There are times when I look at a scene and I see it as a finished print and not as the scene before me. Ansel Adams called this “previsualization” but just the act of visualizing is foreseeing the outcome so the “pre” seems a bit redundant, but what ever you call it, having the foresight to realize the potential of what you are seeing is the key. When Ansel would use this term, it was to describe how he could foresee how he was going to interpret the scene before him into the tonalities of black and white. When I visualize something, I am usually seeing how I am going to bring out the colors and the light in the scene before me.
For example, on my last trip to Alaska to photograph the bears (see previous blog entry), I booked a window seat (I am usually an aisle guy) because I knew I would see some amazing scenery. I booked a window on the right side of the plane knowing as we flew up the Alaskan coast I would see some great mountains, glaciers and tidal flats. I carried my Canon S95 point and shoot camera in my pocket so I could easily take pictures out the window. This is a great little camera as it fits in my pocket, has a large sensor for point and shoot standards, and is capable of shooting raw.
As we were coming into Anchorage there was a fairly low tide and the plane banked several times out over the Cook Inlet. Looking out the window I could see all these great patterns in tidal zone. Unfortunately through the airplane window the colors were not that vivid, but nonetheless I liked the patterns and as I flew over and looked down. I visualized the scenes before me with great light and bold color. I shot several images as we came in for our landing.
When I got back home and finished looking at the bear pictures, I turned my attention to these aerial images. I really liked the patterns I was seeing but was disappointed that the images looked so flat and dull, because my memory was of how I visualized the images, not of what I actually saw! Fortunately I know a bit of Photoshop, so I knew that I would be able fulfill my vision. While some of you “purists” may call this cheating, I am not going to get sucked into that debate. I come to photography from a fine art background, not a journalistic background, so for me clicking the shutter is harvesting the raw material and postproduction an extension of the creative process.
All of the finished products are in my album Alaska and you can see them larger here. But here is one of the originals to give you an idea of what I mean. I hope you enjoy the images. I plan to print them as large canvas prints and feature them at an upcoming show I am having in January.
Enjoy!
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Digital House℞ Call℠
I have been doing my “Digital House℞ Calls” for about a month now and I have given lessons to people in Washington, Florida, New York, Ohio, and Texas to name a few of the locations I have “gone” without ever leaving my house! I have covered topics as diverse as “creating composite using layer masking in Photoshop” to “ the Adjustment Brush” in Lightroom, and “getting realistic looking HDR images with PhotomatixPro". And the best part of all every one of my students has exclaimed how much the lessons have helped them solve a problem! Do you have something you need help with? If so click here.
I am giving a free lecture sponsored by Canon in San Francisco October 12 for more info click here
I am giving a series of Lightroom and Photoshop classes at Viewpoint Gallery in Sacramento in October for more info click here
I had a great time photographing in Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, FL last week. It is a small wetlands that has a great concentration of birds, turtles, and alligators! I also took a run down to Brian Piccalo Park in Pembroke Pines to photograph Burrowing Owls. There is so much to see in this region of Florida! I took most of my pictures with my Canon 1DM4 but I sure wished it had the focusing system of my new 5DM3. Too bad they didn’t make the new 1Dx so it would auto-focus at f/8 like all the other 1 series cameras. If they had I sure would like that camera, but for now I’ll stick to my 1DM4 for my wildlife camera so I can use my teleconverters on my 100-400mm and my 500mm. I used the 1.4x and the 2x TCs on a lot of my bird images. 
I just had 2 cancellations for my bear trip to Alaska in July so there is now room for 3 more! If you want to experience a great trip click 
I have done many amazing things in my life. I have swam with the wild dolphins in Hawaii, watched a volcano emit lava, seen Mt. Everest, photographed beluga whales in the artic and humpback whales in Alaska and Hawaii, and spent countless hours in some of the most beautiful places on earth, but walking among and photographing wild Alaskan Brown Bears in Lake Clark National Park, has to be one of the most exciting things I have ever done. I have seen a lot of bears before, in Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming but never before have I been so close and yet so “comfortable” around wild bears. In the past when I have viewed and photographed bears I have been in awe but always a little fearful as well. While I was cautious and ever wary of the wildness of the bears at Lake Clark, I never really had fearful feeling. These bears really could not have cared that I was present and they went about their daily life of surviving in the wild without any concern for my presence allowing me to get the most awesome bear photographs I have ever taken!
up several times and there were times I had to put it down and grab the 100-400 because I could not fit the whole animal in the frame! It was the first test of my 
I didn’t want to carry a camera bag into the field with me since there was only wet beach (in some places I was standing in inch or two of water) or wet grass to put a bag down. Instead I wore a photo vest for all the small stuff, teleconvertors, extension tubes, cable releases and even the 24-105 lens and I wore a 
best pictures I took in the Dallas area were indoors at the Dallas World Aquarium! A photographer does what he needs to do!