If you live in the northern U.S., you are probably experiencing a low snow winter this year. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire where I live we haven't had any appreciable snow since before Halloween! The gray and brown hues of a snowless landscape can definitely make it hard for a landscape photographer to be inspired enough to get out there and shoot. I feel fortunate that I chose his winter to start a new project I call 0630, where I go out every morning and make a picture at 6:30 (you can read more about the project in this post I made over at the Outdoor Photographer website.) The project has forced me to get out and shoot, when I normally would have stayed in bed, and it's really getting my creative juices flowing and giving me good practice on techniques I don't always use on a regular basis. For most of the last 6 weeks, I've been shooting primarily 30-45 minutes before sunrise, so here are some tips on what to do when it's winter, it's dark, and there's no snow.

Find some light, any light! On clear mornings, I head to the coast, where I can use the pre-sunrise glow and colors to my advantage. Since I like to use low ISO's like 100 or 200, and small apertures like F16, that means I'm often shooting very slow shutter speeds, anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes. A sturdy tripod is a must, and I really recommend using a cable release or the self-timer on the camera. Since most cameras have a maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds, you'll need to put the camera in bulb mode for anything longer and then use a cable release to hold the shutter open the appropriate amount of time. What's the appropriate amount of time? Let's say the camera's meter is telling you that F11 and 30 seconds is too dark of an exposure. Increase your aperture until the meter reads a proper exposure. In this example, assume that it now says F5.6, 30 seconds. This equates to F8 at 1 minute, F11 at 2 minutes, or F16 at 4 minutes. Put the camera in bulb mode, dial in F11, then trip the shutter with the cable release, locking it in the on position and keep the shutter open for 2 minutes. If you have an intervalometer (a fancy cable release), you can set it to automatically hold the shutter open for 2 minutes.  If you include a dark foreground like in the above photo, you will probably also need to use a graduated split neutral density filter to hold down the exposure in the sky and avoid blown out highlights.

Pre-dawn surf, Rye Harbor State Park, New Hampshire. F16, 2 minutes. (Jerry Monkman)

On cloudy days, finding light is obviously even harder. I'm finding it's still fun to make long exposures on the coast like the above shot, but there's a lot less color. Though it's not part of my normal subject matter, city scenes here in Portsmouth have proven to be a good thing to shoot when I need to find a little light on dark mornings. For many of these urban scenes like the below image of the Memorial Bridge in the fog, I'm finding High Dymanic Range (HDR) software to be a huge help. For this image, I locked my camera into the tripod and shot three exposures at F16, 2-stops apart: 4 seconds, 15 seconds, and 30 seconds. The combination of the three exposures captured detail in both the dark recesses behind the buildings and in the bright lights. I used Nik HDR Efex Pro to combine the three shots into one.

The Memorial Bridge in the fog, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. HDR. (Jerry and Marcy Monkman)

Trees silhouetted against the morning sky at Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, New Hampshire. F11, 3.2 seconds. (Jerry and Marcy Monkman)

Another technique I like to use when a "normal" shot might not work because of mediocre light or so-so subject matter is to purposefully blur the photo to create an abstract composition. For the above shot of trees against a pre-dawn sky, I used a shutter speed of 3.2 seconds and moved the camera up while the shutter was open. This is a really fun technique because you never know exactly what you're going to get. In addition to moving the camera up and down, you can try moving it horizontally or diagonally as well.

Captain Tobias Lear's 1781 tombsone in the Point of Graves Burying Ground in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. F4, 15 seconds (Jerry and Marcy Monkman)

Of course, you can always add your own light with flash, or as I did in the above photo, with a flashlight. "Light painting" with a flashlight is as easy as waving the flashlight across your subject during the exposure. For this shot, I just used a basic maglight that I bought at the local hardware store, and painted the tombstones during a 15 second exposure. I love the skull and crossbones, by the way.

I am enjoying shooting at this time quite a bit. Most days, I'm done shooting before the sun even comes up so I can go about my normal daily routine. I was actually startled to see the sun come on Saturday when I lingered longer than usual, and I have been so accustomed to shooting in the dark, that I wasn't sure what to do with all that light!

