Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i Outdoor Photographer

Agathla Peak By Jimmy Day “Sometimes when you travel, you happen upon a hidden gem. That was the case when on my way to Monument Valley, I drove by Agathla Peak. It’s quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Agathla is a volcanic peak soaring 1,500 feet above the desert floor, easily viewable from US 163 just outside of Kayenta, Arizona. There’s no public access since it stands on Navajo lands. The name Agathla derives from the Navaho name aghaala, meaning “much wool.” The wool is thought to actually be the fur of pronghorn antelope and deer.” See more of Jimmy Day’s work at www.jdaypix.com. Rhapsody In Blue By Marti Phillips “This is a blue hour blend taken at Badwater Basin in California’s Death Valley National Park. The foreground was…

Good photography takes…hold on a second…time. So does bad photography, for that matter, though experienced photographers tend to develop a special understanding of the various aspects of time at play in their art. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous concept of “the decisive moment” in photography is routinely connected with capturing fast action in dynamic situations. An online search for “outdoor photographer” and “decisive moment” will lead mostly to articles about capturing wildlife action. But landscape photographers routinely work in dynamic scenarios as well, so aiming to capture the decisive moment in nature should always be a goal. It’s all about the photographer being in the right place with the right perspective at the right time, ready to photograph the ephemeral alignment of subject relationships, form and line, light, weather and so on,…

I think most photographers have a number of images that they have a deeper emotional connection with for various reasons. That is certainly the case with the subject of this article, “Moonlight Coast.” It started with a decision to surprise my mother (Pat Everett) on Mother’s Day in 2017. Not a big deal right, as it’s something any good son should do. The trip to visit my mom requires two flights, Sacramento to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to Melbourne and then a longish drive to Corowa in New South Wales. Travel time with customs, layovers, etc., is long and it all tends to blur together. Arriving in Melbourne on the Friday morning and having a couple of days to kill before needing to be in Corowa, I decided to…

As I write this, we’re just a few days into the new year, which makes it a fitting time to introduce myself as the new editor of Outdoor Photographer. If you read this section in last month’s issue of OP, you are aware that the magazine’s long-time editor, Wes Pitts, has moved on, replaced by me, Dan Havlik. My name might ring a bell for you because just recently I was editor of Digital Photo and Digital Photo Pro, OP’s sibling publications. Prior to that, I was the Editor-in-Chief of Shutterbug magazine and have worked in the photo industry for over two decades. All of which is to say, Wes has left OP in good hands, you can rest assured. It’s also fitting that even though I’m writing this in…

The long-awaited Sony A7R V finally arrived late last year to great expectations. The A7R V uses the same 61-megapixel, full-frame sensor as its predecessor but includes more processing power, a dedicated AI-based processing unit, a new autofocus system, new In-Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) and much more. There’s much to like about the A7R V, and it’s clearly one of the best mirrorless cameras on the market. But does it offer enough new features to warrant upgrading from the A7R IV? Read on to find out. Design & Handling At first glance, the Sony A7R V looks a lot like the A7R IV. While there are many similarities between the two cameras, some differences, both big and small, result in a significantly better user experience. For starters, the A7R V…

Location Roark Bluff, a ¾-mile-long, multi-colored sandstone bluff, towers more than 200 feet above the Buffalo National River in Northern Arkansas. The bluff can be accessed at Steel Creek Campground, 3 miles east of Ponca off Highway 74. Ford the river at the canoe launch (high water makes this extremely dangerous—better to paddle across upstream) and follow the 1-mile trail left to the top of the bluff. Roark Bluff is one of the most-photographed areas on the Buffalo National River, but the 151-mile free-flowing stream offers countless other photographic opportunities, from wildflowers to waterfalls. Weather Every season visits the Buffalo National River, and most are mild. Summer highs reach into the 90s, and winter sees temperatures sometimes dropping into the teens or lower, but mild conditions are the norm, with…

Who doesn’t love the soothing tranquility of a crisp reflection? Like a metaphor that engages the brain in ways different than we’re accustomed, a reflection is an indirect representation that can be more powerful than its literal double. Rather than allowing us to process the scene directly, a reflection challenges us to mentally reassemble its reverse world, and in the process, perhaps see the scene a little differently. Reflections are a powerful photographic tool as well. Water’s universal familiarity makes it a popular subject for photographers frustrated by their camera’s static reproduction of our dynamic world. While we can’t capture actual motion, we can freeze or blur a tumbling cascade to express turbulent flow. Likewise, more than just a mirror of a beautiful subject, a reflection indicates stillness that conveys…

In the last gray light of the last day of winter, we stood atop 13,294-foot James Peak, studying the broad shoulders and deep gorges of Colorado’s Front Range, the wall of mountains that divide the Platte and Colorado River Basins. In bulky parkas and micro spikes on the snow-crusted summit, my wife, Marla, friend Marc Flink and I took in the length of the Continental Divide ridgeline to 14,255-foot Longs Peak, the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park, its distinctive summit block rising above a sea of mountains dressed in winter white. Turned around all season by brutal winds, Marla and I were on our fifth attempt to make the winter ascent, this one timed with a supermoon. With moonrise blocked by low clouds, my attention turned to snowpack…

Welcome to Part 3 of this article series on Visualization: A Modern Approach. Thus far, I’ve been writing about “visualization” in photography in somewhat relative terms. Over the years, many photographers have written about visualization, trying to either define it or distinguish it from their workflow. Along the way, many have interpreted Ansel Adams’ meaning of visualization as a mechanistic or scientific approach for creating a photograph that leaves little room for experimentation and play. Minor White was one of the first photographers to write about visualization offering a broader context. White broke the practice down into two distinct phases: pre-visualization and post-visualization. In short, White described pre-visualization as the conceptual phase of the process. Post-visualization was thus invoked during the printing phase, where the photographer could recall what was…