I´m Joshua Cripps, ask me anything

Learning with Experts Ask Me Anything (AMA)
23

Hi Lauren,

Thank you so much for the kind words and your question. The basic technique for getting dreamy water is to increase your shutter speed. Depending on your subject, the length of your shutter speed will vary, but usually cool things start to happen around the 1/2" mark.

My usual approach is to target a shutter speed that is long enough to create silky flow in whatever I’m photographing, but short enough that the water doesn’t just turn into mush. For waterfalls I like to count how long it takes water to get from the top of the falls to the bottom, then I’ll start there with my shutter speed. If the falls is super high volume, then I usually end up using a faster shutter speed to preserve some detail.

For the ocean, I have two favorite ways of shooting. The first is to use a shutter speed of around 1". I will find an area with some interesting rocks that the waves are flowing around. Then I wait for a wave to crash, wash up the beach, pause at the top, and just as it starts to recede I’ll trip the shutter. This is how you get the beautiful silky streamers of water.

The other thing I like to do if I’m in an area with bigger waves is use a shutter speed of 1/8" - 1/4". Then I wait till the sun is near the horizon so it shines through the back of the waves, and trip the shutter just as the wave starts to curl. It creates a look almost like stained glass in the wave, beautiful!

For the settings, I start with my ISO at its lowest base setting. For aperture I pick an f-stop that gives me the DOF I need. Then I put my shutter speed at whatever gives me a good histogram. Then I count the number of stops between that shutter speed and my target shutter speed. Sometimes you can get to the target speed just by stopping down your aperture in order to increase your shutter speed a little bit. But if it’s more than a few stops difference between my baseline shutter and targeting shutter, then I use a filter. Usually a 3-stop or 6-stop solid ND.

24

Aww, thanks JB! Coming from one of the true really good guys out there, that means a lot! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your love, wisdom, and support over the years. See you soon in Death Valley or Lone Pine!

25

Thank you so much for the amazing questions, everyone! I will do my best to keep up as I pack up and then drive 7 hours to go see fam for Thanksgiving. :slight_smile:

26

Hey Josh, sorry to be ‘that guy’ who asks, but wondering how you see the latest processing tools and particularly AI affecting landscape photography now and in the future. Like many landscape photographers (including me) you obviously value finding those terrific moments to capture a unique or engaging scene, and know how much work it takes to plan and execute. Do you think AI etc will lessen the impact of visual arts now that so many can just create these scenes with relative ease? Thanks and love your work!

27

Hi Josh! Glad to meet you. :smiley: I think that I started following you back in the old Flickr days.,2007 or 2008? You’ve inspired me a lot over the years. Thank you. I’m looking forward to finally meeting you IRL. I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into each other out in the field. I guess I’ll have to drive to Lone Pine.

Thanks for everything bud!!!

28

Hey Josh,

Thanks for doing this.

I am a big fan of your work and something that stands out to me is your proficiency with colour. I’m very curious about how you developed your handling of colour; if it was something you focused on specifically or if it just came naturally through your progression.

All the best,

James

29

Hey Christopher, love this question. I’m not sure my favorite hikes would be appropriate for most hikers since the hikes I really love have some level of scrambling, off-trail travel, or elevated risk. For example, summitting University Peak in the Eastern Sierra is one of my favorite days out I’ve ever had, but unless you are comfortable on 4th / low 5th class terrain I wouldn’t recommend it.

So, caveats aside, here are 5 awesome hikes that all having something truly unique about them:

  1. The Dollhouse Campground to the Colorado / Green River confluence to Chimney Rock, Canyonlands National Park. Incredible variety of Red Rock scenery.

  2. The Narrows, Zion National Park. If you haven’t done this it’s unlike any other day hike out there!

  3. Big Pine Lakes to Palisade Glacier, Eastern Sierra. This takes you past one of the most impressive rock formations in the Sierra.

  4. Mt Agassiz, Eastern Sierra. 15 miles RT, with a fair amount of class 2 scrambling, but it’s not technical and the views from the top are insane.

  5. Tuolumne Meadows to Mammoth Lakes, Yosemite National Park through Ansel Adams Wilderness, Eastern Sierra. If you have the fitness to do this 28 miler in a day I guarantee it will be one of the most beautiful days of your life!

Happy hiking.

30

Hi Eliza,

Thank you so much! I appreciate the kind words.

Great question. I actually just wrapped up one commercial job and am in the middle of another one, so it’s perfect timing to ask this question.

My primary income streams are:

  • Photo tours
  • Photo workshops
  • Print sales
  • Speaking engagements
  • Online courses
  • Commercial work (photoshoots for clients)

I think you’ll find that most pro nature photographers are making ends meet through teaching, whether that’s workshops, tours, or speaking.

But since you specifically asked about client work, let me talk about that briefly. Within this realm I’d say that nature photographers have three main avenues to pursue: brand work (shooting for companies like Yeti or Patagonia), working with DMOs (destination marketing organizations), or doing real estate.

