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Hi, NPN community! Thank you for having me, I’m looking forward to your questions and hope I can provide some thoughtful insight. I was a very active member of the Rocky Mountain chapter of NPN pre-instagram days and made a lot of connections to the nature photography community at that time. I’m a full-time outdoor photographer in Southwest Colorado specializing in nature and adventure media. My personal work focuses on wilderness/backcountry experiences shared through grand scenics, intimate nature scenes, aerial photography, timelapses, and video. The business side of my work includes licensing images, print sales, eBooks, workshops/guiding, and varying commercial outdoor photography work.
On the non-photography side of things I’m into pretty much anything outdoors; backpacking, camping, mountain biking, trail running, scuba diving, skiing, packrafting, etc. Most of it is focused on my joy for recreating in nature or finding a way to get my camera to unique places. I often take week-long treks into the wilderness on foot, bike, or watercraft.
Thank you for this opportunity to answer your questions and feel free to ask me anything related to nature and adventure photography, combining a life centered around the outdoors with photography, and the business side of things.
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Good Morning Jason,
I would say ditto to all of your interests and outdoor activities - only I’m 68 now and although I still do all those things, I am interested in how to get to those special places without doing myself in. Hence I’ve learned all about the super light backpacking gear, lightweight e-mountain bikes, and now I find carrying all that heavy camera gear is more and more daunting, I am interested in what gear you carry for your ‘out of the way’ destinations, and if you use your phone’s camera at all.
Good morning Connie, that’s great to hear! I definitely have a lot of lightweight and ultralight equipment as well to make carrying camera kit easier. I’m assuming you’re asking what camera gear I carry? If not let me know and I’d be happy to answer on the other stuff as well.
My current camera setup is not light but definitely not as heavy as when I had a Full-Frame DSLR. I’ve been shooting with Sony since 2010 and started my switch to mirrorless in 2014. Since then I’ve always gone on adventures with a lighter mirrorless setup. I currently use a Sony a7RV as my primary body which is a little heavier and bigger than the a7RIII I was using before. With that I have a mix of lens but when backpacking I typically carry a Sony 24-105 f/4 and Sony 16-35 f/2.8. If I’m doing something like mountain biking I have a very tiny and lightweight lens, a Sony 28-60mm F4-5.6, that only weighs 6oz (167g) and produces pretty decent images. I’ve finally started to pick up primes again and now have a 14 f/1.8 and 85 f/1.8, both very light lenses I hope to put to use this ski season.
I’ve found that the best way I can keep my camera gear light is by being very selective with what lenses I bring and trying to understand which ones will work best before visiting a location. If you really want to go light and still want good image quality I definitely recommend looking into Micro Four Thirds. I have the same size sensor on my DJI Mavic 3 and I’m really happy with the results. I really like the ruggedness of OM System and I’m personally waiting for them to release a new version of the OM-5 with an upgraded sensor to use as my primary cycling and packrafting camera. The Micro Four Thirds systems can weigh half of my current setup which is a huge difference.
I do use my phone’s camera but rarely for anything professional other than video creation. I mostly use it to capture images and videos behind the scenes of trips for my own memory and social media. While modern smartphone camera’s are pretty incredible their sensors are nowhere the quality and capability of mirrorless and DSLR cameras; just take some night images for comparison to really see how apparent it is. That being said, a few years back I did license some images to Apple that were taken on my iPhone, but that’s a very rare use case.
Wow! Great Jason! And I’m happy to report I photograph w/ Sony A7RIII, 24-105mm, the prime 85mm, 16-35 mm f2.8 (but rarely use expedition style because of weight). How do you protect your camera while pack rafting? (We are whitewater and pack rafting enthusiasts as well - care to share your favorite pack rafting river? ;<) I do appreciate your comments on the iphone as camera. And when skiing with a camera (which I hardly ever do cuz I can’t give up those untracked turns waiting for me), how do you carry it so it doesn’t fog the lens? Sorry, I know this is supposed to be one question each, but it’s all the same context, right?
Awesome, looks like a very similar setup! I will say on my recent backpacking trip in the Yukon I took the 14 f/1.8 vs the 16-35 f/2.8 and was very happy with the weight savings and results. I rarely missed the 16-35 and obviously had even better results with the aurora. This focal length worked well because of the scale of the landscape with alpine lakes close to massive peaks.
Packrafting I have my camera in a soft case inside my waterproof bow bag, also padded by some other gear in there. There’s a chance for damage if the boat gets flipped but I guess that risk is there with all sports. I’m not sure if I have a favorite river yet as I’ve only been doing it for a few years! I picked up packrafting for Alaska but honestly really enjoy the rivers in my area like the San Miguel, Gunnison, Colorado, and Green; my town is on the Uncompahgre and we have a fun easy 6 mile run. I really need to get on the Dolores when the flow is good again.
For skiing I have my camera in a backpack, usually my Shimoda Designs Explore 60, or a chest pack, so it’s exposed to the cold already and won’t fog. I keep an extra battery in a warm pocket and just swap them back and forth if the cold is draining them quicker.
Hi Jason, good to see you here! I love your diverse portfolio. My question is on the business side–I get my clients from people walking in my door, but you have to seek them out, so I am wondering what you think the most successful way to attract new clients has been for you?
Thanks, Stan! Surprisingly the majority of my commercial clients find me vs me directly seeking them out. I’ve gotten jobs through many different sources but usually it starts with them finding my work somewhere and reaching out. Netflix found me through YouTube, Apple and the NFL through Instagram, a lot of smaller clients through my website, word-of-mouth, or chance encounters. I also list some of my services through related non-profit or government directories and I’ve had a few clients that way. I don’t know if any one method has been the most successful but making connections through other social aspects of my life has probably resulted in the most work.
