Good photographers also routinely calculate the precise angle of sunrises and sunsets during the course of the year to position the sun (and moon and Milky Way) where it can best compliment a particular composition. It’s a way to turn a good photograph into a great one. Notice how the leading lines formed by the faint moonlight streaming through the tufa formations at Mono Lake draw your eye into the picture. The moonlight also helps clearly define the outline of the rocks against the night sky. The image is also perfectly framed by the Milky Way as it sits low in the summer sky, centered exactly above this formation. To create this shot, Marc made trips to this location over the course of four years, taking advantage of the brief window of time when all of these elements came together.

Timing is critical in order to take advantage of the best seasons to photograph things like peak fall colors, spring waterfalls at full volume, and in the photo below, the late summer storms that roll across Arizona. Here Marc either got lucky or more likely used a shutter release device triggered by the flash of lightning to create this incredible desert image. The location was scouted in advance, one of several he probably had in mind after multiple trips to the area. As the storm moved across the horizon he anticipated where to position himself as it came into range. A nicely backlit line of cholla cactuses draws you into the scene toward the lightning on the right and a couple of saguaros provide nice highlights and help add some depth of field. Most photographers would have settled for a photo of the menacing storm clouds and lightning without much regard to the rest of the composition whereas Marc combines both a great composition and the unusual storm. There is always an element of luck in these types of images, but a well prepared photographer tends to get "luckier" more often than his less experienced counterparts. The clouds and lighting transform what would be just a good desert scene into something much more dramatic.

And finally, here’s a really unusual image Max shot in Lofoton, Norway that I recently purchased. Every year he spends many long, freezing nights (for this photo, four) waiting for dramatic aurorae borealis in places like Iceland, Greenland and Scandinavia hoping to create images like this one. Like the photo of the desert scene above, he's not content to shoot a picture of the surreal light in the sky without incorporating it into a great composition. And having his friend standing atop a seemingly impossible to climb peak adds a greater sense of scale than just the city lights in the distance. The slightly highlighted slope of the ridge on the left side draws your eyes up toward the dramatic light show in the sky, where you can clearly make out the silhouette of the person at the top. There is enough light behind the climber so that he does not blend into the dark part of the sky, a small but important detail. There is also enough light from the aurora behind the photographer to bathe the snow on the face of the mountain with an eerie green glow. This is a great example of the lengths the very best photographers will go to get the perfect shot.

Click on the links below to check out their respective sites to see more of their amazing (and reasonably priced) photos.

Max Rive

Marc Adamus