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Don's Destination:
Bled Lake, Slovenia
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Happy springtime! It seems to me that spring is a good season to be a photographer anywhere. New life is starting to bloom all around and everything is getting reborn and feels fresh and new to me. During our 21-month world travels a few years ago we found ourselves in Slovenia and we were pleasantly surprised at the beauty and photography opportunities of this small country. Thus, my destination choice this month is Slovenia and specifically Bled Lake. This picture-perfect getaway would make a perfect spring trip. The lake has a walking/biking path around it's perimeter. The castle and island views are stunning and change dramatically depending on which side of the lake you are on. On a calm day the reflections are perfect. If you happen to be in eastern Europe with some extra days I'd highly recommend a visit to the Lake Bled area. If you do go, email me some pictures.
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Don's Promotion:
Costa Rica Birds Photo Tour
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My small group and I just got back from Costa Rica and the photography was incredible. I am leading another group there in Oct./Nov. of this year. There are 3 spaces available.
Dates are October 25- November 5, 2019.
Tuition includes all lodging for 11 nights, all meals, all transportation, guided tours, all entry fees, photo help from me, plus the fun of traveling with an intimate group of other photographers.
Sign up today for this tour: Costa Rica Birds Tour
Email me with questions.
Call or text me anytime 303-906-5102
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Amphibian Photography
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Don's Tip of the Month:
How to Photograph Frogs
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This month's tip is about photographing an often overlooked group of animals - the amphibians. Since I just got back from Costa Rica and we had an awesome experience one day photographing frogs, I thought I'd give some tips about this type of wildlife photography.
- First of all you should know that most amphibian images you see were taken under controlled conditions. In other words the animal was handled and placed into position for photos to be taken. Especially on a species such as the one shown here (a Blue-jeans Poison Dart Frog) allowing an expert to handle the animal makes a lot of sense.
- Natural background or habitats are key. Poison dart frogs don't climb trees and of course our handler knew this so the frog was placed on a natural leaf where the frog would be found in the wild. A splash of light yellow color helps the more colorful frog stand out.
- I find the use of a tripod or stabilized lens invaluable. You'll want to stop down your lens a bit for some good depth of field and this means slow shutter speeds. Luckily, many times frogs just sit still.
- Think about whether the light can be enhanced a bit with reflectors, flash or, as in the shot here, with a small penlight.
- Good compositional guidelines should be used just as with larger animals. Things to remember would be having the frog facing into the frame and smart use of negative space. Watch for nice diagonal lines and placement of the eye near a powerpoint.
- Never harm the animal. All frogs we photographed in Costa Rica were handled by professionals and all were released back to their natural habitat.
Image here taken with a Canon 5D Mark IV camera, Canon 100mm macro lens, tripod and penlight to add directional light.
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Lake Titicaca, Bolivia
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Anya's Pick of the Month:
Bolivian Woman
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This image of mine, chosen by Anya for the month of March, 2019 shows a colorful woman sitting near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. About this image Anya says "The ladies in Peru and Bolivia are super colorful and they really do wear those interesting top hats. How they get them to stay on is a mystery as we never saw pins but strong wind didn't seem to blow them off. Don and I had taken a day tour out to a floating reed island and this lady was our tour guide's wife. When asked if we could take her picture she said yes but only if she was facing the other way!"
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