I’ve only done a teeny tiny bit with the first two, so I cannot claim to be an expert. I know you can find loads of online courses about how to connect with these types of clients. I can tell you both will involve a lot of pitching and a lot of rejections. The little bit of client work I’ve done has found me. Usually I get an email from a producer who has a specific project that I might be a good fit for. So why do these producers email me and not other photographers? Specialization. When I did my first shoot for Nikon, they were looking for mountain photographers, which is kinda my bread and butter. Another client contacted me because they needed a moon photographer. So the lesson there is the more you become known for one specific thing, the more likely you are to be contacted by clients with that need.

However, most of my commercial work has been in the real estate world. I have been very fortunate to work with a number of high-end real estate clients who need quality photos showing the landscapes where their properties are located. I got quite lucky in that I had a creative director find me first (while searching for California Landscape Photographers), which helped me get my foot in the door. If I was seeking out this kind of work from scratch I would look for sales and marketing agencies that specialize in luxury real estate, and open up a dialogue with them.

The pricing for a job like this varies wildly. I usually start by telling a client my commercial day rate ($2000), then asking if they need any special services like drone or underwater photos. If so I add 20%. $2000/day may sound like a crazy amount of money, but I also include a certain amount of retouching/editing for each shoot, so I often end up putting in 1-2 days of post processing for each shooting day. On top of that you need to figure out what the client is using the images for and creating a licensing fee for that. FotoQuote is a good resource. So a commercial real estate shoot may come in at $10,000-$12,000 for a 3-4 day shoot, but then there’s lots of post processing and editing on the back end as well.

On these jobs, I also under promise and over deliver. It’s great for client loyalty when they see that you deliver over and above what they asked for. I always work with a creative director or marketing director to understand what kinds of images they need. Then I build a shot list that has “must have” photos and “nice to have photos.” I always try to deliver both. The clients love when you go the extra mile, which I try to do. On my last job I took a nap in the sand while waiting for a thunderstorm to pass by, and woke up covered with sand flea bites. But I got the shots I wanted right after the storm ended!

Anyway, I’m rambling and this is a huge topic, so I’ll cut it off here. I hope this gave you at least some insight!

31

Hey Steve,

Thanks for the question. I actually never use focus peaking, and that’s because I have found that my eyes are more discerning than the focus peaking system on the cameras. I would rather use depth of field preview and zoom in at 100% on live view to make sure that everything is tack sharp.

The only time I find myself using focus stacking generally speaking is when I’m shooting at a focal length longer than maybe 24 mm, and yet I’m still really close to my foreground subject. If I’m shooting at 14 mm, I find that I can get everything sharp at f/16 most of the time. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of those in your face foregrounds where you’re only 2 inches away from a cactus or some flowers. I feel it puts unnecessary emphasis on the foreground element. Yes it’s very impactful. But artistically for me it doesn’t quite hit right. So that’s why I tend to back off a little bit for my foregrounds and can get everything in a single shot.

32

Hey Sheldon, thanks so much! Backpacking as a photographer has brought me more joy than pretty much anything else in life, so I really hope you get into it more. Check out my answer to Lorretta above where I talk about how I manage it all.

Cheers,

Josh

33

Hey Dave,

For sure! Soft pictures in low light is a super common problem. Typically it comes down to a few key issues: ensuring you get good focus, ensuring you have enough DOF, getting a good exposure, and not overdoing noise reduction. So let’s take a look at those.

Getting good focus: obviously this is much harder at night. If it’s pitch black out you’re going to have to light your subject up with something like a headlamp. When you have focus, turn your lens/camera to manual focus so it doesn’t accidentally change.

Getting good DOF: if you’re shooting at f/2.8 say to gather more light for the stars, then your landscape is gonna have parts that are out of focus, no way around it. So you may have to stop down t f/11 or f/16 to get everything in focus. Which leads to…

Getting a good exposure: if you stop down to f/11 or f/16 at night, you’re going to have to expose for a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnnng time to get a good exposure. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve done 30-60 minute shots at night to get a good exposure of the landscape. You’ll probably have a few hot pixels, but that ain’t the end of the world. The other thing you can do is shoot your landscapes during blue hour, when you might only need 30-60 seconds to get a good exposure. You can also try light painting. However you slice it though, you need a good exposure of your landscape to minimize noise. If you are boosting your shots +5 stops in post they are going to be super noisy. So focus on getting that good exposure in the field.

Noise Reduction: in really grainy photos it’s tempting to use lots of NR, but too much can make your photos look plasticky and fake. Instead, focus on getting a good exposure to reduce noise. Using an AI program like Topaz or DxO PureRaw can also do wonders for noise reduction. If you are shooting the Milky Way or stars in general, shooting 10-20 exposures back to back and use a stacking program like Sequator or Starry Landscape Stacker to combine them. It makes a HUGE difference. You can also combine a stacked image with a blue hour shot of the foreground landscape for a super duper clean image.

34

Hahaha, you read between the lines well, James. Yes, it’s been absolutely mental the last few months. :slight_smile:

Printing, first a caveat: I don’t do my own printing. For paper prints I use Reed Photo in Colorado, and for metal prints I use MagnaChrome in California.

