The Wild Photographer

Light, Composition, Moment: Ralph Lee Hopkins, on Building a Life in Photography

• Court Whelan • Episode 67

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In this episode of The Wild Photographer, Court sits down with Ralph Lee Hopkins—National Geographic photo instructor, expedition leader, and one of the most influential photo guides in adventure travel—to unpack what it really means to live the life of a photographer.

Ralph traces his journey from geology student to global photo mentor, sharing how photography became a way to slow down, tune in, and stay deeply present in nature. Along the way, he breaks down his core mantra—Light, Composition, Moment—and explains why mastering these fundamentals matters more now than ever.

The conversation dives deep into the realities of building a sustainable photography career: shooting what you know, starting locally, developing multiple revenue streams, and understanding how travel, teaching, and storytelling intersect. Ralph also shares hard-earned lessons from decades of ship-based polar expeditions, including how to work fast in extreme conditions, simplify your kit, and stay ready when fleeting wildlife moments unfold.

On the technical side, Ralph offers practical advice on exposure (why slightly overexposing can preserve color), Lightroom organization (collections are everything), and editing with restraint—letting strong images shine without over-processing. He also reflects on photography as a powerful conservation tool, emphasizing long-term projects, meaningful partnerships, and images that tell more complicated, honest stories.

Whether you’re an aspiring photographer or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with wisdom, field-tested techniques, and perspective from someone who’s spent a lifetime behind the camera—often at the edge of the world.

Follow Ralph Online:

Instagram: @ralphleehopkins (https://www.instagram.com/ralphleehopkins/)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RalphLeeHopkinsPhotography/

Website/portfolio: RalphLeeHopkins.com (https://ralphleehopkins.zenfolio.com/)

Court's Websites

Sponsors and Promo Codes:


Ralph Lee Hopkins (00:00)
you know, being a high energy kid, this slowed me down and put me in the moment. it fit being in nature, being in the moment. And that's really my central theme with photography. Why do we do it? Is to be out there and be in the moment with what we're

Court Whelan (00:19)
boy, do we have another great episode, a great guest. Welcome back to the wild photographer friends. My guest today is Ralph Lee Hopkins, a national geographic photo instructor and what I would call kind of a celebrity photo guide in the world of guided photo expeditions. shouldn't say kinda, he truly is the real deal. I've known Ralph for quite some time and I'm a huge admirer of not just his photography, which is spectacular, but really how he crafted his career and his positions.

in the adventure travel space to truly make a career out of traveling to the ends of the earth and teaching photography in doing so. We cover a lot today, including how his mantra is light composition moment. That's a really. Why it's important to photograph what you know to begin a successful nature photography career, the business of photography, especially the business of photography, especially as it pertains to travel and travel photography.

Some great career advice for budding photographers,

photography on ship-based expeditions, some great tips for organizing photos in Lightroom, and especially the importance of collections. Also the importance of working, and also why overexposing can actually be your best friend when preserving colors in your photography. That and so, much more. So without further ado, let's get into the episode.

Court Whelan (01:39)
Ralph, it's this one's been a long time coming, but welcome to the podcast.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (01:44)
Great to see you, Court, and happy New Year.

Court Whelan (01:47)
Yeah, happy new year to you too. So I'm going to start off with a question. I haven't asked this as the intro question to any other guests yet, draws you to photography? You've had an amazing illustrious career that span decades and you're clearly an artist. I've seen your work in many, many different ways, including in your home, on your wall, from travel catalogs and magazines.

What kind of continues to draw you to photography or drew you in the first place? What is it about photography to Ralph Lee Hopkins?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (02:22)
That's a really good question because what drew me to photography was my background in geology. And when I first went west, I grew up back east in New York. I had seen the Grand Canyon on the one out west trip we did. And I was an outdoor kid. But after I had my geology degree and I saw, went out and visited the Red Rocks in Utah with a camera. That changed everything. Actually, you know, it wasn't...

Even the marquee places, Capitol Reef National Park, the tilted rock layers there. I just got totally into it.

So my girlfriend at the time, we figured out a way to get back out west and we got out to Richfield, Utah, central Utah, not far from Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and work for the forest service. So I really owned my skills when I was building fences as a 22 year old. And so being very visual. ⁓

being interested in geology and then wildlife would just show up. So you'd shoot what was there. One of the lessons from that is shoot what you know. And then I fell into getting a four by five foot camera. So I taught myself a large format. I'd go backpacking for a week and take 10 sheets of film, because that's all I could afford. And so I learned composition with this large format camera and carrying around a tripod.

And so that it was a process for me. And it was something that, you know, being a high energy kid, this slowed me down and put me in the moment. it fit being in nature, being in the moment. And that's really my central theme with photography. Why do we do it? Is to be out there and be in the moment with what we're doing, at least in nature photography, you know, sports and, and, you know, editorial or even war photography is a totally different game.

For me, it's being outside and being in nature.

Court Whelan (04:08)
love to hear that.

Yeah, and I love to hear you say that too, because I feel like there's a lot going around today where people are almost on the other side of the fence and saying, you know, well, you got to put the camera down every once in a while, you got to, you got to be in the moment and not make it all about photography. And I feel pretty vehemently that at least for myself, that photography is what gets me in the moment. It's what puts me there. And yes, you get these wonderful making memories things, but to hear you

with your venerable career to say that right off the bat. It's inspiring and a good reminder that, no, if you do it right and you are just borderline obsessed with photography, like I know we both are and like many of the audience are, photography can actually be the tool to actually get you to stay and be in that moment and to appreciate things on a deeper, much deeper level.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (05:01)
gotta know your camera. You gotta know your equipment. And that's why the iPhone, and ⁓ when I say iPhone, I mean all smartphones, but since Apple invented it, ⁓ say iPhone. It's the best. ⁓ It's leveled the playing field, because it is putting in the moment. And I fight that same battle. Put your camera down and.

And when people say this, yeah, I'll put my camera down, be in the moment. But after I got the

you know, when you see something, you're just driven to it. And there's something neurological that does happen. This has been shown to be true when you look and we're different people than what I say normal people, because we're out there and no longer is it, okay, it's a beautiful sunset. It's like, okay, what's the angle? What can be foreground? Are there clouds? Do I wait for the light? You know,

the mantra is light composition moment. And anything's going to look good in beautiful light, make them pleasing composition. And if there's a moment there, ⁓ you know, that's what keeps you there. And there's times when you don't know if you're wasting your time or not,

just putting down the camera and looking at it, that's, that's okay. And being there. But I think for us, and I think that's why people, you you get in a group that loves to travel that way is that.

Yeah, being in the moment with your camera,

what we do and it's also very healing. You can use photography to treat PTSD and things like that. Because when you were there looking at that flower, trying to line it up and watch the background and then check your settings, you're not thinking about anything else that's bothering you in your life, any traumas that you have, even the pain of kneeling down sometimes, you forget about it until you've made your picture.

Court Whelan (06:43)
It's that flow state. was talking with a previous guest, Will Patino and he came out of the gates with that too. And it's, it is, you know, it's hard to get into flow state. If folks haven't heard of it, you know, there's some great, great books on it. ⁓ short summary books and long peer reviewed article type books. And it's, it's not everything gets you there, but it's cool when you find that. And I'm glad to hear that. What I can surmise is that it also gets you into that flow state. My next question is,

Well, it's a little bit of a selfish one, but you know, I feel like sometimes the selfish questions

ones for everybody else, because I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking about it. But so you're you're a photo guide. You have been a photo guide for many, many years. And to be totally honest, you're a bit of a celebrity photo guide. Not a bit, but you are a genuine celebrity photo guide. People will seek out your departures. They will travel with you. They will follow you to the ends of earth, quite literally in many cases. And I'm wondering when you have like

intermediate photographers on a trip, people that they know their way around the camera. They may not be 10 out of 10 completely versed in their camera settings or their cameras menu systems, but they're they get photography. Like they've heard the rule of thirds 11, 10 times, you know, ⁓ how do you approach that when you have people that really kind of know the core of photography? There's always room to grow. But what are some of the

lessons and teachings that you might come out of the gates with for folks that aren't going to necessarily benefit from the real basic rules, but you're kind of starting at an elevated level. What sort of talks might be around that?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (08:19)
the challenge is to get people to see in a new way.

So for an intermediate photographer that doesn't have as much experience or anyone really is learning in this, you learn over time is how does the camera see the world? If you go out and look for Northern Lights, your eye can't collect the light for five, six, seven seconds to see a really dim Northern Lights. But my God, my iPhone got it right on a 10 second setting.

⁓ So learning how your camera sees and then once you understand that, it's a new way of looking at the world. And then also the reviewing the compositional things that you can do and techniques in the moment. If you have a lizard on a log, you can take a beautiful picture of a lizard on a log. But if you get back a little bit and zoom in and blur leaves around the lizard on the log and make it kind of a frame.

