It’s hard to pick just twelve.
I enjoyed photography in 2023 and decided to share my pick of favorites. It was not easy! 12 photos for 12 months – not one per month, but just the twelve that I felt were especially beautiful or interesting. See the full gallery – where I recommend clicking the “play” button to see them as a slideshow – and read on for some commentary about each one.
First efforts!
We are fortunate to live along the Connecticut River in a rural part of New Hampshire – in the town of Lyme, just a few miles north of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover. Surrounded by farmland and forest, and situated in that interstitial space between the forest and the river, we are regularly treated to wildlife sightings. Over the years I have seen and heard moose, deer, bear, fox, coyote, porcupine, skunk, raccoon, groundhog (woodchuck), beaver, mink, fisher (maybe), … not to mention birdlife like turkey, bald eagle, hawk, osprey, egret, heron, goose, duck, loon, and countless other songbirds and waterfowl. And yet, I am certain there is far more happening in our yard and around our house than I happen to see, especially at night. Sebastian, our cat, has surely seen it all… but he’s not talking. So I was pleased to get a pair of wildlife cameras for my birthday. I set up one by the river and one at the edge of a woodpile; here’s what I’ve seen so far.
The gallery includes four captures, in still and video:
I am still experimenting with locations for these cameras, and hope to capture something more interesting soon!
No more DNG for me.
[Time for another photogeek blog post!]
I’ve been using a DLSR camera since 2008 and have been photographing in Raw since 2012, after I finally realized the benefits of camera-raw over jpeg. In 2012 I also started keeping my entire photo collection in Adobe Lightroom, allowing Lightroom to convert any Raw photos to DNG (‘digital negative’) files at the time of import. Why? Because I was convinced by books and bloggers that DNG is The Right Way to store images. Today, ten years later, I’ve changed my mind. In this post I explain why.
Continue reading “CR3 vs DNG”I just joined the Nature First community, because I am impressed by their efforts to communicate about respect for nature while photographing nature. For more, I recommend their why Nature First page.
“The Nature First Principles were developed to help educate and guide both professional and recreational photographers in sustainable, minimal impact practices that will help preserve nature’s beautiful locations:”
A week off the grid on the coast of Alaska – photographing bears.
This post is part of a series about our photography trip to Alaska.
A week off the grid on the coast of Alaska – photographing bears.
This post is part of a series about our photography trip to Alaska.
Thursday (September 1) Geographic Harbor: We visited the beach (and bears) in the morning. It was a beautiful day, with the clouds passing over and through the hills surrounding the bay. Read on, though, for photos of the bears and other wildlife spotted this day!
A week off the grid on the coast of Alaska – photographing bears.
This post is part of a series about our photography trip to Alaska.
Tuesday (August 30) Kuliak Bay, Hidden Harbor, Geographic Harbor: An early breakfast allowed us to reach the beach by 8am, where an immature bald eagle was perched on driftwood as if waiting for a dozen photographers to capture its portrait. My favorite photo from the sequence came moments after it launched from its beachfront perch. What else did we see in the next two days? read on.
A week off the grid on the coast of Alaska – photographing bears.
This post is part of a series about our photography trip to Alaska.
Monday (August 29) Kuliak Bay: Today we decided to move to another bay, also well known for bears: Kuliak Bay. So we spent a few hours motoring out from Geographic Harbor and Amalik Bay, then northeast through the Shelikof Strait along the Katmai coastline. It was a gorgeous day with calm seas and scattered clouds, with snow-capped peaks in the distance behind the coastal hills. Read on to see what we found in Kuliak Bay…
A week off the grid on the coast of Alaska – photographing bears.
My father and I spent a week on a photography workshop in Katmai National Park, on the southern coast of Alaska west of Anchorage. The trip was organized by Muench photography workshops and was an outstanding opportunity to refine my photography skills in a beautiful setting – up close and personal with Alaskan brown bears as they feasted on the annual salmon run. We spent seven nights on the Dreamcatcher, a small ship that allowed us to anchor in several bays along the Katmai coastline, using its skiffs to visit shore two or three times daily. We saw dozens of bears, as they were feasting on the annual salmon run, up close and personal. I snapped over 8,000 photos and it will take me many weeks to find time to sort, process, and share them all. For now, I’ll post retroactively in segments – with a few preliminary/teaser photos. [I finally posted the edited photographs in November.]
Continue reading “Katmai National Park, Day 1”Pays to be well prepared.
When I’m out for a dayhike I tend to carry more than most hikers – because I often hike solo, and because I keep my pack pre-filled with the essentials. Below is my full summer kit, which weighs about 10kg (22lb) in typical configuration. Heavy! But I like to be prepared. So what’s inside?
David Kotz 