Every year, off the coast of Vancouver Island, the place I call home, the herring spawn by the millions. The usually dark green water turns a magnificent chalky blue-green as the herring do the reproductive dance that makes them a keystone species, while at the same time drawing in an astonishing number of animals: gulls, seabirds, bald eagles, sea otters, harbour seals, sea lions, orca, grey and humpback whales. What an experience! At times, I could turn 360 degrees and see dozens of whales, hundreds of eagles, and thousands of gulls, the surface of the water broken every few second ..read more

My work in Kenya didn’t go as planned. Story of my life, right? But I’m not referring to the fact that my first two days in Kenya were spent in bed in a tent in the bush, with an IV fluid and antibiotic drip, trying to get a fever down. I’m not referring to the fact that unseasonable rains changed everything, including the presence (scarce!) of animals that we were there to photograph. I don’t even mean the fact that one of my cameras kept malfunctioning at the worst of times. Like the one single cheetah sighting we had, where I raised my camera and…nothing. No focus, no aperture, just t ..read more

This is another long one, but if you’ve ever struggled to understand Exposure Value Compensation (or never used it), this might help. Put the coffee on and settle in for a bit. Skipping past the inevitable moment when I’m walking around with my 600mm lens and someone asks if I’m compensating for something, the answer is generally yes. I am. But it’s not what you think. After my last article about digital noise and high ISOs, I received a good question about the use of Exposure Value Compensation (or “EV compensation”), and this felt like as good a moment as any to try to clarify it f ..read more

“Life,” said Helen Keller, “is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.” The same can be said about art and the effort to make it. Adventure is defined as ” a risky undertaking of unknown outcome, an exciting or unexpected event.” Risky. Unknown. Unexpected.  Art-making has a wildness to it, an untamed quality. I know I’ve written about this before, but when Picasso was asked if he knew what his paintings would look like before he even put paint to canvas, he replied, “No, of course not. If I knew, I wouldn’t bother doing it.” It is the adventure of art-making that makes it unpredicta ..read more

I loaded my gear into my truck last week and headed 12 hours north to the mouth of the Chilko River, my first trip since the amputation. I drove the same route a year ago, through towering mountains and golden aspens, my mind less on the bears I would photograph and more on the looming surgery. If I didn’t change my mind, I’d have my leg removed below the knee in a few months. I spent that entire drive trying to calm the voices in my head, the ones asking if I was crazy, the ones wondering if I’d ever drive this kind of trip again or actually do the things I was replacing ..read more

In my last post (August 06), I discussed a few ways to improve the mood in our photographs, namely by finding stronger mood in the first place, usually by looking for more interesting light or more interesting weather. Just getting out there earlier and staying later helps. Some weatherproof gear and a willingness not to baby the camera so much that you never make the kinds of photographs you’d like to would also be an asset. But I think there is also work to be done in the darkroom—not necessarily to create mood where mood isn’t there in the first place, but to amplify the mood that’s th ..read more

“How do you photograph that great light?” is one of the top three questions I’m asked about how I make my photographs. It’s a good question because the camera sees light differently than we do, and unless you know what’s possible, you’ll struggle with retaining the mood of beautiful light. That struggle is more difficult for photographers who are still chained to their histograms and using some kind of automatic mode without EV Compensation. As good as today’s cameras are, you still have to do some of the thinking, because the camera tends to average things out a bit. Average i ..read more

We are all missing something. We are all a Gordian Knot of what we are, what we have and do not have, and what we’ve both gained and lost. The blessing of some of that is easily seen, while some of it is hard not to see as a curse or a deficiency. All of it comprises the constraints within which we live. As a photographer and a teacher on matters of creativity, that word “constraint” is important to me. Easily misunderstood as a barrier to creativity, constraints are not what prevent creativity but what drive it. Accepting this—and working with it—is the key not only to a challenging and frui ..read more

There is a scene in the 2023 Netflix series Kaleidoscope in which the lead character, played by the inimitable Giancarlo Esposito, says to his young daughter, “Show me where you’re brave.” She responds by putting her finger to her head. “Now show me where you’re strong,” he says, and in response, she puts her finger on her heart. I am feeling neither brave nor strong right now. This has all been so much harder than I had the capacity to expect. A month ago, I was staring into the darkness of this amputation, so much of it unknown. It was easy then, to be brave in those moments ..read more

Not quite a week ago, I had my right foot amputated and dropped that news on many of you somewhat abruptly. Sorry about that. As I observed at the time, there’s just really no way of easing into a conversation like that. If you missed this and you’re wondering what’s going on, you can read the whole story here to catch up. If you caught the news the first time, keep reading because after the incredible outpouring of support you gave me, you deserve an update. I’m sorry it has taken so long. It was an early morning for us on Monday, June 05. Neither Cynthia nor I slept very well in the hot ..read more