I love nature; its combinations of extreme delicacy and incredible force and power, its ability to establish a precise balance within a myriad of intricate interactions. The feeling of connection to nature creates an awareness, an aliveness that is beyond compare.
Usually I hurry around oblivious to the magic that is the nature around me. Photography allows, if not requires, me to slow down and to become aware of some of the details of my surroundings. Later, when reviewing and processing the images that I was given, I can relive my feeling of connectedness. In addition we now have digital imaging/photography which eliminates the cost and inconvenience of film. Even more impressive to me, digital imaging allows composite images that are impossible with film. Composite imaging involves combining portions of multiple similar images in order to achieve larger, shaper or better lighted final images than can be achieved via film.
I have been active intermittently in nature photography off and on for 30 years. Most of my experience has been in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of northern and southern California. Currently nature photography is the main focus of my activities: studying, photographing, processing, printing enlargements and framing. I am My primary interest at the moment is
I have a small business, NaturePhotoRehab.com, through which I help others to take better images and to regain the feelings that were present when those images were taken. Also, through enlargements and framing, I provide a constant reminder of the experience either for mounting on one’s own wall or as a gift.
naturephotorehab 
thanks for stopping by and liking my recent post. You have some very nice shots on your site and I enjoyed browsing through some of your posts.
You are welcome. I’m glad to have found your blog.
Thank you for your compliment and for browsing through my posts.
Hi! Thank you for checking out my blog.
You have a pretty cool site!
I wish you all the best, Diana
It was my pleasure to visit your site.
Thank you for your kind compliment.
You have my best wishes also, Mike
Dear friend, I have nominated you for the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award”. See for the rules for accepting the award at my post :
Thank you for this nomination. I feel honored. I will post an acceptance soon.
Thank you again.
[…] https://naturephotorehab.wordpress.com/about/ […]
Thank you very much. Decelerator is the perfect word to describe the feeling.
i agree with you, Photography is a amazing Decelerator. Lovely images you have here.
Congratulations!
You have just received the So Sweet Blogger Award for being so AWESOME!
Please check out my blog for details, post the award on your sidebar and spread the love to some of your favorite bloggers!
Thank you very much. I am surprised and pleased that you find my blog so worthwhile.
I will post an acceptance soon.
I did not realize that English was not your first language.
That makes your blog accomplishments even more impressive.
Thank you again.
You are welcome. Why surprised? Your blog is awesome!
Thank you for the kind words.
Thank you again, very much.
Your statement regarding photography — the fact it helps you focus on the details and then relive the wonder of what you viewed later — resonates with me! Thanks for stopping by my blog.
You are welcome. Thank you for your visit and thoughtful comment.
How incredible that we have, not only photography, but digital (no film or development cost and delay) photography.
It is marvelous to be able to participate in an activity that was considered impossible only 15 years ago.
Hi, I am letting you know that I have nominated you for some blogging awards! Should you choose to participate here are the rules: http://wp.me/p2v1s2-y1
Daniela
Daniela, Thank you very much for these nominations.
I am honored to be in the company of your site and your other nominees.
I will post an acceptance soon. Thank you again.
Very nice site you have here, with a lot of great info! Its going to take a while for me to work my way through it all. I’ll be following with interest…
Cheers,
EC
http://www.macrocritters.wordpress.com
Welcome! Thank you for your compliment. If you have a question or a topic for a future blog post, please let me know.
Beautiful photos! These flowers are incredible. Thanks for liking my blog 🙂
You are welcome. And thank you for the kind compliment.
Thank you for liking at OPreach. Your photos are great, and I look forward to looking over your advice!
You are certainly welcome. Thank you for your compliment. I hope you find something interesting here.
What an excellent resource you’ve created and with great shots! Bravo!
Thank you for your generous compliment. This is particularly meaningful to me because of your marvelous photographic capabilities and achievements. I look forward to spending more time perusing your blog site (photockie.wordpress.com).
