K E E N P R E S S

Beautiful film about the Arctic, watch and enjoy!

We have just returned from another month long expedition in The Baltic Sea onboard The National Geographic Explorer. Working on another story about iPhone apps. Meanwhile here is a link to latest published story on National Geographic.com about improving your iPhone photography.

Sisse and I have FINALLY had a chance to come home to sunny Copenhagen. Evidently we missed all the rain. We have had tremendous adventures in Baja California and then in the Arctic with National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions. Now we are packing up again heading off to some pretty cool destinations here in Europe for Traveller Magazine. We leave again later this week and promise to keep you up to date on our travel experiences.

It’s soon fall and I keep reading about all the new camera technologies about be announced. Meanwhile we are judging again a very exciting photo contest with National Geographic Channel and SONY. Click here to read more.

Here is our message to all photographers…

Concentrate on keeping your camera settings simple, and focus more on light, composition, and capturing the moment. Also photograph people, places, and things that you care about, this always produces the most compelling imagery. When you are attracted to a subject be sure to work the situation and not just take one shot and move on. Try to surprise yourself in finding new ways to see the world.

Taking a short break here in Cape Cod in between projects and then heading back down to Delaware to produce another short film on this beautiful Mansion and Gardens. This fall our book gets published. You can pre-order here

Amazon.com: Nemours: A Portrait of Alfred I. duPont’s Home: Dwight Young, Sisse Brimberg, Cotton Coulson, Grace Gary: Books.

Tried to write a concise guide to shooting HD video with the latest crop of cameras.
Enjoy the film as well.

[Update on this post. Have just returned from Antarctica shooting with the Nikon D7000. Amazing 1080 HD video.] Until Nikon comes out with a 1080 HD video camera, there is some hope short term. I just picked up a new Novoflex EOS/NIK NT adapter which permits shooters to use all their great Nikkor and Zeiss lenses on the Canon EOS bodies. Since we are diehard Nikon shooters, this does not apply to us, but if you already own Nikon lenses, this gives you the chance to mix and match. The build quality is beautiful. I will certainly be trying this in a few weeks during our Alaska HDSLR workshop onboard the National Geographic Sea Bird in Alaska. I will be joined by other great photographers, Kim Heacock, Ralph Lee Hopkins, and Mike Nolan. We are even going to have a B&H Technical Specialist onboard.

I am very exited about this product launch, it finally seems like there is a seamless path to integrate both products. Look for real world tests and feedback to follow.

REMAINS from cotton coulson on Vimeo.

A short film, combining still photos and footage from Whaler’s Bay, Deception Island, Antarctica. This is the first of several segments about debris in the pristine environment. Funding provided by Danish Copyright Fund.
Special thanks to Lindblad National Geographic Expeditions and to our favorite composer, Pauchi Sasaki.

So there are the credits and special thanks one always wants to share. After all its a film, its supposed to collaborative. Well not everyone thought this film worked. Someone from the Sony XDCAM EX Footage crowd on Vimeo liked the footage but thought the music did not match. Other friends of ours, whose opinions we highly regard, did not like the juxtaposition of ‘moving’ images with ‘still’ images. Just a hint, they represent a very senior voice at National Geographic. Another very well respected NY curator loved the piece, and so did my mother, which means a lot to myself and Sisse.
We would really like to hear what you think. We are still convinced there is a successful way to merge the emotive responses we have to these different forms of expression.
Looking forward to publishing your thoughts.

Here is a LINK on the Geographic Expeditions site listing our upcoming travels and workshops. Should have a  photo of both of us:)

Will be a great summer, come join us if you can.

Well, we are finally back in Copenhagen after being away for nearly three months. Missed the entire COP-15 Climate Conference, instead, we were sailing in the Southern Ocean, filming whales, black penguins, and albatross. Three trips in total onboard the National Geographic Explorer. The guests were great, and nearly everyone left the expedition feeling really good about all they had learned, both from the Lindblad naturalists and the Lindblad/Geographic photo team. Here is a link to all of the Daily Expedition Reports to see where and what we were up to. Click here. We have been updating our website with some of the imagery, take a look if you have time. Now we are processing all of our stills and videos, sending them off to the agencies and preparing our summer up North in the Arctic.

Here is a link to our next big trip, Beyond the North Cape, Norway’s Fjord’s and Arctic Svalbard. We will be representing the National Geographic onboard, helping everyone master their skills in photography, and now something new, digital video. With all the new cameras coming out with HD video capabilities, its time to get out the notebooks and start learning, yet another. set of skills. What new and special techniques do you need to think about what you start shooting motion, and recording sound. I am working right now on the curriculum, and will post updates as they get polished. As you know, we have been actively engaged in the recent migration from stills to video. There are shooting and editing techniques to consider, and what better way than on a Lindblad Expedition. One last note before I sign off. We made a new ‘best friend’ on the trip. His name is Andrew Evans, and you have probably heard of him from his Bus2Antarctica project with Geographic Traveler magazine. Read his blog and follow his tweets. It’s changing the way we report and send material back to our loyal readers. He also happens to be one of the nicest persons we have met in a long time. It was a pleasure to travel and work with him. Okay, need to get back to editing and distributing the work. The agencies are anxiously waiting for the material. Stay tuned, I will be back soon.