Posted on April 18, 2024, 2:29 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Since the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, would be the last in America until 2044, my main motivation was to witness the event as a family. This called for a different approach than the one I took for the eclipse of 2017. I had traveled with my younger in-laws to Grand Teton National […]
Summary: Last fall, I made an unusual photograph at one of the most iconic locations in Wrangell-St Elias National Park. Read practical details about that location, the challenges of making that particular photograph, and how I processed my files to make the most out of the opportunity. Autumn is my favorite time to visit Alaska […]
Tags:
alaska,
autumn,
backpacking,
hiking,
mountains,
national parks,
nature,
night,
photography,
processing,
wrangell-st elias national park 1 Comment |
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Posted on October 28, 2023, 3:24 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
The solar eclipse of October 14, 2023, was an “annular eclipse”, which happens when the moon passes entirely in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is too far from the earth to cover the entire sun, leaving a “ring of fire” around the moon. When I photographed such an eclipse in 2012, I […]
Posted on September 29, 2023, 3:01 pm, by QT Luong, under
Techniques.
Creating photographs of autumn colors in black and white may sound like an absurd idea. Besides the paradox, isn’t black and white photography best deployed in those instances where the subject lacks strong colors? And isn’t black and white’s ability to exaggerate drama – unfettered from the need to present a realistic rendition of a […]
Posted on September 10, 2021, 8:45 pm, by QT Luong, under
Techniques.
The front cover of Our National Monuments features a photograph from Ironwood Forest National Monument located in Southern Arizona made with a super-telephoto lens. The twenty-two land national monuments in the book have fewer geographic diversity than the national parks. Within that range of possibilities, I chose an image as different as possible for the […]
Posted on March 12, 2021, 7:29 pm, by QT Luong, under
Techniques.
Usually, I hardly pay any attention to Photoshop updates, since I use only a small subset of features that have been around for a while. However, when the new release was announced a few days ago, headlines mentioned a new “super-resolution” feature. This caught my attention since I was in the midst of delivering files […]
Posted on September 10, 2020, 12:32 pm, by QT Luong, under
Techniques.
If you are making prints, sooner or later you’ll have to upsize the image file. Even with such a basic task, there is much to be gained by using appropriate apps. In this post, the third and last in a series devoted to the Topaz suite of AI-based tools, I examine Topaz Gigapixel AI upsizing […]
Posted on June 18, 2020, 1:53 pm, by QT Luong, under
Techniques.
Located north of Arctic Circle, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is the ultimate wilderness park in the country. Absent any facilities such as trails, signs, or campsites, it is often possible to feel that you are the first human ever to set foot in the park. No roads lead into the park. […]
Caves open for tours geared towards the general public, such as those found in national parks, generally have paved paths and beautifully installed lights. What sometimes makes them difficult to photograph are restrictions like the prohibition of tripods. Outside of those caves, there is a whole world of undeveloped caves that offer a wild and […]
Posted on January 24, 2020, 1:04 pm, by QT Luong, under
Techniques.
How many times have you left a scene convinced that you got the photo “in the box”, only to find out upon looking at the file at 100% on the computer that it was unacceptably blurry? Some photographers advocate making generous use of the digital trash can when images are technically flawed. However, when images […]
