If you’re looking for inspiration, then this featured artist is for you. Her name is Varina Patel and she is a professional landscape photographer with a incredible portfolio of awe inspiring images and a sincere love of nature.

Her enthusiasm for photography and breath taking images will transport your mind to spectacular vistas and scenaries and leave you appreciating the incredible beauty of the planet we live on.  And in fact, this is exactly what Varina tries to accomplish with her images.  “If I can capture a single photograph – and present it in such a way that someone remembers for a moment just how lucky we are to call this planet home – then I’ve done what I set out to do.”

When I asked Varina about what she wants her work to represent, she said, “For me, landscape photography is about respect for the incredible planet we live on. I think we tend to take it for granted – it’s just another sunset, or just another wave, or just another bit of rock. But if you stop for a minute and really look at the land,  you start to realize that it’s much more than that. The incessant dripping of water carves a canyon in the sandstone. The constant push of the wind creates enormous, rippling dunes. And the sun… a medium-sized star so incredibly far away… provides an environment that supports a mind-boggling variety of life.”

Varina’s passion for photography started as a child in the seventh grade when she first took a photo class and used her dad’s Pentax K1000.  “I learned to develop my film in the darkroom and I started making my own prints… and I’ve been shooting ever since.” Although photography is Karina’s  passion and her full time job, her kids are her greatest source of pride. “The photos of my kids aren’t always perfect, but they represent the most important part of my life.”

Varina has a diverse collection of landscape photographs from all over the US and travels about once a month with her husband, Jay (also a talented landscape photographer) in pursuit of new stunning images.  Even though she tries hard not to spend much time away from her kids, she loves working together with her husband and sharing their mutual love for photography. “It’s neat to share something I love so much with someone who feels the same way.”

When it comes to choosing her favorite type of weather to to photograph “that’s an easy one” she says. “I love stormy skies, heavy thunderheads, mist hanging in the valleys, sunbeams against a deep blue background and when the sun peeks through a gap in the clouds just as it’s about to drop below the horizon… that’s when my world becomes perfect.” Although this post features a few of Varina’s works, if you really want to be inspired then check out her extensive online photo gallery.

With so many stunning landscape pictures, you’ll be sure to find one of Varina’s works that will captivate you.  You can purchase any one of Varina’s landscape images at VisionLightGallery.com. You can also keep in touch with Varina on her cool landscape photo blog or through Twitter. And,  if you’re looking to fine tune your photographic skills, Varina and her husband Jay also teach webinars so be sure to visit her website at Photography by Varina for more details.

Today’s Frame Up is all about tutorials. I love learning new stuff.  Anything and everything new. Plus I love passing it on to our customers and readers.  Here are 3 tutorials straight from the best of the internet.

5 Mind-Traps of Beginner Photographers

Are you a beginning photographer?  Don’t worry, everyone starts out as a beginner. In some ways, beginning is better than being old-hat because of the excitement and passion that come with learning a new skill.

However, sometimes starting something new can be overwhelming. Laura Radniecki over at the Digital Photography school has some valuable advice for the beginning photographer. You’ll learn what to do when you think your photos are bad, your camera isn’t good enough and you’re doing it all wrong. Take heart and inspiration from the post and that you won’t be a beginner for long!

12 Tips for Printing Great Photos

Most inkjet printers can make great prints of you family, friends, pets or even your landscape photography. With a little bit of knowledge and practice you can be making fantastic prints. (Also with a bit of patience!)

Rick Sammon’s Top Ten Digital Photography Tips

If you’ve got 5 minutes, that’s enough time to watch this video with 10 fantastic digital photography tips.

So you’ve just snapped about a hundred photos with your favorite digital camera.  Or maybe you scanned them from old prints.  Doesn’t matter where they came from, they’re downloaded to your computer, in picasa or flickr or  wherever you keep them and they’re ready to be shared… now what?

Take some of you photos and add a little “awesome” to them with one of these three free photo editors:

• The simple and easy to use web based Picnik
• Free and easy desktop based Paint.NET
• Powerful image processing with the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) (more…)