You're taking it to the next level. then, and then the other thing is that is tweaking compositions while you're there. And the thing about digital is it's unlimited. know, magic of digital is the joy of digital is it's unlimited. The curse of digital is it's unlimited. And then you have to try to sort through all those pictures.

the other thing I try to get people to do is to shoot in sequences. You know, if you've got a great subject over here.

photograph that till you're done with it then go to the next thing. then when you're editing, you have this sequence. yeah, I working on the flower and I remember that I played with the background and then finally got it. then you're there. So knowing what works with your camera, really watching the light, and then again, having that in your head light composition moment.

You just want to work it. And I think there's a misconception that the pro can walk up and

kneel down, make a picture. Oh yeah, I got it. And then go on to the next thing. If anything, we're more paranoid that we're missing the moment and that why didn't I do that last thing or I didn't realize there was a distraction or a hot spot. So especially with wildlife, that's the other thing is it's the exposure, you know, the

You know, the monkey in the tree against the white background. mean, how do you shoot that? And you're really breaking all the rules of shooting because you just blast out the background and make sure you're, you know, you can read the animal.

Court Whelan (10:47)
So you've mentioned light a couple of times and I think we all know good light when we see it, you know, like, that's, that's nice light. And we might, as we get more versed into photography, be able to recognize it when it peaks through the clouds or anything like that, you know, like kind of a moment of nicer light, but how do you harness light in your photography? Is that as simple as prioritizing a certain time of day? Is it just your acuity for finding good light? Is it the fact that you're

Angling or pivoting around a subject or moving around a scene to get certain angles of light like how do you how do you best deal with light?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (11:25)
That is an open question. and, I, you know, we borrow sayings from all the previous photographers who said this one, but any light is good light.

Court Whelan (11:27)
for the next four hours.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (11:37)
take harsh light. mean, you're, you're at the Grand Canyon, you know, and it's even a little hazy and it's, you know, but you take your long lens and find repeating ridges and underexpose it. And you've got this kind of misty contrasty scene.

And then you convert it to black and white later, but you're thinking about it, you know, and, you know, it's art if it's black and white, right? It's a masterpiece. It's not what you're writing. So, I mean, that's using contrasted light. Or if it's just, you know, normal people go, come out, it's a perfect day. There's not a cloud in the sky. You know, and all of a sudden, my God, there's not a cloud in the sky. Well, you can use the sun, you know, can make.

You know, one of my jokes in photography, just because I do it so much when you don't have anything really is the starburst. You know, so if the sun's out and it's crystal clear, you find something to pitch for sun, a tree or, and use, you know, have an interesting background or an interesting pattern and, and you can deal with it that way. Cloudy light, you know, so shoot. So you want to tone what you're doing to, or aim or focus for a pun, what you're doing on what the light's giving you.

Bright cloudy overcast days are great days for saturating colors, shooting portraits, shooting closeups. But I'm not going to include a big blank sky. I'll minimize the sky if there's really good foreground. Dealing with light going back to the contrasty days, one of the best pieces of equipment is to have a little diffusion disk. You can pop out and make what call the portable cloud.

So if you have a beautiful detail or use your own shadow, there's ways of blocking the sun. And then like you say, working around, if you can move around the subject, then you can shoot it back, but you can shoot it side. If you always have your shadow in the way, you know you're shooting something front. There's a problem there unless you want to include your shadow. ⁓ So I think that comes from experience and looking at other people's work.

out, you know, why is that such a compelling shot? And I haven't even talked about getting out early and staying out late. Of course you want to do this, especially with scenics and especially for wildlife because they're more active early and late in the day. ⁓ So my name's Ralph and I'm more of a sunset photographer, but if I know there's images out there, I'll get up early every day. But getting the low light and then shooting. And that's the other thing that's I would say separates the.

the advanced amateur and the pro is staying out after the sun's down. Most people leave the rim of the Grand Canyon once the sun goes down and they took their image, that low light, that pre-dawn light, the blue hour where even on a cloudy rainy day, if you shoot early and late, you're gonna get a blue sky with clouds even. So shooting past, shooting into the really low light situations.

can really define your work. And getting out in bad weather. If you want to distinguish yourself as a photographer anywhere, go shoot in bad weather when storms break or when it snows or raindrops on this and that. Yeah, that takes it to the next level.

Court Whelan (14:53)
I think it's an excellent point, the bad weather thing, because I think a lot of photography, especially today where we're all quite inundated with photography, to be totally honest, like we're seeing a lot of photography. We're seeing a lot of really good photography.

But photography, at least to me, is at least maybe like the business or the prowess of photography. And we're going more and more in this direction is seeing something and capturing something that not a lot of other people.

see and a great way to do that, you know, when or not a lot of people out looking at things with their own two eyes in really crazy weather, when or not a lot of other photographers capturing XYZ in really harsh, uncomfortable conditions. And so yeah, it is harsh. It's it can probably be unpleasant. You could be cold or you could be really hot or you could be frostbitten. You could be wind bitten, whatever. But that's a really cool tip because

If you're trying to set yourself apart, which I think is definitely a goal of many photographers to do something different to capture and draw that attention from the public at large, photograph something, maybe a familiar object, but at a time of day would not a lot of other people see it. And when I say time of day, I really mean environmental conditions, gnarly weather. So that's a great one.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (16:07)
just to follow up on that for a second, the first picture I ever had published was from Bryce Canyon. I I'd taken like 25 pictures with my four by five, And it was in the winter, I was freezing, know, camping in my Volkswagen van illegally at the overlook, cause it was like two feet of snow and.

I almost dropped my camera off the cliff. So yeah, being out there. Bad weather.

Court Whelan (16:29)
No. Yep.

Do you have a specific time of day that you like best for photography?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (16:36)
Hmm. ⁓ I do. mean, the fact that I said that I'm more of a sunset photographer, I love being out early in the day and then late in the day and this lingering and finding a spot and,

Yeah, so it's usually early, late in the day for sure.

Court Whelan (16:52)
the good old classic golden hours.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (16:53)
Yeah, and it may not even be for the sunset. It's just cause it's a great time to be Checking on what's happened that day or look forward to the next day. And again, the low light. And if there's not good light, got low light that everything balances. That's the thing. The sun goes down the horizon. You've got the earth shadow. You start getting magentas. You know, if you can find a colorful foreground or an interesting foreground and then let the shutter be open. mean,

There's times when you want to shoot longer shutter speed, not necessarily because you're going for more depth of field, but just so you gather more light. Those subtle hues that come in that people say, that doesn't look real. Well, it's true. Again, your eye doesn't gather all that magenta over five seconds. It does look different. Belvia got there by cheating with the saturation to do that. And now with digital, you still have to start out

with a good sharp, well-exposed image, you just, I mean, people say, you can just fix it in Lightroom. Well, yeah, but it's still gotta be a good picture.

Court Whelan (17:57)
So you've struck this amazing balance in the kind of business of photography to not just produce amazing, fine art images and just high quality, incredibly beautiful shots. But you've also worked it so that you can basically create very useful material, very useful photos for travel companies. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that.

balance in your work. you're out in nature or wherever you're intended to be and you're seeing beautiful stuff. And the reality is, at least in my mind, you kind of have to pick one or the other. I'm either getting a really useful shot for, let's just say for the audience, for like stock photography or for backgrounds of Zoom or PowerPoint presentations, or you're creating some real deal, compelling, captivating art.

So this is sort of an open-ended question, but I'm just curious how you have walked up on those scenes and how you've kind of walked up on your photographic career looking at both because again, you are known for not just the high quality mesmerizing images, but also getting great travel type shots, experiential storytelling kind of shots. There might be an overlap in the Venn diagram. Those might be two different types of shots or 19 different types of shots, but.

Again, as someone who has really bridged that gap extremely well, I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that world.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (19:24)
Yeah, another great and open ended question, but it does fit me because I to be a photographer now you make you to be a successful photographer and make money. Now you mean you've got to be teaching pretty much and there are some magazines and that there's still our photographers that can. You know, make it on assignments, but you need multiple revenue streams, so I always thought of it that way. I didn't think photography was going to be my career or travel is going to be my career. I fell into it.

I started out working as a geologist and I was photographing what I knew. So photographing what you know and then starting locally. think a lot of photographers say, I want to be a travel photographer and go around the world. Well, yeah, but you've got to start locally and you've got to adopt a project, something that you're really interested in.

For me, it started out with landscapes with the big camera. And then I fell into ⁓

Well, I two colleagues that worked with back then special expeditions in the late 80s, and they were desperate for a geologist to go to Baja. And I had been to Baja, because I knew some of the geology of Baja. that combining, so I didn't start out in the travel as the photographer.

was a geologist, talking about geology. That led to traveling photography go together.

It was harder back then because it was film. It was harder to teach when you're traveling with people. Because you couldn't see the results. In a way, that was really blissful because you could shoot all these photos and you never knew what you had. Then you came back and it was magic. Now it's all real time.

The guiding was a very natural way of traveling.

Then when I ⁓ did a couple of books, Hiking Colorado's Geology, Hiking the Southwest Geology,

where I was off on my own. So photography can be a lonely pursuit. I really, even though I'm an introvert, I really liked being with groups of people, like-minded people in those amazing places. And so you're having these once in a lifetime experiences of people over and over, different people but the groups that we had, it started to be 40, 50 % repeats. They have to ship and travel with you before.