The forecast is calling for a little snow tonight, but hopefully this post has given you some ideas of what to do on those dark, snow-free, winter days.

You can follow my 0630 project on Tumblr or by liking the EcoPhotography Facebook Page.

Until next time…

-Jerry

Clouds over the Atlantic Ocean at Wallis Sands State Park in Rye, New Hampshire.

The New Year always leads to a look back over the previous year, so here are my favorite images from 2011. This is usually a tough exercise, and I'm sure if I go through it again tomorrow, I'd probably choose a different 15 photos. These aren't necessarily my best images of the year, and photographers are notoriously bad at editing their own images anyway, but I like each one of them for either esthetic or emotional reasons. Three of these, including the above image of clouds over the Atlantic are from my 0630 project, which I started in mid-November. It has been a great project for getting me out and looking through the camera every day, and it has forced me to think of images I normally wouldn't shoot. I'd love to hear your comments on these, so let them rip!

Fern close-up. Vermont's Green Mountains.

I made this fern close-up during my Vermont photo workshop in May. What I love about my workshops, is when all my students are hard at work and happily engaged in their photography, I can try some different photo approaches. For this one, I used my 16-35mm zoom with a 12mm extension tube attached and pressed the lens right up against the fern. Shaded by the camera, the fern frond in the upper right became darker than the rest of the scene, creating a contrast I love and didn't expect.

A girl walks on the beach as the sun sets over Head of the Meadow Beach at the Cape Cod National Seashore in Truro, Massachusetts.

In June, my family and I combined a camping trip on Cape Cod with an assignment for the Trust for Public Land. We stayed at a campground in Truro that was part of a previous TPL project, and the first night (after buying a new tent because I forgot to pack our tent poles) we walked to the beach for sunset. Kids are great for managing to make pictures for you – my daughter just happened to walk into the scene while I was composing this sunset shot, and I feel like she gives the photo a lot more impact.

A homemade sign opposing Northern Pass in Columbia, New Hampshire.

Since September I've been working on a video project for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, who is leading a campaign against the Northern Pass electricity transmission line project in New Hampshire. The grassroots nature of this campaign has inspired a plethora of homemade protest signs. This is my favorite, possibly because my 8 year old is currently reading all the Calvin and Hobbes anthologies he can get his hands on.

View of the Nash Stream valley from Sugarloaf Mountain in New Hampshire's Nash Stream State Forest.

I also made this photo from Sugarloaf Mountain in New Hampshire's Nash Stream State Forest as part of the Northern Pass campaign. One of the proposed transmission line routes passes very close to this scene, bisecting the Nature Conservancy's Bunnell Preserve. I photographed from this spot for TNC during the campaign to create the Bunnell Preserve in 2000, and never thought I'd come back and shoot here due to the preserve being at risk again. One thing I did note, was that the hike up the mountain is much steeper than it was eleven years ago:)

Dawn over the Atlantic Ocean in Rye, New Hampshire. Wallis Sands State Park.

This is another image from my 0630 series. Shooting at 6:30 during the winter months is really forcing me to explore shooting with long shutter speeds because of the low light. It's amazing what kind of photos can be made 45 minutes before the sun comes up.

Forest trail abstract, Sieur de Monts, Acadia National Park, Maine.

Shot during my summer workshop in Acadia, this is one of those images I had to think up when the light and forest conditions didn't really match my expectations. Nothing like a little blur to mask out mediocre light.

American Toad, Bufo americanus. Seacoast Science Center, Rye, NH.

Part of my Meet Your Neighbours project at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire. I love the pose of this American Toad – looks like he's dancing.

Cross country skiing, Windsor, Massachusetts

I honestly think I like this "self-portrait" of me skiing in The Berkshires primarily because we winter hasn't looked anything like this so far this year, and all that snow looks SO good.

View of Mount Jefferson from the Rocks Estate in Bethlehem, New Hampshire.

Another Northern Pass photo. This one is from The Rocks Estate, a Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests preserve in the White Mountains, that is at risk due to the Northern Pass proposal. The views from the estate are spectacular. This one I made with my 500mm lens.

Lichen on cobblestones, Little Cranberry Island, Maine.

I just love the simplicity and textures of this image.

Royalston Falls in Royalston, Massachusetts. Falls Brook.

