Hello Reader,

We hope you are doing well! It has been a busy month for us. We spent much of the time in the San Diego area, and you can read more about our time with a pod of dolphins below. I (David) also led a night photography workshop in Death Valley two weeks ago and had an amazing time with clear skies and Aurora in the desert, I'm not kidding; keep reading below! Jennifer is currently on the Washington coast helping with the Out of Olympic conference, while I am in Denver working away on the new NPN magazine, which you can sign up for below.

Best Wishes,
David and Jennifer

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A Magical Day with Dolphins

As many of you know, we have sought out dolphins with glassy seas for years. Jennifer has her project, "A Morning with Dolphins," and I have my own project in the works that I will release someday. Finding the conditions that lead to these images is incredibly challenging, and we have had terrible luck over the past two years. We would have glassy days with no dolphins or rough seas with dolphins to spare! This year was proving to be the same, and we had very few opportunities to get on the water due to the weather. But, on our last day, the skies parted, and the ocean was glass. We encountered a pod of dolphins over 30 miles away from the coast that were excited to bow ride, and we were able to photograph and enjoy their presence for over an hour with no one else in sight. It was indeed one of those magical days where everything comes together.

Nature Vision Magazine Coming Soon

The time has come for an exciting new digital magazine - Nature Vision Magazine! I have worked diligently to bring this dream to fruition and am thrilled to announce the launch next month. With contributions from some of the best nature photography writers, our magazine is loaded with content. Sign up here to be notified when we release our first issue!

Items of Interest

We're always on the lookout for new and exciting things to share with you; here's what we found this month:

• ​Extending Your Reach by Colleen Miniuk - Colleen discusses whether extension tubes are a viable alternative to a macro lens. Short answer is yes! Extension tubes are what I use in place of a macro as well.
• ​The Importance of Awareness by Cody Schultz - Cody emphasizes the importance of environmental research and situational awareness for artists to create meaningful works of art and establish a deeper connection with nature.
• ​Honest Work by Cole Thompson and John Barclay - Cole and John discuss the merits of creating honest work and what that means exactly.
• ​The Smartest Way to Import Your Photos into Lightroom Classic by Chrissy Donadi - Chrissy explains an important part of Lightroom that messes everyone up, importing!
• ​New ways to heal, fix, fill, and remove in Photoshop by Tony Kuyper - Tony talks about the powerful new tools in Photoshop to remove objects.

Lightroom Denoise

Last month I had a blurb about Topaz AI, and in less than a month, everything changed. This is how fast AI is developing. Adobe released their answer to AI noise reduction in Lightroom and ACR, simply called "Denoise," and all of a sudden, there is a new leader in AI noise reduction.

Free Webinar with Sean Bagshaw

We are thrilled to have Sean Bagshaw joining us on NPN for an exciting event. Sean will select a few images from NPN members to process live in this webinar. Anyone can watch the webinar live by registering here. Do you want a chance to have your image processed by Sean? You can submit to the Image Processing Challenge on NPN, one of the many reasons to join NPN! Use the code EE10 to save 10% off your first year of membership.

Aurora Borealis in Death Valley??

The Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) is typically only seen at high latitudes in Canada, Alaska, Iceland, etc. But on rare occasions, you can see the Aurora at much lower altitudes. Our clients were treated to this rare event on the first night of our night photography workshop in Death Valley. I knew there was a possibility for a solar storm this night, but it wasn't predicted to be until much later in the night. I was keeping my eye on the northern skies from time to time, and at one point, I couldn't believe my eyes, I saw pillars of light in the sky! I yelled at everyone to point their cameras North now! The light display continued for another hour, and oh, what a special treat it was.

Client Images from Death Valley

Not only were we incredibly fortunate to witness the Aurora, but we also had three nights of clear skies to photograph the milky way; you can't ask for better conditions. We did some light painting on dunes and practiced stacking, panos, and long-exposure foregrounds.

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