Rob Kivit Natuurfotografie - Birds & Wildlife Photography

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Sunrise Serenade” by Jody Partin. Location: Huntley Meadows Park, Virginia.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Jody Partin appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Foggy Rhododendron Looking Up” by Beth Young. Location: California.

“Every year, in a short window of time on Memorial Day weekend, I endeavor to capture the magical ingredients of redwoods, fog, rhododendrons, and sunbeams all in one frame,” says Young. “This year’s missing ingredient was sunbeams; however, I can never complain about being in one of my favorite places, and most fragile ecosystems in the world, with my camera. For me, this is like being in church, with the towering coastal redwoods conveying a sense of both peacefulness and awe.”

See more of Young’s photography at www.optimalfocusphotography.com.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

Colorful wildflowers announce a new year, new growth and freshness on the land. “Spring” wildflowers bloom not just in spring but throughout the fall in many regions of the country. Blooming depends on seasonal weather, altitude, temperature, habitat and latitude.

I live in California, a state over 1,000 miles from north to south, blessed with all these elements. I can photograph wildflowers from early February through September. You can find similar situations in many regions of the country.

Join me as I go on the road in California to reveal the best spots to photograph wildflowers. I’ll also share tips with you on how to capture these colorful beauties at their best as they emerge in other parts of the country this spring.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Running Water” by Hi il Lee.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Hi il Lee appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Colorado Rock Climbers” by Charlotte Couchman. 

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Charlotte Couchman appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Infinity” by Ryan Cairl. Location: Point Reyes National Seashore, Northern California.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Ryan Cairl appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Enchanted Walk” by Danielle Austen. Location: Cherry Brook Preserve, Montgomery, New Jersey.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Danielle Austen appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Color has a huge influence on how viewers perceive images. Interestingly, it mostly happens subconsciously. The average onlooker does not know why an image transmits a certain mood—it occurs without them knowing. As a photographer, it’s important you master the why so you can knowingly incorporate it into your creations. This week’s tip explains how color affects people in ways that communicate feelings or a frame of mind. Certain colors project impressions that lure onlookers in numerous ways. Begin to utilize color to magically influence those who study your photos.

It’s imperative to understand how color affects an onlooker. Imagine how futuristic and Jedi it could be to know you have “the force” to channel one’s thoughts and emotions when someone views your photos. Obtain an understanding to grasp how it influences the psyche. Strategically introduce color into your imagery to have it resonate with your audience in emotional ways.

Multiple means can be employed to grab a beholder’s attention to immerse them in your images. One way is through saturated color. This doesn’t mean you go into Photoshop and simply move the Saturation slider to 100%. That will likely destroy any picture. I prefer to use Vibrance but do so sparingly. It’s more laid back but still allows the photo to “pop.” Another way is through the use of bold colors that stand out from the background. A basic example is a sole dandelion that grows in an all green patch of grass. A single bold color has power. Sometimes multiple bold colors work. Great examples are dramatic sunrises and sunsets. Colors that contrast are another good approach to arrest a beholder’s attention. Aspen leaves adorned in yellow vibrancy set against a mountain blue clear sky perfectly illustrates this.

Incorporate mood to lure people into your images. On a foggy monochromatic day, a cyclist dressed in bright red who rides up a mountain can be very striking. Use the subject of the isolated vibrant color as a primary focal point in the composition. It evokes a feeling of hope and positivity that the rider makes it. If that foggy condition is primarily blue in color, a melancholy overtone is unknowingly planted into the observer’s mind. A feeling of calm is analogous to blue hues.

In actuality, all colors project and represent precise feelings, emotions and thoughts. Colors are broken down into warm and cool tones. Warm tones such as yellow, red and orange provide the viewer with specific messages very different from photographs that are predominately green, blue and purple. Cool tones emit feelings of tranquility and calmness while warm tones run the gamut from anger to warmth to love. What continent you reside in determines a given color’s connotation because various cultures have different meanings for different colors.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Great View” by Nunzio Guerrera. Location: Banff National Park, Alberta.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Nunzio Guerrera appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Frozen Traveler” by Charles Cormier. Location: Alstead, New Hampshire.

“Out on the ice in Alstead, New Hampshire, under Orion and Milky Way,” describes Cormier. “The winter night sky is stunning as the cold air allows for clearer visibility.”

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Charles Cormier appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Caddo Lake” by Katherine Plessner. Location: Caddo Lake on the Texas/Louisiana border.