I’ve never used Canon Prograf, but I have done soft proofing in both LR and PS. They are both useful tools, but I can say that BY FAR the most useful thing for me when it comes to printing is making hard proofs. When I have an image file that feels ready for print, I will send to the appropriate lab and have them create two small test prints for me: a 5x7 of the overall image, plus a another 5x7 100% crop of a critical section of the photo. As soon as I look at the test prints under gallery lighting it’s instantly apparent what changes I need to make to the file, in terms of exposure, color, sharpening, local adjustments, etc.

If I’m unsure about an image file I will often do multiple hard proofs at once, testing a different brightness, white balance or saturation. For me this has been the best way to ensure my prints look great, as opposed to second guessing all my adjustments endlessly in soft proofing (which is what I was doing before!).

For the different media out there, my advice is to contact a reputable print lab and have them send you a sample pack of their papers. Or just spend some $$$ printing the same image on a bunch of different papers / metal / acrylic to see what you like! It’s such a personal choice, so no way to figure out besides experimenting. I can say that my personal favorites for paper prints are FujiFlex polyester media and Canson Infinity Platine (I think that’s what it’s called). However, in my gallery in Lone Pine, I only have ChromaLuxe dye-sub metal prints. The detail, color, and dynamic range is insane! Acrylic facemounts are perhaps a teensy bit more detailed and 3D, but they are ridiculously expensive and super delicate. For me it’s not worth going that route

35

Hey Brien! I have to admit this is outside my area of expertise. However, I can say that with any kind of fine art photography, it’s important to make a distinction between recording a scene accurately, and presently a scene how you desire. Creating a custom WB with a gray card may give you very accurate colors, but maybe you want the sky to look a little bluer or a little warmer, depending on your mood and vision. So I guess I will just say, get close but don’t sweat it too much!

36

Yeah Steve, love to hear it! Like everyone else I know who has visited NZ, I’m sure you will want to move there after this trip.

My must-do activities for the South Island are:

  • helicopter flight over Mt Cook at sunrise / sunset
  • helicopter or small plane flight over Fiordland National Park in the afternoon
  • Doubtful Sound overnight boat trip

For hiking, there are some excellent day hikes in Aoraki Mt Cook National Park. Stop by the visitor center and they will get you dialed in depending on how hard you want to hit it. You can’t go wrong.

The Wanaka region also has fantastic hiking. Rob Roy Glacier, Roy’s Peak, and Isthmus Peak are outstanding, so is French Ridge if you don’t mind a hard overnight.

Gertrude Saddle is a beaut in Fiordland. As is the Lake Marian hike. Nor can you go wrong with an overnight trip to Luxmore Hut. In fact, while you’re at it, see if you can make bookings for the Routeburn Track. So gorgeous.

Other tips: eat a cheese scone, try hokey pokey ice cream, enjoy the venison and mutton if you eat meat. Oh, you have to have a pie from Ferg Bakery or Miles Better Pies.

Have a great time, and enjoy one of the most amazing places on the planet!

37

Hey John, great question. I’ve always had the most success with the 1/3 of the way in approach. For many wide angle compositions this tends to line up pretty closely with the hyperfocal distance. In fact, back in the day I used to calculate my hyperfocal distance manually until I realized it was almost always 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the frame. Not sure how Thomas gets his foreground in focus if he’s focusing on the farthest subject. Perhaps he doesn’t care to, or perhaps his lenses front focus. The nice thing is, with Live View or mirrorless, we can pretty much tell instantly if our scene is in focus to our liking. (Except if you have a Nikon mirrorless camera. They still haven’t figured out how to do actual DOF preview past f/5.6, which is RIDICULOUS. C’mon Nikon, get it together!)

38

Hey Trudy, I’m in the same boat as you: time for a computer replacement. TBH, I’m not a super techy guy, so probably not the best person to answer this. My usual advice is: buy the best computer you can afford. I currently use a Dell XPS which has been pretty good. But I know the new Macbooks are just incredible and I’m considering switching. If you have the $$$, you can also use a company like Puget Systems to custom build you something based on exactly what you use your machine for.

39

Hey Stan, great topic to explore. For me there is a clear distinction between artists who are focused on the image, and artists who are focused on the experience. Myself (and yourself) and many others, we love the experience, knowing that what we show in a photo is a representation of a real moment, something we actually got to see with our own eyes. For me that’s the power of photography and I would never trade a million pixel-perfect AI images for the ability to sit at an alpine lake at sunset, watching a thunderstorm break up at sunset. Now that’s life! That’s the richness of my human experience! That’s what I want people to feel in my photos. And I know there are so many people out there who feel the same way.

So in my opinion, although AI is capable of creating stunning images, there’s a hollowness to it. And many people will never resonate or connect with it because of that. For that crowd, I believe the impact of photography will only go up as the world becomes awash in too-perfect AI generated fantasy landscapes.

Cheers man!

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42

Yo Gary! Right back actcha, dude. I honestly can’t believe we haven’t met in person yet. I think we’re both dudes who love our respective nooks so much it’s hard to break out of them sometimes to go shoot in other places. But I’m sure we’re gonna cross paths in the field one of these days! Be well man.

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