Outdoor Photographer July 2020

A Year In The National Parks Ten highlights from an epic tour photographing all of the U.S. national parks. Assignments Share your best shots in our weekly “Assignments” photo challenges. Submit your images that fit the week’s theme—you may be our next Assignment winner. Tip Of The Week Available on our website—or delivered directly to your inbox—our “Tip of the Week” provides shooting and processing techniques to sharpen your photography skills. Sign up today. Wild By Nature Melissa Groo’s recurring column on wildlife photography considers all of the elements for success, from equipment to techniques and good field ethics. Connect With Us Get the latest news and be inspired by great photos from the Outdoor Photographer community. Newsletter Subscribe today for updates on the latest features, how-to articles and photography news. http://outdoorphotographer.com/newsletter/…

Photographer: QT Luong Location: Redwood National and State Parks, California Equipment: Canon EOS-3, Canon EF 17-35mm f/2.8L, Fujichrome Velvia, Gitzo 1227 tripod Situation: Redwood National Park is famous for the iconic namesake trees, but many other discoveries await photographers. The 2.8-mile Trillium Falls Trail is a popular hike in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park that loops through a band of impressive old-growth redwoods. It's less than half a mile to Trillium Falls, a small cascade on an unnamed creek, surrounded by maples, ferns and moss-covered boulders. A metal footbridge provides a straightforward view of Trillium Falls, but from that high and distant vantage point, the perspective appears static. To improve it, I scrambled down and balanced myself on boulders to place the tripod right into the creek. The lower viewpoint restores a sense of…

Regarding our national parks, historian Wallace Stegner famously declared them, “…the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.” One can argue whether the parks are the “best” idea to come from American history, but they’re undeniably something of which we can all be proud and are fortunate to be able to enjoy collectively. Today, according to the National Park Service, “the system includes 419 areas covering more than 85 million acres.” In 2019, the parks recorded well over 300 million visits. At the time of this writing, parks that had been temporarily closed or restricted due to COVID-19 were beginning cautiously to reestablish services in coordination with federal, state and local authorities—great news for wilderness and outdoor recreation enthusiasts…

There’s nothing more satisfying for a landscape photographer than capturing an image that displays the grandeur and beauty of nature. Whether it be sunset washing a mountain of fall foliage with a blaze of color, a river snaking majestically through eroded canyon walls or a lone tree against the whispering grass and blue sky of a savannah, it’s the scale of nature that helps tell the story about the beauty of the outdoors. That’s why behind every good landscape photographer is a good wide-angle lens. No other photographic tool is so important in capturing and conveying the grandeur of a scene, and today there’s an array of excellent wide-angle lenses that weren’t even possible a generation ago. Computer-based design, advanced manufacturing techniques, refined focusing motors and miniaturized computer processors have all…

Location Toroweap Overlook has one of the best views in the solar system. This is an area that I had longed to visit—it’s unlike your usual experience at Grand Canyon. On the more familiar south side of the park, you generally see a vast expanse of canyon terrace landscape, and usually you can’t see the river at all. Toroweap is on the north side of the canyon, where it narrows enough to corral the Colorado River beneath 3,000-foot cliffs and where the larger of the canyon rapids, Lava Falls, lays below. Toroweap is more difficult to get to than the south side of Grand Canyon. Dropping down out of the southern edge of Utah heading into Arizona, you must take a 61-mile dirt road and arrive at a destination that’s beautifully noncommercial.…

At dawn, he appears. I see his ears first, then his golden eyes and pointed nose just above the tall grass. He trots along the top of a hillside, revealing his sleek coat and fluffy tail. Slowing his pace, he stops and cocks his head to one side. Looking. Listening. His tail jerks as he curls and springs into the air in a spectacular leap down the slope, landing nose-first into the thick grass. He emerges triumphant with a mouse that disappears in one gulp. As I watched this spectacle unfold in slow motion for what seemed like an hour or so, I realized it probably was only a matter of minutes between my first sighting of the coyote and his successful hunt. Funny thing how our minds work. Different parts of the…