Moab

Dave Black

June 19, 2013 by Justin Balog 0 Comments

There is a long story behind this image, a story that goes back nearly 15 years. Dave Black, one of the greatest sports photographers of all time, became a hero of mine way back when. I’ve studied his work with creative lighting for over a decade. So, when I happened to run into him in the small town of Cisco Colorado, I was surprised to say the least. We chatted for a bit, shot some photos and that was about it. Well, until the next night I ran into him here at delicate arch. I won’t tell you how I got down here, but Dave refereed to me as ‘The Fearless Leader’. Anyway, he was conducting a light-painting workshop (he’s the guy holding the light up top) and invited all my buddies from the #nXn20123 trip to join in We all sat back and had a great time as the most legendary light-painter did his thing. I guess this lesson here is, always be nice and respectful. The world is a staggeringly small place and it’s important to fill it with positive energy. You just never know how you might meet out there, so open yourself to new adventure and meeting new people.

Filed Under: Lightroom 4, Moab, Nikon D700, Really Right Stuff, RRS Versa 24, Sigma 15mm Fisheye, Tips, Travel, Utah

Delicate Arch

May 22, 2013 by Justin Balog 2 Comments

If you ever make it to Arches, NP make sure you hike to Delicate arch. It’s a beautiful 2 mile hike. Sure, there will be other people there. But they’ll all be drinking wine and eating cheese. It’s a great atmosphere and the positive vibrations are contagious. You’ll love it! Heck, it even made me feel alright about dropping my Fisheye lens the day before. It was still working…I shot this image with it. I needed the perspective to include the people in the right side of the frame.
Do you see them?

Filed Under: Landscape, Lightroom 4, Moab, Sigma 15mm Fisheye, Travel, Utah

Fisher Towers

May 20, 2013 by Justin Balog 8 Comments

Howdy! I hope you all are had a great weekend. The weather has been beautiful here in Colorado. Today we are looking at the famous Fisher Towers just outside of Moab, UT. I thought I would share them with you to illustrate the use of a polarizing filer. IF you are new to photography, you are might be considering which filter to get. If I had to pick just one, it would be a polarizer. I actually forgot mine on this trip, but my man Mark Garbowski lent me one. Thanks Mark! Below is the non-polarized version. What a difference! One thing to note about polarizers…they will make your sky very uneven looking on really wide lenses. Hope that quick lesson helps you on your own creative adventure.

Screen shot 2013-05-19 at 1.24.49 PM

Filed Under: Moab, Nikon 70-300 VR, Nikon D700, Tips, Travel, Utah

iPhone Friday

May 10, 2013 by Justin Balog 11 Comments

Howdy everyone! These are a few iPhone images from last week’s trip to the National Parks of Utah. They were all processed using Snapseed. If you missed the Snapseed video I did for the good folks at Google, you can watch it here (make sure to visit the site to see the embedded YouTube player).

Free Workshop! I wanted to let you know I will be giving away a few hundred free passes to my Snapseed course on Udemy.com next week in my newsletter so make sure you sign up. Click Here to sign up. It’s totally free, full of cool stuff and I promise to never spam you!

Filed Under: iPhone Friday, iPhone Photography, Moab, Utah

The Red Planet

May 7, 2013 by Justin Balog 7 Comments

I Reeeaally want to visit Mars. So much so whenever I have a chance to make one of my photographs look like a Martian landscape, I do it! This isn’t Mars, bummer right? This is Double Arch in Arches National Park. All my buddies from this year’s #nXnw were going to post their image from this epic night of light painting on their sites today, so I suggest you check them out as well. We used a really big flashlight to light up the arch while we were photographing it. The folks in the industry call this technique…Light Painting.