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This weekend an interesting OpEd hit the New York Times titled Rethinking the Wild,  The Wilderness Act Is Facing a Midlife Crisis. If you haven’t read it I highly recommend you do, as you’ll hear much of this narrative in the coming months and years as various forces continue to try to chip away at it to weaken it if not undo it. The Wilderness Act of 1964 did something amazing, it protected 9.1 million

This past weekend I finally got around to revisiting some work from a couple years back when I was in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The trip was fantastic and yielded an amazing amount of imagery. Whether you’re aware or not, the photograph in the header banner of this blog was taken in the Arctic Refuge and is part of the large set of photographs, several hundred, I reviewed and released this weekend. W

One of the most essential pieces of knowledge to understand in order to attain sharp images, particularly for landscapes, is the principle of hyperfocal distance. Phil Davis put it best in Photography, 1972 “When the lens is focused on the hyperfocal distance, the depth of field extends from half the hyperfocal distance to infinity.” The general tip to burn into your memory is focus 1/3 of the way into yo

Click to Enlarge Invariably when you visit a photography forum these days you’ll find active discussions centered around camera gear whether its Canon vs. Nikon or the merits of medium vs. 35mm formats. At the root of these and many other debates on photography forums is the underlying question… Do high-end cameras make you a better photographer? The answer might surprise you… Yes! Unequivocally hig

Click to Enlarge This past week the news has been full of stories about high gasoline prices, expanding domestic drilling and various politicians perspectives on the issue. Now that most every American is feeling the squeeze due to higher gasoline prices pro-oil politicians are trying their best to convince the average American that domestic drilling is the answer to their problem. Sadly nothing could be farther to t

One of the most exciting developments to occur this weekend was the landing of the Phoenix Mars Lander. Landing on the northern pole region of Mars, amazing photos were sent back detailing unusual, yet familiar looking polygonal shapes in the polar landscape. Upon seeing these photos I didn’t need to read a word on the NASA Phoenix Lander web site about what I was seeing. From my trip to the Arctic National Wil

The land of the midnight sun (aka Alaska) produces some of the most beautiful light for photography. The trick is being able to see it through the quickly changing weather conditions. Not far from my camp when I took this photo the midnight sun kissed the mountainside as a storm front was moving in. With in minutes this beautiful light had vanished only to appear hours later as the storm cleared. To this day I’

Still one of the most amazing locations I’ve traveled to, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is full of pristine beauty. This location, aptly named Caribou Pass, is where the Porcupine herd passes from Canada to the Alaskan Arctic Plain every year. To give you some orientation to this scene… this is the view looking south towards the Brooks Range of Alaska, to the left (east) is Canada, to the right (wes