I have to tell you the response to Monday’s post absolutely blew me away. It clearly hit a nerve and that tells me there are a lot of photographers out there that have been told one thing in the face of a very different reality. And the truth is that the bulk of the pros I know routinely do some very dumb things, make mistakes, and in general take the messy way around to getting their images. Thankfully they are also as humble as they are talented, they learn from their mistakes and they move on. And also, they make absolutely beautiful photographs. And as far as I can tell, that’s the point. Someone please disabuse me of that notion if I’m wrong, but seriously, this isn’t math class. How you get there matters not one bit, generally speaking, so long as you end up with images that are beautiful, true, or both.

But lest anyone think that this is a celebration of mediocrity, it is not. What it is is a call to arms for photographers who deep inside that the photographs we take matter, and that the process ought to be as unique as we are, and as the desired images are. It might be a very messy process for you, but if that’s what it takes, then mess it up, because the images matter most, and any process that gets you there in the best way, is the process you must follow.

That said, it’d be a poor confessor that let us all of the hook without penance, without pointing out that our sins were not only forgivable but avoidable. So because I also believe deeply that our craft matters and the better you are at your craft and the more thoroughly you know your tools, the better your images have the potential to be, I want to encourage you to look at the long list of things you still do not know how to do, the habits that end up costing you time and money and missed opportunities. Life’s too short to get bent out of shape about most of this stuff, or to let it stand in the way of doing what we love. So be patient with yourself, and don’t beat yourself up, but be conscious of when those messy processes and habits we all love to cling to, hinder more than help, and get working on them.

Your images, your craft, and your passion for this art, deserve more than the labels we use, and the goofy expectations we carry for ourselves, but they also deserve more than a cavalier approach to things that matter. For some of us that means caving in and learning to shoot with a tripod. For some it means a more conscious effort to dial in that ISO, and for others still it means checking your pockets and for the love of Lexar stop washing your CF cards. If it affects you, your process, your images, or the gear it takes to create those images, it matters. So pick one, start small, if you must, but get to it. And in the spirit of the last post, the comments are open. What small steps are you taking to move you, your process, and your images, to the next level?

Monday’s post brought a tonne of new readers. If you’re new hear, welcome here. Feel free to poke around, leave a comment of introduction, and be sure to check out the five years of archives. If you’re looking to improve your craft then I heartily recommend you check out Within The Frame, The Journey of Photographic Vision. if you’re looking to improve your business I can’t think of a better book than VisionMongers, Making A Life and Living in Photography. I wrote both of them so if I were you I’d be very suspicious of the recommendation, but I recommend them all the same. Also check out CraftAndVision.com, the online home of my eBooks. Improve Your Craft, Buy Less Gear. And all of them for only $5 each. Welcome here.

Shot in Senegal. Long shutter speed. Dawn. Through the windshield. Moments before driver drove off the road, through the ditch and stalled in the bushes.

A while back I wrote a piece about the “I’m only an amateur” mentality. In brief it was an unashamed rally call to photographers everywhere to stop seeing themselves as merely an enthusiast, not yet in the hallowed halls of the professional, and therefore not “really” a photographer. Rubbish. But this is not that pep talk. This is the reverse, the one that, I hope will remind you that this status to which so many aspire, this notion of a higher echelon occupied by the Professional, is equally rubbish. I am an unabashed champion of the amateur, the one who does this for the love of it, and the idea of professionals being better, or creating better work, has to go. I discourage non-professionals from saying, “I’m just an amateur” but I cringe as much when I hear people throw the term “professional” around as though it means something more than it does.

So to disabuse you of the notion, let me be as transparent as possible.

I make a living as a photographer and a photography teacher. I create work I love, and work that my clients love. Sometimes I get paid well for it, sometimes I get paid nothing. That paycheque doesn’t necessarily mean my work is good, and it sure as Kodak doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better work than anything my non-professional friends create. But it gets worse, folks:

I don’t clean my sensor as much as I ought to, and I fear the times I have to. So I blow the damn thing out with canned air. It works, but I don’t recommend it.

I often leave my ISO dangerously high. I get more email about why I shot something at ISO 800 than anything else and that tells me (a) I should get my act together and (b) y’all need to lighten up on the whole ISO issue.

I rarely use lens caps, often lose filters, and am known for throwing a lens in a bag without an end cap. I have other friends who change lenses with one under the arm, another between the knees and a camera body flailing wildly about in order to catch as much dust as possible.