And my first, when you look back at it and things make sense, 1990 is when I went on the ship with Lindblad Expeditions. 1990 was when I had my first image published with National Geographic and a book on the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas. It was on national parks and then there was others in the Grand Canyon. So those are kind of my photographic homes. So things collided without me really knowing it. And so now

guiding trips and then became expedition leader and started crafting the trips so we'd be out early. We'd be on the right side of the island with the ship at sunrise. And that led into starting photo expeditions. And so we were one of the first companies with ships to say this is going to be a photo expedition. So that was something new because back then no one knew about Svalbard.

know, climate change wasn't on, you the ozone hole was on everyone's mind, but not climate change.

And so, you know, things came together in that way that I had a built-in market. So now I have Lindblad and then I would think about stories and look at magazines and submit. I was always, you when I wasn't on a trip, was back, but when it was film, you had to go through all the, you you had to the process, go through it, label it.

ended out so it's always on the way to the airport. I was dropping off, you five, 10 packages of FedEx going out and shooting more images. And then, ⁓ you know, digital came along. And digital is what again, was the, was the level of the playing field. Because everyone then could look at their images, but they had to learn how to do it, you know,

So it changed where we're not only making the pictures, but we're the processing lab. And they have to be almost camera ready when you send them to publisher. So, and it's a long winded answer, but it all came together that then there's teaching digital, there's photographing, there's doing little stories. And I didn't like assignments. I had a couple of early assignments and I actually had a...

a book project with Nat Geo that I walked away from because it just became the deadline pressure didn't make, for me, it make

when it was filming, didn't know what you were getting, you're off all your stuff and then getting criticized and you hadn't even seen your pictures yet. you should have thought more of that. I'm like, yeah, anyway, all the assignment photographers I'm sure know that.

So I did have a couple of stories published, but the ones that I was really passionate about and I would have done it even if they weren't going to publish it.

So having a story that's meaningful to you and can make a difference somewhere, it could be just the changes in your own hometown gets you started along that road, making impactful images and then it's getting stuff that's not always pretty too. That's important to tell stories.

Court Whelan (24:28)
Yeah, are,

right, I mean, that's a huge part of it, it's kind of the intersection of documenting and creating something beautiful at it, right? How, like, are there certain ingredients that you like to look for and like to capture when you're thinking about that storytelling photography, specifically for when your photos are used in the media?

⁓ I've, I've seen so many of your photos in travel catalogs and brochures and websites, and you're documenting these incredible experiences of, you know, people paddle boarding and in Polynesia and, you're photographing other photographers on the Island of South Georgia and the sub Antarctic islands. is, there any sort of thought process or wish list you have in mind and maybe even techniques that go along with it to prioritize and capture.

those types of useful photos.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (25:23)
Yeah, and it is they are diametrically opposed a little bit telling a story, let's say about, you know, the natural history of a place from the beauty aspects and getting the animals in the good light and whales jumping and good backgrounds versus when it's a brochure or your tour for a travel magazine where you're trying to do set a scene like you want to you want to be there. You have to force yourself to include people.

And then if it's going to be, especially for travel magazines or more importantly for brochures, they need to be well-dressed people, you know, that, that looked the part, you know, they're out there traveling and, and that had very, very good at that. You know, they have their logo on the back of their jackets. Why is that? Because it's a great shot to shoot from behind using people's heads when there's a bear in front of them. And, know, it's good, it's good, good marketing. ⁓ now for the.

But the stock industry and things and other uses, you can't have logos. You don't have logos because it limits the use. So you either remove them by the magic of digital or avoid sending in those kinds of shots. So there's a lot of people that don't want to have people in their pictures, all the red coats on the beach. Well, you don't want to have 30 red coats looking at one penguin, but having two red coats walking up a ridge towards the penguins with the mountains in the background.

⁓ and good light, you know, it creates a moment ⁓ so that's, you know, the differentiator. you know, I was probably criticized within National Geographic because some said, well, your images are too perfect. You need to be more edgy. I'm not a perfectionist. just like it when it's perfect. ⁓ you know, I like good compositions. don't like distractions. I won't remove them.

So it's interesting. Sometimes you look at some of the pictures that are published and it's like, well, why, you why is that stick there? Well, the stick was there. And the fact that it is there kind of says, well, you know, the photographer left it there on purpose after the fact now because it's, you know, it's a slippery slope when you start manufacturing your images rather than capturing images, making it, you know, we say not taking pictures. We like to say making pictures because you're thinking about it.

So thoughtful compositions and then for catalogs, you gotta leave space. Everybody wants tight, you know, and there is a time to have tight. And so I shoot it every which way and I've one situation I might send 10 near frames of the same shot, but one's horizontal really wide. It has the subject way off to the left so there can be a gutter and you can have Sven's or Ben's letter on the right. The guests leaving lots of blank sky.

I'm shooting it looser. Cropping is not illegal. As I would say in my workshop, some photographers back in the day shooting 35 millimeter, they would frame it so carefully that the editors couldn't crop the picture. And that's different when it's storytelling and on it's your look and it's your style. But for useful images, know, the printed page and everyone started changing when the iPhone came.

came out because, now you have the tablet and you can see everything. There's no gutter. The gutter kills so many pictures. And editors still put the wrong picture for the two page spread with the gutter going right through the moose or whatever. So half and half. And I get criticized in my own workshops when I show my students the picture. You can analyze this picture. go, why? It's almost like two pictures. The moose is on the left, but the tree's on the right.

way far on the right. Why'd you shoot that way? And I said, that's again, going back to the style for A, the printed page or so that graphics or graphic designer, giving them lots of choices is the key in that, but not over flooding. mean, you dilute your own work by showing too many of the same images because it just says that you don't know what's your best image or which one's

the one. So if there's a...

Court Whelan (29:36)
Yeah, that's a great point.

It's, it is a hard balance because yeah, you don't want to give the paradox a choice. You want to kind of be the educated professional there and submit what you think and what you know to be the best, but you do want to provide options. Yeah. That's why I've, I've always just loved the increase in resolution in photos. ⁓ and even with the advent of sharper lenses, you know, I might resign myself to a 70 to 200 for an entire day of wildlife photography, because I know that, you know,

especially for thumbnails and a website or for social media posts, you can always crop in. And as long as you have a good camera and a good lens with that good sensor, you're going to be able to crop in, gosh, 30%, maybe even more. So yeah, really, really interesting feedback on that. So I'm going to ask kind of one final question on the sort of the business of photography, because I know that you've seen a lot of transitions and a lot of evolution over the years. And you've kind of answered this. ⁓

But I'm gonna ask the whole question just as I planned it, just to see what other directions we might go. But what does it take to be successful with photography in today's day and age? And has it changed over the years? And maybe more importantly, because we've kind of covered that, but feel free to start from whatever direction you want. More importantly, where do you think it's going? Where do you think the business of photography is going, starting in 2026 and beyond?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (31:03)
I'm going to start out by saying, I don't know what it takes now to be successful. I'm being in my retired rewirement mode of still traveling, but not submitting as much and working on my own projects. And then the other thing is where is this going? You know, we're sitting in this AI time where you really can't, you have to know whether it's AI or not, because it's so good. know, people, you know, carrying polar bear cubs around, know.

what you're seeing online. So I still think it comes back to fundamentals and that is to be successful as a photographer. You've got to live the life of a photographer.

Court Whelan (31:46)
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Ralph Lee Hopkins (33:57)
You've got to live the life of a photographer.

You've got to be a photographer. It's not a choice where you say, I just want to be a photographer. It's something within you. It's a lifestyle because it's not the road to riches. Although I'll give one quote that I have said during my career to all the people I work with.

Don't shoot stock, buy stock. So if you can save money and start a financial fund, even if it's $50 a month, if you're starting out when you're 20 and put in an index fund, and this is off the topic, but you'll be making money in the background and learning investing. And then you can live this life. then when you get, hopefully 20 years younger than I am, you know, when you're in your 50s, you'll be able to dial it back and really go into

photography for yourself. To make it, start locally, have a specialty, and align yourself maybe with an organization. If you're into conservation and wildlife, you want to align yourself with ⁓ organization or a nonprofit

that's doing that kind of work. Then out of that, travel stories might come out of that.

but you've got to be shooting what you like. What do you want to spend time doing? I mean, there are people that they were born to be wedding photographers. They love weddings. know, they like the organization of working with little team, doing the video. And that brings up to, you know, if you're going to make it as a one man band now, and Bob Chris is the best example of this. He's doing it and he's in his seventies and that is doing video.

You're going to transition from being a still photographer to a videographer to make it on some level. Having a teaching side of your business. So multiple revenue streams, you need that. So, you know, teach local workshops, get a local following. ⁓ Sierra Club outings, REI, you know, align with someone that's doing the type of travel that you like to do. There is a career out there for now with all these companies going to the ends of the earth on all these ships.

