Posts | Dan Bailey's Adventure Photography Blog

Behind The Action eBook – 20% off This Weekend

My latest eBook, Behind The Action: Creating Adventure Imagery, Step By Step is 20% off during the next few days through the photography deals site, Photzy.com.

This 64 page downloadable guide will take you inside my head as I prepare, equip myself, set up and execute 12 adventure and outdoor photographs with full disclosure of everything. That means you get:

Full camera settings
Full gear list used in each shot
Detailed descriptions of shooting setup
Examples of rejected shots (this is very revealing)
How post processing was done on each shot

From concept through to execution and even into post-production, nothing is left out.

If you like shooting outdoor and adventure imagery, then this book will give you insight into the process and methods that have gotten me to where I am today. It’s these methods that have allowed me to produce imagery that sells again and again, and that has landed me the kind of clients that allow me to do photography as a full time profession.

Here’s what others have said about Behind The Action:

“Well worth a read if you’re into action and environmental portrait photography.” – Jim Goldstein – Internationally Published Pro Photographer and Author

“If you are interested in learning outdoor adventure photography, this eBook will show you some time tested techniques and methods that you can use to create your own dynamic and exciting images.” – Anne McKinnell – Author and Professional Photographer

This is only a limited time offer, so grab Behind The Action for 20% off and gain valuable insight and tips that you can start putting to use today in your own photography.

Have a great solstice weekend!

June 21, 2013

Behind The Action eBook – 20% off This Weekend

Adventures with Dan

Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 3: Downhill to Italy

When we last left off from our journey, we had just climbed the 1,000′ switchback hill into the town of Nauders, Austria, which sits just before the Italian border. If you haven’t read Part 1: Germany and Castles, and Part 2: Not Enough Days in Austria, you can go ahead and catch up on how we got to this point.

We woke up in Nauders to puffy cloud banks and low level fog that obscured the surrounding peaks. As we woofed down our traditional Austrian breakfast of bread, with butter and jam, cured meat and cheese, yogurt, cereal, and soft boiled egg, we secretly asked the European mountain gods to let us cross over Reschenpass in good weather.

My prayers must have worked, because as we were packing up our bikes, the clouds broke, revealing a rich blue sky and a ring of alpine peaks surrounding the town. Looking at the map, it was only 500 more feet to the top of the pass. Apparently, we’d done all the hard work yesterday, and our long push up the switchbacks left us with but a brief half hour ride past fields as green as the old Fuji Velvia film boxes, the obligatory castle and an elderly couple from Ireland who were walking part of the Via Claudia Augusta Trail for a holiday.

Downhill to Italy

I would almost say that crossing into Italy was rather anticlimactic, except for the fact that we were now looking at 160 miles and 4,500 feet of downhill from here to Verona. Ok, so there was a tiny 600 foot climb thrown in there somewhere, but we hardly felt it.

We took three days to get to Verona, and after crossing Reschenpass, the first day was entirely downhill. Sixty miles of downhill to be exact. The first part was the steepest. From St. Valentin to the town of Glurns, we dropped almost two thousand feet in 13 miles.

I’m sure you can picture it: Coasting on 29″ bikes through the tiny medieval Northern Italian villages of Burgusio and Clusio, (although up here in Südtirol, they go by their German names, Burgeis and Schleis), past castles, old church bell towers, alpine vineyards, and Italian road bikers out for a morning hill climb. I tell you, it was dreamy, especially the part where we could look up and see the snow covered peaks of the Alps high above the valley.

Eventually, the trail flattened out and became the well traveled Adige Cycling Path, which follows the Adige River all the way to Trento. It’s filled with Tyrollean bikers; old people young people, small people, big people, solo riders, families, you name it, if they can ride, they’re riding, including a couple from Munich who were riding the Via Claudia with their 14-year old son. Part of that might have been the fact that it was the first sunny day in weeks in this part of the Alps. At any rate, it was great to see so many older folks and seemingly less “fit” people on bikes as if it were just a way of life.

The Adige River valley is also filled with vineyards, but mostly it’s packed with apple orchards. It’s like the Washington State of Italy. Nearly every plot of farmable land is planted with apples. We even passed a self service apple juice stand along the trail. 50 Euro cents gets you a small cup of sweet, energy filled nectar. So lovely.

After a brief cappuccino stop in Lasa, or Laas, as it’s called in this area, (those lines on the map don’t mean anything up here, it’s all German until you get to Trento), we continued on to Merano. If we’d been able to cross over the Alps via the Timmelsjoch pass, this is where we would have joined the Via Claudia Trail.

