Entering a Photo Competition? Consider This Advice

January 7, 2024 Sarah Marino

A lovely spiral aloe, referenced in the text below.

I have recently served as a judge for a few different photo club competitions (in addition to being a judge for five award seasons with international photo competitions) and continue to see the same issues pop up. Some of the issues are really basic, like dust spots and tilted horizons, while others are far more subjective. With these experiences in mind, I share some advice to consider when you prepare your next competition entry (or magazine submission, gallery show entry, portfolio, or even your next social media post). This article represents the perspective of exactly one judge—me—so don’t consider it a checklist but instead a single point of view on a complex topic.

Sarah's 2023 Photography Year In Review

January 1, 2024 Sarah Marino

In this post, I share some highlights from 2023 along with some reflections on my current creative practices, thoughts about the direction of our photo business, some loose goals for 2024, and a short rumination about AI’s potential impact on my chosen career. If you are mostly here for the photos, you can skip ahead to the middle of the post. Before jumping into the text, I would like to thank you for being part of my photo community. I appreciate each of you and wish you the best for 2024!

Ron's 2023 Recap

December 28, 2023 Ron Coscorrosa

While I am sometimes successful in avoiding cliches in my photographs, I am less successful in avoiding cliches for my blog posts. So here is my version of the yearly recap post!

The beginning of the year is a good time to reflect and ruminate on the past year, but since this is the end of the year, I’m going to skip all that and just share some photographs. These are not necessarily my favorite twenty photographs of the year but they are a diverse selection of the places we photographed and visited in 2023, arranged chronologically.

Sharing Your Photos in A PDF Ebook Portfolio: Why and How

December 17, 2023 Sarah Marino

Ron is sharing a new portfolio of his autumn photography from Colorado and Zion National Park today. Like most of our recent work, he is sharing the photos in a PDF portfolio ebook (you can download it here, no email address or sign-up required). Each time we share one of these new ebooks, we receive a lot of questions that fall into two categories: why do you share your work this way and how can I create a similar PDF for my own work? We will answer both of these questions in this article.

The Death Valley Landscape and Nature Photography Guide

December 11, 2023 Sarah Marino

The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in the late afternoon on a clear day.

To the uninitiated, it can seem strange to have a photographic obsession with a place called Death Valley National Park. Yet, after visiting for first time, most nature and landscape photographers quickly come to understand the appeal. The scenery is diverse, vast, surreal, and dynamic, all of which are qualities that make this landscape exciting for nature photography. For us, Death Valley holds the only permanent spot among our favorite places, with the other spots rotating based on recent trips we have enjoyed. It fully deserves this honor!

While visiting remote parts of the park is exciting, the more easily accessible landscape photography locations, like Badwater Basin, the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, and Zabriskie Point, are all equally incredible. This makes the park a great option for both short trips and extended explorations. Another benefit: when it is cold and snowy elsewhere, the weather in Death Valley is generally mild, at least at the lower elevations. With Las Vegas only a few hours away, this park is also easy to get to for anyone in North America.

November 2023 Monthly Review

December 3, 2023 Sarah Marino

A rare mix of ponderosa pines, Gambel oak, and aspen trees. Southwestern Colorado, 2023.

I’m sharing a wrap-up like this at the end of each month to help with accountability and discipline. The basic format: an inventory of how I spent the last month with regard to nature photography and our photo business, a casual discussion about the things that are on my mind, and a few non-photography recommendations at the end.

NEW PHOTOS AND OTHER THINGS:

Composition webinar: On December 14, I will be teaching Composition and Visual Design for Nature Photographers for the Lehigh Valley Photography Club. I am fully revising this presentation so even if you have seen me talk about composition before, I hope you will get something new out of this talk. It is $10 and you can register here.

Webinar with Ian Plant: I will be joining Ian Plant to talk about the benefits and challenges of trying new types of photography (specifically wildlife photography for me). We will both be sharing some of our recent photographs and talking shop. It should be fun! There is no cost to watch this webinar but you need to register in advance.

Integrating Gratitude Practices Into Nature Photography

November 26, 2023 Sarah Marino

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, partially because it involves cooking a large, complicated meal and I always enjoy cooking—and sharing—large, complicated meals. My holiday meal this year was complicated because I did all of the cooking myself, not because I selected any fancy recipes. After integrating more modern dishes over the last few years, the traditional sides—sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, biscuits, corn, and stuffing—seemed most appealing as I prepared my grocery list so those are the dishes that ended up on my table (in addition to a less traditional apple cake for dessert).

Another thing I appreciate about Thanksgiving is seeing other people share their gratitude. Amidst so much constantly heavy, negative news, it is lovely to enjoy a day of reading posts that focus on positive things. After seeing these many posts plus some news stories about the mental health benefits of expressing gratitude, I went down a rabbit hole of reading to learn more. This short article from Arthur Brooks at The Atlantic (gift link with no paywall) is a nice summary of the research, historical underpinnings, and practical advice about “Four Ways to Be Grateful—And Happier.” The reason I appreciated this article in particular is how Brooks likens gratefulness to exercise: to the reap the benefits, you have to practice.