Linblad Expeditions, Sven Linblad and his dad, they started the whole industry and now it's a career not only for mariners and people that work on these moving hotels, but for the natural habitat. They don't own any ships, but now they've aligned themselves ⁓ with Linblad National Geographic. So, you know, there's a company with multiple revenue streams as well. you know, if you want to be a travel photographer, you've got to travel.

You're not gonna be able to afford to travel on your own unless the other option is, I mean, a lot of photographers are very lucky because their families did well and they have a trust fund for travel maybe. So they don't have as much pressure, which is great. I envy that. But with that comes a lot of responsibility to do good work. To be the most successful photographer now, especially starting out, is to have another job.

and combine maybe your education with the opportunities to photograph. You know, to have a job, but then you can either have been living in a place where you can have time to go out and then craft it. met when I was still vlogging around my four by five, not knowing what I was doing. I met two or three different photographers that I bumped into one in the canyons That's guy Tom Allgaier in the canyon and he was Capitol Reef and then Mary Ulrich.

The doughnut and one other guy had met not remembering right now. Who that was no Jeff Gadas and he said so you know I'm like 21 and they must have been in their 30s. You know they were old and they were you know. Big time calendar photographers. And they just said if you're still doing it in 10 years, you'll make it. 10 years give yourself 10 years. You know I was working as a geologist and.

Well, then I was building fence, guess. But anyway, yeah, it's a road and it's a great path and it's rewarding.

but you're not doing it because you want to make money. You're doing it because you love it and you love to travel and you love to be in the moment. And then working with your phone, it's not a little travel. mean, maybe 60 % you're out doing what you love. 40 % of the time you're planning the next trip processing images, ⁓ submitting them.

You got to get them online. And that comes to...

I I don't think I've put a photo on my website 10 years because of Instagram. You know, that's kind of your log of what you're shooting and only show your best work. And there's another thing, the more emotionally you're attached, I waited for that moose to come out in that meadow all morning long and it finally came, but it still wasn't a good shot, right? The moose is there, but you the magic didn't happen for whatever reason. So.

That's why at Nat Geo when you send in your stuff for a story, you send in every picture, even the shots of your feet. ⁓ Because the editors, they feel they know what the best work will come out. And it might not be what you thought it was because you're too emotionally attached to one situation.

Court Whelan (39:25)
It's so true. can't tell you how many times I've submitted photos and you know, I'll submit hundreds at a time to various groups and publications and the ones that they choose or publish or somehow highlight are not the ones I would have thought. In fact, they were like the bottom rung of my, my categorization level of being like, I could, I could probably delete this one. I certainly shouldn't submit it, but I ended up submitting it and then boom, there it is. And I'm so glad I did. So

So yeah, that's a lot of important lessons there. ⁓ This next one is just kind of a fun one, but I'm just curious your thoughts, kind of a thought experiment. You know, I think that there are a handful of kind of celebrity photographers today. You know, I'm thinking of like the sort of household names or at least household if you're into photography, like the Peter Liks the Thomas Mangelsons, the Franz Lantings. Do you think it's possible to become one of those?

today. I mean, even if you're five years into your photographic journey, like you're not just picking up a camera for the first time today. Like is that because I don't know how I'd answer that to be honest. Like I don't I don't know if I would say yeah, I think it's still possible if you do this this and this just curious your thoughts.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (40:38)
It's interesting you mentioned Tom Mangelson because there's an example of a guy. And when I was starting the photo expeditions for Lindblad Expeditions, before we were aligned with Nat Geo, people don't realize that it predated the alliance by four years. I invited Tom Mangelson, I invited Tim Davis and Renee Lin and other photographers that I admired to come be like.

the guest photographer and having Tom come on and here's this, you the lowest key guy, but he, you know, he shot what he believed, right? And he's, didn't like game for him. know, there's a number of photographers that made their life shooting wildlife and game farms And they say, well, that way I'm not chasing the real animals, but the animals don't have a good will. So, you know, he kind of led that battle. He lived in Tetons Yellowstone and everyone knows about.

You know, this documentation of books that he knew in his backyard. I mean, it happened to be 399 You know, he knew that bear for almost 30 years. So he's a great example. So yes, you can become that by doing maybe a similar model.

documenting something over time and having a project and walking the walk. I admire the Buddhists when we go to Nepal and Ladak and stuff because the people there, just walk the walk every morning. And that's what you have to do. No one spends more time in the field than Tom Mangleson Joel Sartori, there's another one.

Great photographer, funny guy, and he'll tell you, I didn't want to be a photographer. just, you know, I didn't want to travel and something like that. And he's been going around, you know, shooting endangered species and all the species of the world basically in a zoo settings, you know, with white backgrounds. Nothing more remarkable than images like that of rare animals. So yes, you can do it, but it's hard. You've got to stick with it. It's longevity. ⁓

Franz Lanting, he was always pushing it. He brought a stepladder to Antarctica to get a different view. Pre-drone, that's the other thing, drone photography. I have shunned having a drone just because I don't need another distraction. It would take me away from what I love doing. ⁓ I employed drones, yeah. Usually, they're traded to get footage. Like when I went to the volcano in Iceland, there was this pilot from Germany and we bought his video.

used it in our marketing. ⁓ So if I was young, you know, you'd have to be using a drone. Bob Christ is using a drone in this filming. So he learned it from some young kids. So yes, but it's longevity that's gonna make it there. It's not gonna be one award winning picture. other thing, I haven't spent time submitting to contests either. I mean, that's a way if you have something really unique.

Now submit to the top one, know, while it's the photographer of the year, those BBC type contests. But that's a way of motivating yourself. You know, I've met, actually was on a Nat Hab trip and met a guy I had roomed with him actually. He wanted in a contest. He submits to contests, but it's not just photo contests. It's the ones where, you know, you tell all your friends vote for me. And so he gets his following going and he travels on his contest winning. there's.

There's lots of little hacks to make it work, but to aspire to a higher level ⁓ requires you are a photographer, you're living that life, you're doing what's true to your heart, you're doing what you love and pleases you, and just live the life and be where it leads you.

Court Whelan (44:35)
the step ladder to Antarctica thing is something that's gonna stick in my mind now. That is...

Ralph Lee Hopkins (44:37)
It's great.

They probably

had it on a ship, anyway, yeah, but taking it to shore was, yeah.

Court Whelan (44:44)
Yeah, but

it's clever, actually. mean, certainly pre drone. mean, yeah, you get up 10 feet higher than everybody else and you're getting a different shot. You throw an ultra wide angle lens on and like, holy cow, that it's a shot that won't be seen without that. So, yeah, that's a that's a really interesting lesson to kind of pass on and to think about, you know, what are the tools at your disposal about positioning yourself that might.

Exists like you're probably right like the step stool the stepladder probably was just in the in the bay You know, it was just in the the gear room or something and he's like, Can I take that ashore for you know an hour and then boom he probably got some extraordinary shots So like what are the tools that are not obvious that might actually well literally elevate your photography?

So I wanna switch to ⁓ some kind of technique questions or at least one question here. So you do a lot of expedition photography in polar regions. What are like one or two lessons that are specific to polar regions or maybe ship-based adventures that you could share to aspiring photographers out there? Like, what is it about those areas that might have something

you wouldn't be thinking of that's a challenge or an opportunity for polar based ship expeditions or polar expeditions in general.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (46:05)
Most of mine have been ship based, although I've been seeing this camp in the Antarctica where you can fly in, they have tents and then you can get a sled to draw your gear over to the emperors and get time with the emperor. yeah, but most of that's why I aspire to that. yeah, that's one thing when people...

Court Whelan (46:21)
Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, the white continent is what it is for listeners that want to look that up. The white continent,

think, or is that what it's called white or is it the white desert, white desert expeditions? One of those. Anyway, sorry to cut you off. Go ahead.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (46:31)
So, we'll wait, yeah.

And so,

So most of mine have been ship based expeditions and, ⁓ you know, and this fits in a little bit with the fact that guiding and photographing and knowing what to shoot. Now I'm shooting, you know, I've got people with me all the time, right? I'll say, that's a great shot. She'll go, I was standing right next to you and I made this shot.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you know, we're in a group. you know, photographing with people. that's that's a challenge because you're on you're on a ship. being you have to be out on deck. You've to be out all time. got to know your equipment. And then you want to keep your cameras cold. You can't take your cold camera into your, you know, take a shower with your camera and get all the condensation. there's what you need. Lots of batteries. So obviously that's.

Exactly. So being compact, having a good backpack where you're not fumbling with your gear. And you really need to have two to take to the next level have two camera bodies, one where you can have your long lens, one where you've got your and I believe in zooms. There's people I know coming back to primes, but I like to be able to and if I was in a rainforest, I'm on a fast enough and I was just in Borneo, the two top.

naturalist biologists type photographers and they just have their 600 or 800 on one and that's what they shoot with because you know when they're leading a leading group to great macros at other times with lights. So knowing your equipment and being compact and two cameras a good harness a little good black rapids so your cameras are hanging and it's not around your neck. You don't want to be changing lenses fumbling with gear when you know things are fleeting. You know we're watching a polar bear with a mom and

the young cub nursed and then rolled over and they walked to the edge of the ice and started playing with this piece of ice. And it just happened for a second. And most of our guests, cause I taught them about the moment, but if you were fumbling with your lens or trying to switch lenses because you wanted a tighter shot, ⁓ you would have missed it. You know, the cold isn't as much of a factor if you're prepared for it. Good gloves, of course. So I have a Miller mitt type.

