Fine Art Landscape And Nature Photography Blog

Interview with Adam Woodworth

February 28, 2018

Welcome to episode 045 of the F-Stop Collaborate and Listen podcast with Maine-based landscape photographer Adam Woodworth! I have been a fan of Adam's work for several years and it was so cool to finally get to talk to him over the podcast medium! Adam is a full-time photographer and works on various projects with Nikon. His work is very, very good and deserves some attention. It was fun speaking with Adam - it was a very laid back conversation.

We covered some great topics this week, including:

  • Adam's journey into landscape photography.
  • Adam's decision to become a full-time professional photographer.
  • His cross-country road trip from Maine to Alaska (here's a link to Andrew Skurka's route we talked about).
  • Night Photography.
  • Adam's video tutorials.

Special announcements: This week we are partnering with F-Stop Gear - we are giving away a Medium Shallow ICU to a lucky podcast listener. If you're not familiar with their products, their backpacks are fantastic (I use an older F-Stop Loka) and their ICUs are what you use to put all of your camera gear into the backpack. What's cool about the Medium Shallow ICU is that it will work in all kinds of other backpacks as well and works well with both Mirrorless gear and DSLR gear. In order to enter to win, all you need to do is head on over to the Podcast's Facebook Group and comment on the thread I created there - tell us what you like about the podcast and what topics and guests you'd like to hear in the future. I will choose a winner based on how interesting the comment is (that's my super scientific way to pick)! 

Please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! There's a ton of bonus content over there for subscribers!

To learn more about Adam:

Website

Facebook

Instagram

Here are the artists that Adam would like to hear on the podcast:

Mike Mezeul

Mandy Lea

Ben Williamson

Jerry Monkman

Some examples of Adam's photography can be seen below. 

I love hearing from the podcast listeners! Reach out to me via Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter if you'd like to be on the podcast or if you have an idea of a topic we can talk about. You can also join the conversation on our Facebook Group.

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer

This shot has been in the planning for about 2 years or so, and I finally had a chance to try it a few days ago. A lot of things needed to come together for this to work. It had to be early in the year (at the start of "Milky Way season") in order to even see the Milky Way from inside the cave, and I needed clear skies during the new moon when the tide was low enough to get in and out of the cave and still have enough time to try various angles and take all the shots I would need. All those things came together except for some clouds that obscured the lower part of the Galactic Center of the Milky Way, and it was bitterly cold and very windy, although it was calm inside the cave. I think the ambient temp was somewhere between 0F - 5F. I had to snowshoe down the hillside through the woods to the shore, then put on Microspikes to cross the ice covered rocks and carefully make my way over to and inside the cave. All in the dark, but with a headlamp of course. Note that I won't be saying exactly where this cave is located. It's not exactly a secret, but it has been removed from guide books for good reason, it's a fairly dangerous place and you could be swimming your way out if you're not careful, and it houses a fragile environment in its tidepools. All the signs for the cave, and the railing that lead to the entrance, were removed many years ago to protect those inexperienced from getting injured or stranded. You'll notice that there's a lot of color in the sky, there's orange light from light pollution from towns up the coast, there's some green from airglow, and the reddish color might also be airglow. Nikon D800E with Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens @ 17mm. Like most of my night photos, this is a blend of multiple exposures to get the scene in focus and exposed from the foreground to the stars. Technically 13 exposures were used to create this final image. 10 exposures of 10 seconds each at ISO 6400 were used for star stacking of the sky. Those exposures wer

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer

This morning was incredibly beautiful at Head Harbour Lighthouse, also known as East Quoddy Lighthouse, with rime ice and sea smoke galore. Yesterday the sea smoke was so intense that you couldn’t see the lighthouse, but today was just about perfect. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 62mm, f/11, ISO 64, 1/20 second, polarizer.

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer

Sukakpak Mountain in the Brooks Range Mountains above the Arctic Circle in Alaska on an early July night. Night in the Arctic Circle in the summer means the sun doesn't set, and this was around midnight. This mountain was once part of an ancient seabed, it started as limestone and through intense heat and pressure was transformed into marble and was forced up during the formation of the Brooks Range. I believe the round pile of dirt with grass on top just right of center frame is a palsa, a frost heave that pushes up the ground in shapes like these, found in arctic and sub-arctic regions. This was shot with the Nikon 19mm tilt-shift lens, stay tuned for an upcoming article that I'm doing with Nikon on this lens! Nikon D810, 19mm tilt-shift lens, f/11, ISO 64, 1/4 second.

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer

It's not often you find a waterfall below an island in a river with a mountain backdrop, but that's exactly what I found at Sunwapta Falls in Canada's Jasper National Park. I went here for sunset a few days ago and was hoping for the sky to light up pink but it never did, but the clearing storm left behind lots of wispy clouds. I used my polarizer to darken the sky and bring out the contrast in the clouds, making them much more visible and dramatic than they were without the polarizer. According to Wikipedia, "Sunwapta" is a Stoney language word that means "turbulent water", and the water of the Sunwapta River originates from the Athabasca Glacier, further down the road on the Icefields Parkway. Nikon D810, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, polarizer, @ 24mm, f/11, ISO 64 and 1/2 second.

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer

Glowing Coast Big thanks to Benjamin M. Williamson Photography for the heads up on the bioluminescence along the cliffs of Acadia National Park in Maine! After spending the weekend at the end of the coast of Maine, I finished out the trip by stopping by Acadia on Monday to see the sight with my own eyes. It was absolutely incredible! While the glow in the photo is brighter and much more blue than it was in person due to the limitations of human vision, and the fact that that camera can see more with long exposures, it was still intense to see in person and the photo doesn’t do the experience justice. The blue light is real, and is just about how my camera captured it, I didn’t do anything to boost the blue. My night vision was adapted enough to see the bright glow in the water as the waves washed over rocks, exciting the microorganisms in the water. For more detailed information on bioluminescence please check out Ben’s Facebook page and his photo from the same spot, he has a comment that explains bioluminescence emitted from dinoflagellates. This is a blend of 10 exposures for the sky and 2 foreground exposures. 10 shots for the sky were each taken at ISO 10,000, 10 seconds, f/2.8, and then stacked with Starry Landscape Stacker for pinpoint stars and low noise. The 2 foreground exposures were taken at lower ISO and longer shutter speeds for a cleaner foreground, 1 at ISO 1600 for 20 minutes and another at ISO 6400 for 2 minutes, both at f/2.8. The exposures were then blended in Photoshop to create a single image with low noise and sharp focus. All shots were taken with the Nikon D810A and Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm. To learn more about my Milky Way photography editing techniques check out my written tutorials and videos on my website, click the Shop Now button at the top of my Facebook page to go to my website. #Maine #Acadia #bioluminescence #MilkyWay #photography #LandscapeAstrophotography #night #stars #AdamWoodworthPhotography

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer

Grafton Notch, Maine I spent a couple hours photographing at Screw Auger Falls on Friday night, working towards getting this shot figured out. It was very very dark and I tried a few light painting techniques but I didn't like the way it was looking, so ultimately I did a 20 minute exposure for the foreground at ISO 1600. The sky is ISO 3200 for 25 seconds. I needed a way to keep the lens from fogging over during the long exposure, so I wrapped a wool sock around the lens barrel with chemical hand warmers in the sock to keep the lens warm, using gaff tape (something I have from my days a filmmaker) wrapped on top of the sock to keep it on the lens. #milkyway #screwaugerfalls #maine #graftonnotch #astrophotography #waterfall

Adam Woodworth - Becoming a Full-Time Professional Landscape Photographer
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