Merano seemed like a nice city, but the afternoon was still young, so we pushed on, still following those little green arrow stickers that we’ve seen pasted onto light poles and sign posts ever since Germany. Those little arrows have never led us wrong. Well, there was that one time in Landeck, but we soon found our way. Must have been an anomaly, because except for that, they’ve been right every single time. I won’t let one rogue sticker sway my confidence in our little green Via arrows.

At the end of the afternoon, we found ourselves in Lana, (German name, Lana), a town that must see few off the beaten path travelers.

We had trouble finding lodging, which was partly an issue because of the afternoon rain that was kicking up, and we ended up at the extremely conformable Hotel Tiefenbrunn, a luxury wellness hotel where absolutely no one spoke English. Dinner included. Our first Italian meal of the trip. Yes, they speak German here, but the food’s still Italian. Breadsticks. Olive oil. Pasta. I’m in dreamland.

To Trento

We seem to have crossed Reschenpass on the perfect day, because we awoke in Lana (elevation 300 meters) to pouring rain, dark gray clouds down the valley, and a fresh snow line at only 700 meters on the hillsides above town. Pretty much everything up high got pounded last night. They even had to re-route part of the Giro d’Italia road bike race because of this freak late May snowstorm.

Fortunately, the skies broke up as we made our way down valley and gave us reprieve from getting soaked. It was a quick hour to the outskirts of Bolzano, then we followed the route to Caldero, where we lost the trail. Couldn’t find any Via stickers. Map wasn’t obvious. We eased our frustration with cappuccinos and a banana split in a cafe in the main square. Seemed to have worked because right after that, we found the route.

As always, we craned our necks to look at castles up on the hillsides, and exposed rocks that started to appear more reddish in color off to the east. That’s where the Dolomites are. Would love to ride through the Dolomites, but not today, on account of that freak snow storm.

South of Caldero, we pedaled through vineyards that were dotted with bright red poppies, until we reached the paved Adige River trail again, which we followed under sprinkling raindrops that never materialized into a downpour, all the way to the city of Trento.

After checking into the Hotel Everest with a rough mix of speaking German, Italian and English, we did a quick stroll around the main square, but quickly retreated back to the hotel restaurant for pizza. Our first of the trip. Certainly not our last. This is pretty much what I came for.

To Verona

Our last day of riding, we biked 67 miles from Trento to the beautiful city of Verona. This was our longest day of riding, but part of that was because we got lost in the town of Mori. We stopped for a picnic lunch in the town square, with bread, formaggio de montagna and a 1L box of cheap red wine that we bought from a very robust woman with a strong handshake a local shop. Another highlight was the combination espresso stand/bike service center where all the local bikers stop about 15 miles south of Trento.Following all the other day cyclists, we went all the way to the next village, before realizing that they were all headed out to Lago de Garda, which is a popular destination for Italian tourists. Even after turning around and heading back to Mori, we still had trouble finding the route. A closed sign and a detour that led nowhere totally threw us, so we got up on the road and deciphered our way through a couple of villages back to the Adige River/Via Claudia trail.

We passed a number of very impressive castles up on the hillsides as we raced down the valley trying to stay ahead of a thick storm. Never get tired of looking at castles. They make me try to imagine what life here must have been like a few hundred years ago. Who lived in them? Who were they protecting themselves from? Were they ever attacked? We weren’t quite fast enough to beat the rain, and were forced to don full rain gear for an hour while we rode a long road section under steady drizzle.

When the rain stopped, we climbed a steep, narrow bike path up to the extremely picturesque village of Rivoli Veronese, where I took a picture of a blue door. This ended up being our last hill of the trip, and right after that, we dropped down out of the mountains and saw the wide green expanse of the Veneto Province open up before our eyes. We had done it. We had crossed the Alps by bike. Behind us, we could still see snow on the higher peaks. In front of us, we could see the rest of Italy, where everyone speaks Italian and the architecture is more Roman than Germanic/Austrian like we’ve seen during the past week.

After following a seemingly endless stretch of trail alongside an aqueduct, we breezed into the city of Verona where we ended our 2013 European cycling adventure with lazy strolls around the two thousand year old arena that’s still in use, kissed underneath the Balcony d’Guilietta, and of course, ate more pizza before hopping on the train for a short excursion to Tuscany, and then returning to Munich to fly home.

I miss Verona already. I’ll post a few more photos of that place next week. Thanks so much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed this trip report and perhaps even inspired you to get on your bike and go somewhere.

June 19, 2013

Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 3: Downhill to Italy

Creative Tips, eBooks

Using The Golden Ratio to Compose Your Photos

Where you position your important subject elements determines the overall balance of your composition and it can make the difference between an interesting picture and a boring picture. From that standpoint, subject placement can easily make or break the shot, and so after gauging the light, one of the first things you’ll want to do is figure out how you’ll arrange the elements in your frame.

