Scouting, driving around the area, stopping the car, getting out of the car, getting into the car, driving, stopping the car, getting out of the car, getting into the car, driving… It’s the thing you typically do only with your fellow photographers. You do that with your spouse and inevitably you’ll get to see a lot of rolling eyes and the “*sighs* NOT AGAIN??”-looks
And even then there were beautiful scenes we missed, because of possible life-threatening situations we might’ve faced had we stopped (or leaned too far over the edge).

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 15 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 50mm + Singh-Ray VariND

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 14-24mm, 4 images stitched in Photoshop

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/8, 8 images stitched in Photoshop

Seeing the Northern Lights isn’t a given. With the unpredictability of the weather up there there’s as much chance of seeing the Lights as there isn’t.
And considering the fact that the Lights are only visible in the evenings and/or at night, it leaves about 12 hours of daylight time to shoot other things. And besides being insanely expensive, Norway is also an insanely beautiful country. At least up in the north where we were.

Sunsets and sunrises, a part of every photographer’s portfolio wherever he/she goes (I’m privileged that I got to see the Lights in the first place, but it would be sooooo cool to catch the them at sunset…)

D800, ISO100, 1/30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/22, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO800, 8 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 14-24mm

I’ve decided to stick in the cold for a bit.
Last year we went to Norway to shoot the Northern Lights. It almost turned out in one big expensive disappointing trip.
This year we went again, and it turned out in one big great expensive trip (3 Peppe Pizzas for 108,00€: chaCHING!!!!). But the photos we got were absolutely breath-taking. And no need to Photoshop anything into another picture. All these are genuine and -save for some color adjustments here and there (foreground mostly, not the Lights)- unedited.

I’ll not bore you with any superfluous words. Judge for yourself.

D800, ISO800, 15 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO800, 30 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO800, 30 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO800, 79 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm, and a little torch to illuminate the barn to the right for about 15 secs

D800, ISO800, 30 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

Prints are available from here:
My Norway Gallery on Photoshelter (link opens in a new window).

… before we go to the nice and warm Philippines…

I’ll make this an exposure 101. If you’re a pro-photographer you already know this (or at least, you should! ), but I’ve been asked about this a couple of times and I decided to do a simple, little write up about it, without getting into too technical language.

Why is it important to take (manual) control of your camera?
A lot of people, especially those who have just bought a camera or have just gotten into photography, use the automatic settings in the camera. In most of the average cases that would be just fine, but since a camera is just a thing, with no obvious intelligence, when things get out of average, the picture goes south as well.

My camera is set (in 95% of the cases) to full manual with spot metering. I prefer spot metering above all other settings, because I get to pinpoint a location in my frame for which I decide what exposure is the best one, based on the initial suggestion of the light meter in the camera.
The other metering methods are also working fine, but don’t just blindly trust the values the light meter in your camera shows you.
What you need to know about the camera’s light meter, is that it’s “calibrated” to assume that everything in your frame has an average hue. The light meter doesn’t see or read colors, it just sees light or dark. 18% grey may sound familiar to some of you, maybe not to others. But 18% grey is what the light meter thinks the average hue in your image is (or rather, should become). Green grass, for example, is about 18% grey, on a normal sunny day. So if you were to take an image of a sports field with mostly grass and you’d have your camera do everything automatically, you’d have a great picture with a perfect exposure. Of course there are plenty of other things that are -about- 18% grey. But what if you’re shooting somewhere where everything, or the bigger part of your frame, is NOT 18% grey?
If that were the case, and you have your camera set to automatic (or to manual, and you’d dial the exposure, ISO and/or aperture so that the bar sits nicely on the 0 in the middle), your camera will make everything 18% grey.

The perfect examples are in the two extreme ends of the light spectrum.
Imagine a winter landscape, with mainly… yep: snow. Snow is one of the purest, whitest substances on this planet (provided it’s not territorially marked by some inhabitant of this planet ).
So what would happen in the camera when I’d point it at my winter landscape? The meter sees the landscape and ‘thinks’: “Wow! That’s easy! A big frame full of 18% grey.” And so, thinking the purest white snow is 18% grey, the camera underexposes your image with about 2 stops.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

D800, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm

In order to correct this, and to get the right exposure for the snow, you’d have to manually adjust the exposure time either by dialing up it with up to two stops, or use the exposure compensation.

