Hello my friend,

First, I just wanted to say thank you for the incredible response to the new Katmai Bears & Landscapes workshops last week. Both workshops sold out in less than eight hours, which honestly blew me away. I’m extremely grateful for the support and excitement surrounding this trip.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the subtle things that quietly hold us back as photographers. Not the obvious mistakes, but the habits, assumptions, and false sense of security that slowly shape the way we shoot without us even realizing it.

Funny enough, both of the new videos in this week’s edition ended up revolving around exactly that idea…just from two very different directions.

As always, thanks for being here - Mark

📺 MY NEW VIDEOS

This Habit Held My Photography Back for 10 Years

For a long time, I believed that simply spending more time behind the camera would naturally make me a better landscape photographer. But somewhere along the way, I realized something uncomfortable...the habits that helped me early on were the same habits quietly holding me back later. In this video, I break down three of the hardest habits I had to unlearn after more than 10 years of landscape photography, from how I approached scenes in the field to how I edited my photos in Lightroom, and why these patterns worked just well enough to keep me stuck without realizing it.

You Think Your Camera's Safe... Until This Happens

A couple days ago while photographing waterfalls in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I slipped on a rock and dropped my Nikon Z8 and 14-24mm lens completely underwater. What followed over the next several days was one of the most stressful photography experiences I’ve ever had. In this video, I’m sharing exactly what happened, the mistake that caused it, the steps I took afterward, and why this experience completely changed the way I think about photographing around rivers, waterfalls, and wet environments. I also talk about the biggest misconceptions surrounding water-damaged cameras, including why I chose NOT to use rice or silica gel packets after submerging nearly $8,000 worth of camera gear in moving water.

🔓 VAULT FAVORITES

6 Essential Editing Skills Every Photographer Should Know

I think we all have our own list of essential editing tools & techniques that are critical to our workflow. Everyone's list is probably a bit different, but nevertheless we all have those must have techniques or tools that are mission critical to our editing workflow. In this video, I want to share with you the six editing skills and tools that are of the utmost importance to my editing workflow. These are the things that I use during my post processing on just about every single one of my landscape photos​​

📖 GOOD READS What Your Lens Choice Says About Your Personality As a landscape photographer, the lens you choose is more than just a tool, it's a reflection of how you see the world. But what if I told you that your go-to lens might also reveal something deeper about your personality? That’s the intriguing concept we’ll explore today, inspired by a question that has fascinated many photographers: If you could only use one lens for the rest of your life, what would it be? The Lens You Choose: A Window Into Your Photographic Mind Most photographers have a range of lenses they use for different situations. You might reach for a wide-angle lens to capture the grandeur of a sweeping landscape or a telephoto lens to isolate a distant subject. But if you had to choose just one, which would it be? For me, it's likely my 100-400mm telephoto lens. This choice suits the type of photography I love the most, capturing intimate, detailed scenes from a distance. But this question isn’t just about gear preferences. It’s also about how you approach your work and, possibly, how you approach life. To delve into this further, we need to explore another question: Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Are You an Extrovert or Introvert? Your Lens Choice Might Hold the Answer Whether you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert can be influenced by many factors. Do you enjoy collaborating in a group, or do you prefer working alone? Is your ideal weekend packed with social events, or do you cherish time spent in solitude? These traits could also correlate with your photography style and, interestingly, your preferred lens. >> Read More​