I have more confidence in my ability to hand-hold a shot at 1/30 than I ought to have and still have yet to learn from this. You’d think with my ridiculously high ISOs and my total unwillingness to close my aperture, I’d have plenty of latitude with this, but you’d be wrong.

I get emails about colour-calibration and printing methods and am forced to reply with a vague, “go ask Vincent Versace” because I do one of two things, I give the clients the files and their own pre-press guys do the work, or I send it to mPix (for prints) or Artistic Photo Canvas (for canvas) and they just make it look great.

People ask me about how to use their flash in two groups balanced with ambient and I stare awkwardly at them and give them Joe McNally’s email address or home phone number and beg them to (a) never tell Joe I sent them and (b) never to speak of this ever again.

I have long forgotten everything I knew about the zone system and now expose purely in reverse. Shoot first, look at the histogram, then get it right, instead of the way I learn which was the more sensible “meter twice, shoot once.”

My eyes gloss over when people start talking about channel-specific curves adjustments in Photoshop or Keywording in Lightroom. I should know this stuff. But I just want to make images, man.

I’ve never used a tilt/shift lens and while I aim to change that it seems a pro ought to be able to do that. Same for the 4×5 field camera I recently bought. Took me a day to figure out how to load the film. Then I got distracted. For now it just looks cool. Last time it was used in a shoot it was only a prop.

I carry my tripod. An expensive one at that. And while I am really get much better at using it when I ought to, I still prefer to shoot blurry images than set the darn thing up. Might as well leave it at home half the time, but a “pro” wouldn’t do that.

I love shallow depth of field. The shallower the better, even if that means losing important stuff to the blur. Of course I think about that afterwards, and then regret that 1.2 aperture, but I get greedy with my bokeh.

I hate the word bokeh. A pro ought to be able to use that word with a straight face, I just feel like I’m trying too hard. My images don’t so much have bokeh as large sections of fuzzy bits.

I still shoot twenty frames before realizing that the EV compensation I cranked up is still cranked up and I’ve hopelessly lost good images to the blinkies.

And really, a so-called pro should know better. Except we don’t and the ones that say they do are lying. Thing is, I’d rather get so distracted by the things I am shooting, and lose the odd shot to my distraction and crappy exposure, or, God forbid, a high ISO, than get distracted by the tech-stuff and those things a pro “ought” to be doing, and never see the moments, never experience the wonder. Does it have to be one or the other? Of course not, but then I’ve only been shooting for 20 years so I’m still new at this, easily distracted, still in love with images more than gear (and man, do I love my gear!). I’m still learning, and the best photographers – pro or otherwise -  are too. And more to the point, I’m making images that I love. Craft matters,  with apologies to Ansel Adams, who said there’s nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept, there is:  a fuzzy image of a fuzzy concept. Then it’s just total crap.

Folks, confession is good for the soul. Who cares if you’re a pro or not? We’re all learning, all getting better at this. As my friend Sabrina Henry wrote recently, it might just be that defining moments are more important than decisive ones.

So to the amateur out there, I’m reminding you, you aren’t “just an amateur.” To the pro, you’re still “just a photographer.” And to all of us, an invitation to let the bad air out. Got a photographic confession? The comments are open.

My friend Yves on safari in Kenya. Yves will travel with me to India this year too, and I can’t wait to hang out with him again. He’s a surgeon, but his passion for photography would humble many of the pros I know.

I think it was Zack Arias who recently said that if he hear the word “passion” one more time in connection with photography, he’d barf. I might be paraphrasing, and I might have the source wrong. So with love and respect for my friend, Zack you might want to grab the barf-bag.

I almost called this post: VisionMongers, The Short Version. It’s relevant to everyone for whom VisionMongers was written, but it’s also relevant to others because I want to talk about being a successful photographer and that word, “successful” means different things to different people. To some it will be a great business that replaces your soul-numbing day job, for others it means creating work you love even if no one ever sees it. For some it means both and then some. Whatever your definition, consider this the short course.