Hestra gloves, I think they're Norwegian, they're Swedish or Norwegian. they're windproof and then have a, it's like miller mitt So they've got cut off fingers and the ⁓ mitten part comes over it. So you can always get to your fingers. You could have liners in there and then you can put little hand warmers. So you cheat, you get things that keep you warm, know, put hand warmers in the mitten part. And when between shots, you know, you're warming your fingers. So there's ways to be ready, but.

Wind is the enemy in the Arctic regions. It's really hard to shoot in the wind. And I would say now a way to going along with simplification is ⁓ if you can't abandon any tripod situation, especially when you're around wildlife in polar regions, usually light's not as much of a factor. If it is a factor, can teach you what's ISO now. You can have publishable images at 12,500 ISO.

⁓ but the new it's talking about AI, the way AI now cleans up noise and photos. It's, could be illegal, illegal, but I just consider it magic now that you can, you can shoot almost, you can shoot in the dark, literally. You can shoot in the dark with these cameras. So knowing your equipment, dressing for the way, embracing the weather. Remember the bad, the bad weather situations. you know,

Being out on deck, going to Antarctica, splashing waves, albatross through the waves. Yeah, I was always out on deck. So because I get seasick, so I'd just get back. Not that I'd be sick, but if I was inside trying to work on my computer, you know, I'd be dead to the world. But if I'm out feeling the motion, looking at the waves, shooting, fine. So be active when you're on a ship. It's very easy to get.

kind of get lazy and wait for the next announcement of things. But if you're out with things, especially with marine mammals, you just have to be out on deck.

Court Whelan (50:55)
Yeah, I want to underline something you said early on in your response to that question is, know, with, with polar environments and the cold air outside and the warm air inside, don't shower with your camera. That's the, that's what I took away from that. No. it is, yeah, this isn't a side, but this is, this is a really important thing. If, you haven't heard of it for the listeners is when you are in super cold environments, ⁓ and you know, generally it's really the.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (51:06)
That's right.

Court Whelan (51:20)
the discord between how hot it is inside and how humid it is inside versus how cold it is outside. So I can't say, you know, might, you know, below 32 Fahrenheit, this happens. It could happen even warmer than that, but usually it's when it's a bit colder than that. And what happens is your camera just becomes a super cooled chunk of metal or plastic. And then when you come into the warm air, it actually condenses all the gaseous humidity that's inside.

Part of that's because of the heat part of that's because you have a bunch of people inside breathing and it's kind of like when you take a Coke can out of the cooler in a humid beach on a warm summer day and it just condenses and so that's what happens and then you now have a foggy lens and then the worst thing happens is when you see something out the window or you get an announcement you take that Now foggy lens back outside and now you have frozen condensation on your lens. So it's a whole heap of trouble

And so you kind of quickly mentioned this, but I wanna underline this as well as just having like a good camera bag that you can stash your camera in and just keep it outside the whole time. Like I get it. You may not wanna keep your camera just on the deck. might be wet or icy, you might be passing through a snowstorm, but just having some sort of good rugged camera bag can be such a big difference. And I've actually been talking.

about this in last few episodes where I'm just I'm finding that to be one of my favorite pieces of gear. It's just a bomb proof bag that I do not mind leaving outside. I do not mind throwing it on the muddy ground or whatever. So that could be a really, really big game changer out there, especially with polar photography. The same thing actually happens. You mentioned Borneo. The same thing happens with tropical photography. Yeah, exactly. And so you

Ralph Lee Hopkins (52:59)
other way.

the AC going, yep. So you got to let your gear

equilibrate. And every time I say that to groups, say, is that a word? Yes, that's a word. so there's times where I keep the camera bag outside, outside the room and use, you know, on trips, especially in humid regions, know, every, you know, you know, that'll be kind of the way things are, people keep their stuff outside their rooms, let your camera bag cool down before you, before you just run out. If it has been sitting inside.

Court Whelan (53:06)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (53:29)
Inside all night. Yeah, that's important. The other thing too is the umbrella.

Court Whelan (53:31)
Mm-hmm.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (53:37)
Are you an umbrella? All the time. It's really functional when draining and sometimes for sun. But yeah, I always have an umbrella for that. so going back to bags and equipment, I mean, I don't know if you want to get into equipment, but.

I've simplified that so I don't have the compartmentalized mind spring bag and everything that I take around and I take it out and everything's separate. I have my two cameras and my lenses on it, extra lenses in the bottom and I use rugged, I think it's, over, is it overboard or rugged? can't remember. I it might be overboard. ⁓ Fully waterproof bag with a roll top. It's almost like for going on a river. And then I'll have,

I overboard, even make it like a cube, know, zippered cube for when you travel. So when you do take things off, you can put it back away, but you can have that, your extra lenses in the bottom. I have my, and with that bag in a Zodiac or on deck, the lenses are attached. So I've got 300 to 1000 millimeters on one lens, if I have my big lens, but usually I've got 200 to 800 and what, 24 to 200.

on the other camera and they're there and all I have to do is pop the bag open, pull it out and I'm ready. Black rapid straps, if I'm walking around the deck, both cameras are there, weights off the shoulders. Polarizers and filters, people always think about that too. Polarizers only when you're trying to cut reflections on the water to see marine mammals or working with the sky or reflections in rainforest and things on the leaves, shoot it with and without. Filters are definitely.

Court Whelan (55:07)
Yeah, there's a real.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (55:24)
overrated, now with all the digital things you can do.

Court Whelan (55:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm getting the ringing tone of simplicity in your work and I definitely do want to dive into gear. I know a bit about your gear, but before we get into the kind of gear talk here, I wanted to ask a question about photo style. And it's something that I'm kind of moderately obsessed with because I feel like my style has changed throughout the years and I'm not sure if that serves me best. know, if I were to wave a magic wand, I'd

probably should have thought for days or months or a whole year about what kind of style I wanted. And I just stuck with it the whole time. Cause it kind of becomes your brand and your identity. And when I say style, I'm not talking about, you know, shooting, top-down shots or eye level wildlife shots. I'm thinking more of like kind of the, the color temperature, the palette, you know, what you do with contrast, you know, are your images really big and bold and colorful? Are they more muted and dark and moody?

And there's no right answer because they're all beautiful styles. And, you know, of course, if you're trying to go for a certain type of publication or a certain type of portfolio, you got to, do one of the other or a certain thing that's being asked of you. But in terms of just general photo style, I'm wondering if you can talk about what the Ralph Lee Hopkins photo style is and why, and I'll give you a quick.

⁓ primer on the follow-up question or at least the second question, because sometimes I think nowadays they definitely go hand in hand, is I wanted to get a glimpse into your editing style. And again, they're similar, but a lot of it comes out in the shoot in camera. And editing is a little bit of a cherry on top in some cases. But yeah, the basic question is what is the Ralph Lee Hopkins photo style and maybe a bit about why.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (57:14)
I should ask AI to tell me because I really don't know what my how I would describe my style and how other people describe it. ⁓

And I guess the images that are published, mean, they are colorful, they are bold, they're sharp. You know what the subject is. ⁓ Strong compositions, good light, strong compositions. And usually a combination of things happening in an image, which I always like, you know, if it's a strong foreground, having a room. I'm looking around the room here that I got into my new office here in my gallery garage.

And I'm looking at them and they're you know, they're, they're, they're bold. They're bold images. They're not, they're not subtle. You know, you look back at Elliot Porter shot, you know, have a fall scene and there's so many branches and so many leaves. And that was, you know, it's, it gave a feeling. So I think I shoot that way sometimes when it's, when I'm in a forest, but what I resonate is, is with the really strong landscapes that have great clouds, great color, full color. ⁓

and have a strong compositional element. The river going through the Grand Canyon with cactus in the foreground and beautiful light.

Again, I was probably criticized by the Nat Geo editors. They can tend to be too perfect. I try to simplify. I I talk about simplifying, and that's the number one thing. If you can simplify your scene, you're going to make a better picture. And that could be getting closer or zooming in or getting down a little lower or using

I mean, my first 20 years of shooting digital cameras, I didn't have a flip out screen like the amateurs had. was shooting Canon and I'm like, why don't you make us this? So that's when I did switch to Olympus for a number of reasons. style, I mean, for nature and wildlife photographers, the style you can tell the photographers who spent a lot of time out.

And I think at least the things that I know of, I've been to Antarctica, I don't know, 50 times, the Arctic, 50 times, you start shooting more of less things, because you know what's good rather than capturing it all. I remember the first time friend photographer, Kevin Shaver, said that to me. goes, yeah, I'm just shooting more image of fewer subjects, because you're honing in now to what works. So.

