Happy new year !

I hope you enjoyed your holiday season and emerged from December feeling rejuvenated and excited for a great year ahead! I like to think that standing at the edge of a new calendar year is like holding a blank journal in your hands. It’s exciting to imagine all the ideas and mental tidbits you’ll jot down on all those blank pages, ideas which could eventually blossom and end up becoming important or memorable events in your life. 

Same thing with photography. We stand here with so many memories of the photos we shot last year and the adventures we had, and we can’t help but wonder what we’ll do this year? Will we do even cooler stuff in 2018? Will we shoot even more amazing photos that clearly illustrate the culmination of everything we learned about photography last year?

The answer, of course, is yes. We’ll all do cool stuff this year and we’ll all take photos we’re very proud of, even if we think that we shot our best photos of our lives in 2017. Rest assured. Even if you think you’re not off to a great start, it’s probably because you’re trying to compare yourself to last year. My latest blog post talks about this. Don't fall in to that trap.

​2017 Dan Bailey Photo Recap

2017 was a banner year for me and certainly one of my best years to date, with two great Fujifilm Summits, two incredible trips to Scotland, some awesome bush flying adventures and aerial photography, lots of cycling, including a full season of mountain bike racing, and a huge batch of photos that I’m really proud of. (Here are my 12 favorite shots from last year).

Professionally, 2017 brought great success, and I have you guys, my readers, to thank for much of that. After all, you are the ones who read my blog, follow me on social media, attended my workshops, and of course, read my books and eBooks. 

You were the ones who made X SERIES UNLIMITED not only bestselling eBook, but my best eBook of all the titles I’ve written. You were the ones who asked me so many of the questions which prompted me to write the book, and those of you who wanted it in time for your upcoming summer trips, you prompted me to buckle down and crank it out by the middle of July. And you were the ones who gave me such awesome feedback.



FYI, I have just updated X SERIES UNLIMITED to reflect the recent firmware updates and the release of the X-E3. If you bought the book you should have already received an update email and link from me. If you didn’t get that email, let me know.

Anyway, you are the ones who continue to comment on my posts, recommend my blog and eBooks on the forums, who link to my articles on your own blogs, who read my emails and  newsletters, who click through my B&H and Amazon links, and who share your own insight and imagery with me when we meet out in the real world. 

Your enthusiasm and passion for photography inspires me to keep doing this because I want everyone to enjoy photography as much as I do. I genuinely believe that if more people spent time doing creative activities, playing outside and having fun, the world would be a better place. I want that. 

So, for all of that, I want to thank you again for your support, . This has been a really fun ride so far (next month is my 22nd year as a pro photographer!) and I’m looking forward to another great year. I hope you are too!

Yay!! Another Top Blogging Award

I’m excited to start 2018 with another top blogging award. The Adventure Junkies have just listed my site as one of the Top 25 Outdoor Photography Blogs. This is the fourth time in recent years that I’ve been given this kind of recognition and I’m really honored. 

The Adventure Junkies is a site geared toward helping people become more confident and proficient with outdoor adventures, such as climbing, skiing, hiking, cycling and even outdoor photography. Their mindset is Believe It, Learn It, Live It, which encourages people that they can do anything they want in life. 

If you believe you can accomplish something, make a genuine effort to learn the skills for that endeavor, then connect with other like minded people, and actually get out there and try, then you will find the success you seek.

I think this applies to anything in life, and it certainly applies to photography. This mantra resonates with me, and it’s the kind of mindset that I try to instill and share with the people who surround me in my own life, whether here online, or outside in the world. 

Visit The Adventure Junkies and check out some of their resources. You can start with their list of the best 25 landscape photography books of all time.

Karen Hutton  - Photographer Extraordinaire and Awesome Creative Mentor

Since we’re on the subject of like minded people, there’s someone who comes to mind who would be worth following. If you aren’t already familiar with Karen’s work, I highly recommend you check out her blog. 

Not only is she a great photographer, Karen is a world class human being and a wonderful inspiration for creative people. She has awesome insight about creativity and doing your best work and she writes and teaches in a way that’s quite unique. 

Rather than just present technical tips, (too much technical talk puts her to sleep), she encourages people to dig down and explore the human side of being creative. Those of you who attended the first Fujifilm X Photographers Summit in the Great Smokies last year know what I’m talking about. Her teaching style is different, but different in an amazingly insightful way. 



I only met Karen a couple years ago, but it was like one of those instant lifelong friends things. We have a similar energy and a very complimentary teaching style. We taught together at the Great Smokies summit and we’re talking about doing some more teaching projects together in the future. You can see her own workshop offerings here, she has one coming up in March in Truckee, CA. There's talk of me crashing it, but that's not confirmed yet. 

Anyway, you should follow Karen, she’s a great teacher and her style is good for your soul. You might even want to check out her eBook, 10 Steps to Finding Your Voice. It’s only $5.25, and it’s a great introduction to her style of teaching and photography. 

Using the Tone Controls on Your Camera to Add Style to Your Imagery

Winter is my favorite times for shooting aerial photos, but with challenges like extreme temperatures, snow and ice fog… let’s just say I have to really want it. (Check out my article on the SmugMug blog called Aerial Pursuit: A man, a plane and a camera.)

The weather hasn’t been great for flying lately, but I managed to get up on Sunday for a very cold, but rewarding flight. I went out to the Tordrillo Mountains, which lie about 70 miles west of Anchorage and shot some new work on a clear afternoon. 