I’m reading a book called Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuck. It’s not the kind of book I normally read. Gary seems cool, and I like his priorities and values, but I think if we were to go for coffee or a beer he’d tire me out in 10 minutes. He’s got a big, bold, personality. But the book already has me hooked. In part because he doesn’t come of like a huckster, in part because what he writes rings true. If you’re building a business you seriously need to consider reading this book. Seriously. But I’m digressing only because it’s this book that has reminded me again of something. And here it is:

If you want to succeed in your photography, whatever that means to you, then you need to fuel it with passion and hard work. If photography is the air you breathe, the thing that distracts you and not the thing from which you are distracted, if it’s the thing you most want to do, to talk about, to spend your spare time on, and if you work harder at it than you’ve ever worked on anything, you will make it. Why? Because passion, true passion is in short, short supply these days. As is hard work. Long ago we abandoned the idea of having a life’s work, a calling; those that still do their work from that sense of calling or vocation, will be unbeatable.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It sermon. Ugh. Your craft, skills, ability to translate your vision into the two dimensional image, these matter a great deal, and not everyone will take the time to make it happen. But if you’re passionate, and not self-deluded, you’ll seek out your weaknesses and work your ass off to bolster them. Passion, in the right machine, is a volatile fuel that burns hard and long. But more than all this, the reason I believe passion and hard work will make you successful is that passion and hard work are the end, not the means. If your passion and hard work takes you to a place that has you working hard at what you love, then you are already there. You don’t need to get anywhere else.

There’s so much pressure out there. Keep up with the latest technology, figure out how the hot new photographer does his post-production, get published, make a name for yourself. Whatever. If those are the things you’re passionate about and would do forever if money were no option, then go for it. But for most of us we picked up a camera because putting the viewfinder to our eye and expressing ourselves through the print was the most magical thing ever.  Do that with passion and hard work. And don’t mistake that for counterfeit activities. Some of us are more passionate about finding a way to get that next lens or camera body. That’s not photography. It’s acquisitions. Some of us are more passionate about arguing about the merits of Nikon over Canon. That’s not photography; it’s sales, or geek-politics.

So what is photography? It’s less talk, more making photographs. Do that, and do it hard. And then tomorrow, do it again. And as long as you love doing that more than something else, you’ll have filled your days and fed your soul with something you love. And to do that, by almost any sane definition, is to have succeeded.

Perfect Thing #19. Shooting What You Love. Shot this on the island of Goree in Senegal last month. A day to wander, shoot, and hang out with a friend. Life is about these kinds of moments.

I should be slaving away on a million things right now but I’m feeling a little sheepish over the neglect this blog’s suffered recently. This month’s Outside magazine has a feature called 51 Perfect Things and I keep coming back to it;  I think what most resonates with me is that in a time when it seems critical reviews and nit-picking get all the page space, it’s nice to see something so celebratory of simple pleasures. Might be overstepping it call them perfect, but in a world where perfection so seldom comes, these are as close to it as I’ve ever found. These are the things in which I’ve taken particular pleasure over the last year or two.

#1. Chai at the summit of Khardun La, the highest motorable road in the world. For extra points get there on a Royal Enfield Thunderbird.

#2. Film. Digitial gets the glory. But having recently returned to shooting film in an effort to stay fresh and creative, I can’t believe I stayed away for so long.

#3. A steaming bowl of Pho ga in Vietnam. Vietnam is colourful and friendly and I’m dying to go back. Put the camera down and enjoy the local food. On a cold day nothing beats hot noodle soup.

#4. Hasselblads, Leicas, and Carl Zeiss. We’re surrounded by plastic these days. Getting your hands on some old-school engineering makes shooting such a pleasure. Walking around with a 1980’s Hassleblad 500 c/m and listening to the clunk of the mirror return, and feeling the sure mechanisms of the focus and aperture rings reminds me of the joy I took when I was a kid discovering the tactillity of this craft.

#5. The Moleskine Notebook. My shelf is lined with them, full of thoughts and checklists and little pieces of paper I tucked away in the back pocket. They have travelled the world with me.

#6. Blundstone Boots. They don’t come better than this. Ever. After going around the world in them for a few years they feel like slippers. Manly, rugged, slippers.

#7. Shooting at dawn or dusk. Just being awake at this hour seems to have a calming effect, and for me the paint seems to stir easier when things are calm. Also? The light ain’t bad.

#8. My Saddleback Leather satchel (they call it a briefcase). I don’t travel internationally with this, it’s just too heavy, but for domestic travel and every-day use for tossing in the laptop or Hassleblad, this bag is amazing. And as they say in the ads, your kids will fight over it when you’re dead. It doesn’t come cheap, but this’ll outlast a hundred others and gets better looking with every rainstorm and accidental scar. Absolutely perfect.

#9. The Leatherman multi-tool. The original and still awesome.