And I do the other thing that all my students accuse me of. Why is it you're always in the right place at the right time standing in the right spot? And that's why I don't like crowds. you go to maroon bells in Colorado, you know, to shoot it. And it's like everyone's lined up there. But the photo, the photo I wanted to take was like, it's over there. So I'm not, I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing.

Probably because of a foreground element or a tree that pokes through the horizon of the mountain or some little thing. there's someone else was looking at critiquing. They might, if they really know composition I guess they would look and say, that's why that cat. I'm looking up at a Grand Canyon image here in my office. That one cactus that is breaks the rules that is in the middle is in a beautiful background spot where it should be, where it stands out so that your eye goes to it.

and then you explore. So long, long, long answer to, don't know what my style is.

Court Whelan (1:00:47)
Well, it was a long question too. Yeah, no, that's and that's that's a okay ⁓ I'm wondering if you can parlay that with a little bit of your editing You know, you don't I don't want to say techniques I don't want to make you go through every little thing that you might possibly ever do but your your general take on editing are there certain sliders you Always use some that you don't touch any X factor things within Lightroom or Photoshop that you might say, you know what? I found this one little thing

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:00:49)
I guess it's okay.

Court Whelan (1:01:17)
that does this thing that I don't think a lot of people know about. Any thoughts on those when it comes to the editing and processing part of photography?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:01:26)
Well, this is the thing of, I think, going back to your other thing. Where is photography going?

Court Whelan (1:01:33)
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Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:03:21)
Where is photography going?

And it's, it's really has to do with you. You're out there and you're captured. Now, what can you do to, you made this image for a reason. And now I'm not talking about a marketing image or anything like that. I'm just talking about a scene. How can you make that image the best that can be? It's a strong composition. Well, the first thing is you have to, know, if you're taking it to the next level and I have a couple of photographers who will debate this, you need to shoot in raw.

Because you're getting the basic, you're getting this digital negative with all the best information and your camera is not processing. iPhone processes every picture, but now you can shoot in raw. ⁓ it's been a couple of years, but on the app and in the iPhone, you can get a raw image out of that and you can put that into, taking it into Lightroom. So I am, I'm not a master at Lightroom. I know what to do for my images. And every time I see someone else do a demonstration and teach, I learned two or three tricks.

And you're going to have the gear heads, the real techies that say you have to do it in an order to preserve your pixels. I don't know if that's true or not, but it probably is. ⁓ But we're too hypercritical now of our images on the technical side, because we can look at things at 100 % on a beautiful high resolution monitor. Whereas before, we used to look at, ⁓ with an 8X and go, yeah, that looks sharp. ⁓

my God, your corners are sharp in that. I read that the corners are sharp in this or for a blurry in the wide angle lens and you'll fall off in light. Well, that's true. But that can be processed. So you'll have to learn how to process your picture now. So that's where it's going. Or have someone that knows how to do it really well, but you're going to do it to your liking. So I don't.

because I shoot a lot of moving things. don't do the HDR thing where I'm sandwiching and I haven't gotten into, I've done two skies, I think when I got the comment, you know, I learned how to stack images and I'd like to do more of that now that I'm, we'll be traveling less where you're stacking things for night sky shots and light painting. But I discovered Olympus cameras that have a lot of software in them that can do some amazing things.

So what I look for in my own work is I do a quick, I actually use Photo Mechanic for my first quick edit, because it's really fast, gives you big images that you can just click through. And I just delete probably 60 % of what I just shot before I even take it into Lightroom. I uniquely number every image, and I have a very simple, so you've got to adopt a

labeling system. it's just, if it's Arizona or Colorado and 25, it's going to be CO25 underscore and a number. All the other information we highlighted, you can search for it in your metadata or your captions. So just get a simple, identified number, work with that. And then I have a quick, that depends whether it's a...

I guess what is it called? Where you can make your own. So I have some settings that it's a quick tweak and I tweak all the images. you know, I do a preset, sorry, I do a preset. So color balance and digital color balance is so important because color is not the same. The ground with the beautiful sky reflecting blue is not the same. Your camera picks up so that's the grounds gonna be too blue. So you're really making.

Court Whelan (1:06:43)
Hmm. Preset. Yeah.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:07:01)
an HDR that is a high dynamic range image from one image. So I'm working in different areas of the image. So I might tone down the sky and, and the color balance that you shot with really doesn't matter, but the sky might look too warm. You want the sky blue. Now you can cheat and select the sky and just add a little blue, but you don't want to take it too far. So I'm always edging it, pushing the boundaries and then, and then backing up.

⁓ it really depends. I'd say I tend towards, you know, a saturation, not over saturated. It depends on your computer, but a lot of editors or a lot of people still use IB, IBM compatibles or whatever, and they don't have the color rendition that the Mac looks. So if someone looks at my picture on the Mac, it looks a little super saturated.

But when you go to a PC, it looks perfect. So they might select that picture. So they can always tone that down. You want it to jump out for so someone selects it. It's different for then slideshows where you tone it down. And it used to be the screens were so horrible and the projectors are so horrible. Now they're amazing. So I'm balancing the light. I'm going to crop. First thing I do is I look for sharpness. So those are the things that are going to be gone. If you blur it, just blew it.

or too many of the ones seen. And I'm always clicking the shutter three times. I just do a little burst, even when I'm hand holding. There's just times things happen, it gives you a digital dupe right away when you're looking and it shows you the sequence. But I always, in my method of shooting since I do a lot of wildlife, you have time when you want to change things, but I'm always, you know, I'm F8 at, I don't know, thousandth of a second when I pull it out, minus two thirds.

on the exposure composition so I can pull out and start shooting ⁓ in burst mode and I'm a thumb focuser so that I can tap, tap focus, back button focus. And so I can get the bird on it and then I can recompose and then wait for it to fly. My camera is not focusing while I'm clicking the shutter. I don't want my camera to be focusing when I'm the shutter unless I'm doing a follow focus kind of thing. And the autofocus now on these cameras is just getting so...

So good, ⁓ it's crazy. the technology is helping you there. ⁓ So processing, so then I will ⁓ now we teach to do a star thing where you go through and you know one star, two star, three stars, and then you can get rid of your one stars later and then finally get to your five stars. I've been doing it long enough. I know what the sequence is and which one, so I just highlighted yellow for National Geographic and move on. But I use color coding for different. ⁓

analogs or for different submissions that'll help me sort. But then the key in Lightroom is, working in collections. So the way I teach it is, and I hate teaching the workflow side, but I spent a lot of time doing it is get all your pick. It's like your, playlist in your iPhone, get all your images and music into your folder. What the one folder and then have it. I mean, you can have it by day.

or however it is you shoot, those folders are transparent in Lightroom. All your pictures are there. And then you're working with it. And then it's collections. You want to start making collections. Do not start moving your original. You want the sequence you shot in to be ironclad. You can go back to it 20 years from now, because you may have a different take on that scene.

Collections pulls it out, but you can always click on an image and go back to the original folder. So you work in collections.

You make these collections. That's the way you edit and organize rather than moving the actual digital image to a different place. And now they're all scattered. And since I travel to places that I go back to, I have an Antarctic catalog. I have a Baja catalog. I'm not set up for an editor work on my work and go into one catalog and search my whole database. That's what I thought the stock agencies were for before that industry crashed. Although.

It's still important to get with a good stock agency. So your images are searchable and people can find you. ⁓ and we could talk about that on the business side as well. So organizing your work that way. Highlight and then make your, so I have a selects folder and then I'll have like the portfolio folder. The Lex will have all the good ones. And then the portfolio ones are probably going to be the ones that I'm going to or pull out for Instagram. So you could have Instagram

for example, Now, as far as tweaks on things, ⁓ you know, it's the holding back and changing luminosity, the brightness of areas.

And then highlighting a little bit, whatever is the most colorful thing, just a little bit, lightning and eye, two clicks. I'm not big on the sharpening thing because most publishers do the sharpening and

And a lot of our talks and online, you when you export or showing things online, you're going to make it smaller 2000 on the long or something. And you're going to click high for the screen for sharpening. Anyway, a lot of people spend a lot of time and it's different if you're going printing. I'm not talking printing. I love to make prints and there's great digital labs that do great jobs, but start with really sharp, well-composed images. And it is a rabbit hole.

You find yourself ⁓ trying to fix things too much in an image, it's time to move on. Usually good images, the tweaks should be pretty simple to make them good.

Court Whelan (1:12:48)
That's an excellent, excellent

point. Yeah. If it's something that you have to work a lot to fix or rescue, it better be a pretty amazing moment. And those do happen. And, you know, we make lemonade in some cases out of something that might've just not been a great snap, but a super amazing moment.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:13:07)
The other thing is, that you're seeing things now, especially with the mirrorless cameras, you're seeing things on your screen.

And when I shoot, I, in digital you want to shoot hot. You want to be as close to overexposing what's white as you can. Um, because you lose a lot of color data when things are too dark in your shadows. So my images don't look good on my screen, but I've trained my eye how it looks. I'm, I'm worried about sharp, the focus, my focus point.

