By Varina Patel, on January 31st, 2012  This is a shot from Death Valley National Park in California. The salt flats are huge – 40 miles long and 5 miles wide – but it’s the tiniest details that grabbed my attention. The largest of these crystals is just three or four millimeters wide.
I was waiting for sunset near Badwater, but the clouds were gone, and there wasn’t much change of getting a gorgeous sunset. So, instead of searching for appealing foreground objects, I pulled out my macro lens and started looking for details. It didn’t take long for me to notice that in some places, the salt crystals were more spread out, so that I could see each one individually. I loved the graduated sizes spread out across the sand.
I set up my tripod nice and low to the ground, and then adjusted my lens so that the glass was parallel to the ground. When you are working with a macro lens – and when you get in this close – your depth of field is incredibly narrow. I wanted to get everything in focus, so I spent extra time making sure I had my camera set up just right.
I also needed to make sure to provide a clear point of interest for my viewer. When you are working with hundreds of similar objects, that can be pretty difficult! I chose my composition carefully so that a single larger crystal dominates – and smaller crystals fill the frame. Notice that the largest crystal is off center – and the others seem to get gradually smaller as you move through the image from the bottom left to the upper right. The placement of the crystals is random – but the composition is anything but. Despite the randomness of the natural objects, there is a clear, diagonal structure to this image. That was important to me, since a diagonal comp is usually more dynamic and interesting than a horizontal or vertical one.
Post-production was pretty easy. I wanted to make sure the patterns in the salt stood out, but it was equally important to make sure I didn’t lose any detail in the brightest white areas. A little bit of contrast and a careful white balance adjustment did the trick. I brightened the largest crystal just slightly to make sure it grabbed your attention. I also removed two small corners of crystals that punched their way into the image at the bottom. They were distracting, and I didn’t mind seeing them go.
By Jay Patel, on January 30th, 2012  Price: $10.00
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By Jay Patel, on January 27th, 2012 
Yellowstone Falls from Artist Point is a sight to behold, but at this particular moment the view was extraordinary. The sun broke through heavy clouds, bathing the falls with light, and leaving the rest of the valley cloaked in soft shadow.
This was a waiting game…I watched the clouds for over 3 hours on this cold and rainy day before the spotlight illuminated Yellowstone Falls. I chose to under expose the image to ensure that the bright highlights in the water were not blown out. Even with under exposure, the falls were so bright that I had to process a single RAW image twice, and than combine them using our iHDR workflow.
By the time I was ready to put away my camera, my gloves were wet and my fingers were cold and numb. But it was worth the result… I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
By Varina Patel, on January 26th, 2012  Click to Download Jökulsárlón was, without question, my favorite of the places we visited on our first trip to Iceland. I wanted an incredible simple composition for this image – so I chose a single iceberg as my point of interest, and used a long shutter speed to blur the waves. The clean shades of blue simplified the image even further. A short time later, I was reminded of the awesome (and dangerous) power of nature – but for the moment, I tried to capture the incredible peace and tranquility of this beautiful scene. I hope you enjoy it!
As always, these images are provided for personal use as computer wallpaper or backgrounds ONLY. Copyright belongs to the photographer, and photographs cannot be used, redistributed, or recreated in print or on the web or on any other medium without written permission from the photographer.
By Jay Patel, on January 25th, 2012 
On my first visit to Yellowstone, we stopped for lunch and my daughter fell in LOVE with the orange juice. And so, right in the middle of nowhere (somewhere along the Idaho/Wyoming border- farmland stretching for miles in every direction) she REALLY had to go. Well, here is a photo from that road-side stop. :)
This image highlights the emotional impact of human beings in a photograph. If I were to remove the two small figures from the photograph would this photograph have the same impact? It would be just another pretty landscape photo of a field and clouds. I chose the composition because I wanted to remember the time (clouds and sky) and the place (nothing for miles but freshly planted fields).
By Varina Patel, on January 24th, 2012 
I have always loved snow drops because they bloom sometime in February – when there is still snow on the ground. For me, they are the very first sign of Spring – and when I see them, I feel lighter somehow. It’s such a relief to see these delicate beauties appear after months of shoveling snow in freezing weather, and searching for sun under heavily overcast skies.
It’s easy to capture an image like this… even without fancy equipment.
I brought a single flower into the house and used a clothespin to hold it upright on a small stool. I placed a sheet of white paper behind it, making sure that the sunlight from a nearby window illuminated the paper. I used a small reflector (a sheet of shiny poster board would do… or even a piece of glossy photo paper) to reflect light from the window back onto my pretty subject.
