One of the greatest lessons that I have learned over the last couple years in my photography journey, is to always make the best of the conditions and situation I am handed.  So often as photographers, we set out on a trip or photography excursion with very specific shots in mind.  However, as any nature photographer knows, the conditions rarely cooperate the way we want them to.  When this happens, we are often left feeling disappointed and a bit lost.  In that mood, it becomes very easy to abandon your photography plans.

Instead of abandoning your plans however, I have learned to make the best of the conditions you are handed.  In these situations, you often have to take a step back and be a little flexible.  Look for the opportunities in the conditions you have.  If it is cloudy outside, that is the perfect time to shoot flowers, waterfalls or macro work.  If it is blue skies, try to focus on night and star photography opportunities.  Look for abstract shots, or shoot the details in nature.  As long as we stay flexible and positive, there are a ton of great photography opportunities for us out there.

A perfect example of this was on my recent trip to Mount Rainier National Park.  I had planned to shoot beautiful wildflower fields with the beautiful Mt. Rainier as my backdrop.  My hopes were dashed when I arrived on location to discover a stunted and late wildflower season due to record cold temperatures.  There was snow still on the ground everywhere, and to top it off, the first 24 hours I didn’t even get a peak at Mt. Rainier herself, due to complete cloud cover.

Instead of losing hope, I quickly adjusted my plans to make the best of the conditions.  After a cloudy and boring sunset, I decided to take advantage of the cloudy conditions and hike into waterfalls the next morning.  Not only did the waterfall prove to be beautiful and spectacular, but along the hike up I ran into a beautiful field of Corn Lilies, which I have been wanting to photograph for over a year.  I managed to get some of my best photographs from the trip that morning, shooting waterfalls, abstract and macro photography.

So the next time you are handed conditions that are less than what you had hoped for, don’t lose hope!  Take a step back and think of how you can make the best of those conditions.  Be creative, and get out and enjoy yourself.  You never know, you could come back with one of your best images.

One of the challenges I have sometimes faced when shooting night photography in high alpine areas, is dealing with your lens or camera fogging up.  The temperature differences between night and day are drastic when you are at high elevation areas.  In the hours of 11pm-2am, the temperature is rapidly dropping, as much as 40 degrees from daytime.  The metals and glass in your camera body and lens tend to cool off very quickly, and often faster than the air temperature.  This can lead to the warmer outside air rushing into your camera and lens, in more humid environments creating fog on the inside of your components.  Anyone who has experienced this knows that it can easily ruin a great night photography opportunity.

However, there are ways you can help to mitigate and prevent this from ruining your beautiful evening under the stars.  The way to combat this fog from occurring is to keep your lens and body warm, thus keeping the air and moisture from entering in the first place.  A good technique I have learned for managing this is to use standard feet warmers.  You can use hand warmers as well, but the feet ones have a natural adhesive sticker side, that makes it nice for keeping them attached in place.  You can also use a rubber band to help attach these to the lens.   Simply attach a couple of these warmers, to your lens and your camera body.  I then wrap the entire setup in a thick towel, being careful to not cover the front of my lens.  The towel helps suck the moisture out of the air, and also helps to keep the warmth in.

A few additional tips that may be helpful to you:
1)      Don’t apply the hand warmers too soon, as they do lose warmth over time.  If you are waiting 1.5 hours until it is dark enough, keep your camera in your bag until you are ready to shoot.  Applying them too early can lead to the warmth running out halfway through your shots.
2)      A good set of hand/feet warmers should last about 2-3 hours as long as you use the towel trick I mentioned above.  This should be plenty of time for your star trails.
3)      If you do setup your camera early and are waiting, go ahead and setup some warmers on there.  You might have to switch them to fresh ones, but it keeps you from having to deal with fog when you are ready to shoot.
4)      These warmers do have a shelf life.  They become less affective the longer they have been sitting in a package.  I recommend making sure you have a newer package, to ensure maximum warmth.
5)      Once removed from the package, it takes a good 20-30 minutes for them to reach optimum warmth.  Take this into account and remove them from the package to expose them to the air about 20 minutes before you are planning to apply them.

I recommend carrying a set of these with a small towel in your bag or at the very least in your car if you plan to do some night photography.  Trust me, when you need them, they will save your night.  I hope sharing my experience helps some of you night photographers out there.

