12 promises every landscape photographer should make

I’ve been reading more photography articles lately and thought I’d start sharing the good ones with you.

Photos by Guy Edwards

In the post below we’ll show you how a little bit of effort on your part can go an awfully long way when it comes to capturing stunning landscape photography.

No more driving to the local scenic spots during your lunch break, parking in the car park and walking 20 paces or so to lazily shoot the same old view that every other visitor to the site does. We’ll reveal the benefits of getting up at dawn to shoot sunrise scenes, making the effort to trek up mountains for better views, and the joys of seeking out bluebells in a forest, lone trees in fields and surging waterfalls.

We’ll also help you frame shots better, with tips on adding foreground interest and composing arty abstract shots. Plus we’ll teach you new camera skills to set the right shutter speeds for milky waters in your coastal shots, how to take total control of depth of field and focusing, and how to best use telephoto lenses to isolate interesting sections in your scenes.

So, prepare to make an effort… as, when it comes to landscape photography, you will only ever get out what you put in.

1. I will… get up at dawn
A common mistake beginners make is to only photograph landscapes in the middle of a sunny day. It’s much better to set that alarm clock and get to your location before sun up. Before, during and just after sunrise are great times to shoot landscapes as the sun is lower in the sky, which means softer, warmer light across your scenes, and more colour in the skies.

This lower angle of sunlight also creates longer shadows, so you see the relief of the landscape, adding more depth to your shots. Use a tripod as light will be low, so shutter speeds will need to be slow.

2. I will… wait for the clouds to break
Wherever you live, the weather can be a pain in the proverbial. However, don’t put your camera away simply because the clouds have gathered or there’s a storm brewing. A skyscape full of clouds can add much more drama to your shots than a block of blue sky.

So get out there, be patient, take your time, and wait for a break in the weather to highlight the focal point in your scene and to bring life to your landscape shots. You’ll be surprised on how many occasions that seemingly dull, grey days offer fleeting golden moments.

3. I will… climb a mountain
We’ve all done it – driven to a beautiful location deep in  the countryside, only to pull over by the side of the road to step out and lazily take a shot (or worse still, shoot from the car window!). You won’t get great shots like that.

Instead, pop on your hiking boots, prepare a packed lunch and get your camera gear on your back, then trek up to the beauty spots far from the car parks. Being higher up will create better opportunities for capturing stunning vistas, with far more interesting mountain scenery than down below with the coach tours

Continue reading at digitalcameraworld.com

Self Edit Mini Challenge Reminder

Hey guys. Don’t forget the deadline to submit your photos is almost here. If you’re already done, you can send them to me at submit@davidpasillas.com. Be sure to include your name and link to your blog or website that you want promoted.

If you haven’t heard about the challenge or forgot what its about, here is Shannon’s original post.

Basically, take 100 photos of a single subject and submit your 1 or 2 best photos. Go read Shannon’s post for why you should take part. This is definitely an opportunity to improve your photography.

If you think its too late to join, you’re wrong. I still haven’t done my shoot. Well, I did do a shoot with a praying mantis, but I want to do another one since I already shared those pics.

Grab your camera and join in on the fun!

More Awards

First off, let me say…

Excuse the cheesy thank you card I made this morning. I decided I don’t like all the rules that these awards have, so I’m going to ignore them and do things my own way. Nobody is enforcing any of these rules anyways. I’ll thank everyone that nominated me for an award recently and then I’ll give you some links to check out.

My thanks to Charlie and Fabian for the Very Inspiring Blog Award and the One Lovely Blog awards.

Thank you Paul for the Sunshine award.

Thank you Yvonne from PhotoEcstasy for the Very Inspiring Blog Award.

And I have to thank AngelineM and PhotoPoetics for nominating me for the inspring blog award.

Did I get everyone??? I do thank you all. Sometimes I wonder if I’m wasting my time with blogging and then I get some recognition from my peers that let me know I’m appreciated and probably inspiring some people out there in the blogosphere.

Now for some links. I’d like to share some sites that I think you could benefit from. If you’re following my blog, you probably want to improve your iphoneography or photography in general. These are some sites that I like to visit regularly.

PSD Tuts+ Lets face it, if you want to get the most out of your camera, you’re going to have to know how to edit. This is a great place to pick up photoshop tips and techniques. There is also a lot of amazing art.

Digital Photography School I highly recommend this site. The amount of free info is pretty incredible. Spend some time there everyday, or a few times a week, and you’ll definitely see some improvement.

Neil Van Niekerk Interested in flash photography or great portraiture? Neil has a lot of knowledge to share.

PhotoResourceHub

Moose Peterson Moose is a real pro with amazing wildlife photos. He’s also into shooting planes and landscapes.

PhotoCascadia This is an amazing group of photographers. They offer some insights into their craft with blog posts and paid tutorials.

Now that you have a bunch of new sites to check out, go learn something new this week.