We have the love of nature in common. 🙂 Oh yes it is so powerful, words can’t describe creation and the processes living plants and creatures go through to survive. Thank you for following my blog and I’m very excited to have found yours!
blessings,
Tj
Thank you for your kind words. You do understand, exactly. {;~)
I love your blog’s intermingling of emotional connections and scientific knowledge.
We are blessed.
“i was given…” i know just what you mean.
Thank you for your feedback. We are blessed.
I just noticed that you added my blog to your “Blogs I Follow” list – what an honor! i believe that in my note to you on your post of yesterday, that I am very insecure as to my own “marketability.” I feel like such a newbie, that I wonder if someday the photos I am proud of now will be an embarrassment to me in the future. Since I am primarily focused on nature photography, as you are, I am finding much inspiration from you. Please, please, if you ever have the time, offer me some insight into the quality of my photos (I have VERY THICK SKIN, and unless you are intentionally mean-spirited or give less than constructive comments, I can take anything you dish out! Really! 😆
If you think it would be helpful in your critiquing, I can always include as a postcript on my pgoto blog the Histogram info for each photo, time of day, etc. to help you give me an idea of different settings that I might have used. Because of my poor vision, I almost always rely on automatic focus, but other than that I use all manual settings – which I am just really beginning to get the hang of. After my foray into night photography – a fireworks display – I have become intrigued with that skill as well. BTW, I do have a good tripod and a remote cable/timer. I use them primarily for my attempts at getting bird shots. My cord is 30 feet long, so I can really hide from the birds and keep them from being scared off by me. Please check out some of my other butterfly photos – some of which I am proud of, others not so good, but my ability to catch them on the fly is definitely improving. I have a few of hummingbird moths (prolific in our area) that I was able to get my shutter speed fast enough to actually capture their constant rapidly-beating wings (akin to the hummingbird) with the wings stilled. That was my first achievement in that direction, and it was fun.
I spend a significant amount of time each day either taking photos or processing them, as needed. I consider it my greatest accomplishment when I can print it off the card just as is.
Do you shoot in RAW format and used Photoshop, or JPG. I have not started with RAW because I am a bit intimidated by the Photoshop process, and do not find the program very user friendly! Do you know of any online free courses in Photoshop that are designed for Dummies like me? I would really like to learn!
Thanks again for your great site, and I look forward to hearing from you as you have the time!
By the way, I have a RedBubble site that i use for the sale of some of my photos. You can link to my personal portfolio by clicking on http://www.redbubble.com/people/paulatc1951/portfolio
Thanks for your patience and time!
Paula
Thank you for your response.
I highly recommend shooting in the raw format (CR2 with your camera).
Then any changes that you make with editing software can be easily and completely removed if you do not like them. There are 3 simple changes that can be made in editing software that will greatly improve lighting and increase sharpness and detail. I’ll let you know specifics, if you let me know which software you have. If you have none, please let me know that also.
I’m planning to check out the photos at your website within a couple of days. Will let you know my thoughts.
I have edited/corrected my response to you from yesterday regarding editing software. There are innumerable changes possible when processing raw files with Photoshop Elements’ raw converter and with Canon’s Digital Photo Professional. However there are 3 simple changes that can create dramatic improvements. I referred to them briefly in yesterday’s reply.
Additionally, regarding file format. (You may already know this). The main drawback with jpg, is that some information (detail in your photo) is lost each time the image is opened. To avoid this, convert jpg images to tiff file format as soon as you put them into your computer. Tiff files do not lose information with repeated opening.
Realistic and impressive digital images are ONLY possible after processing with editing software. I recommend Photoshop Elements (versions 8, 9 or 10). A wonderful website for tutorials and teaching is Adobe Photoshop Elements Techniques at photoshopelementsuser.com/learningcenter. They have free tutorials. But I recommend signing up with them, as you will immediately receive 2 CDs with easy to understand instructions for operating all aspects of Photoshop Elements. You will also receive their teaching magazine, which I find very helpful.
Is this information helpful?