The same thing goes for the other extreme of the scale. When what you see in your viewfinder (or your Liveview screen) is primarily black/dark, the light meter will assume that this is 18% grey and will adjust -overexpose in this case- the exposure to make the blacks look like 18% grey. You will have to underexpose the image to correct for the camera’s false assumptions.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece on one of my pictures being used without a license on the website of the Berkeley Daily Planet. It was a very sour thing, because I really wanted to pursue this due to Ms O’Malley’s outrageous attitude, but the outcome would simply not outweigh the costs I’d have to make in order to do what needed to be done for this.
I shared the link to this blog post in several groups on LinkedIn I’m a member of and got many comments on how crazy this really was. One of the members advised me to write a complaint to the State Bar of California, where all the lawyers are registered. They would be able to reprimand Ms O’Malley for her idiotic behavior in this case, IF she really was a lawyer as she claimed to be.

I took the advise, and wrote the State Bar a letter. The official complaint form on the website was only for lawyer-client situations, and didn’t offer any options for different situations, which kind of made me think that my letter would disappear in a trash bin, because it was not according to the prescribed format. But anyway… I sent off my open letter, including a screenshot of the website with my image on it and every single piece of correspondence I had with the Berkeley Daily Planet and Ms O’Malley, and I referred also to the contact I had with my attorney Mr Kinne from Kinne IP Group.
Here are the main lines of what I wrote:

I would like to file an official complaint against a lady by the name of Becky O’Malley, who claims to have been, and I quote “an intellectual property attorney and a member of the State Bar of California, a status which I could easily activate if needed”.

The issue is about a copyright infringement case. This lady is, together with a gentleman named Tom Butt, working for the Berkeley Daily Planet, an online news paper.

Just recently I discovered that they had been using since early 2010 one of my images, without my consent, without the proper licenses, and even with Mr Tom Butt’s name as accreditation with the image (screenshot of the web page attached).
At first I tried to settle the matter with them directly (correspondence attached), but things soon got so bold that I asked my attorney if there was any way to pursue this matter officially.
He gave me an outline of the possibilities, and I decided not to pursue the matter, because in the end it would cost me more money and grievance than I was willing to put into it.
The fact that I am residing in Finland and that I only have a raw file, i.e. the file is not registered at the US copyright office, to prove I’m the creator of the piece was part of the decision.
However, when Ms O’Malley so blatantly and shamelessly threw in my face that I should let go of the matter and that I would get nothing out of it, this turned more into a principle matter for me.
The fact that she is, or claims to be, a former Intellectual Property Attorney and a member of the State Bar of California makes this case all the more outrageous. Tom Butt, the journalist in question, has purposefully and knowlingly used one of my images and accredited it to himself, but when I confronted the paper, and Ms O’Malley, with all her knowledge of Intellectual Property and copyright infringement, about it she had absolutely no right to justify it like she did and slam the door in my face.
With the way she behaved, knowingly and purposefully defending, acknowledging, and approving copyright infringement, she has no business being a (former) Intellectual Property Attorney and member of the State Bar of California.

I sent it, and pretty much forgot about it. A month went by, then another month in which I was abroad.
But then, when I came home from my trip, I actually found an envelope from the State Bar of California.

Response letter from the State Bar of California

I’ll pick out the piece that matters:

Based on our evaluation of the information provided, we are closing your file. Before the imposition of attorney discipline can be obtained the State Bar must present clear and convincing evidence of willful misconduct. We have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of willful misconduct that would warrant disciplinary action. Ms O’Malley was not your attorney and owed no fiduciary duty to you. In fact, she was not acting as an attorney in said matter, but could activate her membership status if she needed to. Moreover, the circumstances you described are civil in nature. As such, the more appropriate forum in which to address your claim would be through appropriate civil action.

Ok, so I agree that the circumstances I described are civil in nature. But they have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of willful misconduct?
She may have not owed fiduciary duty to me, but with her supposed background in Intellectual Property it was her civil AND professional duty to properly pay for an image that they were using. And also her conduct in the correspondence afterward was in my eyes a very willful misconduct.

So what is wrong with the juridical system of today?
The system seems to be protecting the wrong people…

….. when you expect one thing, you get something completely different.

That’s what happened when we went out for a sunrise shoot a week or so ago.
The weather was a bit… weird. I knew that if it would be completely overcast, the way it looked the day before, I wouldn’t go, because it wouldn’t be worth it, really. But the forecast said it would be partly overcast, which would be good. So we went out, and…
Yeah, it was completely overcast. I knew already then that what I’d be shooting would be monotone only. But it was good that we went, because even on totally overcast days you can find nice things to photograph.