We often hear about the Rule of Thirds, which states that you should put important subject matter at the intersections of imaginary lines that split your frame in three sections, both horizontally and vertically. However, why is this such a critical technique?

To understand how the rule works, we need to go back through history. The Rule of Thirds is actually based on a complex mathematical formula called the Golden Ratio that was devised by the classically minded Greeks and used heavily artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci. Cathedrals were built using The Golden Ratio, as were the Parthenon, the Pyramids and Stradivarius violins.

The Golden Ratio is 1.618033988749895…, or to be more concise, 1:618. It’s derived by dividing a line or parts of geometric shapes so that the the ratio of a whole line (A) to the large segment (B), is the same as the ratio of the large segment (B) to the small segment (C). Combine these ratios within groups of ratios and lines, and you get two and three dimensional shapes that are all based on that one relationship.

The Golden Ratio is Found within many aspects of nature as well, in flowers, sea shells, fruit, insects and galaxies, which is why human vision is probably so attuned to this special geometric organization. It’s no surprise, that like our innate human perceptions about color, our perceptions about spacial visualization can be traced back to human evolution.

The human brain is hard wired towards pattern recognition, which helps us navigate and survive in complex environments. We actually prefer to see things in order so that we can quickly identify and process visual information in the world around us.

They key to this, though, is that as soon as we make sense of the visual material, our brains tend to relax and get ready to move onto the next thing.

Good photography isn’t about relaxing the brain, though, it’s about creating visual tension that engages the brain and holds the attention of our viewers.

We don’t want our viewer’s to move on too quickly, we actually want to keep their eyes wandering around in the frame as they explore the different compositional elements that we’ve includes in our images. It’s this visual tension that holds our viewers and keeps them looking for order that just isn’t there.

A photograph that doesn’t show perfect visual order is simply more interesting because it engages your brain and makes you want to look at it longer. In contrast, if you look at a picture where the subject is smack dab in the middle of the frame, your brain subconsciously recognizes this perfect order, and decides that it’s ready to move on. Done. Next picture.

Composing photos where your subject is in a seemingly random place in the frame will add a tremendous amount of interest to your imagery. Try this technique and see what you come up with the next time you’re out shooting, whether it be landscapes, sports images or portraits.

The Rule of Thirds works so well because it places subject matter in random areas around the frame and keeps it away from areas that normally indicate order by the brain’s pattern recognition software. You don’t always have to use the rule per se, but by keeping subjects out of the center, you inherently create more dynamic images.

This post is based on an except of my eBook, Making The Image- A Conceptual Guide for Creating Stronger Photographs. For more more creative photography methods and tips, check out the book, or refer a friend. It has twelve chapters, almost 14,000 words, tons of full page photo examples to illustrate, it looks great on tablets, and best part, it only costs about the same as a two or three days worth of joe at the coffee shack.

Need inspiration? Pick up Making The Image and jump start your creativity this summer. If you don’t want the book, but you’d like to receive other photography tips and techniques, then consider signing up for my newsletter at the top of the sidebar over on the right.

$11.95

June 18, 2013

Using The Golden Ratio to Compose Your Photos

Adventures with Dan, Camera Gear, Creative Tips

3 Posts That You Might Have Missed

As much as I like to think that my readers lurk and catch every single post that I publish, I know that you often have better things to do than just sit around waiting for me to write something new. Here are three posts from the archive that you might have missed. Enjoy!

If you don’t want to miss any of my posts in the future, consider signing up for my newsletter, over there on the right sidebar.

1. Telephoto Landscapes

A look at why telephoto lenses are great for shooting landscapes. Most of us think of wide angle lenses when it comes to shooting landscapes, but these image examples will show you some possibilities for why you should consider reaching for the long lens next time you find yourself in front of a gorgeous scene!

2. 3 Great Budget Tripod Heads

A good set of legs is nothing without a decent head. Here’s a look at a trio of tripod heads that will hold your camera steady for shooting in the outdoors, but that won’t break your budget. All three of them are less than $100.

3. Cycling All Night Long in Denali National Park, Alaska.

Imagine riding your bike all night long through an immense wilderness and 24-hour daylight. Read my trip report and see photos of a one of the coolest thing that you can do on two wheels!

June 17, 2013

3 Posts That You Might Have Missed

Featured Images

Shooting Glacier Landscapes with the Fujifilm XE-1

Yesterday I flew out to the Knik Glacier and shot landscapes with the Fujifilm XE-1 under Alaska evening light. Of course, at 9:00PM, we were still two and a half hours away from sunset, so it wasn’t golden, but it was appealing light nonetheless.

