Category Archives: Blog

Friday Photo Tip: Quality of Light.

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So you’ve spent a few good hours exploring a new place and you think you’ve finally found that definitive scene. You take care to shoot from various angles and try a variety of lenses. You work the composition until it feels just right.

You scroll through your images on the LCD and a sense of satisfaction washes over you. Start packing it up. On to the next location, right? Not so fast!

Yes, you’re happy with the image. Yes, you’re content with your composition. But how will this scene look later in the evening? Early next morning? What is the weather forecast for the next few days?

If you think something is worth documenting then it’s worth documenting well. You’re pleased with what you photographed in the daylight? Great. Now go back there at twilight and you’ll see something quite different. That brief period of transition between darkness and light called the gloaming will enhance almost any scene. If there is a building in your shot the interior lights can add interesting color elements to the image as well.

Time is a luxury we don’t often get to enjoy, it’s true. In those cases you just have to make the best of it. But when you do have time, take advantage. Go back to the same spot. Shoot it again. You’ll find it’s well worth your effort.

Martin Luther King Memorial

Martin Luther King Memorial
john-kircher

john-kircher

Keep The Parks Open !

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According to the National Parks Conservation Association, if congress and the President fail to come to an agreement by January more than 200 million dollars will be cut from an already deflated NPS budget. This will mean various closures throughout the system. It will mean layoffs and work stoppages. As many as 9,000 Rangers could be let go. Park hours will be cut and some parks will be shut completely. The Parks budget today is 15% less than it was ten years ago. Cutting it drastically further would have devastating impacts on the entire system. Not to mention on the millions who love and visit regularly these national treasures.

Please take some time and call your congressional representatives and Senators… or at least visit the NPCA website and sign their petition. You can find it here: Take Action

A bull elk on a snowy morning in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

A bull elk on a snowy morning in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

The Magnitude of Disaster Relief

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It’s been three weeks since Hurricane Sandy devastated much of the New Jersey and New York coastal areas. Clean up and relief for disaster victims continues. Progress is being made but there is still much to do.

This past Saturday in a warehouse in Richmond,VA about 30 volunteers and employees of the American Red Cross filled over 1,300 coolers with food for delivery to the disaster region. On Sunday many more showed up (200, I believe) with the goal of 8,000 more coolers. The aim is to provide a meal for as many as possible this Thanksgiving.

It’s difficult sometimes to comprehend the scale of a disaster relief operation like the one ARC is currently undertaking. There are 300 Red Cross emergency vehicles in the NJ/NY region alone, and starting before the storm made landfall 8,800 disaster responders have been deployed. 6 million meals and snacks have been served. All of this continues today and likely will for weeks to come.

I saw only a snippet this weekend of the organization and logistics involved and it blew me away. If Sunday’s operation in the Richmond warehouse went off as smoothly as Saturday’s (and I have no doubt it did), the 8,000 cooler goal will be met easily.

Update: 8,000 cooler goal was indeed met! Incredible!

Robert Pratt of the American Red Cross moving coolers in a warehouse in Virginia.

Friday Photo Tip: Get Close

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One easy way to improve your photos is to get close to your subject. Then get closer. And just when you think you’re close enough, get even closer!

Birthday parties are perfect for this. Also, parades, backyard picnics and weddings. Occasions where cameras and photographers are expected and embraced. Get out there and shoot. But no sitting across the room comfortably clicking away. You need to walk over and sit down among the screechy children or get out on the dance floor with the celebrants. If the barbecue smoke isn’t burning your eyes, you’re not close enough.

And no big, heavy, long lenses. They have their uses, yes, but creating a sense of intimacy is not one of them.

Don’t be shy. Get close.

Washington DC from A Cessna 172

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It’s not a view many people get to see nowadays and it requires a great deal of paper work, patience and luck. But when it all comes together, it is still way cool to fly over Washington DC.

This is the view looking west at the National Mall and the various museums and galleries. Capitol Building, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial are easy to make out. Supreme Court, Native American Museum are visible. And that big group of red roof buildings on the right? That’s Federal Triangle, part of the Pennsylvania Ave. National Historical Site.

Love this city!

 

Downtown Washington DC aerial view. Looking west.

Climate Action

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Every other summer for almost 20 years my family has vacationed on the mid-Atlantic coast of Florida. We’ve regularly gathered down there to enjoy each others company and all the diversions the place has to offer: Early morning beach-combing, tracking loggerhead turtle nests, body surfing or boogie boarding, evening surf-fishing, photographing the great variety of shore birds (ok, that’s just me!), or just generally kicking back and letting it all wash over you for a week.

Romance at New Smyrna Beach, FL.

Now, I would like very much for this little cutie to be able to enjoy the same stretch of beach as that young couple above when she’s their age. But I’m not the least bit optimistic it will be the same place. Changes in our global climate are being ignored by far too many in our political class. And attention needs to be paid. These changes, which are well documented and easy to find, will grow significantly in size and in scope over the next 50-100 years if we take no action. The shores we have enjoyed will become unrecognizable if we take no action. In the future homes on the bayside will be beachfront property if we take no action.

It is now an almost daily occurrence that I read about a new climate record being set. I read about extreme weather events, coastline landscapes changing, Arctic ice disappearing, long term droughts… the list goes on. Here is the most recent: U.S. On Track for Warmest Year on Record.

Climate change is happening, it is bad and getting worse, and human activity is largely the cause. But our actions can also be the fix. We can make it possible for future generations to enjoy what past generations have enjoyed. It is still possible to leave a better world for them. But the climate clock is ticking. We have to act. Today.

 

Kenyan-born Socialist Democratically re-elected President United States

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Dear Mr. President,

Now that the voting is done. Now that the counting is complete (Florida, WTF! Again?). Now that every television commercial will not be a political ad. Now that those fatuous concerns about birth certificates and college transcripts are stuffed where they belong. Can we finally start a serious conversation about climate change?

That’d be great.

Thanks.

 

american flags at the rally for sanity, 2010

Diminutive Descendant of Dinosaurs

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Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Female

The days are shorter and the shadows longer. The maples and oaks have shed their leaves and stand naked in the wind.

And by now this ruby-throated hummingbird, who visits my backyard each spring has moved on. She is on her way to winter feeding grounds somewhere in Central America. A monumental journey for such a tiny creature. And if that feat isn’t impressive enough, consider that this bird weighing a mere 3.8 grams has to cross the Gulf of Mexico – a non-stop, 500 mile flight from the Florida panhandle to the Yucatan Peninsula. (And do it again on the return trip!)

The hope, of course, is that the trip is not for nothing. That her winter home is still there when she arrives. That habitat loss is kept to a minimum… or halted completely. Or better still, reversed! One can hope.

Of course, my personal hope is that I am lucky enough to photograph her again next Spring.

 

Fortuitous Photo Ops

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great blue heron, great falls maryland

 

I was on the Virginia shore of the Potomac River shooting kayakers in the falls when my peripheral vision spied this heron as it glided down. With a 6 foot wing span and gangly legs it landed awkwardly on the rocks of the Maryland side. The bird then began to jump from boulder to boulder looking for a decent place to fish. I waited.

As you might notice the grey coloring of a great blue heron’s plumage camouflages it well against these rocks. Not an ideal background. Yet, this one hopped again and landed for just a moment in the spot you see here. I couldn’t have asked for more. I shot.

It’s not often your subjects in the wild place themselves in such choice spots. Be ready when they do.