D800, ISO100, 1 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/2 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/2 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/2 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

(it’s funny how the color shifts when it’s rendered on the web. These images were all changed with the same setting in Lightroom, and look the same in full format. Here the hues are all over the map…)

Of course during the day the weather cleared up, and the clouds disappeared, bringing on yet another crisp and cold night.
I borrowed the Nikkor 300mm from a Buddy of mine (thanks Don!) and was presented with a good target in the early evening. Shot off the balcony of the apartment:

D800, ISO800, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 300mm + TC2 + TC1.4

Tried to put 2 TC2s on top of each other, but that didn’t work. It’d require me to file off a piece of one of the TCs and that was a bit too much of the good
I like the image as it is, though. It’s a lot crisper than previous moon pictures I once took with my old Sigma 170-500mm.

A snow storm always makes for nice pictures. Especially when you get to take the images from the relatively safe environment of your balcony and you get to see people struggling to get by from a distance…

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

At the visitor’s center near the entrance of the Rocky Mountains National Park we had inquired about a good hiking trail, and the lovely lady at the desk advised us to hike up to Lulu City. Lulu City used to be a very active mining town at the end of the 19th century, and there were supposedly a lot of old things left there from back in those days. Old huts, old tools, coal carriages, etc. etc. At least that’s what we understood (but we must’ve misunderstood).
We took the hike up and somewhere half way I spotted a grey bird disappearing into the trees. Strangely, we hadn’t seen many birds during our stay, so we upped the pass and went for the trees where I saw the bird go in. We set our gear down, looked around for the bird, which, we figured, had continued its trip, and took a gulp of water in the mean time. We almost choked in our water when all of a sudden the bird came flying directly at us. No joke, we had to duck otherwise it would’ve been a collision. The bird, a grey jay, settled contently on a branch in the tree behind us. So close we could touch it (we were tempted, but we didn’t).

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm

So this was shot with a 50mm prime. It was THAT close
Another one of those awesome experiences! The little rascal seemed to be really curious. It didn’t seem scared at all and it let us take pictures for 5 minutes easily, sitting like this, sitting like that, hopping onto another branch and posing some more. I’m not quite sure if these birds are regularly fed by hikers. Maybe that’s why it seemed so tame. Or then… (I’ll go with this:) my Buddy Wayne and I send out such friendly vibes that the animals just feel comfortable around us (Ssssh! Let me have this thought, don’t spoil it!).

Eventually it took off, and so did we. We packed up our gear again, and continued to Lulu City, where we eventually arrived.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200mm

I don’t know if we completely missed the whole thing, but this sign was the only thing left we could find that indicated any activity or any sign of previous life in this location. There was absolutely nothing else here but this sign, trees, a lot of snow, and the baby Colorado River. But hold on…
There were… birds? No kidding!
And… was that the same bird as the one we photographed awhile ago?
We continued to the baby Colorado River where we set down our gear again for a break and to freshen up. Dragging a bag with about 15kgs of camera gear for 1,5 hours hiking through the snow uphill and downhill and more uphill gets you warm and sweaty. As I was about to get down and take some water to splash in my face, the little fellow almost hit me again, and went to sit right in front of me on a log, taking a sip as well.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

(had the big lens on, it was too close to focus properly)

And there, in the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, I got a crazy idea. These birds had been flying around so close, had seemed so unafraid…
I stood up, spread my arms wide, and waited.
And not for long.
It appeared that there wasn’t only one bird, but there were three. And all three took turns in landing on my hand, nibbling a bit on my fingers (one of them actually really bit my thumb!! ), and then taking off again. And that went on for about 10 minutes or so. My Buddy Wayne stood there, camera a-ready, and shooting pictures, as much in awe as I was (no food involved here, so yeah, I really think Wayne and I sent out such friendly vibes that the birds just felt really comfortable ). (Sssssh!! Don’t spoil it!! ).
So Wayne was supposed to send me a couple of those pictures he shot of me with the birds, but he hasn’t gotten around to doing that. Will add them later, once he has.

And after that little play we took a few portraits still, and then we head back to “camp”.
Even if “Lulu City” wasn’t really worth the hike, this little get-together with our Jay-friends made it absolutely worth the time.

