Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography

It’s official I’m back. Back from 5 days of a very hectic but relaxing travel schedule to photograph the beautiful natural landscapes of Utah and Wyoming. Not counting my flight from San Francisco to Salt Lake City I logged nearly 1100 miles in my trusty rental car. In a very strange coincidence I seem to have captured a tad over a photo per mile. As we all know it’s not the quantity of photos it is the quality of the photos that matter. Over the coming weeks you can expect to see photos and read vignettes from my trip.

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With an aggressive schedule and so much ground to cover
even while driving my camera wasn’t getting much rest.

On this trip I had the pleasure of meeting several great people across the region. I am looking forward to sharing in the coming week a conversation I had with a very talented and for now unnamed photographer in my next episode of EXIF and Beyond. I’ll also introduce you to a local environmentalist with a great cause that needs your support.

Before ending this entry I should also note that just before and during my trip quite a bit has happened that is noteworthy. 

N. Rockies Wolves Get Federal Protection Restored - National Geographic 
I have to admit I was very happy to have heard this news while in Wyoming.

My Arctic National Wildlife Refuge photos were referenced in a ThinkProgress.org blog post titled Boehner falsely claims there’s no ‘wildlife’ in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (with video of Congressman Boehner’s idiotic claim)

PhotoNetCast #8 has been released with discussions around Photography Contests with special guest professional photographer David Ziser

An Interview With Jim M. Goldstein on Bild och foto

Today there was a good conversation on the subject of photo manipulation on NPR “In A Photoshop Age, Can You Believe Your Eyes?” that I highly recommend listening to if and when they put up a recording of the program. As expected the ethics of photography played heavily in the discussion with many references to last years incident with Allan Detrich of the Toledo Blade details noted in my post Ethics of Photography: Career Suicide by Photoshop. What brought this to the forefront of discussion was recent news of a widely published doctored photo of an Iranian missile test showing 4 missiles launched when only 3 actually did.

What really made this program note worthy was a side point made by photographer Vincent LaForet that got little attention regarding reader based photojournalism and how much it can be trusted. With the advent of iReport on CNN and other news outlets publishing reader submitted photography it makes me wonder…
If photojournalists have a tough time sticking to the ethics of photojournalism how is the general public expected to?

Taking a quick look at the iReport Terms of Use I see nothing of photo manipulation or photojournalist ethics guidelines. Granted most people are submitting photos/videos from their cell phones and time is of the essence. None-the-less there is a risk that such news outlets take with such content and the burden to catch manipulated photos is clearly on photo editors.

I pose the question to you…

Do you trust everything you see when you know it is a photo submitted by a non-professional photojournalist?

This past week and a half has been incredibly exciting here at JMG-Galleries.com. Quite a few new subscribers have joined the conversation here, many as a result of the news in my blog post How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend. Unfortunately for me at the peak of activity of this conversation my eyes started giving me some problems. As you can imagine, for someone who loves photography as much as I do, having healthy eyes is a top priority. After seeing an eye specialist or two it became apparent that I’ve been working my eyes into the ground and am suffering from some hefty eye fatigue. Who would have thought being in front of a computer for 60-80 hours a week would be bad for you.

So much to my chagrin I’ve forced myself to limit my computer time for the time being. Strangely as coincidence would have it this happened only a week and a half before a planned photography trip to Utah where I’ll be meeting up with Guy Tal who is an extremely gifted photographer and author. Letting my eyes focus on the natural world versus a computer monitor over the next 5 days should help both eyes, mind and soul.

To all my blog readers thanks for visiting and subscribing. If you’ve commented here on the blog or emailed me recently I will reply, but only after my eyes have had a chance to recover.

It’s quite common to see iconic photos of San Francisco with the spans of the Golden Gate Bridge emerging from the fog, but here is a view of just the fog at sunset. On this particular evening I had no time to get in place to photograph the bridge in the fog. Instead, much closer to home, I caught a view I’ve yet to see of the fog partially covering the western portion of the city “San Francisco Sunset“. Shortly after that photo was taken the fog and lighting became much more intense. Watching the fog roll in while the light of sunset danced over the rapidly transforming cloudscape was quite a treat. On this evening I’m glad there wasn’t a bridge to ruin it.

View more photos of San Francisco Fog

Technorati Tags: sunset, fog, photography, stock photo

Photographed below is an Eared Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) at Moss Landing. Birding isn’t my primary focus when it comes to photography, but the red eye of an Eared Grebe is a tough subject to pass up. The red eye of this bird is truly an eye catcher. Sorry I couldn’t resist the pun.

Have a great weekend everyone.

If you’re interested in capturing photos like this consider joining me on my Sea Otters of California Photo Tour for a day of great nature photography.

Technorati Tags: Eared Grebe, Podiceps nigricollis, California, Monterey, wildlife, photography, stock photo

Today Flickr announced a limited partnership with Getty to create a Flickr Stock Collection.  In short you need to be discovered by Getty photo editors and additional details are forthcoming.

The great folks at Getty Images and Flickr are joining forces to create a collection of royalty free, rights ready and rights managed photographs. This announcement is just the first step and there’s a lot to do before we launch. We’ve created a FAQ to address what we think will be the initial questions.

The FAQ is quite barebones at the moment. You make the call if this is a good thing or bad thing for Flickr photographers. For now I withhold judgment as to how this can be interpreted for the state of affairs at Getty.

More on PDN

Technorati Tags: Flickr, Stock Photography, Getty

Looking forward… I cannot wait until early September. The prospect of photographing Sea Otters again is keeping me going these days. The act of photographing a landscape or nature subject has always been a meditative experience for me. Add to the mix a cute furry critter like Sea Otters and you have a magical combination that adds up to a relaxing and fun time. Only 62 more days to go…

Join me on my Sea Otters of California Tour for a day of great nature photography and you’ll know what I mean.

Technorati Tags: Monterey, California, Sea Otter, wildlife, stock photo, photography, Enhydra lutris

PhotoNetCast Episode 7 has just been released where a healthy discussion is covered regarding the Philosophy and Ethics of Editing and Processing . As always the photographers and bloggers involved in this podcast include Brian Auer of EpicEdits, Jim M. Goldstein of JMG-Galleries, Martin Gommel of Kwerfeldein, and Antonio Marques of Words: irrational.

Access the podcast and its RSS feeds via PhotoNetCast.

Technorati Tags: podcast, photography, editing, processing