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Leaving For Kenya Tomorrow |
The Weekly Frame #27: May 14th, 2026 |
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Hi friends, |
The Nepal recovery is mostly behind me. The finger has healed up well, the vaccine series is now complete (yay), and I've spent most of this past week unpacking one bag while slowly repacking the next one… |
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In about thirty-six hours I'll be on a flight to Nairobi. |
This trip with the National Geographic Creator Cohort has been on my calendar for months, but it didn't feel real until the gear started piling up on the living room floor again. Eight days across Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha, and the Maasai Mara, with morning and evening game drives, and a brief in my head I'm trying to take seriously. |
This is going to be a crash course in wildlife photography. I shoot landscapes. I shoot travel. I've spent very little time pointed at a moving animal with a long lens, and pretending otherwise wouldn't do anyone any favors. |
So I've been researching. A lot. And there are two specific stabilization techniques I want to try on the first morning, partly out of curiosity and partly because I genuinely don't know yet what will work for me. |
The first is a monopod. From everything I've read, this is what most serious safari shooters actually carry, because you can't really stand up in a safari vehicle and a normal tripod is useless inside one. A monopod gives you a fast way to take the weight of a long lens off your arms while still letting you swing the camera in any direction the animal goes. |
The second is stranger. A fairly common trick is to hang a leather strap or belt from the inside edge of the jeep, just a simple loop, and rest the front of your lens inside that loop while shooting. It works as a soft, flexible cradle that absorbs the small movements your hands can't suppress. I'm bringing a strap I trust, and I'll see if it does what people say it does. |
I'll have a real report on both next week. |
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Tip of the Week: Adobe's New Color Mode |
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Adobe just released Color Mode in the Premiere beta, and if you've ever wanted Lightroom-style precision inside a video editor, this is one of the most interesting things they've shipped in years. |
Color Mode rebuilds Premiere's color workflow around concepts that feel familiar if you've spent time in Lightroom. You can apply a look from a single clip across an entire sequence in one click. You can lock onto a specific object inside a scene and adjust only the colors in that area, the same way Subject masks work on stills. Two-axis drag controls let you fine-tune contrast and color tint with a precision the traditional color wheels never quite offered. And you can stack modular adjustments to build a custom look, save the whole thing as a reusable Style, and dial its intensity up or down on the next sequence. |
If you've been treating your video edits as a different language from your photo edits, this quietly closes the gap. The mental model is the same. The output is starting to look the same too. |
A few practical notes: |
It's still in beta, so expect there might be one or two rough edges in places. |
It's Premiere-only for now. There's no Lightroom counterpart yet, though the parallels are obvious enough that some version of this almost has to come over to stills eventually. |
If you want to try it, the link is available through Adobe's Creative Community. The fastest path right now is leaving a comment on the post I shared about it this week, which auto-sends the access link. |
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What's Happening in Photography Right Now |
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Sony launches the a7R VI. Sony's new flagship resolution body was announced yesterday in New York: 66.8MP stacked full-frame sensor, 30 fps RAW burst, and 8.5 stops of in-body stabilization. Pairs with a new FE 100-400mm f/4.5 GM telephoto featuring an internal zoom mechanism. |
Canon launches the EOS R6 V. Canon's first body in a new video-focused line was announced the same day. It uses the R6 Mark III's 32.5MP sensor but drops the EVF and mechanical shutter for internal 7K RAW recording. Pairs with the new RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ lens. |
Moon and Venus pair up on May 18. Look west just after sunset on Monday. The waxing crescent Moon and Venus will sit a few degrees apart low on the horizon, with twilight giving you one of the cleanest astrophotography compositions of the month. |
World Press Photo exhibition touring globally. The 2026 exhibition is currently open in Amsterdam and traveling to over 60 cities this year, including Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Mexico City, Rio, Montreal, Jakarta, and Sydney. Worth a visit if you're in one of the cities on the tour route. |
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Creator Highlight: Suzi Eszterhas (American Wildlife Photographer) |
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Suzi Eszterhas has built a career around one specific subject: baby animals in the first weeks and months of their lives. |
What sounds like a narrow niche is actually one of the hardest things to shoot in nature. Newborn predators are usually hidden, often dangerous to be near, and protected by mothers who will not tolerate human presence. Eszterhas has spent over two decades earning the access to photograph cheetah cubs, brown bear cubs, lion cubs, and orangutan infants in the wild. Her work has appeared in BBC Wildlife, Smithsonian, and National Geographic Kids, and she's published more than two dozen children's books built around her photography. |
She's in the middle of a series on her Instagram right now called Top 7 Life Changing Wildlife Journeys, where she's posting one country per day with notes on what makes the wildlife there worth the trip. Day 4 (yesterday) was the Brazilian Pantanal and a jaguar moving along a river bank. |
Good follow this week if you're in the mood for travel inspiration grounded in someone's actual fieldwork rather than a list of pretty places. She also runs Girls Who Click, a nonprofit that mentors young women interested in conservation photography. |
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Gear Worth Mentioning: Black Diamond Spot 400-R Headlamp |
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For anyone who shoots before sunrise or after sunset, a good headlamp is one of those quiet pieces of gear that pays for itself the first morning you actually use it. |
The Spot 400-R is rechargeable, puts out 400 lumens at full brightness, weighs about as much as a deck of cards, and has a red night-vision mode that doesn't wreck your eyes when you're checking a composition. The digital lock keeps it from turning on accidentally inside a packed bag, which sounds minor until it happens to you. |
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(Full transparency: I earn a small commission through this link. It helps keep this newsletter free and my coffee mug full. Thanks for supporting!) |
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One More Thing… |
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That's it for this week. The next time you hear from me I'll either be writing from a Sarova lodge somewhere in Kenya or trying to type something coherent on a phone in a moving safari vehicle. I'm hoping for the lodge. |
This week's question: What’s a style of photography you’ve never tried but always been really intrigued by?
For me, my love of animals has always made me want to try more wildlife photography, so Kenya is going to be such an incredible adventure.
Let me know what you think, I'll be reading your replies and responding as soon as I can! |
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See you next week,
Paige |
Follow Me On Instagram |
P.S. Curious how I edit my photos? These are the exact presets I use for almost every travel & landscape shoot (designed for both mobile and desktop). |
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P.P.S. Some of my most popular travel and landscape shots are available as prints through Big Wall Decor. If you've ever wanted one on your wall, check them out here. |
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