Hey, Randy, great question! While a lot of my trips around the lower 48 are planned more last minute and without a solid plan I typically start prepping for trips to the Far North 6-12 months in advance.
A big part of the logistics is figuring out transportation means and time as many of the locations I’ve been require at least a couple days of traveling to get to even when I’m flying in. Finding affordable rental vehicles, or even rentals at all, can be difficult. I’ve also used public transport to get around but it can be very limited. I’ve been fortunate that a good friend has driven up to the north for my past 2 trips so he’s been able to pick me up from the airport and get us to the next leg of our journey. This often includes flying on a small plane and that’s something where ideally you want to start planning far in advance so you can reach out to flight companies and check availability. Once there you also have to plan for weather delays or other issues so always leave a buffer.
When it comes to the actual backpacking I put a lot of thought into weight and warmth. Most of these areas require you to use a bear canister which adds a lot of weight, and most of my treks are a week+ which means a lot of food weight too. For some backpacking I’ll do a spreadsheet of food I’m planning to pack with calories per oz a major factor. I also have to bring extra food in case I get stuck somewhere due to weather or injury. On a bikepacking trip in Denali a weather delay meant my last day’s food was just a packet of mashed potatoes.
Staying warm in these wet and often very cold environments is the other big consideration and challenge. Full rain gear that doesn’t wet out quickly and boot gaiters are essential. I typically hike in trail runners in the lower 48 but it’s too cold and wet to do so safely up there and be successful at photography. It’s one thing if you’re through-hiking but since I’m often standing around or hiking in mud out in nasty weather waterproof boots are key. I have a hard time finding ones that fit well but Oboz usually has something that works for me.
Hopefully this answer’s most of your question but if I missed something let me know!
Hi Jason, thank you so much for doing this today. I was just perusing your website. Really beautiful work! My question is in regard to printing, which it sounds like you do some of. I do a lot of Milky Way photography. I’ve recently switched from just having the vendors on my website print images that I sell to using a local printer here in Bozeman. I don’t think they’re super experienced with night sky images. I really don’t know too much about how to prep for print myself. She and I have been struggling lately to come up with images that aren’t too dark. Do you have any advice for me on how to prep a night sky image for print?
Hi, Jason. Could you please describe your methodology when photographing glow worms. Most of the glow worm photography I have seen show worm light and mucus fibres but little else. Beautiful in their own right, but I would like context too.
Thanks, Rob
Hi Jason. I have been looking at and thinking about setting up a website. Specifically Squarespace vs Smugmug vs Shotproof vs Zenfolio. Currently leaning towards Zenfolio. What do you use for your website? and any thoughts or comments on any of these? I know Smugmug charges an additional 15% sales fee…
Hi, Paul, I apologize it took me a few days to get to this question; I went out to photograph the aurora and had some other commitments after. I definitely understand your struggle when it comes to printing night images.
Personally I find this is where a glossy paper really makes a difference; especially when mounted to metal (with a coating) or acrylic. Having a reflective surface helps the bright areas like the stars/Milky Way/aurora pop while also causing the dark areas to reflect some light. When it comes to processing try to avoid pure black where possible but also watch your noise if you’re pushing shadows; I’d rather have an area of pure black than something with heavy color noise and banding.
Unfortunately if they’re not experienced with printing night images it’s going to take some back and forth to dial in the exposure for their process. If possible I would suggest sending a series of differently exposed/processed images of the same thing and getting labeled samples to compare. Once you find the one that looks the best you can fine tune it from there.
Hi, Rob, that’s a good question and my feelings on the matter too. I’ve only had experience photographing glow worms twice on my trip to New Zealand in 2019 so keep that in mind!
I found a cave I could go in myself vs taking a tour so that I would have as much time as I wanted and because it was a lot cheaper. It required crawling through a flowing stream where the cave was less than .75m high and the area with the worms was 1-1.5m high. I had to sit on wet rocks with my feet in the water to shoot. The image below doesn’t have scale but hopefully shows how tight it was. I really enjoyed my first visit but had to leave before I figured out a good comp and settings so I went back a couple days later.
I think one of the reasons the image on the top of this page turned out well was because of how close to the worms I was so that their glow lit the rocks a little. Because of that and having to shoot at f/2.8 this is a 4-image focus stack; I manually blended each section. The exposures were 30 seconds at ISO 6400 to get as much light as possible. The worms are constantly moving, although slowly, so that’s something to keep in mind with exposure times and image stacking. Light painting won’t work well unless it’s very quick as the worms will stop glowing for a while, it also disrupts them so I turned off my headlamp for most of my photography after crawling in the cave to minimize my impact.
Hi, James. A good website is something I always struggle with when it comes time to consider a revamp. I used Zenfolio a long time ago and as far displaying images, ease of upload, and the ability to quickly add more content, I find it much better than Squarespace. That being said, I like the look of Squarespace sites, their blogging functionality, and customization better so I’ve been using them for 8 years now. If I was looking to host a lot of images, create a stock site, or provide galleries for clients I wouldn’t use Squarespace.
Since my website mainly serves as a way to show a sampling of my work to potential clients squarespace works well for that. Unfortunately I’m not familiar with Shotproof. If you want the best possible photographs website and have the funds, Wide Range Galleries, by @Jack_Brauer is the best out there and something I hope to save for in the future.