Since I finally upgraded to Lightroom v.4.4, which supports Fujifilm’s X-Trans RAW format, I went ahead and shot a few photos in RAW. This was the first time I’ve shot RAW with the Fujifilm cameras, and although I’ve always been happy with the straight JPEGs from the X10, the X20 and now the XE-1, I’m quite impressed with the RAW captures from the XE-1. The images are very sharp, and have great tone throughout the entire color range.

With wide contrast levels and extreme lights and darks, these glaciers scenes seemed like a good test for the capabilities of the X-Trans sensor. Both the JPEGs and the RAW files look great, but as with most cameras, RAW lets you adjust the white balance if needed, bring the highlights under control and open up the darks more thoroughly. With the exception of the panorama, these images have been processed and converted from RAW files. A couple of them were shot with the XF 18-55mm lens, and the wide shots are from the XF 14mm lens, which I really like.I’m finding the XE-1 to be a real joy to shoot with, and I think that it’s an really great camera for shooting landscapes. It’s got great resolution and the XF lenses give gorgeous, crisp images. Yesterday, I kept it on Aperture Priority mode, which has me turning a real aperture dial to adjust exposure. And even though it’s not a true mechanical dial, it still gives me that traditional camera feel. I’m still trying to get used to the EVF, though, and even though I occasionally look through it, I use the LCD to compose my images most of the time.

Here is some more glacierscape RAW vs. JPEG testing with both the XE-1 and the X20.

Right now, Fujifilm is offering $200 instant rebates on the XE-1. You can get it with the XF 18-55mm lens for only $1,199 at both B&H Photo and Amazon.

June 13, 2013

Shooting Glacier Landscapes with the Fujifilm XE-1

Adventures with Dan, Featured Images

Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 2: Not Enough Days In Austria

After completing Part 1 of our journey, and pedaling up to Neuschwanstein Castle in the pouring rain, we woke the next morning to a beautiful sunrise in the town of Füssen and a bold view of the Austrian Alps, which lay just to the south. I stepped outside for some morning photography, which actually turned out to be the last dawn of good light until the end of our ride, and captured some nice scenes with the Fuji XE-1.

This was really the first time that I’d shot the Fujifilm XE-1 in good light, and I was definitely impressed when I saw the image quality that came out of the camera. Subjects were crisp, sharp, high contrast, and had great color. I looked forward to what lay ahead in the coming days with it in my hands.

Into Austria

From our guesthouse, it was but a short ride to the Austrian border, which sits astride a the Lech river, a powerful flow that brings a torrent of green, silty water down from the mountains. Leaving the river, we wound our way on small paved farm roads through a number of tiny towns: Pinswang, Oberpinswang, Unterletzen and Pflach. We waved at old men who were tending to their yards and shouted, “servus,” which is the traditional greeting in this part of the Alps.

After passing through the large town of Rutte, and marveling at the old castle that sits atop a hill above the wide green valley, we hit a steep off-road section of trail that required pushing. Pushing a loaded bike is certainly not the most fun mode of travel, but a trip that doesn’t require at least some pushing just doesn’t feel very adventurous. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, although it would have been over even sooner if I hadn’t missed the turn and sent us 100 yards up an even steeper trail. What can I say, my maps are all in German.

Back on track, we climbed through a short forest section before popping out of the trees and descending into the picturesque town of Heiterwang, which sits amidst wide open fields of green grass and dandelions. I found myself asking the question, why do they look so delightful here, and yet so pesky and unwanted in my own yard back home? Perhaps it’s accompanying Tyrollean architecture that gives them such a pleasing appearance. Maybe they’d look better if I decorated every window of my house with shutters and garden window boxes.

Just Like Colorado. Sort of.

After Heiterwang, we cruised through what seemed like the I-70 of Austria. Not the ugly, traffic laden I-70, the quaint I-70 of Colorado that passes through a different ski town every few miles. Or rather the I-70 that was imagined when it was built. After all, those Colorado ski towns are were all patterned after little Tryollean towns and built by former 10th Mountain Division soldiers who were stationed over here during WWII.

The Austrian ski towns of Bichlbach, Lähn and Lermoos all sit in a narrow, yet steep valley, and each town has a lift, at least one ski shop and lots of rentals. It definitely reminded me of Colorado.

At Lermoos, we turned south and climbed over Fernpass, nearly 1,000 feet up, and even more down along a gradual gravel path that sat completely away from the main highway. In fact, for most of the climb, we couldn’t even see the road. In some ways, the up was easier than the down, because a significant portion of the down followed a rocky mountain bike/hiking path that made us glad we came equipped with 29″ mountain bikes. Definitely felt like Colorado. Except for the chickens.

