How do I place an order?

What forms of payment do you accept? 

How safe is my personal information?

Whenever I view images on this site (or any website), the colors seem off.  Why is that?

What is the best camera to get?

What camera brand is the best?

Should I be using a tripod?

I paid a lot of money for my gear, but my images still don't look good.  Why?

How do I place an order?

Ordering is easy!  Simply browse our image gallery by clicking on the Gallery link at the top of any page on this site, then choose one of the subcategories.  You will be taken to the gallery for that subcategory.  Simply click on any of the thumbnails to be taken to the order page for that image.  Choose the size and number of prints you'd like, then click the Add to Cart button.  From there you'll be taken to your shopping cart where you can either checkout or continue shopping for other products.  The rest of the ordering process is pretty straightforward, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

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What forms of payment do you accept?

At this time, all payment is processed either through PayPal or via check/money order.  I am currently looking into getting a merchant account for accepting credit cards, but this will need to be a cost-effective solution before it is implemented.  PayPal has not given me any problems since I've been using them for the past three years.

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How safe is my personal information?

I take security very seriously.  All personal information is encrypted with state-of-the-art encryption before it is sent to the servers so you can rest assured that none of your personal information will be seen by unauthorized viewers.

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Whenever I view images on this site (or any website), the colors seem off.  Why is that?

In order to properly view the images on this site as they were intended to be viewed, it helps a lot to have a properly calibrated monitor.  If your monitor isn't calibrated, or set up to view colors and tonalities properly, the colors that you see on your monitor will not look the way they were intended to look (ie. greens may appear muddy, shadows blocked up, color casts in areas that should be white, etc.).  Fortunately, there are a couple ways to do this: the expensive way and the free way.

If you're someone who's serious about your photography and want the best results possible, I highly suggest purchasing a hardware calibrator.  These come with a device called a colorimeter to hang on your monitor and software that interfaces with it which creates the actual color profiles used to adjust your monitor for proper output.  As with everything, you get what you pay for so I recommend going with something along the lines of the i1 Display 2 by X-Rite or the Spyder 3 Pro by Datacolor.  These devices currently sell online for $200 and  $149, respectively.

Although not as accurate as using a hardware profiler, you can visually calibrate your display too.    Try doing an internet search for "Adobe Gamma" to download a free version of Adobe's visual calibration tool that used to ship with Photoshop.  It no longer does as of version CS3.  There may be other programs out there that can be found by searching the 'net as well.  Click here to see my page on monitor calibration for more information and suggestions.

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What is the best camera to get?

The one that has the features you need at a price you can afford.  Excuse me for sounding blunt, but it really is this simple.  All cameras currently being produced deliver excellent image quality so don't fret over needing the most expensive camera with 20+ megapixels, unless of course you plan on making extremely huge prints.  The reasons the pros buy these cameras is because they use their equipment hard every single day in some pretty extreme conditions so they need equipment that is built to take the abuse they put it through.  I personally use a Nikon D90, which actually has slightly less resolution than my previous Canon 5D, and I love it.  It works for me and gives me excellent image quality.  Best of all, I paid less than $1000 for it brand new.  Save your money for good lenses instead.  Remember this: photography is more about technique than equipment.

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What camera brand is the best?

Any camera brand is capable of producing excellent images.  In today's cutthroat market companies that don't deliver don't last.  Normally I don't recommend certain brands over others just because this kind of thing can be so subjective, but I will make an exception here.  I would stick with either Canon or Nikon simply because of the wide variety of lenses and accessories that are available for these two brands.  They both have over 40 lenses in their current lineup that run the gamut from extreme wide angle to super telephoto.  No other camera company has a lens selection as diverse as these two companies do.  You'll also find that every third party lens manufacturer in existence makes lenses to fit these two brands so there are even more choices.  In addition, Canon and Nikon make up the majority of the market share in the digital photography industry.

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Should I be using a tripod?

That depends on your photographic style.  There is no doubt that using a tripod will improve the quality of your images.  However, some people are very spontaneous and like to cover a lot of ground quickly.  For these folks, a tripod usually slows them down and is more of a hindrance than a help.  Others like to photograph in situations where the action is fast and things are changing rapidly.  Arguably, these situations are not ideal for the use of a tripod.  If you're a landscape photographer, you have an advantage because your subjects don't move (unless the wind is blowing, of course) and you don't have to go chasing after them.  Landscape photography also tends to work best when you approach it slowly and methodically.  Because of this, a tripod is ideal in these situations.  I use one just about all the time.  The number of shots I take without one every year is extremely small.  It makes my images sharper and it forces me to slow down and focus on composition and my subject.  Nature photographers will also benefit from the use of a tripod when using extreme telephoto lenses.  Otherwise, it's very difficult to get tack sharp photos when handholding a 600mm f/4 lens.  

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I paid a lot of money for my gear, but my images still don't look good.  Why?

This question reminds me a lot about a story I once heard from another photographer.  He was having dinner with a fellow photographer at one of those restaurants where they have tables sitting outside by the sidewalk.  The chef came out because he was friends with the other photographer and noticed this guy's camera which was hanging on the chair he was sitting in.  It was one of those big professional digital cameras.  The chef remarked that with a camera like that, he must get some really nice images.  After dinner, the photographer went back into the kitchen and found the chef.  He asked him what kind of cookware he used to make the food they ate.  After finding out, the photographer remarked that that must be the reason the food tasted so good. 

The point of all this is that it's not what equipment you own or how expensive it is, but how you use your equipment and the technique you use that really matters.  Give a trumpet virtuoso a student trumpet and he can make beautiful music on it.  Give a 6th grade band student a $4000 trumpet and it'll still sound bad.  Excellent images have been made using cheap cameras with $200 lenses because the photographer knew how to maximize the potential of his or her equipment and make it work for him or her.  There have been images made with a cheap $25 Holga camera sold in fine art galleries for hundreds of dollars.  Concentrate on your technique, not on having the latest and greatest equipment, because then you'll be on a merry-go-round that never stops and won't have time for photography.  Good technique equals good images.  And don't feel bad if most of your images don't turn out.  Your number of keeper images will climb the more you get out and take pictures.  I just read an article in Outdoor Photographer magazine by Glen Randall.  In it he says that "even with my analytical approach, it takes me 10 days in the field, on average, to produce one truly compelling image."  One!

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This page is a work in progress.  Please check back often for updates.