I'm always on a single focus point unless there's a situation where I change it. I'm going to nail a focus back button, recompose, shoot, even for a landscape. A third out into the frame to approximate, let's say, a deep depth of field. There's two thirds of your depth of field behind your focus point, so you find that point. You know, the engineer, you I was teaching, you know, you'd have engineers and dentists who do a lot of photography or are very technical. They know their camera's better They'll have the depth of field chart taped to their lens. ⁓

And then they'll tell me, I don't really know how to do composition. And so you can learn that. So there is that balance. It's the right brain, left brain thing to get into balance. And then once you get into Lightroom. So I rarely go into Photoshop because I don't know it anymore. Like as far as a publisher or printing, there are certain things you can do. And the layering things, some of that stuff, you've got to go into Photoshop. I need to take another class to do that.

the Santa Fe workshops or the night guys, ⁓ Bitterman and those guys, National Parks at Night do class with them. You know, they're processing. ⁓ So it's a, this sounds funny, I kind of resent every moment that I have to sit at the computer with my photography, but I love discovering things and what results. I think I'm way behind.

Court Whelan (1:14:34)
gosh, I mean...

I want to come back to something you said because that was interesting. You said you oftentimes shoot hotter or IE brighter than you want the ending photo to be. And that's interesting because you can rescue at both ends. ⁓ I've heard a lot of people say that they will shoot underexposed versus overexposed because you can rescue light more in the darkness. But maybe what you're saying is the color in the light spots is more accurate. So it's a little bit of a

a give and take which which parts of the photo do you want to prioritize the color and the light or being able to rescue overly dark scenes and bring out kind of dare I say the HDR look where you have a very, dynamic range. So you've had good success with an even exposure or even slightly overexposed, primarily focusing on color. Or did I get that wrong?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:15:53)
Well, I'm I'm shooting hot in that, you know, you have clouds and you're on the edge of blinkies if you have highlight warnings. I'm not overexposing. just exposing. I'm not trying to make it look good on my LCD screen. And underexposed looks better on your LCD screen. ⁓ You can't tell exposure by how it looks on your LCD screen in your camera unless you've trained your eye. So, you know,

Court Whelan (1:16:03)
Got it.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:16:23)
The technology has gotten so good that we probably can rescue the shadows. But the way I learned about it is if you tried to pull up your shadows, it looked like outer space of red and green and all the pixels just blinking back at you from the noise. The software now is just so good that you can do that. that's the way I do it.

Court Whelan (1:16:40)
Yeah, it's very true.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:16:52)
pretty fast, you know, and that's from the fact that I go on a trip, shoot, I don't know, three, 5,000 pictures, but I was already, because we do talks at night, you know, the fact that can go shoot in the day, come back, pick out your 10 best and show them in the evening, you you get pretty good at it. Now, when you're going to the print level or publication, they're gonna do different tweaks for the paper or.

metal or whatever whatever you're printing on you got to know the profiles for that and i'm not not an expert in that but i do in a doodle

more things printed. Enjoy my work, my golden years.

Court Whelan (1:17:32)
Mm-hmm. Well, I've got a few more questions for you and I wanted to switch gears here to talk about gear. So what are you shooting on?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:17:36)
Cool.

So I, you know, I started out on a Graphlix 4x5, went to Linhoc 4x5, went to Pentax 645, and someone gave me a Nikon 35mm, and I had to get lenses for it, so I started shooting Nikon 35mm. And then I went Canon, because Nikon dragged their feet on autofocus, and their first 80-400 autofocus lens was horrible lens, but I switched to Canon. And I was sticking with Canon. I loved Canon.

can't even remember the numbers on the cameras anymore. ⁓ And then my friend Jay Dickman, who is the Nat Geophotographer, and you should go Olympus. Smaller, the technology in them, sharp lenses, they make microscopes, dah, dah, dah. And I was like, ⁓ I'm using it. I still have my big camera. I can't invest in another system. And then my friend Michael Nolan, he went Olympus. said, God, it's great. And so... ⁓

Paul had talked to Olympus, you we had this program on the ship and I said, you want to be involved with the ship and, ⁓

you know, could I try some of your cameras? And got a couple of loaners. Next thing I know about a whole, whole bag cameras. Now they're Michael four thirds, which is a smaller sensor. And so when I talked to others, said, but that small sensor, you know, the quality I'm like, it's a full frame sensor. It's just smaller.

Their lenses are designed so that every photon comes in perfectly perpendicular. These engineers are great. And it's kind of like the Tesla model camera. The software, they can upgrade the software in your camera to improve the results if you have good glass. So they concentrated on having the sharpest lenses possible for their cameras. So what other camera can focus on the stars and do a live composite

Let's say you want to do star trails and starts making a live composite, however you set it. And then you can see it and say, okay, I want to stop it now. And then when you click the shutter to stop it, it processes it into a raw image that you can then take into Lightroom and put noise reduction and everything on it. They were the first ones to have the pre-shoot or the pro mode where you just hold your finger down halfway and it's buffering.

You're waiting for the whale to jump or the bird to fly. Then the bird flies through the frame. Then you click it and it will store, depending on how many, it'll store 50 shots before the action happened. That's another game changer. mean, it does, yes, does it feel like cheating? But you're using technology to capture a moment. ⁓ Used to say, if you see the leaping dolphin in your camera, you missed it.

Right. Because the blackout, know, some of these modes now you get no blackout following a bird as it goes by. So the technology in that camera, they're smaller. So, you know, my 200, not in here though, but my 200 to 800, you know, is the size of someone else's 70 to 200 on a full frame camera. So again, my Bob Chris used to tell me, he started going to smaller Sony.

Tony cameras and I'm still lugging around those big Canon lenses. And now I know exactly what he's saying. Cause I have all this technology, my bags lighter. Those lenses fit right in my, my overboard or rugged bags, waterproof bag, and they can pull out and I'm ready to shoot the whales. So yeah, Olympus now they're called OM systems. So, you know, I'm an ambassador for them. And so you have no idea how many photographers now with.

but Lindblad and now, Nat Hab are switching. They're trying to encourage pros to start using these cameras, because they are good, they are lighter. And when it comes down to it, it's not about what camera you use, it's about knowing the camera you're using. And in many places, the iPhone, again, especially for short videos.

landscapes, now the 17 has an 8X, which is like a 200 millimeter. So if you shoot in raw, you can crop 50 % and make a big print for your wall and you've been carrying around an iPhone. So probably 95%, I think, of the travelers on the ships now, unless it's a photo trip. I'm sure you see this with Nat Hab too. They're very happy with their iPhone, smartphone cameras.

Court Whelan (1:22:29)
Do you have a favorite lens or lenses that you use for wildlife photography?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:22:35)
Yeah, so for wildlife, go between, there's the white lens that OM has. It's a 150 to 400, but since it's times two for the smaller sensor, it's 300 to 800. And then it has a built-in 0.25 extender, which for polar bears shooting from the ship is the lens to have. When I want to be lighter, when I went to Borneo, I took the 100 to 400, which converted as a 200 to 800.

Now it's a slow lens. It's 5.6 or whatever and may zoom out to point six, but ⁓ Olympus has seven stops in the stabilization. can hand hold in the force. If the animal's not moving, I can hand hold to a 30th of a second. And if I shoot a burst, you know, I'll get two or three frames that are sharp. ⁓ it's different if the animals are moving. So, ⁓ not being on a tripod in the rainforest, that was a game changer, you know, and do you miss some shots? Yeah.

but you keep shooting, you don't have time to set up a tripod and follow Gibbons or Lemurs or any of those fast moving things. yeah, so then, for, for, the 100 to 400, don't want to want to be lighter. And then the kind of all around lens is the 12 to, oh, the 100, which is a 24 to 200 fixed F4. And that's, you know, kind of the go-to for, for scenery, or if you're going to take one lens and walk around.

you know, a town or a scene or in a, in a moving boat. That would be the lens to use or aerial photography because it has such good image stabilization. But I'm here to tell you, I also love, especially just keeping this in the car at all times. Cause we live, we've got a lot of wildlife around here in Colorado. And so if I go take the recycle, the recycle center, I've got my cameras with me. Um, is there's a.

kit lens 12 to 200, 24 to 400. And it's like, it's like four inches long, zooms a little and it's light and it's plastic and it, it's sharp. So when it's good weather or I just want one camera and I don't want to carry anything else. And I want the, in case something good comes along that I need longer. I'll carry that.

Court Whelan (1:24:55)
Yeah, I have to say the more I hear about OM systems, the more tempted I am. The lens lineup, the different ranges, and of course the apertures, the speed of those lenses is pretty remarkable. I remember when I first heard of OM, one of their flagship lenses was the 40 to 150, which is essentially an 80 to 300 f2.8 throughout. And ever since then, I've been hearing about the new ones, know, this 300 to 800, or technically it's the 150 to 400, but yeah, is this like f4?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:24:55)
well.

Yep, got that, yep.

Court Whelan (1:25:24)
to 800, I that's incredible for background separation for light. So yeah, one of these days I might have to try one of those systems out for an upcoming trip.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:25:34)
It's interesting you say that because the drawback, you have twice the depth of field because of the size of the sensor. I still don't know the physics of that. You would have to go to the diagrams in the circle of confusion or whatever it's called. But so getting that shallow depth of field look.