Over the last couple months, I have finally had the opportunity to spend some time practicing with my Lee Big Stopper filter. For those who don’t know about the filter, it is a solid 10 stop 4X4” glass filter. This thing is dark, and I mean DARK! It can be a very fun filter to play around with, and can lead to some very beautiful and unique photographs, but there several pros and cons to using it.

First I will focus on a few of the negative aspects of the filter. Perhaps the biggest drawback is how incredibly dark this filter is. When you throw it on, even in bright daylight you will not be able to see a thing through your lens. As a result, it is best to do all your composing, focusing and setting up your shot before you throw the filter on the camera. Second, it can be a tricky to figure out the right exposure in different lighting situations. You get much better at this as you practice with it, but in the beginning it is a bit of guess work. Lastly, when using this filter to capture cloud movement, or in the case of this shot a sunrise, the long exposures mean you don’t often get more than one or two attempts at the shot.

On the plus side, the filter can do some incredible artistic shots, due to the long exposures you can shoot, even in bright daylight. These long exposures allow you to streak clouds across the sky for beautiful effects. They also allow you to get the smooth water you would normally only get during night photography in the middle of the day. There are plenty of other artistic uses to long exposures, but this gives you an idea.

This photograph is a great example of some of the pros and cons I mentioned above. After capturing an early sunrise glow at the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, I noticed that there was a few scattered clouds in the opposite direction of the bridge that started to light up bright pink. There wasn’t a whole lot for compositions, and there were several other things that made the shot uninteresting. There were a lot of birds flying back and forth all over the place in the foreground. Also, the water was very choppy and the clouds were only in the low sky and not very dramatic.

The perfect opportunity to use my Big Stopper, but it meant rushing to set it up and compose my scene. I knew the light would not last very long, so I would get two tries at best. I quickly composed a scene and fired off a two minute exposure, only to finally look at the results and see that it was still under exposed. I knew I had at best one more attempt before the clouds had moved on and the color was gone, so I cranked it up to almost 3 min and let fly. This time however the exposure was perfect. The filter smoothed out my choppy water, made all the birds disappear and most importantly streaked my few clouds to make a dramatic skyline and a nice photograph from an otherwise boring scene.

Often times as nature photographers we overlook the beauty of the cities around us, especially when the opportunity is there to mix the beautiful architecture of a city, with the natural beauty surrounding it.  Learning to look for the mixture of these two components can lead to some extremely dramatic photographs.

On my recent trip to photograph the California coast, I ran into an unexpected and unfortunate string of clear sunny weather.  After two days of stretching to make things work with the conditions, I decided my best bet was to spend my last day in San Francisco.  Not only because I truly believe this is one of the most beautiful cities to photograph in the US, but because I knew that the clear conditions could easily be used in my favor there.  Although the fog I was hoping for in the morning did not happen either, I was able to walk away with a couple beautiful shots from the city.

The first shot of the Golden Gate Bridge was shot in the early night.  It took a bit of creative navigation to find this particular vantage point, but after finally arriving it was clear that it was well worth it.  I worked my way down to the rocks to find a good composition and setup my camera on a remote timer for a long exposure, in order to capture the smooth water and reflection of lights.  As my camera worked on the nearly 5 min exposure, I sat back and enjoyed the scene around me.  The weather was surprisingly warm for the time of year and being late at night.  The area on the rocks was in pitch black, but the lights shining on the bridge immediately drew my attention to the beautiful architecture of the bridge.  The sound of the waves crashing into the shoreline rocks provided a nice distraction from the busy city life.  It is easy to see why this bridge is considered the icon of the city.

The second shot was shot just before sunrise from the beautiful Bay Bridge.  I had spent some time here during the night scouting out the location, so I had the comp and shot in mind, but wanted to get the nice pre-sunrise glow in the horizon to add some color.  This location however was not exactly remote and is right on the sidewalk along the pier.  The beautiful pillars were lit by the street lights directly behind.  The key again was the long exposure to smooth out the water.  A good sturdy tripod is always best for these long exposures, as any vibrations can lead to a blurry image.  I also found it extremely helpful to throw my bag on the hook of my tripod to weigh the whole setup down to further keep from having any movement.  I was extremely pleased with the light and having the opportunity to capture the shot I had in mind.  I eagerly wait the next time I have the opportunity to visit this magnificent city.