And The Winners Are…
Notice that I said winners? Because it is Christmas and I have a soft spot at this time of year and only this time of year, EVERYONE that commented on last week’s post regarding how I shot an interior image is getting a print of their choosing. So Younes, Dave, Ilene, Dick, and Michael just [...]
Making Your Whites White in Photoshop CS5
Have you ever wondered how to get your whites truly white in an image without changing the overall brightness or colors within that image? Here is how I achieve it. As usual when I post how-to tips the images are viewable larger just by clicking on them. Here is my image after making basic adjustments [...]
Photography Tips–Merging Two Exposures in Photoshop
On a recent trip to the desert southwest of Utah I photographed an amazing sunrise as a winter storm front approached my location. For landscape photographs such as this one, I prefer to use a graduated neutral density filter in the field to balance out my scene’s High Dynamic Range, but the composition that I [...]
Image Mastering with Grant Kaye
Grant Kaye came to us for a One-On-One image mastering session . It is essentially a way for any photographer out there to get to spend an hour or more working on their images with Jay from their computer to his. Grant is a photographer from Truckee, California visit his website to see more of [...]
Can’t Han…dle the Wor….kload
For the last week I have been under the gun from commercial architecture clients with ridiculous deadlines. I essentially have 7 projects to finish mastering by the 15th of November, which all came to fruition at the same time last week. It wasn’t like I was slacking on my end, just playing on Facebook and [...]
Photoshop CS5 – Spot Healing Brush Tool – Welcome Back from the Darkside
Continuing my exploration of Adobe’s new CS5 Master Collection from a recent first post of ours, I have discovered a newly reinvented friend in Photoshop CS5. The Spot Healing Brush Tool has, up until now, never been my favorite tool to fix and remove dust, branches, etc. from an image. It just never seemed to get [...]
Structure – You Can’t Build Without It
I have been thinking about my photography lately. My style, my vision, my technique. How I create. What I create. What I want to create next. Photography is truly a never ending learning experience. If you want to be successful and I mean really successful, not like me–I am still too young, you need to [...]
Vancouver 2010 – The Olympics – Part 2 – The Context
In my first post regarding my visit to the 2010 Winter Olympics, I discussed an image and fascination with the bobsleigh since childhood. With this post I want to take the photographic process a little further and talk about image context. Any time that I shoot a story or idea, whether it be a personal [...]
Last Week-Rain, This Week-Rain, Next Week-Rain
We have returned home from the dry side of the Cascades, leaving the sun and beautiful colors of the Painted Hills behind. The weather in the Pacific Northwest is needless to say a little wet. In order to welcome us here, the rainfall average is 68% above normal. I wanted moisture. Always be careful what you [...]
Wait for It
Recently, I taught a workshop with Art Wolfe, John Greengo, and Libby Pfeiffer. We had a wonderful time running and hiding under a sitka spruce as it rained like never before on Second Beach just outside of La Push, Washington. At times, the grand landscape is not always available and instead of focusing on what [...]
Night in Utah
Last night I was in Goblin Valley State Park shooting the afternoon light, sunset, and then stars and star trails as day became night. The night before when Brendan and I were shooting the residence in Colorado we were talking about how to shoot star trails, so I have decided to post an image and [...]
An Intense Learning Experience
I spent last week confined to my office staring at my computer monitor, miscellaneous papers, and books. My goal was a self-inflicted intense week of learning. I have been gathering tons of information on Photoshop techniques, flash techniques, and HDR techniques over the course of the past few months, and it was time to finally [...]
Go Neutral for Gray Days
Use your graduated neutral density filter to make a cloudy day sky more opposing.
Velvia from Digital
You can download larger article images here. They are named in chronological order for convenience. My workshop students often ask me how they can get their digital images to have the look and saturation that Fujichrome Velvia transparency film produces. With this tip I am going to give you a quick glimpse of my image [...]
July 2008 Photo of the Month
This spring and now summer have been a great year for wildflower photography here in Colorado. We had a huge snow pack followed by a cooler, wet spring which has given the flowers the temperatures and water they need to not only stick around, but to also bloom in force unlike previous years. In this [...]
November 2007 Photo of the Month
I have been having trouble making a decision on what image to post for this month because I have shot a ton of images this fall and have liked so many. Once I downloaded the images that I shot from the Denver Zoo for a yearlong project that I started last weekend, the decision came [...]
October 2007 Photo of the Month
This month’s photo was taken on a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. As the sun was still low in the sky one morning Jay managed to catch up with this pronghorn antelope. This time of year the antelope, like deer and elk, are getting ready to mate. In preparation for the season [...]
September 2007 Photo of the Month
I have been traveling a bunch this summer and have not really had the time to shoot images locally the way I have in the past. I like to head up into the hills surrounding Vail towards the end of July to capture wildflower blooms at their peak. The problem this year was that it [...]
Jay is an internationally published and celebrated photographer and writer. His work focuses on architecture, nature, and adventure. His clients have included fortune five hundred companies, trade publications, national and international magazines and books, graphic designers, architects, builders, commercial printers, and many others.