Press Resources for Nature Photography Workshops

Night Photography: Using a Flashlight for Highlights

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Caption: Illuminating the center of a rhododendron blossom with a white flashlight creates the sense that the light is coming from the flower itself.
Additional background: Students employ a variety of light sources from different directions to create visually attractive and interesting photographs. In this case, a single flashlight paints the interior of a rhododendron blossom during a 2.5 second exposure at f/16 and ISO 80. The resulting effect highlights the flower's structure.

Night Photography: Using a Flashlight for Direct Lighting

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Caption: With the flash turned off, the flower of this night blooming cereus was lit with only a tungsten flashlight.
Additional background: Using just a flashlight allows the photographer to selectively reveal the interior of this blossom without showing foliage around it. The tungsten source imparts a slightly yellow color. Correcting for white balance could adjust for this hue, but was kept under artistic license. The night blooming cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) blossom is up to 12 inches across and opens for a single night only.

Night Photography: Using a Direct Flash with Backlit Flashlight Highlight

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Caption: Back light from a flashlight adds to the light from a flash on this night blooming cereus flower.
Additional background: The built in flash provided most of the illumination but is softened with backlight from a handheld flashlight. Using this technique, the photographer can reveal the plant's foliage while selectively highlighting the interior of the blossom. The night blooming cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) blossom is up to 12 inches across and opens for a single night only.

Night Photography: Using Colored Flashlights

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Caption: Illumination with colored flashlights from a variety of angles achieves otherworldly effects.
Additional background: Painting a subject with colored light from above, below and the side and using multiple colors, the photographer achieves a variety of artistic effects. Ordinary flashlights, covered with various colors and thicknesses of colored cellophane provide an affordable alternative to expensive filters.

Night Photography: Front and Rear Curtain Synch Flash

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Caption: Setting the flash to fire at the beginning or end of an exposure is an important consideration for moving subjects.
Additional background: With front curtain synch, the flash is fired at the beginning of an exposure (top) capturing lighting streaks in front of a moving subject. Switching to rear curtain synch (bottom), the subject is captured after the light streaks have occurred. For stationary subjects or those not emitting light, front curtain synch may be easier to use, since the flash fires when you press the shutter.

Night Photography: Using Ambient Lighting

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Photographer: Chris Kenney, Chester, NH. See IPTC information for more about Mr. Kenney, including his gallery. (This image is used with permission and may be republished so long as attribution is given to the photographer.)
Caption: Natural nighttime lighting can be used to take beautiful landscapes.
Additional background: Moonlight, reflected skylight or even bioluminescence can be used alone or in concert with painted light. Particularly for landscapes, the results are often visually stunning. In this case, ambient light creates a dramatic sky. The photographer, a participant in a recent workshop, painted a trail across a field to a flash lit tree. An additional light trail adds to the mystery of the photo by talented amateur, Chris Kenney.

Basic Workshop: Using Time in Your Photography

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Caption: "A Day At Winnipesaukee". Three separate images of the same location are combined to convey a sense of time and to demonstrate how a scene changes under varying lighting conditions.
Additional background: Students learn a variety of compositional techniques and tools to create visually attractive and interesting photographs. Introducing a sense of time and using differing lighting conditions are both demonstrated by this image.  Three images of the same Lake Winnipesaukee location were taken: one in morning fog, one at noon and one at night. Careful alignment and cropping presents the three images in exactly the same orientation and size. 

Basic Workshop: Composition Using the Rule of Thirds

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Caption: A visually pleasing composition may often be achieved by arranging major elements of an image on imaginary lines (drawn here in black) located one third of the way from the top, bottom or sides of a photograph.
Additional background:  Students learn a variety of compositional techniques and tools to create visually attractive and interesting photographs.  One tool is the "Rule of Thirds" by which major elements of an image are arranged to appear on lines that divide the completed image into nine sections. Note the dark line of the bushes across the bottom third, the taller trees along the right hand third and the branch pointing to the flight of geese across the top horizontal third.

The picture was taken on Sauvie Island, a haven for wildlife located in the Columbia River, just minutes from downtown Portland, OR.

Basic Workshop: Composition Using Symmetry

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Caption: "Cedar Grove". Symmetry is a compositional tool available to the photographer.  This image employs spatial symmetry left and right of the center, lighting symmetry between the light and dark areas and a symmetry of time between the young and old trees.
Additional background:  Students learn a variety of compositional techniques and tools to create visually attractive and interesting photographs. In this image, spatial, lighting and chronological symmetry combine to place the viewer among the ancient cedars.

 This grove of cedars lies along a stream in the Bitterroot mountains. Spared by the natural burn cycle, this stand of virgin forest is unusually old, between three or four hundred years.  In traveling the Lewis and Clark Trail, you are often told by modern pundits, trying to establish the importance of their site, that "we know the Corps of Discovery camped here."  In this grove, along the probable route taken by the expedition, no one need tell you: you can feel Lewis and Clark walking with you through majestic tall two hundred year old cedars.

Basic Workshop: Controlling What is in Focus

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Caption: "Strawflower". Exposure settings control what portions of an image are in focus.  Here, the foreground strawflower is in focus while the background is deliberately blurred.
Additional background: Students learn about "depth of field", a term used to describe how much of an image will be in focus. By using exposure settings to control depth of field, a photographer may have an entire image in focus or selectively blur foreground or background elements.

Basic Workshop: Using a Polarizing Filter to Remove Reflections

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Caption: In some cases, a polarizing filter may be used to remove unwanted reflections on water and glass.  A filter removes the windshield reflection in the right-hand image. 
Additional background: Under the correct conditions, a polarizing filter can allow the photographer to remove haze, look through reflections on water or glass, or subdue glare from foliage.  Students learn the basics and experiment with aligning a polarizing filter to remove unwanted light.

Photographer David Saxe: "Self Portraits"

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Caption: "Self Portraits" Photographer David Saxe and his Kodak camera take their own picture.
Additional background: Mr. Saxe has worked with digital images for over 35 years.  Since 2001, as a photographer, Mr. Saxe has crossed the country three times documenting the Lewis and Clark Trail both from the air and from the ground.   His Nature Photography Workshops draw on this practical and field experience to teach theory and technique.