Hueless Updated & Promo Code Giveaway

Lets get straight to the part you’re probably most interested in. The developer of Hueless was kind enough to give me 5 promo codes to give away. That means if you didn’t buy the app already, you can get it for everyone’s favorite price…FREE!

All you have to do is like David Pasillas Photography on Facebook, if you haven’t already, and leave a comment on the wall there. If you don’t have facebook, you can always just comment below. The winners will be announced by 10am pacific time on Monday.

Now lets talk about the update…

Hopefully you took the time to read my review of Hueless the other day and thought it was a pretty sweet black and white camera. Well, it was just updated with 3 more features that the users requested, including:

• Square shooting: switch back and forth between full-frame and square aspects by pinching in and out on the live viewfinder preview.
• Rest & Release shutter: Some photogs like to rest their finger on the shutter button and lift when they want to capture. Hueless, as you know, will cycle between regular and expanded shutter buttons if you keep your finger on the button. Hueless now has a preference that will disable the button modes and allow photogs to rest their finger on the shutter button and release when they want to shoot. The switch is available in the iOS Settings app Hueless pane.
• Launch Center Pro integration: We have had a lot of requests to add support for this. Not sure if you have tried it out, but it’s a neat utility app. You can get it here.

I shot some more with the square format. I actually really like this format for this camera. Now I can shoot in the more natural landscape orientation without being limited to that layout.

Textified Flower

A while back I downloaded an app called Textify.it because it was offered for free at the time. It looked similar to another app that looked cool, WordFoto. WordFoto is actually the only app to deny me a promo code. I don’t know if its really their fault though. They claimed to be out of them at the time and I never heard anything back. Their loss is Textify.it’s gain.

The original photo was shot here at the desk I’m currently using. Felicia has a fake flower here that looked interesting enough to be the subject of a snapshot. The real reason I was interested was because of the lines the blinds were creating on the wall.

The edited photo above is ok, but nothing special. It needed something to make it stand out. I browsed my 60 or so photo apps and saw Textify.it. I figured I’d see what I can do with this app I’ve only used a couple of times before.

I adjusted the font size, the character quantity, and even tried using different characters. The first one below was composed of RED. The one below that was a bullet point *+# and an accidental L, but it worked.

If you’re interested in Textify.it, its 0.99 in the app store.

Gettin Down

This guy was getting down on one of the columns in the yard. I don’t know what was playing on his little iPod, but he was really into it. Perhaps he was just celebrating the fact that Jazzy, the long haired chihuahua, was hunting lizards instead of him. I think she was torturing playing with one in the background.

Its been a while since I shot a cinemagram. There are other apps that allow you to make gifs like this one. I might have to actually try them out because the quality seems a lot lower than it should be.

Snapseed is Free

I know this runs the risk of not being read since its posted so late, but Snapseed is free right now. If you don’t have it, get it.

 

 

10 Minute Challenge

If you follow me on Tadaa, you might have seen me issue a challenge called the 10 minute challenge. The idea is you start from home or work and walk, bike, run, drive for 10 minutes and then stop where you are. This is your location to shoot something interesting. Its challenging because you don’t really know where you’ll end up or what the light will be like at that location.

I ended up right at this old garage that I’ve noticed a few times. Its not too inviting with all of the ‘no trespassing’ signs. I wasn’t sure if they were because its directly across the street from an elementary school, or because the neighborhood was sketchy. Either way, I didn’t venture far enough onto their property to find out. If I had, I’d have a much better angle on this old garage.

I really wasn’t happy with the original photo, but I decided I had to rise to the challenge and make something out of a mediocre shot. I used 645 Pro to shoot. I edited with Snapseed, ShockMyPic (review coming soon,) and lenslight. The result is so much more interesting than the original.

If this 10 minute challenge sounds like something you might be up for, go do it and share your photos on your blog. I recommend taking a few minutes to take in the sights and sounds of your location before shooting. Get a feel for whats going on there and try to figure out a way to share that with the viewer.

Free App: Grungetastic

Developers like to give away apps for free around holidays. It just came to my attention that Grungetastic is also free today. Its another app from JixiPix, who make a number of apps that I’m a fan of, including PhotoArtista Oil, SimplyHDR, and Dramatic BW. Given their track record, you can expect this to be a good grunge app.

After just 5 minutes of using it, I can tell its a solid app if you’re into the grunge style. It looks better than the grunge tool in Snapseed.

Here are a few examples from the developers.

Free App: Fotor – Camerabag

Fotor – Camerabag is free right now. They call themselves the best all-in-one camera and photo editing app. Its definitely not the best camera because of a few features that are missing, but there are so many tools in this app that its worth a look. I haven’t spent more than 10 minutes playing with this, so I can’t tell you a whole lot about it, but it looks pretty decent.