“I took this photo while on a tour at Caddo Lake, Texas,” says Plessner. “This lake is known for the huge cypress trees that grow there. The trees and their reflections were amazing subjects to photograph. We were out every morning and evening capturing these beauties in the different light we experienced. When I got home, I had 2,500 photos of trees to sort through!”

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Katherine Plessner appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Congratulations to Hi il Lee for winning the recent Patterns Of Winter Assignment with the image, “Looking at the Sky.”

View the winning image and a selection of submissions below. And be sure to check out our current photography assignment here and enter your best shots!

The post Patterns Of Winter Assignment Winner Hi il Lee appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Sandhill Cranes in Monte Vista” by Gary Gray. Location: Monte Vista, Colorado.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Gary Gray appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Sun Kissed” by Harry Lichtman. Location: Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho.

“Aerial images can be very literal or more abstract,” explains Lichtman. “River deltas and glacial streams have become very popular subjects, but mountain peaks also have a strong appeal to me. Splashed with the first rays of sun, these high peaks in the Sawtooth Wilderness become defined by the contrasting colors of sun and shade, and the textures of the sunlit peaks. The repeating snowfields in addition to the colorful peaks create more visual variety. While including the sky keeps it more literal, the beautiful colors, shapes and textures of the clouds were hard to ignore, so I included them as well.”

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Harry Lichtman appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Hot Creek Geologic” by Jeff Harshaw. Location: Long Valley Caldera in eastern California.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Jeff Harshaw appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “The Forest” by Dean Cobin. Location: Harriman State Park, New York.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Dean Cobin appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

WARNING: The following contains information of great magnitude. If you read what’s below and apply the concepts, your photography will improve exponentially. This week’s tips are the keys to the Ferrari to allow you to command the end look to all your images. Take time to digest every letter, utilize the concepts and you’ll see a drastic improvement in your images.

When you take control of the aperture, you begin to take charge of the photograph’s end result. When you take control of the shutter speed, you begin to take charge of the photograph’s end result. When you take control of both, you take complete charge of the photograph’s end result.

Regardless of the mode a photographer implements, it’s essential he or she is fully cognizant of the aperture, shutter and ISO in order to control the final look.

In this week’s tip, I focus on Aperture Priority. For the seven accompanying images, I dispense reasons why I chose the given settings for each. This information will provide insight as to how the settings I chose impacted the end result. 

Giraffe (Above)

I used a 600mm lens on a 1.5 crop sensor body, which made the effective focal length 900mm. The ISO was set to 400 and the aperture was wide open at ƒ/4. I looked through the viewfinder and loved how the giraffe stood out from the background. I also made sure the entire giraffe was sharp from the tip of the nose to its rump. Had it not been, I’d have stopped down the lens to attain greater depth of field. Given the distance of the background from the giraffe, it fell out of focus. If they were close, it wouldn’t be possible to capture an out-of-focus background. Background-to-subject distance plays a huge part in determining the given effect of depth of field. I kept the ISO at 400 in that the shutter speed of 1/1250 sec. was fast enough to freeze the slow-moving giraffe.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “A Gentoo Kind Of Love” by Marti Phillips. Location: Antarctica.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Marti Phillips appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Mud Bath!” by Heather Nicole. Location: Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

The post Photo Of The Day By Heather Nicole appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy and learn about nature photography is through printed books and over the years, I have accumulated a large, diverse collection. Most of the books on my bookshelf fit nicely into a single category: portfolio, planning resource, reference, cultural/natural history, or photography education.

Sometimes a book might fit into two of these categories, but it is rare to find a publication that is all of these things in a single volume. Because they are both so comprehensive and achieve a level of excellence in each of these areas, Our National Monuments: America’s Hidden Gems and Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey through America’s National Parks, both by QT Luong, are essential books for any photographer who values and visits public lands in the United States.

Although I own and value both books, this review is focused on Our National Monuments. I bought Our National Monuments during the pre-order phase and when I received it, I flipped through the photos and read some of the essays introducing each national monument.

My initial impression was quite positive: beautiful printing on substantial paper, a comprehensive narrative about each monument, and in-depth photographic coverage to bring the text to life. I recently used Our National Monuments to help plan a future photography trip and this experience with the book made me appreciate it even more.

Starting with a foreword written by former Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and an in-depth introduction covering the origin of national monuments along with an overview of the conservation issues facing these lands, the rest of the book is organized by state. Within each state, individual chapters focus on one national monument (the book covers twenty-seven national monuments in total).