I used a tripod to hold my camera steady, and I took several shots from different angles… making sure that my background was far enough away from my flower that the soft textures were completely blurred out. I chose an aperture of f8 in order to make sure I had enough depth of field to get the whole flower in focus.
Processing was very easy. I selected Photoshop’s default “daylight” white balance, and then brightened up the image just slightly to keep those whites as bright as possible – without blowing the highlights. I also removed a few tiny specks of dirt with the clone tool.
Flower portraits can be a lot of fun – especially when you are shooting the very first flowers of Spring!
By Varina Patel, on January 23rd, 2012  
Take a look at these two photos of the same waterfall. Notice that the water in the image on the left is overexposed. This is a common problem when shooting scenes like this. The brighter water tends to lose detail even though the rest of the scene is properly exposed. The image on the right is properly exposed in every area. Notice the clear details in the water. I used our iHDR manual blending technique to make sure the entire image was properly exposed.
How do you know when you need more detail, and when you don’t? Take a look at the scene you are photographing. Can you see details in front of you? When I was was photographing this waterfall on an overcast day I could see details in the flowing water. However, if I look directly at the sun, I can’t see any detail at all… so if I’m shooting into the sun, I don’t expect to be able to see details in my finished image. The photograph below shows what I’m talking about. You can see lots of detail in the trees and the mountains… but the area right around the sun is “blown out”. In this case, it looks natural.
Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that photography is art. Only the artist can decide how much detail is right for a given situation.
To Learn more about our iHDR Technique check out our online webinar recordings:
By Varina Patel, on January 20th, 2012  One of the biggest reasons I choose to photograph nature is because I love solitude. I find that this is true for many nature and landscape photographers. We seem to share an appreciation – no… it goes beyond that – a NEED for solitude.
I get along with people just fine. I don’t mind speaking to large crowds. I can navigate my way through a city without a problem…
But I’d much rather be in the middle of nowhere. No cars driving by. No airplanes flying overhead. No lawn mowers or leaf blowers or weed trimmers. No radio or television. Just birdsong and the breeze through the branches and the trickle of the water over the rocks. I’m perfectly happy out there for hours. Days. Weeks.
How about you? What is it about nature photography that keeps you coming back for more?
By Varina Patel, on January 19th, 2012  This shot required very little special post-processing… just setting the correct color balance, and a bit of subtle mid-tone contrast. The real work of creating this particular image happened in the field… well… on the beach, actually. :)
This is a mid-day shot – I took it around 2 pm. Deep blue storm clouds were moving in. The water at Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys is this incredible turquoise or emerald color (depending upon light conditions and how rough the water is) and the sand is smooth and white. I wanted something different for this image. Jay I were playing around with our cameras… and this is the result.
There were a couple of problems with this scene as I stood there. First, the waves weren’t big enough to blur out easily… but they were too small to look good frozen in time. No matter what I did with my camera settings, I wasn’t getting a very interesting image. Second, there were strands of dark seaweed floating in the water. They created distracting streaks in the water, and left my test shots feeling pretty unappealing.
The solution to both problems? A whole lot of Neutral Density Filter. I used my own filter, and also borrowed Jay’s. The filters significantly reduced the amount of light entering the lens – by about ten stops in all. So, in order to get a correct exposure, I had to use a long shutter speed. 10 seconds at f/11 produced exactly the effect I wanted. The waves were completely smoothed out, so that the water seems calm and almost surreal. And all that floating seaweed? Well, it moved around so much with each wave that it blurred itself into oblivion! I didn’t have to clone out a single strand.
Even the clouds are softer – because they shifted during the long exposure. The rock in the foreground provides a clear point of interest, and since it is in clear focus, the scene doesn’t feel too blurred. Sometimes it’s helpful to have a sharp foreground object when you blur an image like this – it helps to anchor the scene.
So – what do you think? Was the technique successful? Does the image work for you?
Have you ever used a Neutral Density Filter? Or a long shutter speed to produce an effect like this? If not – maybe you should try it! It’s kinda fun! :)
By Jay Patel, on January 18th, 2012 
Where would you rather be? Sitting in an office or on this boardwalk exploring the coastal rain forests of Olympic National Park? There’s nothing wrong with having a desk job… the trick is to find a way to take “the road less traveled” before it is too late.
How was this photograph created?
This photograph highlights the use of a human element in composition. Many nature competitions adhere to strict rules that no “hand of man” should be visible in the photograph… but sometime a man-made element provides a bit of impact. Without the board walk, would the image be as effective?
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This is a shot from Death Valley National Park in California. The salt flats are huge – 40 miles long and 5 miles wide – but it’s the tiniest details that grabbed my attention. The largest of these crystals is just three or four millimeters wide.
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