Bumping over sharp rocks and drops with full panniers rattles your gear quite a bit. For an extended off-road tour, I’d either pull a trailer or just use the Revelate Designs frame bags, but since most of this was road and releatively smooth gravel, the panniers did just fine.

We stopped in the town of Nassereith for the night, just ahead of a menacing wall of dark rain clouds, fueled up on a hearty Austrian breakfast of bread, butter, jam, cheese, salami, cured ham, soft boiled eggs, müesli and Nutella flavored cereal, then dropped into Tarrenz and Imst the next morning along what was one of my favorite stretches of road. A beautiful double track through the forest gave way to paved bike path past scores of perfect Austrian barns and fields of green grass, wildflowers and sheep.

Imst is the biggest town in the valley, and it’s the recreation capitol of this part of Austria. Its surrounded by scores of steep, high peaks, and only sits a few miles away from thebeginning of the Ötzal, which, if you remember from Part One of our story, is where the Timmelsjoch Pass is located. With everything above 5,000′ being covered in clouds, though, we’re glad that we weren’t able to go that route. So much better to see stuff when you’re riding.

All day, I kept either my Fuji X20 or the XE-1 and 18-55mm lens around my neck and shot many photos from the saddle. I’ve gotten pretty good at unslinging the camera, turning it on and shooting entirely with one hand. So far, both of these setups are proving to be bike trip worthy gear. Both are performing great, dry out fine overnight after a day in the rain, they’re certainly lightweight, and are easy to use and adjust while riding.

To Nauders and Reschenpass

Lost our way for a few minutes in the busy town of Landeck, but then snacked on freshly made apfleküchen, then started the long climb towards Reschenpass, which is the border into Italy. The route follows the Inn River on dedicated bike trails and country roads for nearly 30 miles, and even gives you a few mile strech in Switzerland before finally spitting you out below the final 1,000′ switchback road up to the town of Nauders.

At one point, we lost our way because the Via Claudia trail crossed over a dam. We went straight. We’re from the USA, where you’re not allowed anywhere near most dams. In fact, since 9/11, the concept of crossing a dam doesn’t even exist in our sense of reality anymore. We would have kept going except that the trail dead ended into the forest. Totally unpassable. Went back and saw that the road crossed the dam. In Europe, they’re not scared of people crossing dams.

The final climb to Nauders involved 10 switchbacks and blistering speeds of anywhere from 3.8-5.7 mph. It’s a pretty big climb, but if you don’t think you’re in shape to do this part of the route, there are shuttle busses in Landeck that have big bike trailers to transport Via Claudia Augusta riders and tours up to the town of Nauders. The Via Claudia is such a popular European cycling route that they make it accessible to just about anyone. Up to this point, we’ve seen people of all ages, and even families with kids riding along the route.

Although the clouds threatened a few times during the day, the weather held during our entire ride from Nasserieth to Nauders. At the end of our 55 mile day, we were tired and glad to reach a stopping point, but also sad that our bike ride through Austria was almost over. The next day, we’d pass into Italy and say bid farewell to the biking heaven that is known as Austria. Would love to come back and ride more of this awesome country!

Read the final entry, Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 3: Downhill to Verona, Italy

June 11, 2013

Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 2: Not Enough Days In Austria

Creative Tips, Featured Images

The Joys of Photographing in Morning Light

Early morning photography is always a pleasure. After all, there’s something to be said for being right there out in the open when the dawn breaks and reveals your first view of the sun. It makes you feel productive, like you’re not wasting a single second of the day. Another nice thing is that it’s often very quiet and still during the dawn hours, which means that you’re alone with your thoughts, your equipment and your creativity.

From a photography standpoint, shooting under morning light can be extremely rewarding. If the sky at the horizon is relatively clear, the sun will splash bold, beautiful and direct light on your scene. Just like at sunset, everything looks better when you shoot it at sunrise.

However, the intense warm light of sunrise doesn’t always last as long as it does during the late afternoon, because since there are fewer dust particles in the atmosphere at daybreak, simply because all the people who kick that stuff up into air have been asleep for the past 6-8 hour. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still good, it’s just more short-lived.

This means that when you’re shooting in the morning, you might want to pick our your subjects beforehand so that you don’t have to go hunting when the light is the best. That said, there’s also nothing wrong with just wandering for a while with your camera and seeing what unfolds. I do it all the time.

Remember, even when you find a great subject, keep looking all around you, even directly behind you, and try to be aware of what the sun is doing to other parts of your scene. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been confidently shooting a scene and then realize that the effects of the light 180 degrees behind me are just as interesting, if not better than what I’m looking at.