The hardest part of this photo was navigating the rocks and mossy gorge walls to get down into position. I think I like it so much because it has that verdant feel of a tropical rainforest, yet is located in central Massachusetts. This is an image made possible by digital technology, as I combined four exposures, focused at different points in order to capture the depth of field I wanted.

Ferns and tree trunks in the Wild Gardens of Acadia in Maine's Acadia National Park.

I noticed this scene during my fall Acadia workshop, but wasn't able to shoot it during our outing (I do try to pay attention to my students!) I went back after the workshop because I was really drawn by the rich colors and textures in the ferns and tree trunks.

The North Church and Congress Street on a rainy December morning in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

I just love living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Have a great 2012 everybody!

-Jerry

An October snowfall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

With the snow coming early (here in the Northeast U.S. anyway,) it seems like a good time to review some winter photography tips.

1) Stay powered. Cold temperatures reduce the length of time your camera's batteries will function. Always bring a spare or two, and use power-sapping features like auto focus, live view, and LCD playback sparingly.

2) Stay dry. Keep snow away from your camera and lenses as much as possible. While dry, fluffy snow isn't as bad as rain on your equipment, you should still blow or wipe it from your gear whenever necessary. Also, never bring a camera and lenses directly into a warm environment after it has been out in the cold. Pack them in your camera bag or plastic bags before heading inside and let them warm up to room temperature before taking them out. Otherwise, moisture will condense on the glass and metal surfaces, potentially damaging your gear.

3) Expose for your highlights – the snow. A snowy landscape will often throw off a camera's meter, sometimes to the point of underexposing your photo as much as two stops. When shooting in winter, take a test shot and check your histogram. You should have pixels stretching almost to the right side of the graph in order to ensure properly exposed snow. If you don't, add light to your exposures by using a slower shutter speed. However, if your histogram spikes on the right side (you'll probably have the blinkies too), then your photo is overexposed and you need to use a faster shutter speed.

4) When the snow is falling, try a variety of shutter speeds. A shutter speed of 1/250 second or faster will stop the motion of falling snow – if that's the look you want. For a streaky snow, use a shutter speed between 1/125 and 1/30 second, but slower than that and the snow may blur completely away and look more like fog than snow.

5) Get out in the good light. Just like during other times of year, shooting during the "Golden Hour" around sunrise and sunset will result in more opportunities for photos with interesting shadows and textures, warmer tones, and more colorful skies.

Dawn in winter in New Hampshire

For those of you looking for some winter photo instruction, I'll be leading a 3-day winter photography workshop in the White Mountains at the AMC Highland Center, Feb 10 -12, 2012.

I'm also still offering free shipping on my new book, which includes a section on winter photography: The AMC Guide to Outdoor Digital Photography.

Let me know if you have any winter photo questions, or tips of your own.

Until next time…

-Jerry

The barn at Elmwood Farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

Today I'm working on one of the dozen or so one-day conservation photo projects I get to work on every year. I'm shooting at a small, old family farm in Massachusetts that is in the process of being conserved both for the open space and to provide some community garden opportunities. Like I have to do for many of these projects, I drove about two hours in the dark this morning to arrive at the farm about 20 minutes before sunrise. It's not an ideal way to shoot, especially when you've never seen the place, whether in person or in photographs, but I love this kind of challenge and I think these types of photo projects have made me a better photographer.

Milkweed pod at Elmwood Farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

I'm blessed to have the opportunity to shoot in some of New England's most iconic locations several times a year. Places like Acadia, the White Mountains, and Vermont. While I love shooting in these spots, it's easy to get lazy and just shoot the same dramatic landscapes that look good from year to year. However, shooting in a less impressive location like where I was this morning makes me work a lot harder and faster. I literally had about 10 minutes to take a quick look around, and then I had to start shooting (heck, today I wasn't even sure I was in the right place.) This place definitely isn't as dramatic as Monument Cove in Acadia or the summit of Mount Monroe in the White Mountains, so it takes some effort to quickly surmise the scene, break it down into those few elements that I feel define it, and then find a simple composition that works with the light at hand. These types of locations also force me to look a little closer for those interesting details that can be easy to overlook in a more dramatic landscape.

