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A note about spamming.
I only send this newsletter to people that have signed up for it over the last 10 years either on my website, at a show, art faire, a gallery I was showing in or former workshop participates, collector or former client. Because of technical issues I've only recently started sending out this newsletter to my entire mailing list, so you may have been signed up a number of years ago but are just receiving your first or second newsletter. If you feel you're receiving this newsletter in error or simply no longer wish to receive it you can unsubscribe via the link at the bottom of the newsletter. Thank You, Edward Mendes.
Greetings Everyone,
The holidays, this is my favorite time of year. I love everything about Thanksgiving and Christmas, the wonderful songs, the collective feeling of happiness and joy and especially the feeling of love and closeness to friends and family that just seems to kick up a notch when Christmas rolls around. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family and were able to give thanks for all that we have as a country, we are truly blessed.
Around my neck of the woods it's certainly starting to feel like Christmas...and winter. The temperatures are dropping, we've had a couple big storms roll through and my wife Sarah is busy decorating the house, bring to life the magic that is Christmas.
Merry Christmas,
Edward Mendes December 2010
New Release - Fireline, Yosemite NP
It had been pretty dry in Yosemite Valley for almost two months when a series of large and cold storms finally blew through Yosemite bringing snow to the fairly low elevation of 4,000 feet where Yosemite Valley lies. As the last of the storms left the area I made a day trip to the park to see what I could find.
What I found was a winter wonderland, the storms had left Yosemite Valley covered in snow and had cleared enough to give me some hope that there may be a nice sunset that evening. Earlier in the day I had noticed a clearing in a group of trees and decided to return there for sunset after seeing how many other photographers where setting up at the more popular and over photographed locations.
I was really drawn to the group of trees in the foreground as they pointed up, vertically towards El Capitan and the lovely meadow across the Merced River. By this time the partly cloudy skies I'd enjoyed most of the day had given way to mostly cloudy but I decided to wait and see what the light would do.
As I waited the clouds continued to cover the area to the left and right of El Capitan, blocking most of the view down the valley and ruining some of the images from the valley's most popular locations. For me however, I got lucky as the skies around El Capitan cleared very nicely for a few minutes, allowing the warm strip of sunlight to streak across the cliff's face and for me to capture this image.
Mamiya M645 / 55mm Lens / Fuji Velvia 100 / Polarizing Filter / Cokin 2-Stop Grad ND Filter / Bogen / Manfrotto Tripod and head
Free Shipping on all Fine Art Prints for Newsletter Subscribers.
Enjoy free shipping anywhere in the Continental US when you purchase any Fine Art Print. Just click on the image above for purchasing info. If you're interested in more information regarding my fine art pieces please visit my information pages Fine Art Pricing, The Process or of course the Gallery to view my images.
Workshop Savings $50 and $100 Off!
I have a number of great workshops coming up in 2011 and with Christmas on the way I wanted to offer a little something special for my newsletter subscribers.
Take $50 off any weekend workshop and $100 off my upcoming GrandTeton in Spring workshop until December 10th.
Upcoming workshops
Weekend WorkshopsOnly $245 Enter Code: Christmas50
In addition to the beautiful locations we'll be shooting, the middle of the days will be used for discussions, lessons and print sharing in an informal classroom setting. I keep the workshops very small, usually no more than 8 participates, so I can give personal attention to everyone.
As always, one of my goals for the workshops is to make them available for everyone and to fit everyone's budget. I truly believe that these are the best workshops available.
If you'd like more information regarding my upcoming workshops please check out the workshop page of my website. There you can find both general information regarding the workshops or specific information on each.
Landscape Essentials - Filters
I like to get things right in the camera, it saves me a lot of time later trying to achieve the look I wanted in Photoshop and it also allows me to flex my technical muscle in the field. I tend to keep things very simple in terms of gear but one accessory I can't live without are my filters.
Photographic filters are extremely useful tools for any photographer and should always have a special place in your camera bag. There are countless types of filters that will help you achieve almost any look and can be the key to achieving the image you've visualized in your mind. While filters come in many different varieties for almost any application most are for very specific and specialized purposes. For my landscape images I tend to use just a few, here are the filters that I find to be most important for the creation of my images.
Polarizing Filter
A polarizing filter is perhaps the most important and useful filter for landscape photography and has many uses including,
Darkening of skies
Removing reflection from water and other surfaces
Intensifying colors
Light Absorption and the extending of shutter speeds
Graduated Neutral Density Filters
These are another of the most used filters in my camera bag. The purpose of a graduated neutral density filter (grad nd for short) is to simply balance the intensity of light from foreground to background. Simply put, to darken the brighter part of a scene so that it's exposure value falls within the dynamic range of the camera's sensor or film.
Grad ND filters are clear on the bottom and slightly opaque on the top, with a transition area in the middle that can either hard (abrupt) or soft (gradual).
I use graduated neutral density filters often during sunrise and sunset sessions as the light falling on the foreground is often many stops different than the background, without my handy graduated filters I wouldn't be able to capture the wonderful light in front of my lens.
Neutral Density Filters
Just like a graduated filter, these filters block light however instead of doing so to just half of the image a complete neutral density filter reduces the light entering the lens as a whole. This is very useful when you want to slow down your shutter speed in order to show movement, something I often do when dealing with water. Neutral density filters can some in a number of strengths but I find the most useful to be 2 and 3 stops.
Wrap-up
Filters are extremely useful tools and should always have a special place in your camera bag. In an age of digital everything don't discount traditional analog as there's still a lot of extremely useful tools that you just can't replicate in Photoshop...yet.
New Blog
If you haven't checked it out yet, I started a new landscape / art blog a couple of months ago. It's a place for me to discuss landscape and nature photography as an art form, introduce new work, discuss my views on collecting, share hints and tips and a number of other things.
I finished my Fall colors in the eastern Sierras workshop back in October, it was a lot of fun with a great group of people. As always I like to share the workshop experience with everyone via the recaps I write afterward. If you'd like to see what we did during the workshop you can read it here.
On the Trail
I haven't been out much lately but I should be on the road creating new images soon, here are a few places I'll be in the coming months. If you see me out on the the trail be sure to say "Hi!"
Big Sur Coast.........................Middle of December Arches NP..............................December? Yosemite NP..........................Anytime a storm moves in
Lets network
It seems like everyone is on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and guess what, I'm no different. If you'd like to keep up-to-the-second on what I'm doing check out my profile on some of the sites below, add me as a friend or follow my Twitter.
Copyright 2010 Edward Mendes Photography
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Lets network
It seems like everyone is on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and guess what, I'm no different. If you'd like to keep up-to-the-second on what I'm doing check out my profile on some of the sites below, add me as a friend or follow my Twitter.