You use a longer lens and stand back and zoom in on something rather than shooting it like you would with a 2.8. So you do learn some tweaks on that. But I would say for anyone who wants to explore it, just for the night sky feature alone, getting the OM1 Mark II body with, say, their 8-millimeter fisheye.

That's a 1.8 fish eye for star photography. ⁓ That's the way, know, even if that's all you use it for is astro, it would pay for itself just from it focuses on the stars. It's paranoid and going through the zoom in, zoom out. And when your eyes get, yeah, it's hard to tell. I could never tell really when that, it was hard for me to tell when the stars were in focus. You had to really work at it.

Court Whelan (1:26:47)
It is tough.

Yeah, that is an art in itself. ⁓ Okay, so a couple of last final questions. One is, ⁓ so I view photography as I think you do, as indeed a conservation tool. because we're both photo guides and we go to these natural areas and we're creating a love and an ambassadorship of these animals and the natural landscapes, it has that potential.

Is there anything that you use photography for as a conservation tool or any thoughts on that that might give the listeners some insight as to how they themselves could also use photography as a conservation tool? Maybe obvious, maybe something we're not thinking about.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:27:30)
Well, I mean, the first thing you need to do is identify what you're interested in, the place you care about. And I got into it because I I actually had a benefactor that I met on a trip and he came up to me he says, you know, what do you really care about? I  want to support your photography. You know, if you had a grant, what would you do? And so ask yourself that question. What would you, if you had a grant to do something, what is it you'd want to do? And at that time,

You know, there were plans for like 80 resorts or something in Baja, California and Galapagos, the pressure for overfishing and tourism, building a new airport. These things were all on the, and it's like, well, I I would try to tell the story ⁓ about how special Baja is that it's not just Cabo and we don't need more resorts and 41 more golf courses in the desert. And then Galapagos that people live there and

There's a balance and a battle between fishing for livelihood and tourism and, you know, Ecuadorians from the mainland trying to come to Galapagos for its desirable job and, you know, lifestyle. So I wanted to tell that story. So you've got to figure out what you're passionate about. And then, I mean, you're probably already thinking, okay, what are the organizations that are doing work there?

So it might be something close to home. You you live on the coast in San Diego and the Tijuana River is a constant problem there and you start documenting what's going on there with that. So when I got this grant, what I did was I researched the organizations and for Baja I called a group called Wild Coast, they're based in San Diego, and they called me back and they said, we have one rule here, major rule here is that when media calls,

Interested in what's going on, we call them back. And so they were basically my guides on who to talk to and set up the whole thing. And that led to a story in Traveler magazine,

the Baja boom and the things that were going on down there. ⁓ So finding the organization that it can work with, and sometimes you have to volunteer. It's not going to be the economic thing. It's like you're going to...

Trade photos for access, for example, you know, and always limit, have an agreement that limits the use of the photos through the projects that they're working on. ⁓ and that's just a good guide all along is that when you, and I fought this battle with Lindblad Nat Geo it's like, you know, we're giving images or selling images for you to use for your brochures. But when it goes to Audubon magazine, you know,

They should be buying them. You can't be giving them away. But you want a good business agreement on that. It's got to be what your passion is. Whether it's land, animals,

And then it's the storytelling. And that's the next step that you have to learn is it's not just, OK, we want to save the whales. Here's the perfect picture of the whales. ⁓

You know, one of the most impactful images I have from Southeast Alaska are the whales bubble net feeding right in front of a fishing boat. And now you have the whales that are feeding on the same thing as the fishing boat is feeding in the same waters. Or the krill shots. came across this, this made one of the largest concentrations of fin whales post whaling. were

We figured two to 3000 feeding in this one krill area and the krill boats were right there on the edge of this protected area. siphoning up the krill 24 hours a day, and we still don't know what the carrying capacity of krill is in the Southern ocean. And then, you know, so it's, being managed, without any really.

knowledge of what the long-term effects are. So those storytelling images where you're combining, it's not just the perfect, beautiful image that's juxtaposed to. And I'm sure you can remember during the clear cutting, and this is probably coming back now with plans for increasing cutting of lands on our national forests is a clear cut, kind of a clear cut and a.

perfect forest side by side. I remember a shot by Art Wolf in Washington state that illustrated that. This destruction on one side and the beautiful forest in the same image. The learning to seek out and take the time to make those shots when you'd rather be, who knows, sitting with your tripod waiting for the sun to set.

Court Whelan (1:32:20)
Excellent advice. Okay, so my penultimate question. What would the Ralph of today tell the Ralph just starting out?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:32:24)
Oops.

You know, when I look back at the way I probably spent too much. Well, I didn't know the technology was going to change. didn't think my old file cabinet there of all those label 35 millimeter slides and medium format slides and four by five slides would basically have no value. mean, some of the images have value. mean, they're going to have value to me because I'm going to make legacy books with my travels.

So I was, I mean, I was lucky because I did follow what I liked I quit a job as a geologist to go on a river trip. So I think I would be telling myself the same thing is that you did well, you took risks. But I think what I probably miss is I didn't figure out my specialty soon enough or my markets soon enough, but I was making money being a guide. So I didn't have the pressure to get,

support my entire living by selling images. guiding, teaching workshops. That was the other thing, ⁓ doing workshops. I was lucky that I started that. When 9-11 happened, switched to, I said, man, this travel could go away. I need to start teaching workshops. And I remember when Joel Sartori told all the photographers at Nat Geo the value of images are almost gone. Start teaching.

And so the advice would be still to take those risks, but to focus a little more on.

on the mark, what you enjoy doing and then the marketing side of it being specialized. it's in today's world, you got to be more technical. You know, you've got to shoot, learn video, learn how to put together video and use drones or partner with someone. And that's the other thing that I did and what I would tell, I was pretty good at this, I think collaborating, but to say to someone else, don't

Try to guard your silo of what you do. You want to collaborate.

Everything that's happened to me is because I've talked to someone and I was open about it and I wanted to help someone else. And then the next thing you know, there, you know, I mean, that was the great thing about working in Lindblad when we started photo expeditions. And then I got criticized for this. We created the Nat Geo position. ⁓

that helped create and I said, why would you invite other photographers to those places that you go and shoot? You know, but by meeting, you know, working with Paul Nicklin and Joel Sartori and, and Mark Thiessen, who's still the only, I think full time that salary photographer at Nat Geo you just learn so much and you learn about their passion and how they approach things. You realize, well, maybe assignments aren't for you, that you have a pretty good job. And that's what Joel kept.

tells all for tar when they complain, anyone complaining about something, do you love your job? Yes, well then, then you navigate it to make it work for you. But I think having a specialty that you're kind of known for, that you can market, even if it's small, local, you know, a friend that.

We basically taught photography on the ship. They retired from finance and they become great photographers. He lives in Key West and he's like the main man for all the events. He shoots everything. has websites. He's not doing it for money. He's doing it for love. And he's having a fun retirement just making fun images.

Now, following your passion, I'll leave it with this. mean, Bob Chris would say, ⁓ inspiration is for amateurs. If you're sitting around waiting to get inspired, you're just probably going to sit there. You've got to get out and start doing something. And it's the same thing with passion.

Following your passion and everything will follow. Well, not really. You've got to be persistent, but you have to identify what it is that you're passionate about, then get good at it, and then follow it, take chances, collaborate Cold call, cold call people. When Nansen went to Greenland, he cold called every, and visited every Arctic explorer he could and learned their secrets.

You know, and knew not to take horses across Greenland. You know, you want to ski and have a sail and a sledge.

Another long winded Ralph Lee Hopkins answer.

Court Whelan (1:37:14)
That was great. Excellent, excellent advice. I would have expected nothing else. All right, so the last question is an easy one. Where can people find you? What if they want to follow along the adventures of Ralph Lee Hopkins in your photography?

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:37:27)
I gotta say, you can say what you want about Facebook, but they're a juggernaut. And they went on a limb and bought Instagram for $1 billion. And now it's probably worth a trillion. Yeah. Post, post your best work. And I do that on Instagram and then it immediately goes to Facebook as well. you can mess message me, message me though on Facebook.

because I don't check the message. I'm like, there's too many, there's threads, there's Instagram, there's Facebook, there's texts, there's emails. I don't know where to, you know, I know someone wrote me, but where did they write me? But that's where they'd find me. Instagram, I try to be, I'm not religious about it. And I'm, I think my last posts were Borneo and I'm never real time. I've had people meet me in like Yellowstone. You were in Hawaii. I said, never real time.

Court Whelan (1:38:25)
Well, excellent. Well, be sure to put your handle in show notes. And that brings us to the end. Ralph, this is a pleasure. I knew it was gonna be a good one. Learned a lot, enjoyed the conversation. And just a very sincere thanks for your time today.

Ralph Lee Hopkins (1:38:33)
Thanks

I really enjoyed it. This is it was an honor to you're good at what you do with these podcasts. So I'll be listening.

Court Whelan (1:38:46)
Thanks Ralph.


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Court Whelan

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