We all change and go through creative seasons and slumps. This is the story of how mine evolved, and what I learned about being a creative.

Announcing the 2023 Alberta Photography Workshop! Very limited spots. Get the information and reserve your place now!

For Thanksgiving this year, we returned to Tahoe for a couple of days with good friends. And on this short time here, I actually went out and took some pictures.

I’m going to jump into the list of those who inspire me, in no particular order. If you follow the links, you may even see their influence on my work - from their compositions to their edits.

Fall and winter are my favorite times to head into the National Parks. This is mostly because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become much more introverted and I don’t want to see anyone. When you start getting into fall and then winter, the parks start to empty out a bit.

Many years ago, I went through and started digitizing photos that belonged to my grandparents so we could preserve them for future generations. As readily as cameras are for us today on our phones, the truth is that their generation didn’t take hundreds or thousands of photos every year.

When I got into photography, it was the very beginning of digital photography, and film was still very much the norm. I learned to shoot on film in high school, and loved it. Most of my photography was on my Canon SureShot 85mm, which is just a point and shoot.

Flatlays are a photography genre of their own. In my last post, I shared a little about the props I use when I shoot flatlays. I also shared a little about the genre itself. Today I’m going to jump into the technicals of how I go about shooting flatlays.

I absolutely love shooting flatlays. I think it’s a great, unique way to showcase products. The cool thing about flatlays is that they will be styled and accessorized according to the personality of the person shooting them.

I’ve been really uninspired for a while, now. In fact, I’m probably in one of my longest seasons of personal drought. I’m aware of the things that are hampering my creativity, which is honestly one of the hardest things to identify.

Amanda & I have a long history of traveling together. In the years before having children, we did roadtrips constantly. We saw many National Parks for the first time together during these years - from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone and many others.

Happy Halloween! I thought today I’d keep it simple and share three photoshoots that are on-theme for Halloween. As an adventure and travel photographer, not much out there in nature scares me. Well, at least landscapes.

Winter is coming! That means it’s time for snowy shoots. Last winter, I hit up Lamar Valley in Yellowstone and had an incredible experience photographing the bison in winter, and overall exploring this amazing location in its off-season. Very few people were in the park in early February, which made our experience even better.

A few months ago I dropped a preset that I often use called Astoria A1. It’s actually one of my presets, not something I threw together to sell you. See it in action!

I recently posted about how I shoot in harsh light. Think of this blog as a part-two to that post. I’m going to show you how I go about editing photos that are taken in that intense mid-day sun.

Photographers have a special relationship with natural lighting. At times it’s gentle and soft, and other times it’s screaming with intensity. I was just in Wyoming for a few projects, and I had many shoots take place in harsh lighting. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have known how to make the most of this and would have tried to squeeze everything into the small window of golden hour every morning and evening.

Straight up, I have a bag problem. Sometimes I hop on Youtube and find other guys with way worse bag problems than me. But still, I have cycled through many bags in an attempt to hike, carry gear, and not be overburdened by adventuring.

For a creative, we often use the word gear. Gear doesn’t make you a better creative, but in the right hands, the right tools enable and empower you to create your best. This is why I love gear.

Last fall, I was packing my bag for a week in the Canadian Rockies. This is one of my favorite places on earth. It was just me going. My friends who were suppose to travel with me had something major come up and had to back out at the last minute, so rather than cancelling everything, I went ahead as planned.

If I was recommending a setup to someone who wanted to get into travel photography, I’d recommend a wide lens, a tight lens, and a high-megapixel camera.