Joe Kopp

I’m always looking for places that speak to me. The ones that make my heart skip a beat. I might see a place in a magazine, in a movie, on a TV show, on the internet or sometimes the opportunity presents itself(storms, lightning, etc). Then I use a search engine to find where it is located. I’ll star the spot on my computer maps program. If I’m going to a distant location, I’ll decide various places to shoot and what time of day I would like to shoot the image. Sunrise, sunset, and night skies tend to be my favorites, but sometimes I’m there when I’m there. Many times I’ve made most of my decisions before I even arrive at a location and others allow me to go with the flow. During a shoot, I use my Canon 6d and one of three lenses that I typically use. For night skies, I go with a Rokinon 14mm, for wildlife I might use my Sigma 100-400mm, but for a vast majority of my images, I use my Canon 24-105mm. From there it is time to decide on the camera setting, the use of various filters, and composition.

​Once I have the images in-camera, I’ll download them on my computer into Lightroom and do some general post-processing in the develop module. For other images, I will then go to Photoshop for more post-processing (removing power lines or people). Images are then printed on paper or metal