At mid-summer sunset in Iceland is very late and lasts a long time. The glacial iceberg-filled lake at Jokulsarlon is well know, but on this particular midnight we were treated to a 180 degree rainbow just as the sun touched the horizon. The Luminous Landscape wishes you all a healthy, joyous year ahead filled with learning, making, seeking and beauty. Part of our vision for … [Read more...]
The Still Life of Cinema: Michael LeBlanc
I first met Michael LeBlanc 18 years ago, when I was a touring musician with a label in need of a video and while he was leaping into film as a focus puller, mostly working for our mutual friend's music video and commercial production company (the parent company of which, coincidentally, Luminous Landscape luminary Chris Sanderson worked at). His film journey began … [Read more...]
The Changing Landscape
Welcome all to the Luminous Landscape 2019 My father started this site from our family’s home office where his latest camera gear, printers, and technology patents loomed ubiquitously as totems of his mission. Not to mention his many framed photographs illuminating our house, churned out of said printers at all times of the day and night. My dad traveled the planet, teaching, e … [Read more...]
Chicago Walk With The Fuji X-H1
If there is one city that gets me going as far as photography goes it has to be Chicago. To experience Chicago you must get up early and beat the crowds. So, on a cold winter morning, I invited Michael Durr our videographer who was in Chicago on family business to join me and document a few hour photo walk in Chicago. I have been shooting in Chicago for many years and I k … [Read more...]
The Palouse Harvest 2018
A Smokey Week In The Palouse If you have been a regular reader over the years, you surely know that one of my favorites places in America to photograph landscapes is the Palouse. This is an area located in southeast Washington state that can be best described because of its gently rolling hills as the Tuscany of America. The region offers incredible, unlike any o … [Read more...]
Turning Photographs Into Art Part 7: Printing from Lightroom Part C – Color Management
1 - Introduction: about printers If papers are important, something I discussed in my previous essay, printers are just as important. After all, it is the printer that lays the ink that goes onto the paper. As such the printer is the worker, the intermediary between what we see on the screen and what we get on the paper. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you l … [Read more...]
Rediscover – Understanding Mirror Lock-Up
Understanding Mirror Lock-Up Techniques for Reducing Vibration The greatest enemy of image sharpness is vibration. One of the best ways of beating vibration is through the use of mirror lock-up (MLU). But, there is a range of tools and techniques involved in achieving the sharpest possible images, and we'll look at each of them in detail. The Weakest Link Let's look at the … [Read more...]
The Most Important Strategies For Building Your Future-Proofed Portfolio
Landscape Photography: The most important strategies for building your future-proofed portfolio To quickly build a portfolio of landscape images that you are happy with and which has longevity, depends much less on having the latest and greatest camera than it does on hard work and understanding the best strategies. Photographers spend countless hours learning the craft of … [Read more...]
Red River Paper -Palo Duro Smooth Rag 310
Palo Duro Smooth Rag 310 Red River Paper (RRP) recently introduced their Palo Duro Smooth Rag 310 paper, 18 mil thickness, 100% cotton rag substrate, smooth matte surface and no OBAs. Their recommended Media Type for Epson printers is Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper (USFAP) and for Canon Pro models, Heavyweight Fine Art paper. RRP provides printer profiles for this paper on … [Read more...]
Zero to Hero: Knowledge Saved The Day
Knowledge Saved The Day Knowledge weighs nothing, travels everywhere and is your camera bags number one asset. A holiday in Paris - then I saw Les Invalides. Oh wow! Beautiful light, beautiful building - but only a Nikon D800E and Sigma 50mm ART lens. Knowledge saved a great opportunity. One camera, one lens, one beautiful photograph; a simple “How I made this image” story. The … [Read more...]
Silo City Revisited
Michael Reichmann and Kevin Raber have both visited "Silo City" of course (Silo City comfort zone, Challenging yourself to see different) and in fact, my 1st trip was after seeing some of Kevin's photos of the steam pumps in the Buffalo water pumping station taken during one of Mark Maio's workshops. Mark started taking photos there in 2012 having been documenting the grain i … [Read more...]
“Composition In Photography As Demonstrated In Michal Sikorski’s book” A Fascination for Deserts
Michal Sikorski - has been on an over forty years’ long creative quest of photographing deserts all around the world. When deliberating possible concepts for presenting it in a book form, together with Peter Gyllan - the co-author of A Fascination for Deserts - looked into some art & visual perception theories that could provide us with a useful formula that would emphasize … [Read more...]
On The Rocks – Canon R Mirrorless Camera
Mikey Likes It The Canon R mirrorless camera has been certainly a hot topic of late. Every website and YouTuber has had a lot to say about this camera. Some love it, some don’t. At Luminous-Landscape we have covered this camera in several previous videos. We did a camera announcement video that was made the night the camera introduced. This was followed by a Canon EOS R … [Read more...]
Do Landscapes Need To Be Factual?
One of the most emotive questions facing landscape photographers today is whether their images should be factual. If you take a photograph in Yosemite, should it look exactly like Yosemite, or is there room for interpretation? As the head of judging for the International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards, it’s a topic I deal with regularly. Our competition is o … [Read more...]
Turning Photographs Into Art Part 6: Printing from Lightroom Part B – Templates and Soft Proofing
1 - Introduction It is seeing original prints from master photographers that inspired me to create my own photographs and learn how to print them as well as they did. Great prints are inspiring. They move us. They transport us to the places they show and make us live the events they capture. My prints, your prints, are the expression of our vision, of our skills and our … [Read more...]