A few features that stand out:

• HDR camera that merges under and overexposed photos.
• Frames
• Filters with opacity sliders
• More than just the basic editing tools, including 1-tap enhancing.
• Collage
• Tilt Shift (big aperture)
• Color Splash

 

7 App Creation

Yesterday I was getting annoyed with all of the marblecam pictures being posted to Tadaa and wanted to show people an example of creativity. Marblecam is a one trick pony where all you do is press a button and the app does all the work without allowing any adjustments. BORING!

I created this from the pier shot I posted yesterday. In total, I used 7 apps to create this image. ProHDR, Snapseed, SimplyHDR, FX Photo Studio,WaterMyPhoto, Tadaa, and ImageBlender.

 

Award Season & Elephant Seal vid

It must be award season. I see a lot of people getting them lately and a few people have been kind enough to give me some awards. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone on this list below.

 

At the end of last month, Daniel C. Doolan gave me the versatile blogger award. Sorry it took so long to show my appreciation Daniel! He’s got a lot of wonderful travel photos from Europe. Go check out his blog.

In the past week, Jaclyn nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger and One Lovely Blog Awards. Shes another iPhoneographer that has found inspiration from my blog. Maybe I should keep a iPhoneography family tree for all of the people I’ve inspired to shoot with their iPhone and see how it grows as they inspire others. If you’re into iPhoneography, go check out her blog and see what shes up to.

Desiree nominated me for the One Lovely Blog award. Thank you Desiree! Have a look at her blog because you know you don’t follow enough iPhoneographers.

Sara (Podnumber2) also was nice enough to mention me when she recently got the One Lovely Blog award. Thanks Sara! Its been fun watching her iPhoneography progress.

I don’t even know how many things I’d have to tell you about myself if I replied to these all individually and followed the rules of the awards. I’ll give you a few and call it good, just so this doesn’t turn into a biography.

1. I recently deactivated my Facebook page and am thoroughly enjoying watching their stock tank. Its amazing how much more free time I have when I don’t have to check in on the mundane things people are doing each day.
2. I like to listen to the Jim Rome Show almost everyday. Its a pretty entertaining sports talk radio show.
3. I’m a perfectionist. It sucks.
4. MY favorite TV shows right now are Community and Game of Thrones. New Girl is close because of Zooey Deschannel. I’ve been a fan of hers since her modeling days. I’m a sucker for big eyes.

Now for the video of the elephant seals from my Nikon. I’m not a video guy….yet. I didn’t edit this and add punch like I probably should have. Its seriously lacking contrast and saturation.

There is a lot going on here, so it might take a few views in fullscreen HD to take it all in.

These look like juvenile males practicing their fighting. They bite each other in the neck area a lot, which can get bloody. Then, it heals up and the skin gets thicker, creating a shield of sorts. The boys are pretty territorial, as you can see in the video.

There are also a few babies in the shot. If you’re wondering whats up with some of the seals skin, they’re molting.

McWay Falls

I haven’t had this problem in a while, I have too many good pictures to share. I took something like 700 pictures between the Nikon and iPhone yesterday. I left the house at 10am and got home at 11:30pm. I saw quite a few things and have a few stories to share from the road, starting with….I hit a bird. It was flying with another bird who dodged my windshield a couple seconds before. He must not have been paying attention because he didn’t try to pull up until it was too late. That makes 2 birds I’ve hit mid flight now.

I was thinking of building up to this picture of McWay Falls because its one of my favorites, but I’ll lead off with it. I’ve never been a fan of dumping all of your images at once. I know you can tell a story and let your viewer come along with you on your journey, but I’d rather have you enjoy the pictures one at a time.

This was probably one of the best sunset shoots I’ve had. The light was changing colors quickly just before the sun went down. Even if I didn’t catch the purple or gold hues with my cameras, I still got to see it in person.

Shot with ProHDR and edited with Snapseed. I suggest clicking to see it larger.

App Review: Kaleidescope Camera

Kaleidoscope Camera by Binary Noise Ltd. is a great alternative to the typical camera app. It makes it very simple to create unique images from everyday objects.

Kaleidoscope Camera provides a real time view with smooth interactivity that makes adjusting your image very easy. There are 6 different mirror configurations that range form a spiral to a mandala.

After you take the picture, you are given the option to save to your album, post to facebook, or email it to someone. Theres nothing complicated about this app.

Old Truck and A Haiku

Going back to the vehicle theme today.

There is a house across highway 1 that seems to always have busted up, old trucks for sale. They make great subjects for HDR, but this was shot with camera+, so its not really an HDR pic. I added drama and a vignette with snapseed, then used Tadaa for some clarity and a little bit of a filter.

I even wrote a quick haiku to go with this one because, for whatever reason, girls tend to challenge me to write haikus. My favorite one was a haiku making fun of haikus. =)

A broken down pile,
You throw rocks at me for fun,
Please love me again.