Here are three photos that I shot at sunrise last month at the Valdez Air Show here in Alaska. All three images were shot just a few minutes apart from each other with the Fuji X20. For the limitations that are inherent in a small sensor camera like this one, the X20 performs superbly well in good light. In other words, the better the light, the better and sharper the X20 is able to render subject matter.

This is pretty much true with any camera, though, which is another reason that you’ll always want to hunt for the good light.

June 10, 2013

The Joys of Photographing in Morning Light

Featured Images

Just A Bike

June 7, 2013

Adventures with Dan, Featured Images

Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 1: Germany and Castles

Around the time when Jesus walked the earth, the Romans spent 60 years transforming an age-old pack animal trail into a road over the Alps. It led from the lowlands of the Po River valley and the Adriatic sea, all the way to the areas of Noricum and Rhaetia, which we now call Austria and Bavaria.

When it was finished, the Emperor Claudius used the road to secure the Roman frontier and press his military might against the tribes of the north.

Over the next two thousand years, it became a vital trading route between the regions. Today, the Via Claudia Augusta route has been converted into a cycling and hiking path that crosses the Alps from Germany to Italy.

Biking the Via Claudia Augusta wasn’t actually my first choice. I’d wanted to ride the Timmelsjoch pass, which climbs through the Ötz valley in Austria and tops out at 8,117′, before dropping into Italy.

However, our schedule for getting away and going to Europe this year didn’t quite coincide. After setting my heart on the Timmelsjoch and drooling over pictures, I found out that it doesn’t usually open until mid June. In fact, when we flew over to Germany, I read that they were still plowing through ten meter high snow drifts at the top.

Denied. I’m already back and it’s still closed.

Ok, hang on a minute. Let me take a bit to fill in the back story.

Bike Riding

I like to ride my bike. Always have. Ever since my dad took my training wheels off and sent me down our gravel driveway hill in Evergreen, Colorado when I was about 4, I’ve been hooked. When I look back on all the other sports and activities that I enjoy, like rock climbing and skiing, bike riding always ranks at the top.

How do I know this? Because if I had to give them all up and only keep one, I wouldn’t part with the bike. To me, my bike has always symbolized my own sense of freedom and adventure and I’d never willingly give it up. When I was a kid, there was no worse punishment than losing my bike for the week. My mom totally nailed that one. Of course, now that I’m big, no one can take my bike away anymore. Well, almost no one. I’ve had a few bikes stolen, but that’s different. That’s the worse thing ever.

Anyway, I’ve done some pretty fun stuff in my life, but exploring on my bike holds a special place in my soul. Traversing new roads through territories unknown to me, pedaling up and over high mountain roads and cruising through narrow medieval streets in remote villages and unpaved trails- yea that’s totally for me.

To date, I’ve ridden my bike in eight countries on four continents. I’ve pedaled over the highest road in the world in Ladakh, India. I’ve ridden the northern California coast. I meandered for six weeks around Andalucia in search of tapas and good olive oil one time in an attempt to mend a broken heart. (It worked.) I’ve ridden 100 miles on frozen rivers in Alaska and watched the midnight sunset during an all night bike ride through Denali National Park.

I long to ride interesting, scenic routes and explore the great route of the world on two wheels. In some ways, bike touring with my camera is the most fulfilling thing in the world for me, and for all the riding I’ve done, I feel like I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. I have a very big list that keeps growing: Norway. Iceland. Chile. Mongolia. Tibet, and of course, the Timmelsjoch pass.

European Vacation

A month ago, I’d never heard of the Via Claudia Augusta. We were planning on heading over to Europe for a two week vacation and to visit some family who were also vacationing in Germany and some we were on holiday in Italy. Rather than just take the train around, though, I came up with the idea to take our bikes and ride over the Alps. You know, make it interesting. Make it more challenging. Make the food taste better.

A few hours of research poring over Google Maps and I found a small road the heads up the Ötzal valley in Austria; the Timmeljoch. Of course, a little bit more research would have told me that it was not an option this time of year. I didn’t find that out until about a week before we were set to leave.

Back to the drawing board. I did some more research and stumbled across the Via Claudia Augusta. I discovered that it not only went from Germany, through Austria and down into Italy, it’s almost entirely bike path away from the main roads. In facts, there are hundreds of miles of dedicated cycling trails through the Alps. Apparently, German speaking people love to go bike touring.