Dawn at Elmwood Farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

What starts as a groggy feeling around in the dark approach soon becomes a mad dash to capture as much as possible when the golden hour commences and the Dunkin Donuts kicks in. I'll be sticking around to shoot some more later this afternoon after some good leisurely walks around the place, but clouds are already moving in, so the photos I shot during my whirlwind hour this morning might prove to be the best shots I get.

Lily pads and pond reflections at Elmwood Farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

Until next time…

-Jerry

P.S.  This is the last week I'm offering free shipping on signed copies of my new book, The AMC Guide to Outdoor Digital Photography.

Ferns and tree trunks in the Wild Gardens of Acadia in Maine

I took the above photo during my Acadia workshop last weekend. When we arrived on Friday, there was very little color. Actually, it was the least amount of fall color I have ever seen up there that late in the year. Despite the lack of foliage, we managed to find plenty to shoot, including these beautiful russet-colored ferns in the Wild Gardens of Acadia.

On Tuesday, I drove home only to see beautiful peak foliage  the entire four hour drive. Yesterday, I made another four hour drive, this one up to Pittsburg, New Hampshire to shoot a video interview. The colors were great for much of that drive as well, though it's past peak at higher elevations in the Whites and north of US 2. I'd say this is the weekend to shoot fall colors in Maine in New Hampshire. I hope you get a chance to get out there!

Until next time…

-Jerry

The AMC Guide to Outdoor Digital Photography

Please forgive me for a little blatant self-promotion here, but I’m excited to announce the release of my new book, the AMC Guide to Outdoor Digital Photography. When I sat down to write this book over the winter, my goal was to keep it simple – I’m a firm believer in keeping the tech talk to a minimum and letting the creative part of making photographs bubble up to the surface. I feel I’ve succeeded with that goal, but once I started writing I was surprised how much thinking actually goes into the making of a good photo, and I ended up writing in a lot more detail than I expected. For that reason, readers should be able to grow with this book, by getting a basic understanding of composition and other field and digital darkroom techniques, but being able to dig a little deeper as their skills and and passion for photography increase.

The book is slated to hit store shelves in a couple of weeks, but if you pre-order a book from my website before then, you might get it a little sooner and I’ll throw in free shipping.

Photographers on the Provinceland Dunes on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

I'll be leading a 5-day photo workshop on the Cape Cod National Seashore in September. It is a beautiful place for photography with miles and miles of undeveloped beaches, rolling dunes, pitch-pine forests, and picturesque harbors. During the workshop we'll visit the dunes and beaches on the Atlantic side from Eastham up to Provincetown as well as bayside photo hotspots in Wellfleet and Truro. The north-south orientation of the outer cape provides great photo ops at both sunrise and sunset, so we can take advantage of good light at both ends of the day.

Sand patterns at sunset on Bound Brook Island, Cape Cod National Seashore, Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

In addition to shooting at great locations, we'll have plenty of time to learn some digital imaging skills in the classroom. I'll be teaching digital workflow in depth, as well as fun imaging techniques like HDR, extended depth of field, and layer masking. We'll also be able to have several critique sessions over the course of the week.

Horseshoe crab on the beach at sunset in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Cape Cod.

I have found September to be an ideal time to hold a workshop on Cape Cod. The weather is generally still very nice, but more importantly, the intense crowds of summer are gone. Many locations are hard to access in summer because parking lots are full, as are the beaches, making photos of long stretches of beach without people hard to get. In September, we'll have many beaches to ourselves, especially at first light.

Boat detail. Wellfleet Harbor.

If you are interested in attending this workshop, visit http://www.jerryandmarcymonkman.com/cape_cod_workshop.html for more details and to register. Here are a few more images to whet your appetite:

Surf on the beach at the Marconi Station Site on Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts.

The sun sets over Head of the Meadow Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore, Truro, Massachusetts.

The Provinceland Dunes on Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts.

Until next time….

-Jerry

The bow of a kayak and moored sailboats at sunrise in Portsmouth Harbor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Sometime you want to take pictures without your feet on the ground. Here are some tips for keeping your gear safe while shooting from a kayak.

In this video, New Hampshire based conservation photographer Jerry Monkman explains how to keep your camera gear safe while shooting from a kayak.

