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Greetings,
I’ve been pretty busy these last couple of weeks preparing for four upcoming trips that happen one after the other after the other after……
So here's what's new. And if it's not new it's only a little redundant.
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Sitka tour #2 still has space!
Last month I announce my Sitka Whales and more photo tour for August 2020. The first tour sold out almost immediately but there are still spaces for the second tour (August 8-13).
The highlight of this tour will be the three excursions on Sitka Sound in search of Humpback (and maybe other) whales, sea otters, seals, sea lions, sea birds, fishing boats and more. I’ve been out on Sitka Sound with our captain for these tours a number of times and we’ve always seen and photographed plenty of whales.
During our land time we can photograph harbors, fishing boats, old-growth forest, the nearby Sitka National Historical Park and its totem poles, Harbor Mountain and, of course, Sitka itself.
For more information and to sign up, visit my Sitka Tour page.
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Olympic May 2020
The Olympic National Park workshop I’m co-leading in July 2020 with John Barclay sold out fast. But here’s a secret: if you want to see the rainforest at its lushest and the moss at its greenest, May is the time to go. In July the sub-alpine wildflowers are blooming (as are the lavender farms in nearby Sequim) and Hurricane Ridge is snow-free, but the forests can look a bit dry. That’s the trade-off. If you want the best of both worlds, visit both in May and July.
And guess what? I’ve still got room in my May 13-17 Olympic National Park workshop. What a coincidence!
Based out of Forks, we’ll visit the Sol Duc, Hoh, and Quinault forests along with the waterfalls and streams. We’ll visit the ocean beaches and the Lake Crescent area too.
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Death Valley and Palouse 2020
Next year I’m co-leading a number of workshops with Cliff Zenor. Two of them are in locations with very graphic landscapes. And those two are also planned to coincide with the new moon and just happen to be places that can be great for night photography.
Death Valley is Feb. 20-24 and the Palouse is June 16-21. You should come along to one or both!
In the next couple of months I’ll be finalizing plans for next year’s Zion photo tour I’m co-leading with Cliff Zenor.
We’ve set the date for October 28 – Nov. 1. Let me know if you want to be on the early notification list.
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The PhotoPills App
 I have the PhotoPills app and I must admit that until just recently, it got the best of me. I just found it too…I don’t know…unintuitive I suppose is the best word. So I pretty much just used it to look up hyperfocal charts.
I also get emails from PhotoPills, and a few weeks ago one came through with a subject line having to do with planning Milky Way shots. Inside was a link to a tutorial.
Well I’ve been getting more and more interested in planning and shooting the Milky Way, especially after shooting the Milky Way over Palouse Falls last June. So I followed the link.
I remember a few years ago, when first trying to figure out PhotoPills, that their online tutorials didn’t really make it all that much easier. So either my brain finally caught up or they’ve created new tutorials. Given the dates on the tutorials, I think most of them are new tutorials. I still don’t know if my brain has caught up.
Anyway, the tutorial was great and made perfect sense and now I’m a Milky-Way-shot-planning-demon!
And their other tutorials were just as good. In fact, their online content is really good and helped a great deal in learning how to use this awesome app. What else does it do? Might be easier to cover what it doesn’t do. It won’t order a latté for me, but I’ve got a Starbucks app for that.
The app also has an Augmented Reality feature, meaning you can pre-view, in relation to your surroundings, where the Milky Way or Sun or Moon will be for any given time, at any given place, on any given day.
The app can help you plan time lapse shots, long exposure shots, solar and lunar eclipses, and just about anything you can think of. It stores locations and plans you’ve made. It has hyperfocal charts and you can also use the augmented reality to preview what your depth of field will be. It even has a calculator to tell you the longest shutter speed you can use to keep stars from showing movement. This calculator is based on the camera you’re using, the lens, and the f-stop.
And this app does a whole lot more.
If you don’t already have PhotoPills, pop on over to their site and check it out.
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Bandon 2020
 Next year’s Bandon workshop also happens to be around the time of the new moon. And while the Milky Way won’t be in the best place to use with the sea stacks (I know this from using PhotoPills!!), we could still try for the classic Bandon sea stacks silhouetted against a starry sky. Or do star trails. Where we’re staying is right across the street from those sea stacks so it’s an easy walk down the stairs to the beach.
Oh, and there’s also all the other great stuff found in the Bandon area, like lighthouses, the awesome Shore Acres State Park, harbors and, of course, those classic sea stacks at sunset and sunrise!
Pictured here is the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, which is about 40 minutes or so south of Bandon.
If you'd like to join us, visit the Bandon page on my workshops site.
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Parting notes
There may not be a newsletter next month. I’m leaving next week for two weeks in Yellowknife and the auroras and I’ve got three photo tours/workshops in October right after I get back from that. So there may not be time. But we’ll see. Might be that I’ll have down time in a hotel room that needs to be filled.
And I’ll try to post some new images to Instagram while I’m gone. So if you’re not already following me, you can follow me here!
Unfortunately, this means that I’ll also be missing a number of Seahawks games. I’m very grateful for DVRs now.
Go Hawks!
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