All D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

I tend to think I’m a social (sociable) guy. But I know I also love solitude. I love to go out by myself, to places where I know I’m alone, where no one can hear me, where I can hear no one.
When I was in the Rocky Mountains with my Buddy Wayne we had an absolute great time, spent together of course, mostly. But there was one moment when we were supposed to shoot the sunrise over Grand Lake, but replanned because there was too thick a fog. We went out on a hike instead and at some point I ventured one way and he the other. I veered off the path and walked about half a mile or so into the bushes, until just at the edge of the forest line.

D800, ISO800, 1/1000 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm

See, not very good for sunrise, or what?

Anyway… I stood there, at the treeline, for about half an hour. Quiet. Listening. Listening to the occasional sound of bellowing elk. The sound of the leaves in the trees, crackling like they do when they’re half froze but still won’t give up the effort to move in the wind. But mostly… the sound of silence. It’s beautiful. It’s peaceful. It’s meditative. It makes you forget where you are. The beauty with these kinds of situations is, that even though it’s completely silent for awhile, you know for sure that you’re not alone. But if you stay put, and don’t move (or when you do or have to, do it really, really slow), you may be surprised to find yourself in some really cool company.

D800, ISO800, 1/1000 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm, Nikkor TC2 III

D800, ISO800, 1/1000 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 70-200mm, Nikkor TC2 III

It was awesome. I tell you. Of course it wasn’t standing next to me, it was probably about… 200m / 600ft  away. But still, relatively close… such an elegant male, with a rack like that, just nonchalantly strolling along the bushes. And looking at me… It’s awesome.

Yeah, it could’ve been a black bear, I realize. In which case it would’ve still been awesome, but things may not have ended in the same way as they did

It’s a completely different feeling than when you pull up behind the other 10 cars with people (and their pockets / cellphones with flash). This is the real deal. This is the deal where you get goosebumps all over. But not because it’s cold. This is “being part of your environment”. I can recommend it to anyone

If you put it in the search box over on the upper right, you’ll find a number of posts on copyright infringement and stealing images on this blog.
The other day I did another quick search, and I ran into one of my images being all over the place.

D200, ISO200, 1/320 sec @ f/9, Sigma 28-200mm

I checked with Google Chrome reverse image search, and it came up with about 10 pages of results with this image. A lot of corporate websites, but also a few royalty free stock sites. I went to check the stock sites and was stunned to find the image used in a medium large resolution uploaded and offered as royalty free by to different individuals. WTF???
A few of the websites were based in China. I contacted them, but -surprise, surprise- no sign of life. Those f***ing, annoying, thieving little bastards!!! (you’ll have to pardon my grossly and bluntly overgeneralization here, it’s the frustration talking).
The other one was bigstockphoto.com. Back in the day when I was still naive and thought I wanted to hook up with the microstock sites I actually considered uploading my stuff with them. I never actually ended up doing it, but I was familiar with them. So I log onto live chat, spoke with a very agreeable Liz, who directed me to send an email to support, so they had everything in official writing. I did that. Almost a week went by, and I didn’t even get a (automated) response.
I check back on the website and go through the portfolio of this person, “appropriately” named painkiller009. I do a reverse search on a good number of images in the portfolio, thinking that if he stole one image, he probably stole a good number more. And lo and behold: about 90% of the images that returned with concrete information had a different name with it. Or two. Or three.

It’s getting elaborate. There were a few images that I checked which had a different name on each website that they were posted on. Of course there is the possibility that someone’s using a different username on every single website, but from a marketing perspective that would be a terribly foolish thing to do when you want to market yourself as a photographer.

I have no idea how this person came into possession of my image in a larger resolution, because I always plaster my images with a big fat watermark dead center. I do remember having this image up on a microstock website (before I came to my senses and deleted my account there), but there was no sale or download recorded for this image. What I otherwise think is going on is that people download an image for a few credits and then upload it somewhere else under their own name and try to make some profit out of it.

With all the corporate websites I found this image of mine on I estimate I lost about 3.000-4.000€ worth of licenses. If I could nail the bastard who’s responsible for this, I maybe able to sue for say 10.000-12.000€. But will I ever see any of that money? Of course not. Unless of course someone can point me to a Chinese copyright lawyer who knows how to deal with these cases. I think I’d be willing to spend some money on this if I knew I’d come out good on the other side. But I guess this is another case of someone who gets away with theft…