Franconia Ridge View by Joe Viger

Judging by the images posted recently on my Flickr Photo Critique group, it must be lupine season! Photographers posted lupine close-ups, landscapes with lupines, even a lupine growing through the metal of farm machinery. So I felt compelled to celebrate the lupine with this month's critique, and Joe Viger's beautiful shot of lupines in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire seemed a great choice for several reasons. This classic landscape shot describes well the lupine spectacle in Sugar Hill with the White Mountains in the distance that has been a photographer favorite for at least two decades. It looks like the lupine bloom was pretty good this year and I like the late day light on the distant ridge. With the flower field in shadow, Joe made a good decision to use fill-flash and to concentrate on a collection of  flowers that included brighter white and pink blooms. Otherwise, the foreground might have been too dark. I also like how his composition flows from the flower in front up to the tallest flower in back, which in turn leads right to the highest point on the distant ridge, Mount Lafayette.  This creates a natural path for the viewer's eye to follow while visually exploring the image. And the twisty, snake-like shape of the flowers adds some nice curves to the design. Lastly, a deep depth of field, combined with Joe's placement of the ridge in the top third of the frame gave the photo the depth that is so important in a big landscape scene such as this.

This being a critique, I'm supposed to add some comments about what I would have changed about this photo. With this particular group of flowers, I'm not sure there's much that I would change. I'd like to see a little less empty space in the bottom corners of the frame, but this would have required either showing only a portion of the front purple flower or moving completely in front of it, which I don't think would have improved the photo in this case. I am a fan of getting really close to the main subject with a wide angle lens, which in this case would have given the flowers even more dominance in the photo. Would this result in a better photo in this case? Not necessarily, but it's something I would have tried after nailing down the original composition. I also would have liked to see less shadow on the treeline which serves as the demarcation between foreground and background. Of course, this may have required that Joe make this shot 20 or 30 minutes earlier and at the point the light on the distant ridge might not have been as nice as it is here.

All in all, Joe should be very happy with this photo, and I encourage you all to check out his Flickr photo stream, which includes some other lupine photos from his recent outing. Joe's "prize" for having his image selected for this critique is a copy of my "Photographer's Guide to Acadia National Park", which is where I'll be heading in ten days or so to lead my Acadia photo workshop, and where I hope to find a few late-blooming lupines for my own photos! If you're planning a trip to the park you should also check out Discover Acadia, which Marcy and I wrote for AMC Books.

If you'd like to participate in my Flickr Photo Critique group, just follow this link, and start uploading photos. It's fun and free! I'll be choosing the next photo to critique around the 4th of July.

Thanks for reading!

-Jerry

A New England cottontail rabbit at Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

It's hard to believe I started this personal project about the New England Cottontail more than a year ago, but as often happens when you're a freelancer, other paying projects took precedence for much of the year. The New England Cottontail is the only native cottontail rabbit to the region, and I decided to make this documentary short because most people don't realize that this rabbit is facing some serious problems, primarily declining populations caused by loss of habitat. New England Cottontails have been relegated to several small, disconnected populations in southern New England and extreme western New York, but most people think there are plenty of rabbits around because they usually see the closely related Eastern cottontail, which has been introduced to the region from states to the west and seems to thrive in our suburban environment.

For this project, I concentrated on the Maine population of this species, since it is the only state without Eastern cottontails, and the main populations of New England Cottontails are relatively close to my home. There are also some great restoration efforts being done by Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, the State of Maine, and private organizations like the York Land Trust. I produced and shot this piece solo, but I got plenty of help from the folks in the film when it came to learning about the rabbits and actually finding them. Finding the rabbits was by far the biggest challenge of this project. Only 300 – 400 rabbits remain in the entire state and the places they live on public land are regularly visited by people walking and jogging, often with their dogs, which keeps the rabbits hiding out in the shrubs. I saw a total of three rabbits during ten or eleven outings, and only one sat still long enough for me to get some footage.

In addition to the conservationists I thank in the film, I owe a special thank you to my brother Jeff, a Berklee grad and wonderful musician who never hesitates to let me use my music for my multimedia pieces. Check out his music at monkmusic.net.

Here's the film. Let me know how you like it.