we think of such lenses for shooting things like Birds, Wildlife, etc...but how many of you have actually tried shooting a landscape with it? Zoomed all the way in at max focal length? In a sense it is kind of like macro photography, how the goal is to capture things which the human eye often can't see, only this time we can sometimes see it but we don't have the ability to really notice the fine details and intimacy with the human eye. It is literally like shooting a whole other world, noticing things we would have missed otherwise.

  When I was looking through the viewfinder while shooting, I kept saying out loud "wow...just wow!" because of the things I was seeing that I couldn't see without a long lens. The trails from the snow tumbling down the mountainside, the Pine trees completely untouched by man, sitting at 12,000 feet high, and how thyey are battling the early Spring snowstorm. The light as it reflected against the falling snow....the finer details.

  Often times shots like this can give an excellent sense of emotion, atmosphere, and as I said, intimacy. I often find that compositions in shots that are done in this style can be stronger and also more powerful. The ability to get in close and really work the scene with a ling lens, studying it, taking your time, and really examining it, can be incredibly rewarding.

  So next time you are out shooting a scene, try it and see what you get! You may very well be shocked at what you find when looking through a long lens! Here are a few examples that I recently took using this technique. Focal length was between 300 & 400mm using a Tamron 200-400mm on my Sony a550.
John

Photography, photoblog, nature, outdoors, technique, telephoto, zoom, ideas, Rocky Mountain National Park, photo, mountains

Photography Community websites & Limits

I was recently saddened to see that one website I love, Naturephotographers.net started going to a more private community, allowing those who are not paying members to only post a message once in 48s hrs. A couple of weeks ago I tried to post a reply to someone in a thread which they had started to share information with them, but was unable to do so.

I understand that every website requires money to run, but I wonder why a photography community, where the sharing of information is essential, with things like locations, equipment, processing, would do something like this? Wouldn't it kind of actually hurt the community as a whole? I would imagine it would. After all I was unable to share information with one photographer who was looking for info on how to get to a specific place. It seems rather counter-productive.

Though I am sure that many of the paying members are unaware of this, I wonder what their thoughts would be about it? I have always loved that site, and it is one of the "Go to sites" on the internet as far as nature photography. There are others, like Fred Miranda Photo Migrations Bird Photographers and Nature Scapes All of which are very high end professional nature photography forums.

I guess I will have to start hanging on a more regular basis at those sites above I also mentioned. Photography is learning experience, one that never ends, it is also about sharing information, and when you are unable to do that, you lose a lot. Not only within the community you are a member of, but also your own personal knowledge as well.


Shot in rural Castle Rock, Colorado, this Horse just seemed to echo what rural Colorado life is like. Captured on my Sony a550 using a Tamron 200-400mm lens

Photography, photoblog, nature, naturephotographers.net, thoughts, community, social networking