A reader of my Photoblog 2.0 writes: "I notice that in more than one of your photos you use high f-stop values. Your results look great, despite what I've read about diffraction problems occurring at such small apertures." The reader is perfactly correct on both counts. I do often use small apertures in my macro photos. For example, the photo...

I've been getting an average of three or four inquiries a week about licensing my photos. This is a good thing. It's fun to interact with people who are enthusiastic about my work (and, hey, even willing to pay to use it!). These inquiries are coming almost entirely from my web presence in Photoblog 2.0 and on Flickr. The size...

There are a number of problems to solve in night photography, including seeing what you are doing, not falling off a cliff in the dark, running out of juice in your batteries, and dealing with digital noise. The payoff, if you can manage all this, includes wonderful star trails, night music, and the digital landscape of the night as human...

In The King of Elfland's Daughter, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Lord Dunsany, wrote about magic beyond the fields we know. You step out into the ordinary, everyday fields that you see all the time. Maybe these fields are right next door to your house in suburbia. Willy, nilly you may be swept into a magical realm where nothing...

Recently I needed to develop a storyboard in a hurry for a TV commercial. Problem: I can't draw. Solution: FrameForge 3D Studio 2, a pre-visualization tool popular with film & TV directors. Unexpected extra: Flow! I loved working with this tool. I found that it was so intuitively designed that I was able to learn the basics in an hour...

In a significant way, photography is about time. A photograph freezes action and captures a moment. Looking at photographs we see the past, perhaps our past. Photographs become memories. Unlike the wizard photos in Harry Potter's world, the people in our photos don't move around to get our attention. The time slice is static, and the time capture is usually...

Past the Golden Gate Bridge, Black Sands Beach lies along the straits between Point Diablo and Point Bonita. The beach faces the open Pacific towards the southwest. On a sullen, cloudy, windswept day I hiked down to the beach. My camera and tripod were on my back. It was bright, but drizzling slightly. The dark beach was empty of people,...

Despite all the new goodies in iPhoto '08, such as event-based organization, I'm most pleased with the overhauled Adjust palette. There are real Levels controls similar to those in Photoshop, Highlights and Shadows sliders, and Noise adjustment (particularly handy for compact camera shooters at high ISOs). This brings iPhoto's Adjust palette up to snuff with other modern photo management...

In the garden in the early morning I found rain drops suspended on a spider's web. Nearby, pink Gerbera Daisies grew. These flowers were reflected and contained in the water drops. The technical challenge was to obtain high depth-of-field with subjects in constant motion from the wind, subjects so tiny that any motion was magnified. I locked the camera's mirror...

The photo you see below is from the end of the Berkeley Pier looking towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The Berkeley pier seems like it goes half way across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz, but at one time it must have stretched futher than it does now. The boards block the end of the pier, prevent people from falling into...