The Photo Cascadia team is happy to mark another year of exploring wild landscapes, appreciating natural beauty, and sharing our passion for landscape photography. We are thankful to be healthy and getting out in the world more than we did in 2020. David, Kevin, and Zack have been back doing field workshops. Sean and Erin went to Maine as instructors at the Out of Acadia Conference.  Erin did a lot of work with Canon this year and Chip was able to perform with the Spokane Symphony again. Some of us traveled a bit as well, mostly inside the country, but also to Iceland and Slovenia ..read more

As a photographer, it is always satisfying to have your images published, especially in a well-regarded landscape photography magazine such as Elements Landscape Photography Magazine. In that light, it is a pleasure to have some of my images featured in the Gallery section of the November 2021 issue. The editors selected which photos to feature. I always find it interesting and entertaining to see which of my images catch other people’s attention. Following are a couple of the selected images. Elements is a monthly digital publication dedicated to the finest landscape photography ..read more

“Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me… When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a “specter of the Brocken,” my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying.” -Carl Jung, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” Imagine mountain climbing, or hiking a high mountain ridge. If you climb high enough to look down into the misty fog below, and if the sun is low and behind you, you might witness the shadowy figure of the Brocken Spectre. Appearing like a tall, dark, my ..read more

DxO recently released a new piece of software called PureRaw that I thought was worth giving a look. DxO did not ask me to review it and I paid full price for my copy of PureRaw. The idea of creating enhanced raw files while maintaining a Lightroom and Photoshop-based workflow intrigued me so I wanted to check it out. PureRaw allows you to apply DxO’s noise removal and lens corrections to raw files without having to give up your favorite imaging software. I use Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw to make my raw level adjustments and I like how smoothly Lightroom and Photoshop integrate. How ..read more

Fred Kiser first photographed this scene of McCord Creek and Elowah Falls in 1916, and it’s been comp-stomped by folks ever since – including me.   People have been trying to emulate other’s photos for a long time, often because the scene is inspiring. In 1840 Hugh Lee Pattinson took a photo of Niagara Falls, and it was one of the earliest landscape images in North America. Since then, people have been drawn to the falls continually trying to emulate that image. In painting there is a whole history of painters copying the scenes of other painters. In the Baroque era, the wealthy would t ..read more

Occasionally, someone will look at my images and ask, “Are these Photoshopped?” I take this to mean, how much has the image been manipulated. I often answer that I use Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw to process my images and leave it at that. Part of using Photoshop in post-processing may be to combine two or three images where I may have shot one for the correct exposure in the sky and one for correct exposure on the land and then combine them in layers for one correct exposure. This isn’t new, manipulating images is as old as photography. In the 1850s French photographer Gustave Le Gray (who ..read more

  Many photographers have had the same reaction that I did upon hearing about yet another new social media app hitting the radar: a yawn and a roll of the eyes. We have seen countless apps and image-sharing sites emerge with fanfare and then fail to gain traction in the crowded sphere of social media, and we feel pressed to carve out time for the platforms that we already use. So why should any photographer devote more precious time to an app that doesn’t even include any images? The short answer is because Clubhouse is poised to be a true disrupter, an app that could usher in a whole ..read more

Welcome to the latest in my semi-regular series of blog posts about artists that inspire me.  As a photographer, I’m fascinated with how landscape artists of different media (in this case, paint) approach light; I feel that by analyzing and appreciating other artists’ works, we can gain insight and inspiration into our own art form. Albert Bierstadt, 1830-1902, was a German-American landscape painter, known best for his large-scale landscapes of the American west.  As part of the second generation of artists in the Hudson River School, Bierstadt used that group’s signature style of ..read more

In this image I used a wide-angle lens and got as close to the foreground sand ripples to create impact. Getting low allowed me to accentuate the sand ripples as well as the contrast in light and shadow.   One of my favorite subjects when it comes to landscape photography is photographing sand dunes. The variety and the uniqueness of dunes make it a great subject to photograph. When it comes to images of dunes that resonate with viewers, the following vital elements are critical to consider: light, color harmony, and composition. Each of these concepts individually increases the chances ..read more

Why would you want to build your own PC and why did a life long Apple user like myself build a custom PC?  There are several excellent benefits to building your own custom PC.  The cost to performance ratio is significantly better if you build a PC yourself.  You can also customize your build using components that will provide much greater performance for the specific tasks you do every day.  You can also build your PC to the form factor that best suits your work space and add aesthetic touches as well.  In this article I’ll share my own experience researching and buil ..read more