Zaak Barnes Photography

04/29/2026

Life's been crazy lately, but Milky Way Season is BACK!

04/13/2026

Trying a new thing today: a mini-post! One photo, a quick story, and the lessons I learned taking this shot. Happy Monday!

Commentaries on the work put into - and lessons learned - taking a photograph.

04/10/2026

Made a new friend during a recent visit to Santa Fe!

03/26/2026

Getting back in the swing of things! Saw this red-tailed hawk just outside my office not too long ago. Glad I had my camera handy :)

02/19/2026

Dream Lake on Kodak Portra 800

About a month ago, I took a wintertime hike up to Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. The photography club I'm a part of has rotating monthly assignments, and January's was "frozen water."

I brought my digital camera and wide angle lens to capture the frozen waves Dream Lake is famous for, but I also took my film camera, too. On medium format and with an 80mm lens, it was impossible to capture the same field of view. But I felt like this focal length captured the *true* scale of the mountains.

See if you can spot the two hikers in the distance!

A big thanks also to the fine folks at Indie Film Lab for their excellent work developing my roll! Can't wait to get more scans!

02/18/2026

New Blog Post Alert!! Check out my best photos from 2025 - and the stories that go along with them!

It’s finally time for one of my favorite posts of every year - now featuring 5 digital and 5 film photos!

02/06/2026

Scans from my visit home.

I shot these images over Thanksgiving week on Kodak Portra 400. Overcast skies were a bit tricky, but the interior of the state capitol is always a feast for the eyes!

I'd wanted to get the interior of the dome in color for a while, so I am pretty pleased with how that shot turned out. The experiments continue with medium format film, but I hope you like these results. :)

01/20/2026

I didn't see the aurora, but I did see a crescent moon set over Longs Peak!

12/18/2025

I was on a mission to see the Geminids - literally!

Specifically, I was at Mission San Gregorio de Abó in New Mexico! Abó is a Pueblo community dating back to 800 AD, which was then colonized by the Spanish in the 1600s. The ruins of the mission are still standing and can be visited as a part of the Salinas Pueblos Missions National Monument.

Here's the thing, though: the ruins are fragile so the monument is only open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. You may recognize that time frame as "not night." This presented a problem for me because the Geminid meteor shower can only be seen at night.

My solution? I spoke with rangers at Abó who worked with me to grant me access to the park after hours! I told them my interest in the site and its dark skies, explained the unique nature of the meteor shower, and in return they gave me some rules I needed to follow to protect the area - but also permission to visit. I was all to happy to oblige!

This image was taken from within the ruins of the mission (and on the trail!), facing southwest. Since the meteors originated to the northeast in the constellation Gemini, all the meteors I managed to capture appeared to fall in the same general direction, "down" over the ruins. This was my first time tracking and stacking star photos using PixInsight, and I am thrilled with the results!

Huge thanks to the NPS team who worked with me to make this possible. They are the real stars!

12/01/2025

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!! Today is my 32nd birthday, so I'm doing another postcard mailing! Want a free lil 4x5.5 print? Sign up here!!

Back by popular demand! No marketing, no gimmicks. Just a handwritten postcard with a hand-taken(?) photograph from me to you. This form will close on Dec. 14 at 23:59 MST.