Ron's Recent Work From Alaska (New Portfolio Ebook)

November 17, 2023 Ron Coscorrosa

After a very busy fall, I finally had time to process my photos from Alaska. The results can be downloaded here, as a portfolio ebook with about 100 new photographs. There are autumnal landscapes and plants, mountains, glaciers, misty fjords and ocean scenes, and even some wildlife sprinkled in this new collection. I have included a small sampling of the photographs in this blog post but they will look better in the ebook.

As I mention in the ebook, the size, scope, and wildness of Alaska is difficult to articulate. A map provides an intellectual approximation of its size, but the emotional realization of how big a place Alaska is doesn’t really settle in until visiting in person and for several weeks. This is the perspective I have from driving around the very small slice of Alaska that is paved (or well graded) within a reasonable distance of its largest population center. Even that “less wild” part was incredible—imagine the overwhelming majority of the state which is inaccessible except by water or plane. Hopefully in the future we won’t have to imagine, as we plan on making several return visits.

Q and A: Naturalist Apps, Connecting with a Landscape, and Photographic Celibacy

November 10, 2023 Sarah Marino

Using the iNaturalist app plus field guides helped me identify some locations where this plant might grow within Death Valley National Park. iNaturalist’s companion app, Seek, is one of my favorite apps for the reasons I explain below.

In August, a publication invited me to participate in an extended interview and then repeatedly delayed publishing it. Instead of hoping the interview might eventually run someday, I decided to withdraw it and publish it in two parts on my website instead. You will find part one below.

Monthly Review: Autumn Continues and Eclipse-Related Failures (#2.October 2023)

November 2, 2023 Sarah Marino

The type of conditions we missed this year in Colorado. I took this photo back in 2013 before this became an iconic view. I heard through the grapevine that beavers have changed the composition at this pond but I haven’t visited it myself for years due to the crowds. This is one of my most popular photos and I am happy that it has been the holiday card for a national conservation nonprofit twice, with more than a million cards printed.

Our October started and ended with photographing fall colors. Early in the month, we stayed close to home in southwestern Colorado, taking our Airstream trailer out for a week to a spot with lovely scenery and very few people. On most days, we saw only a car or two pass by our campsite near the area’s main road and aside from two people we know, did not see a single other photographer in the area. With a little exploration, it is easy to get away from the crowds, even in a place as popular as the aspen forests of Colorado in the fall. With mostly clear skies, we focused on smaller scenes and enjoyed a few frosty mornings. And then a lovely snowstorm rolled in and … we were not able to photograph it. 😓 After getting the COVID and flu vaccines at the same time, we were feeling too tired to head out into the wintery weather. It was disappointing to miss the autumn-winter mix but I should—obviously—not feel bad since I have been able to spend a lot of time on photography this autumn.

Alaska Wildlife from a Landscape Photographer's Perspective

October 27, 2023 Sarah Marino

A black bear takes a break from salmon-maiming to shake off. The shapes in the background are all dead salmon, many of them maimed by the bears searching for eggs. Live spawning salmon can also be seen in the creek. This photo is an example of how I needed to shift my thinking about composition. Normally, distractions like the dead salmon would have kept me from taking a photo of this scene. With wildlife photography, I decided they add important context.

To start our fall nature photography season this year, we went to Alaska at the end of August and ended up spending a lot of time photographing wildlife and birds. Although I always enjoy watching wild animals, I have never spent much time photographing them for a variety of reasons. Yet, with so many animals and birds around us, it seemed like I should at least give it a decent try and I ended up really enjoying the experience. It felt exciting to try something new, stretch my skills, and add a different kind of photography to my portfolio. The process of watching these animals and birds also deepened my understanding of these ecosystems and left me feeling more connected to the landscape. Below, I share a few favorite experiences, things I learned as a landscape photographer trying to photograph wildlife, and a few new photos. You can see the full gallery of photos here.

Look For Beauty All Around You: A Lesson from Female Birds and Arctic Ground Squirrels

October 19, 2023 Sarah Marino

In many ways, our modern society conditions us to find excitement and joy only at the pinnacle of experience. With nature photography, this looks like the epic sunset, the perfect swath of autumn color, or being in the presence of especially dramatic scenery. While I still seek out such experiences, I try to balance them with finding equal satisfaction and happiness with more common everyday experiences out in nature. A recent example: feeling full of joy and excitement when I saw a thriving four o-clock wildflower and its glowing magenta petals, with white-lined sphinx moths actively feeding on its nectar, in late October while on a casual evening walk in the Utah desert.

A few days ago, upon the recommendation of fellow photographer Dario Perizzolo, I listened to an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, “How Your Beliefs Shape Your Reality.” Near the end, the psychologist being interviewed, Jer Clifton, suggested a simple mental exercise to help cultivate curiosity and promote this kind of connection with the natural world. Pick up a leaf from a tree and contemplate its beauty: the shape, the colors, the intricacy of the veins. If this leaf was rare, it would be considered a work of art but because it is so commonplace, it doesn’t command any special attention—or any attention at all.

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