#10. Arbeg Uigeadall Single Malt Scotch Whisky. If you like single malts from Islay, this one is hard to beat. Amazing.

#11. Michael Kennsa’s Hokkaido series. All his work is stunning, elegant, but his Hokkaido series in particular captivates me.

#12. Being there. We talk and talk about all the places we could shoot, but being there – in mind and body – is a gift. Want to be there this year but don’t want to plan it all yourself? Want to come with me? There are spots left on Lumen Dei Tibet (July) and Lumen Dei Kashmir/Ladakh (September) and I’d love to travel with you.

#13. Gitzo Ocean Traveler Tripod. It’s a particular person who will buy one of these. They aren’t cheap. But they’re amazing. Like all the Gitzo Traveler series, they’re light, strong, and beautifully made. Add stainless steel and sealed mechanisms and a ball head you can field strip and you’ve got a really sexy thing. Price aside, this is the perfect travel tripod.

#14. Waking up in a luxury tent camp as the sun rises into a solar eclipse over Mt. Kenya with the Serengeti between you. Unbelievable. One of the most beautiful moments of my life. The best moments are unrepeatable. I did my first African safari this year; it won’t be my last. A perfect way to spend 10 days

#15. My 13″ MacBook Pro. The perfect travel machine for me.

#16. Icebreaker merino wool socks and underwear. I swear I’ll never travel with another pair of underwear and socks if they aren’t Icebreaker. Amazing. They keep you warm when it’s cool, cool when it’s warm, and they’re comfortable and durable.

#17. The Nifty Fifty. Canon’s EF 50/1.8 lens is cheap, made of plastic, and has nothing whatsoever to recommend it other than that it’s just that – cheap, made of plastic, and for the money delivers great images with a fast aperture and a short mininum focus distance.

#18. The ScotteVest Travel Vest, in black please. I don’t travel without it. Love it. It’s warm, so forget wearing it all day in Delhi this July, but I still travel to and from locations with it. Even in Senegal where it hit 40 degrees C during the day, I’d wear it in the cooler mornings. Functional, comfortable, and far less geek factor than a classic photography vest ever had. And pockets? Only the Gitzo Fleece can compete.

#19. Photographing what you love without regard for what anyone else thinks. Sure, it’s nice to hear people rave about your images, but at the end of the day the only thing that really matter is that you love them and loved making them. Being a so-called amateur has this strongly in its favour. Don’t ever forget why you do this.

#20. This one’s yours. Comments are open. What would make it onto your list of Perfect things?

Here’s the March 2010 wallpaper in both 2560×1600 and 1280×853, shot en route to the Maasai Mara this past January. Apologies for the late posting, but what i lack in punctuality I make up for with, uh, pink.

Click the image above to get the small wallpaper, and HERE to get the large one. Enjoy!

I am so excited this morning to be releasing Dave Delnea’s Below The Horizon, Understanding Light at the Edges of Day.

A year ago I found Dave Delnea, a Vancouver photographer, online. I was immediately drawn to his work for his incredible understanding of, and ability to capture, light. We’ve become close friends over this year and he wound up in VisionMongers because of my respect for his work and his career. So when it came to collaborating with other photographers on eBooks, Dave was one of the first people I asked to participate.

Below The Horizon is an inspiring read, as much for the images as for his encouragement to take this basic knowledge and get out there and play. There are no secrets here, just solid information and incredible images to back it up and push us out the door.

This is Friday, February 26. For the first 48 hours+ of this release, until midnight PST at the end of Sunday the 28th, Below The Horizon can be had for an introductory price of $4 instead of the usual $5. But that’s not all! If you buy 4 or more of the books, and there are now 8 Craft & Vision titles to choose from, you can have 20% off your order.

Use coupon code DELNEA4 to get Below The Horizon for $4.
Use coupon code DELNEA20 to get 4 or more of the Craft & Vision titles for 20% off.

Buy Below The Horizon Now
Take me to Craft & Vision to buy a set.

I wanted to introduce you to Dave Delnea this morning. On Friday we’re releasing his eBook, Below The Horizon, and it seemed only right that you meet him first. Dave is a friend of mine, and a photographer whose craft and creativity I deeply admire. I know few photographers who have as much passion for actually going out and creating images just for the sake of their creation and engagement in the process.  You can find his work at DaveDelnea.com, and read about his career in VisionMongers. Below the Horizon launches early Friday morning, depending on your time zone, and will have a very limited time discount.

