My friend Michael Frye has been post­ing some very help­ful instruc­tional videos on Vimeo. This is his third and final video on white bal­ance (fol­low the link in the video frame to view the pre­vi­ous two, plus those on other top­ics, on Vimeo). I’ve posted the last of the series because it deals specif­i­cally with the thorny issue of white bal­ance in land­scape pho­tographs. Like many pho­tog­ra­phers, I am often asked if the col­ors in my images are “real” or “what I saw.” And I am never sure if I should respond with a lec­ture on the mechan­ics of human vision, the sen­si­tiv­ity of mod­ern cam­era sen­sors, the vagaries of white bal­ance, dodg­ing and burn­ing, and so on — or just nod and smile my way to another topic. Sim­i­larly, some pho­tog­ra­phers think there is only one proper white bal­ance for any given pho­to­graph, while oth­ers will tell you quite the oppo­site. Michael’s video is not specif­i­cally about these debates, but in talk­ing about the dif­fi­cul­ties of white bal­ance adjust­ment and how to solve them, he offers much food for thought as well as some valu­able prac­ti­cal advice.

Michael, by the way, runs photo work­shops at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Val­ley three or four times a year, con­cen­trat­ing on Light­room and Pho­to­shop work­flow, with twice-daily photo out­ings in an unbeat­able loca­tion. I went from tak­ing one of his work­shops to assist­ing him for about two and a half years, so I’m not exactly objec­tive in my views. But that said, I highly rec­om­mend his work­shops; for more infor­ma­tion, visit Michael Frye Pho­tog­ra­phy (opens in a new window).