Thank you so much. It might be easier to check out my portfolio on RedBubble. The link to that is
http://www.redbubble.com/people/paulatc1951/portfolio
There is also space with each photo for you to make any comments you would like. Please be brutally honest! I will never improve without some decent critique and suggestions! Quite frankly, my software is limited – primarily the only software I use is Picasa (mainly for cropping, and occasionally for adding fill light. I do have GIMP, but am having a hard time learning to use it to its complete capabilities, and I have Photoshop Elements 8 – which I have not used to date. Like I said, I am a newbie! Add to that I have very little disposable income. Someday I will tell you the story of how I came to have the thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment that I have – which was given to me – for not a penny. I call my camera God’s camera – therefore I want to be able to learn to use it to the very best of my ability!
Remember, I have very think skin! Thanks so much for your willingness to help. Feel free to peruse my photo blog as well, but it is in the very beginning stages, and I have only begun to get photos posted on it and on their separate pages.
Kind regards,
Paula
I apologize for the delay for my response to your comments.
I did get a chance to browse through your RedBubble site. You have many nice images.
You had asked for my suggestions on improving your photographic skills. In addition to my previous recommendations, I suggest the tried-and-true approaches of study and daily projects with different themes. Study successful photographers. Define what it is that you like about their work. Also study successful photographers whose work you do not like. Define what it is about their work that you do not like. Write it down and keep a journal. I find libraries a great source of books. Before developing an individual style, it is useful to learn to photograph in the styles of the greats. Also, daily projects are highly productive as long as the resultant images are reviewed soon enough that details of the shoot are still fresh in mind. Again, write down both your likes and dislikes of your results. Examples of daily projects are: camera no higher than 12 inches off the ground, standing on a stepladder, telephoto lenses only, wide angle lenses only, single subject with different lighting arrangements, single subject from as many different angles as you can think of, with a single subject start at a distance with telephoto lens and move gradually closer switching to a wide angle lens and finish up with close up work, portray textures/depth with various lighting arrangements. There are, of course, many additional possibilities. It works best if you prepare by reading appropriate portions of photography books prior to each shoot. Studying books of sophisticated paintings and drawings is also beneficial.
I recently posted a blog re becoming a professional photographer. You may find some of that information useful.
I hope these suggestions will be beneficial.
Thank you again for requesting my input.
Fantastic suggestions! I do read quite extensively different photog. books, and I have always been in love with good nature photography, which is what I like, although people and places are starting to interest me now – I might be getting a little bit bolder. Not ready to show much of that yet. I have one major physical drawback, and that is that my right hand is only about 20% useful due to a surgical accident several years ago. I was right-handed and a musician – played piano and guitar, which I can no longer do. That is why photography has become so important to me, because I needed an artistic outlet and through a very mystical experience, I was given the Canon EOS D20 plus several lenses – literally thousands of dollars worth of equipment. It is a gift not just from the woman who gave it to me (she did not even know me, nor I her) and we both know that it came from God, so I really want to be worthy of the gift – it is something that I could never have afforded to buy – I feel a responsibility to use it well and glorify God. At first I was concerned about how well I would be able to manage a “real” camera. In addition to several tendon-transfer surgeries, I have had to have my right wrist fused, and two joints of my right thumb are also fused. There will, unfortunately have to be more surgeries as the years go by, but I’ve had 13 so far on my right arm/wrist/hand, so I guess I can take it! 😆
I can use my right index finger pretty well, which is how I snap shots, and now that I have my (long-cord) remote switch/timer, things are a bit easier, but that only works with my tripod. I believe that over time I will figure out some strategic, alternate ways to operate the camera more effectively, but it really frustrates me when I want to change settings in the middle of a shoot, because I have to STOP, wrangle the lenses and make my settings, essentially left handed – with little help but some support from my right arm.
That sounds like I am complaining! I have no reason to – the challenges have been exciting, and I love what I’m doing – and I am so fortunate in every way. I have been well taken care of and looked after by God and my wonderful family.
You weren’t ready for this sort of long-winded reply, I’m sure, but if you ever spend any time on my writer’s blog, you will know that I am “famous” for my wordiness!
Thanks again for your wonderful reply! Keep in touch if you notice where I could use some help, and I’ll keep you posted on my progress – as well as checking in regularly to your blog!
Paula