I was 22 when I made the decision to commit myself to pursuing the craft of landscape photography. Having no real clue how to go about this I did what any young, somewhat irresponsible, adventure-starved kid would do; I quit my job, jumped into my car and headed for the mountains.  I spent months living in my tent and car, eating instant noodles and hiding from the park rangers (I had a bit of an aversion to paying for campsites).  I found that the shots that I would get the most excited about were the ones that came from the very edges of the day.  I loved shooting long dusk exposures and seeing how the water and clouds would move through the frame, I would run around with my headlamp and use it to lightpaint rocks and trees in the scene, I would hike hours in the dark to get to a location to set up a star-trails shot where I would sleep beside my camera while it rendered a single image.

I have such fantastic memories of those times – and the skills I learned then are what helped to start my career in photography and continue to be an integral part of it.  I now shoot primarily for commercial clients and have applied the concepts I discuss in this ebook on photoshoots for resorts, hotels, architecture and tourism clients, ad agencies and design firms.  I still have simple shoots that are just me, my camera and a tripod – while others incorporate a whole crew of people along with elaborate lighting set-ups.  Still the concepts I use are based on the same skills learned from my park-ranger-hiding, instant-noodle-eating, time in the mountains.

I hope this coming ebook inspires you to head out with your camera at some ridiculous hour of the day so you can experience the same excitement I do at seeing these sorts of images appear on your camera’s LCD.  As I say in the book – it’s not always easy to get yourself out at those hours of the day, but I’ve never once regretted the effort.

happy shooting
dave.

Image 1:
A 6 hour exposure of the stars over the “Giant Cleft” a unique
geological feature in Cathedral Provincial Park, BC, Canada.

Image 2:
An evening twilight shot of where the the Coquihalla River meets the
Fraser River (Hope, BC, Canada)

I photographed this man in Senegal earlier this month during some much needed time off. The encounter was so typical of much of my travels. You meet someone, drawn by their smile, their character, and with permission you raise the camera. And then it vanishes. For one reason or another that authentic thing that drew you disappears behind what? Something cultural that makes many African men get very stoic in the same way it makes asian girls flash a peace sign and cheesecake grin? Fear? Nerves? Whatever it is, that mask is often a layer of protection we don and in so doing we prevent our true selves from being seen. My job, because of the kinds of images I want, is to help draw that mask back down.

I am not seeking smiles, per se. Those can be as fake as the other masks we were. I am seeking a genuine expression of humanity, and while the stoic mask – or the cheesy peace sign – is certainly genuine, it’s not the vulnerable person underneath I capture in those cases, but the mask itself. What does it take to draw that mask down? Vulnerability on your own part. People trust those who trust them. I show my subjects my trust by being willing to stumble badly over language in attempts to communicate, or simply to clown around with them. Take the moment less seriously and often they will too. Portraiture is a dance and it needs to be approached as a collaboration. The more willing you are to wait it out, slow down, and be vulnerable, the more readily your subject will be able to do the same.

Click on the image above to see the complete sequence in a larger image.

Shortly after I started Craft & Vision I approached some of the photographers from whom I myself get inspiration and I asked them to work with me to bring what they do to my readers. My friend Dave Delnea, whose work and career you can explore in VisionMongers as well, is the first photographer out of the gate and I’m thrilled to be able to release his eBook, Below The Horizon, in the next week or so.

Below The Horizon, Understanding Light at the Edges of Day is an inspiring 40-page PDF ebook, much like others in the Craft & Vision line-up. It was reading Delnea’s rough drafts before going to Kenya that pushed me to create some of my favourite work in a long time. Here’s what I wrote in the Foreword:

I shot the image on this page while on safari in Kenya this January. It was reading the rough notes that eventually became this book that finally opened my eyes to the possibilities to be found in shooting at the far edges of day.  Like so many great learning moments, it was the inspiration I took from Below The Horizon that pushed me to get out and play with this stuff.  The information in this eBook is valuable, but as David himself points out, it’s not rocket science.

Shooting at the edges of day and learning to see the interplay possible between light and time, and how that affects the aesthetics of the image, has opened a whole new world to me. I came back from Kenya with images that excited me more than any I’ve shot in a long time, in part because playing with this stuff, and learning to understand it, creates images that do what I want all my photographs to do: create mood and the feeling of being there. I want my work to say “It felt like this…” not only “It looked like this….”

