All this week on my blog: Canon 5D Mark III photographs from my Light workshop in Alaska with Hal "Bull" Schmitt aboard the Northern Song. Scroll down for previous posts about our Alaska workshop.

Tip #1: All the shots in this series of post were hand-held. All the shots were cropped . . . and still look great, even when enlarged, thanks to the image quality of the camera's sensor. (Those who know me know that I am a nut about cropping.) Cropping is key.

Tip #2: As you'll notice, the entire scenes are in focus in all these images. To achieve that goal: use a wide-angle lens, set a small aperture, and focus 1/3 into the scene.

Gear for these images:

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 24-105mm IS lens

Tiffen Polarizing filter.

Click here to see all my gear.

All these black-and-white images were created in Nik Silver Efex Pro. For a discount on all Nik plug-ins, click here.

Tip #3: Why black and white? Well, when you remove the color from a scene, you remove some of the reality. When you remove some of the reality, your pictures can become creative and artistic. I talk about stuff like this in my seminars.

Tip #4: Speaking of cropping, that's the subject of today's post. I crop, first, for three reasons:

1) to draw more attention to the main subject by cropping out the boring stuff in a frame;

2) to prevent dark and light areas around the main subject from affecting my digital darkroom exposure and color decisions of the main subject;

3) I can't always get the best composition in camera. Composition, after all, is the strongest way of seeing.

Tip #5: You'll notice that all of these photographs have a foreground element. A foreground element adds a sense of depth to a two-dimensional photograph.