As with all my aerials, they’re straight JPEGs, shot with my two favorite film sims, VELVIA and ACROS. For a few frames, I experimented with different exposure settings in the Q Menu on my X-T2, going +2 on the COLOR control to enrich the colors a bit further, then adding in +2 on the SHADOW TONE to deepen the darks and help the mountain stand out from the shadows even more. 








(+2 COLOR and +2 SHADOW TONE)

I’ve been playing around with these Q Menu tone controls more in the past year and they’re pretty fun. They allow you to add a little more style to your imagery and accentuate certain elements in your scene, based on your own creative ideas. Give them a try!

For non Fuji shooters, I know that Nikon and Canon both have some kind of “Picture Control” options in their menus, some of which you can set different color profiles before shooting, like Vivid and monochrome, and others which you can change after you’ve already taken the shot. It’s not something you have to do, but as I said, it can be a fun way to embellish your photographic creativity.

Remember, photography isn’t about accurate reproduction, it’s about representation. In the end, your picture can look like whatever you want it to, and if you like it, then it’s right.

Gear Corner

Brand New - Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD Hard Drive



I just have one recommendation for you today, but it’s a good one. I’m really excited about this product because I think it solves a huge problem for outdoor and travel photographers: How can you download, backup and share your images if you’re on a trip but you don’t want to bring a laptop? 

The new WD My Passport Wireless SSD is a very powerful, multi-function tool - It’s an SSD hard drive that has an SD card slot, a Wi-Fi connection and a charging battery. It allows you to download your images right to the drive and access/transfer them to your phone or tablet via Wi-Fi and the WD cloud app so you can edit and/or share them on location. You can also use it to stream and transfer files at speeds up to 390 MB/s, including 4K video and you can even charge your mobile device using the internal battery and built-in USB port.

It's a great option to back up and store/share your images while traveling, and being an SSD drive, it’s WAY faster and much more rugged than a regular external hard drive. I have one of the original WD My Passport Wireless drives and although it it worked well during my Labrador and Romania trips, it was extremely slow, clunky and kind of fragile.

This new SSD version is a lot faster, and it features a rugged design and a rubber bumper that will protect the drive from drops of up to one meter, so again, great for outdoor shooters. 

Mobile photography workflows have been getting closer to hitting that sweet spot, and this new WD gets us there. I definitely plan on getting one of these and I see it becoming an essential cog in my travel photography setup. It comes in three sizes: 500GB, 1TB and 2TB.

As always, if you’re ever buying gear, even if it’s not photography equipment, using my B&H Photo and Amazon links helps me out with a small commission, and it doesn’t cost you anything extra. It’s just another way you can show your support for my efforts and recommendations. 

In fact, Amazon just gave me my own storefront with an easy link:

www.amazon.com/shop/danbaileyphoto

Super easy to remember. Just think: "Amazon, shop, Dan Bailey Photo"

This will be a place where you can find my favorite gear and products recommendations but you can also use as an entry page whenever you’re shopping anything on Amazon. I have a similar storefront at B&H Photo, but it doesn’t have a nice easy URL like my Amazon store.

Workshops and Photo Tours

I’ll be honest, with all of the writing, blogging and bike riding, I’ve been a little slow to plan workshops for 2018. In addition, I had a really cool location fall through, so I'm pretty disappointed about that.

I'm still working on it, though, and know I’ll get some things on the calendar for the year. In addition, I’m pretty sure I’ll becoming down to the lower 48 to do some classes and presentations, but with all I’ve had going on, it’s been tough for me to nail down dates and locations for the bigger workshops.

However, I do have some custom photo tour itineraries set. If you plan to visit Alaska this year, and would like to get together for some one-on-one instruction or do a super awesome photo tour, there are the things I can offer you.

If you do have plans to come up here, definitely get in touch with me as soon as possible to see if I’ll be available.

AERIAL GLACIER AND HELICOPTER HIKING PHOTO TOURS
YEAR ROUND

ALASKA BROWN BEAR PHOTO TOURS
SUMMER ONLY

Fly out to Katmai or Lake Clark National Park and photograph coastal Alaska brown bears in their natural habitat. These are the same locations the top professionals visit when they photograph bears in Alaska and you'll have the same level of photo access and potential photo ops.

Enjoy a half or full day custom photo tour with me along as your personal photography instructor/guide. 

Around the Web

I LOVE this post by Karen Hutton, called The Paradox & and a Couple of Myths. In it, she explores her take on the paradox of trying to take it all in and enjoy the experience, but at the same time, moving quickly and being an efficient photographer. Definitely worth a read. 

The Photo Argus has some pretty cool content, and this is a fitting post for a January newsletter. Read 5 Ways to Be a More Creative Photographer in the New Year.

There are so many articles about how to “pull the rabbit out of the hat” even when the light doesn’t cooperate. However, there reality is that sometimes it’s just doesn’t work out, and that’s ok. This piece by Jeremy Gray is a good reminder not to get too wrapped up the end product that you forget to enjoy the process. After all, our time spent doing photography in the outdoors is far more important than the actual pictures you take. 

With that in mind, check out this article, called Why it’s Ok to Fail as a Photographer. After all, we should not be afraid of failure, it’s a natural aspect of life. It shouldn’t have such a negative stigma, rather it should be considered a temporary roadblock that acts as a problem solving tool. 

I know that some of you have made the move to Luminar to process your photos. I’ve been  having an awesome time with the program and can highly recommend it. (Use discount code DANBAILEY to save $10 on the software) For those of you who are now using the program, you should check out the Skylum Photography Facebook group. This is a great place to interact with other uses, get processing tips and share your own work.


Ok, that’s all for this issue. Happy new year , and thanks for reading. I wish you prosperity and lots of adventure in the coming months. 

Enjoy my recent blog posts and have a great week!