Take the time to absorb this stuff, but when you’ve done so, shut the computer or turn off your tablet, and go out in the growing or fading light and play. Learn, as David suggests, to see the light that’s only here for a few minutes every day. Everyone shoots when it’s easy to be awake and handhold the camera above 1/60, shooting in the near darkness will invigorate you, inspire you, and produce images with uncommon mood and visual pull.

We’ll be releasing this in the next week or two. When we do there will be, as there was last time, a limited-time discount offered for both single books and a bunch of them at once, as a thank you to my readers. This is an excellent addition to the growing line of ebooks at Craft & Vision and one that has personally inspired and energized my own work. I’m really proud and excited to offer it and the moment it’s up it’ll be announced here.

It was my first safari and there was a learning curve, but I’ve often found the best images come at the steepest inclines of that learning curve because we’re pushed beyond the edges of what’s familiar and we begin to see things differently.

I packed way too much for this one, treating it like a usual travel assignment. I could have brought much, much less stuff. Our safari guide, not a photographer, had one small bag for his clothes. I had 2 carry-ons a peli-case and a large North Face duffle. Next time, half the clothes, and half the gear.

I shot primarily with a 300/2.8 IS lens, often with a 1.4x or 2x on it, and a second body with a 70-200/2.8 IS lens at the ready. This was a great combination. A single body with a single lens would have been a greater challenge.  

I began shooting with my 300/2.8 on a Gitzo carbon fibre monopod, but it was unwieldly and got in the way. By half-way through the safari I’d swtiched fulltime to my Kinesis beanbag, I think they call it the Safari Sack. I love that beanbag and if there’s one thing I’d recommend for anyone doing a safari, it’s the Kinesis beanbag. It’s big and solid and far sturdier and softening than a monopod. Arrive with it empty, then put 10lbs or more of lentils in it. And put a piece of tape with your name on it so you don’t lose it.

I don’t know what other safari vehicles are like but ours allowed us to stand up and where the roof separated from the pop-top there was a strong metal lip all the way around the passenger area where we’d put our beanbags. Next time I’m bringing a Super-clamp and extra ballhead to secure my second body to this. Would make managing a second body really easy. As it is several of us just hooked the tripod mount on our longer lenses over this lip and it worked nicely.

Not shooting from a monopod also gives the advantage of getting low and shooting through the lower windows. When you stand up in a safari vehicle and shoot down on the critters you don’t get nearly the wild perspective you can when you get closer to eye level. I was up and down a lot trying to vary my perspective and often the best one was the lowest one. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. In your photography if you want to change the viewers perspective on things, you must first change your own.

The Gura Gear Kiboko bag gets raves on this and I’ll do a whole other review on it later. As I’ve said before I’m a huge fan of Think Tank Photo and their gear goes with me everywhere. But for this trip I wanted the advantages of the Kiboko and it did not disappoint. Highly, highly recommended. I just got back from Senegal and the Kiboko fit perfectly, fully loaded, into little CRJ and Embraer 170 overhead bins. Well done, guys.

I knew going into this trip that I would have a hard time adapting my vision and my usual way of expressing that, to something so different. Buffaloes and birds, for crying out loud! And I’d resigned myself to trying to create a series of really close pictures of really beautiful animals, even if they weren’t, per se, really compelling images themselves. But animals in the their context are not so different than people in their context. You look for contrasts, moments of humour, and for gesture. Jay Maisel says “everything has gesture” and he’s absolutely right. Don’t settle for a close shot of an animal anymore than you’d settle for merely a close shot of a person. Wait for something, a look, a gesture. Or seek scenarios in which the animal is themselves a great foreground in front of a great background.

I learned wildlife photography is hard. Really hard. And my estimation of the best wildlife and conservation shooters went up immensely. Of course I feel the same way about great wedding photographers too. It’s not easy, and there are fields of mediocrity out there, but the best ones? They amaze me.

FInally, safari lifestyle is a thing all it’s own and if you’re looking to shoot some great lifestyle/adventure images there is plenty of occasion to do it. One of my highlights was a hot air balloon ride early one morning. Beautiful light, and a chance to shoot something I don’t normally. Safari is more than just lions. There are long full days to shoot in, and the landscapes are stunning. The lodges are beautiful, and if you’re looking for local color, you’ll find lots of it. Models for portraits? You’ll find those too.

I’m counting the days until the next one in January 2011. Who’s coming with me?