Today I drove down to Grandfather Mountain for a vacation with my family and to begin preparing for the CAPTURE North Carolina workshop! It’s gorgeous around here! However, instead of sunset finding us on a beautiful overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway, it found us in a WalMart parking lot in the middle of town. Not exactly the best spot for pictures, but why waste a good sunset when there’s nothing else to do? Goes to show: principles apply across the board.

Sunset Over WalMart

Hoping to, ahem, add some more, ahem, natural shots tomorrow . . .

Everywhere I go, I’m always meeting new photographers! It’s so much fun to pass around tips, share stories, and simply learn from each other’s experiences. And the more photographers I meet, the more I realize how many of them are following the exact same path of learning and experience that I have traveled; they have the same questions, the same frustrations, the same desire for learning more . . . the same bewilderment of not knowing how to develop their skills in a world that doesn’t think from a Christian perspective any more . . .

To help answer these questions is my motivation behind starting up the Lenspiration CAPTURE workshops. LensCaps, for short. Basically, landscape photography workshops with these three main goals:

1. To learn techniques for enhancing the emotional impact of your landscape images.
2. To provide a hands-on environment (vs. a classroom setting) for answering the questions that will take your photographic skill to the next level.
3. To inspire Christian photographers to hold a Biblical standard of beauty and maturity in their work.

You’re not alone in your desire to serve God with your photography. The first CAPTURE workshop will be held in North Carolina in June and all photographers are welcome! All the details I could think of are on the new Workshops page. It’s been years in the making, but it will certainly be fun to meet more photographers! What’s on your schedule for June 12-15?

Been wrapping up these last big design projects! Here’s what I put together for MissionTalk as they prepare for a big conference the week after next. What’s the key for designing for big events? Repetition with variation! We stuck with one design that we liked and then threw in a bit of variation to keep it looking fresh and new. We made sure to add a lot of color and texture too. And we made sure to keep in mind the philosophies of simplicity and less-is-better.

Along with the CEF calendars, these are the different materials MissionTalk will have at their booth. Tons of time went into these!

CEF Calendar Price Sheet (front and back)

Booth Banners (side by side)

MissionTalk Customer Booklet

MissionTalk Ministry Card

Newsletter Update

Just added more than 50 new pictures to my portfolio; click on the picture below to get a fresh wave of inspiration from creation! And for the effect, when you’re viewing the collection, click “Dim the Lights” under the “Menu” button that appears when you hover your mouse over the pictures. Enjoy!

Recently Added

Want to take pictures like these? I haven’t officially announced it yet, but I’m working on putting together a real, hands-on, landscape photography workshop in June where we’ll visit some “wow” places in North Carolina to learn how to take “wow” pictures! Check out the Workshops page for what details there are so far. Stay posted; can’t wait to officially announce it soon!

It’s been a great week! With many design projects in the works recently, it’s been neat to see each one move forward one step at a time. This week I’ve focused on the proofing stage for several projects, one of which was the 2014 CEF Calendar. Here’s a sneak preview of one of the inside spreads:

You’ll have to wait until after it’s official release at the CEF Conference in May before seeing the whole thing at cefcalendars.com.

In designing the calendar, we followed a clear publishing process that’s pretty much true with all design projects:

1. First we determine the purpose of the project: why are we making it? what should it convey to the viewers? how does it best meet the needs of the users?
2. Once we know the purpose, we brainstorm ideas for how the project will best fulfill that purpose. What should the theme be? what kind of pictures should be used? what style are we going for? Everything gets put on the table!
3. But once all the ideas are out, we confirm which ideas are the best to build the design around.
4. With this confirmed information, I can create a design that will illustrate the core purpose.
5. Once I have a design (or a few design ideas), it goes through the approval process, which, from the perspective of a designer, often requires a lot of re-design.
6. Once it’s approved, the detailed editing begins and we tweak everything to perfection.
7. Then it’s time to see what it looks like in print; that’s what proofing is. There’s a lot of details that go unnoticed on a monitor that are more easily picked up on paper. But once the last proof is approved, there’s no turning back!
8. Printing and delivery takes time, but holding the perfect, completed product in your hands makes each step in the publishing process worth all the forethought and time that was put into it.

Do you have a calendar you’d like custom designed? Just let me know!

I’ve greatly enjoyed the time I’ve been able to spend with my family over the past few weeks! From attending the first FEW Conference of the year in North Carolina to working outside preparing for spring, we’ve had a lot of fun together. I went through some random pictures today from the past few weeks and posted two new albums on my Google+ page: “2013 NC FEW Conference” and “Moving Mulch”. It’s important not to get too carried away with only trying to capture the perfect picture and forget that the camera is actually a great tool for making memories too . . . imagine that!

2013 NC FEW Conference

Moving Mulch

I just finished up a little project for the 2014 CEF Calendar. The big name badge needed edited out in Photoshop. Ever tried to do anything like this before?

It certainly took some time, but stuff like this is easy to fix once you know how to use the powerful tools Photoshop has to offer. Perspective crop, the clone tool, clipping masks, and curve adjustment layers all played into making this kind of editing possible. Want to learn how to use them?

I’m heading off to Indianapolis to help teach Desktop Publishing II at Verity Institute from March 18-22. I’m not sure if there are any more seats left for this class, but I do recommend checking out their website to learn how to sign up. They are a blast!

Just wanted to announce that I have added two more desktop backgrounds to my Wallpapers page! It’s fun to go through pictures and find pictures like these that really focus in on the detail. They make perfect wallpapers.

Colors of Winter

Download as Desktop Background

This first shot was taken at Coopers Rock State Forest in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia (exact location). It was one of the only times I had ever done serious hiking in winter, especially with snow on the ground. My brother Jonathan and I hiked several miles out to the Coopers Rock overlooked and shot the sunset over the Cheat River valley. These leaves caught my eye along the trail on our way in.

Mountaintop Mystery

Download as Desktop Background

Wherever there’s color, zoom in on it! There weren’t many clouds in the sky to reflect the colorful light of sunset over Two Medicine Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana (exact location), but there were pockets of clouds that surround the peaks of several mountains surrounding the lake. With a 200mm lens, those clouds were all that were needed for capturing something colorful!

This is amazing! Here’s an excellent FREE e-book I found the other day that gives 20 incredibly helpful tips for increasing your skills as a nature photographer. Not only was it beautiful to look at and informative to read, it was an inspiration for me to put something similar together from my own experiences! We’ll see; now that I’m inspired . . .

Tip #14 in the e-book is something that has been especially helpful for me. No matter how beautiful a picture of an animal might be, if the eye isn’t tack sharp, the entire image is useless.

Yesterday, I traveled out to the Child Evangelism Fellowship International Headquarters in Warrenton, Missouri, to commence work on the 2014 CEF Calendar! It’s a new place with new faces, but I already feel like it’s the great beginning of a great project. I’ve been designing calendars for CEF for three consecutive years now, and with past experience combined with new opportunities, let us pray that with the Lord’s creativity and blessing next year’s calendar will be the most effective and furthest-reaching one yet!