Let’s see- Historic route over the Alps through three countries and countless tiny European villages and towns, and no cars? The gods have indeed smiled on me. Here we go. For camera gear, I packed a Fujifilm XE-1 the Fuji X20 and a Nikon P7700, as well as an iPad. Read a detailed post about my camera gear setup for this trip, and see my iPad travel photography work flow here. I found this setup to be extremely workable for a lightweight bike tour like this.

The Ride, Part 1: Kaufring to Füssen, Germany

After flying over Greeland to Iceland, Copenhagen and then Germany, we spent a short weekend of sunshine in Munich …wait for it… drinking beer and doing some general sightseeing.

I also found a copy of the Bikeline Via Claudia Augusta biking guidebook. It’s all in German, but has great maps that proved useful in the first few minutes of the rid, and many times afterwards. If you do the route, I’d highly recommend getting the book. The route is pretty well marked, but it was nice to have the book and see where we were every day. It also has a list of hotels and pensions that accommodate bikes.

On Sunday, we assembled the bikes, hopped a train for for the small town of Kaufring and started riding south. The route actually starts in Donauwürth, but since we had limited time, I figured that we’d cut out some of the long flat sections in the beginning and head straight for the mountains. You know, jump right in.

Not thirty minutes after we set out from Kaufring, we came across the official Via Claudia trail and turned south. That’s when the rain started. Yep, we got right in it alright. Within a few miles we were soaked and ready to call Day One a very short day and find some place to stay.

In Erpfting, we found a very nice B&B, but they apparently didn’t have any rooms available. Not for two wet cyclists, anyway. Who could tell? Mein German es nicht sehr gut.

So, on we went under spitting rain and a strong west wind that made those few right turns painful on our faces. Ellighofen, had two places, one that was closed and the other that was full.

However, the nice innkeeper assured us that if we rode up this very steep hill, we’d find a town only 4km away that would have rooms. Sure we would. Up the hill. Out the way. What choice did we have?

He was right. Gasthof Zur Post. Quaint little place in the tiny town of Waal, where few people spoke any English. Of course, I took four years of German in high school and college, but that was a long time ago. Before now, I’d never actually been to a German speaking country. Whenever I travel to foreign countries, I keep a Lonely Planet Phrasebook in my right pants pocket all the time. Go Lonely Planet.

We got a room in Waal, dried out and ate früdlesuppe and käserspätzel (pancake soup and German mac and cheese) from a very nice innkeeper who wore a bright red traditional Bavarian dress. Went out for some end of the day photography under clearing skies and then slept well, only we got woken up by the 48 church bells that went off at midnight in the four churches in town.

Day 2

The second day of riding better. Less rain. Some sprinkles in the afternoon, but nothing like yesterday. Flat farmland and small towns slowly turned into rolling meadows, occasional forest lined gravel paths and clearings that gave us our first views of the Alps. Awesome quality riding. Even some dirt and double track trails, and almost no cars. Sometimes tiny European cars use the wide bike paths as narrow roads between village, but compared to riding on busy main roads and highways, it was pretty dreamy.

We passed through Unterdießen, Oberdießen, Asch, Leeder, Hohenfurch, Schongau, and Lechbrook, where we stopped for cake and beer at a local cafe, then through Ehrwang and Eshach. By the end of the day, we found ourselves at the base of the Alps under menacing thick gray clouds, which is where I caught my very first glimpse of that mysterious white building across the valley.

It was but a childhood dream to lay my eyes upon the greatest and most magnificient castle in all the world. I’ve remembered its name ever since I was but a boy. At the end of the afternoon, we rode our bikes into the town Füssen and, booked a room at the Gasthaus Forggensee, then pedaled past throngs of international tourists all the way up the the thousand foot climb to Neuschwanstein the castle in the pouring rain.

We passed underneath the massive wooden entryway and marveled at the majestic beauty of this spectacular building from another time. I gazed with my childhood awe at massive stone turrets jutting up into the fog and the brilliant white limestone walls, some of which are carved directly out of the steep cliffs that are perched high upon the Bavarian mountainside.

In the course of my lifetime, this was a day to remember.

Read Part 2: Not Enough Days in Austria.

June 5, 2013

Crossing the Alps by Bike – Part 1: Germany and Castles

How To, Personal and Pro Insight, Reviews and Recommendations

My Lightweight iPad Travel Photography Workflow

Being a travel photographer used to mean that you packed a notebook and a couple bricks worth of film, tried your best not to have any of it X-Rayed as you navigated all those different airports around the world, and then waited until after your trip to see any of the photos that you shot.

Now, all you need is your camera and a small laptop, and you can shoot, edit and share, and still fit your entire photography rig into a single backpack. The new 13″ MacPook Pros are pretty slim and only weigh about 4 lbs. The 11″ MacBook Air is even lighter, coming in at about 2.3 lbs.

But what if that’s still too much to carry? 4 lbs is still 4 lbs. And as light as a MB Air is, a full blown laptop might even be more than you need. I know that for myself, I want to spend as little time as possible dinking around on the computer when I travel. And when I’m on the bike, I want the whole kit to be as light as possible.

The iPad

So, how do you enter ultra lightweight territory and still manage the workflow and stay on top of the sharing? In my own ongoing quest to come up with the lightest weight travel photography solution for things like bike and backpack trips, I’ve found the iPad to be an idea device. This is the setup that I used for my recent cycling trip through the Alps. It worked perfectly and hardly took up any room.

I have full sized a regular second generation iPad, and it easily slips inside my Ortlieb Back Roller Classic bike pannier. The panniers are waterproof, but for added protection, I keep the iPad in a soft neoprene sleeve. Even inside the sleeve, it actually fits in my tiny Lowepro Flipside Sport 10L AW pack as well, underneath the removable camera compartment, and that’s with camera gear.

An iPad Mini is obviously the ultimate tool for going light. I’ll likely get one in the future, but for this trip, I just went with what I had. Regardless of which model you get, I’d recommend getting at least a 32GB iPad, because the 16BG will fill up pretty quickly with iOS and apps, which won’t leave you very much room for photos. At the very least, get a 16GB, resist download lots of apps and dedicate it to photography.

The Workflow Part

Downloading

The workflow aspect of iPad travel photography is pretty simple, although I have to give my friend Glenn Charles credit for some of these ideas.

Number one essential item is the Apple Camera Camera Connection Kit. With this, you can connect an SD card right to the iPad for photo download. If you have a CF card camera, you can use the USB adaptor to connect your camera right to the iPad.

Lately, when I travel, I’ve been shooting JPEGs on the Fuji X cameras, which don’t take up much room. If you’re shooting RAW files, then use Glenn’s solution and shoot RAW+JPEG, or if you have a dual card slot camera, then save RAW files on one card and small JPEGS on the other. That way you won’t have to worry about space- you simply download the small JPEG files to the iPad. At around 1500 pixels, that’s still plenty big to share or send comps to clients.

Basically, at whatever interval I feel like downloading photos, which usually corresponds to the times when I have internet access, I’ll connect the card and download a few selects that I want to share or post. If you’ve never downloaded photos to the iPad, it’s really easy. Then, I just create a folder for the trip so that I can keep everything straight and go from there.

Photo Editing

I tend not to do much processing when I’m on the road, but face it, some images need a little help, so having at least one retouching/editing app can be pretty useful.

Glenn likes Snapseed for his main photo editing app. There are tons of photo apps out there, but Snapseed is free, quite powerful and it’s really simple to use. I’ve tried a few, and I agree, Snapseed works pretty well. Apple iPhoto for iPad is only $4.99, as is the Art Studio iPad app, which is a very powerful solution that looks and functions a lot like the regular Photoshop.

Organizing and Sharing

I love Photosmith app, if for nothing else, for one main reason: Most iPad apps only let you share or email just one photo at a time, Photosmith allows you to email and share multiple photos at once to Dropbox, Facebook or Flickr.

Of course, Photosmith’s real strength is that it allows you to tag, caption and add metadata to photos, then sync that info to Lightroom when you transfer your photos later. It’s not a 5 dollar app, but in my mind, Photosmith is well worth the price and it keeps getting better. Version 3 is due out soon.

Journaling

For many people, equally important to the photo taking is the writing, journaling and documenting events, ideas and experiences while you’re on the trip. In the past, I’ve filled blank sketchbooks and Moleskine type journals with furious scribbling, but lately, I’ve taken to electronic journaling with Day One app.

There are three main reasons for this change. 1, I can type faster than I can write by hand, 2, because the app I use to write syncs with the iPad, iPhone and the Mac, and 3, because I can export any selection of my journal entires as a PDF file. With the sync and export features, I won’t have to retype everything when I want to do some kind of travel photo essay, blog post or story about my trip.

Plus, Day One is just a beautiful, convenient app that lends itself to regular writing, even if it’s just taking a few quick notes about a location or jotting down some new ideas that you’ve had while traveling. You can tag entires, and even include photos, GPS information, current weather and more.

Again, this may or may not be the best system out there, it’s just my system, and it could very likely change before my next trip. If you’ve discovered a travel photography system that works for you, I’d be happy to hear your ideas.

At any rate, get something- or nothing at all, but at least get yourself out there into the world with your camera and have some fun exploring and creating.

June 4, 2013

My Lightweight iPad Travel Photography Workflow