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Mark Denney
@markdenneyphoto
Mark Denney is a professional landscape and outdoor photographer based in North Carolina, United States. After a 17-year career in the corporate world, he took a radical turn in his life in July 2018 to dedicate himself completely to nature photography and content creation. He describes himself as a naturally anxious person who found landscape photography a form of "Zen meditation," a tool that allows him to practice patience and disconnect from the fast pace while waiting for the precise moment when the right light appears to capture an image.
As an educator and lecturer, his work focuses on teaching the narrative capacity of photographs, encouraging his followers not to obsess over the final result, but to appreciate the photographic experience in its entirety. He is widely recognized for his YouTube channel, where he shares editing tutorials, composition tips, and vlogs of his van trips under the banner "Cameras, Vans, & The Great Outdoors." In addition to his teaching at workshops and his weekly newsletter The Morning Blaze, he is an ambassador for brands such as NiSi Optics and f-stop Gear, and his content has been featured in prestigious publications such as Outdoor Photographer Magazine and ShutterBug.
Previous videos
19
Most Landscape Photographers Focus on the Wrong Things
Published: Jul 1, 2026 · Duration: 11 min 49 sec · 9.3K views
*🎨FREE Lightroom Colors Course🌟* *Learn the exact color workflow I use to create natural, vibrant landscape photos in Lightroom.* *Get Instant Access → Over the last 10 years, there are a lot of things I’ve stopped caring about as a landscape photographer. Not because they don’t matter, but because I’ve realized we often spend too much time focusing on the wrong things. In this video, I share the 10 things I no…
Don’t Press The Shutter Until You Check This
Published: Jun 24, 2026 · Duration: 15 min 7 sec · 12K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *✅ Avoid The Small Mistakes That Ruin Great Photos — Download My Free 10-Second Checklist:* * Have you ever gotten home from a shoot, opened a photo you were excited about, and immediately spotted something you should have seen in the field? A distraction near the edge of the frame, a missed focus point, or a composition that could…
Photography Rules I Followed for Too Long
Published: Jun 17, 2026 · Duration: 13 min 32 sec · 13K views
*Want sharper landscape photos? Download my Free Focus Stacking Guide* *👉 When I first started learning landscape photography, there were a handful of rules I never questioned. I followed them because they were repeated so often by photographers I respected that I simply assumed they had to be true.
I Ignored This RAW Editing Step for Years
Published: Jun 10, 2026 · Duration: 14 min 2 sec · 30K views
👉 Check out DxO PureRAW 6 and save 15% with discount code DENNEY I've heard photographers talk about DxO PureRAW for years, but I never really understood what it did or why so many people used it. As someone who does almost all of my editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, I've never been interested in adding extra software to my workflow unless there was a clear benefit. So over the last few weeks, I decided to test…
I Think We Got Back Button Focus Wrong
Published: Jun 3, 2026 · Duration: 9 min 12 sec · 25K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *👉 Download my FREE Camera Setup Guide and see how I actually configure my camera in the field for landscape photography: Back button focus has become one of the most recommended camera settings in photography, especially for landscape photographers. But after using it for years, I started wondering whether I was using it because it…
“Lightroom” Finally Added This
Published: May 27, 2026 · Duration: 12 min 8 sec · 62K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *Learn how I approach editing my RAW photos from start to finish in my free RAW Editing Guide:* * Lightroom masking has come a long way over the past few years, but there has still been a few limitations that always felt just slightly incomplete… especially when it came to shaping color inside local adjustments and creating smoother…
You Slowly Stop Seeing This
Published: May 20, 2026 · Duration: 9 min 6 sec · 13K views
*Learn how I approach editing subtle light, atmosphere, and mood in my free RAW Editing Guide:* * After spending the last few weeks photographing the massive peaks and dramatic light of Patagonia, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to something completely different back in the Great Smoky Mountains. Quiet fog drifting through trees. Small moments most photographers would probably walk right past.
You Think Your Camera’s Safe… Until This Happens
Published: May 13, 2026 · Duration: 13 min 38 sec · 75K views
*👉 Set your camera up once and never fight your settings again. Get my free Camera Setup Guide here A couple days ago while photographing waterfalls in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I slipped on a rock and dropped my Nikon Z8 and 14-24mm lens completely underwater. What followed over the next several days was one of the most stressful photography experiences I’ve ever had.
This Habit Held My Photography Back for 10 Years
Published: May 6, 2026 · Duration: 13 min 24 sec · 52K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 👉 Download my FREE Camera Setup Guide and set your camera up once so you never have to fight your settings again: For a long time, I believed that simply spending more time behind the camera would naturally make me a better landscape photographer. But somewhere along the way, I realized something uncomfortable...the habits that helped…
You’re Giving Too Much Space to the Wrong Parts of Your Photo
Published: Apr 29, 2026 · Duration: 13 min 57 sec · 15K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *👉 Set your camera up once & never fight your settings again. Download my free Camera Setup Guide Here: If you’ve ever looked at the back of your camera and felt like something about your photo just wasn’t working, even though the light was good and the settings were right, the problem might not be your exposure, your lens, or the…
Fixing White Balance Makes Photos Worse — Here’s the Fix
Published: Apr 22, 2026 · Duration: 12 min 54 sec · 20K views
*👉 Download the Free RAW Editing Guide* *Stop guessing what to adjust, what to ignore, and when to stop.* * Fixing white balance seems like the responsible thing to do when editing your photos, but in many situations it can actually make your images look worse. This is especially true during blue hour and golden hour, when the color in the scene is not a mistake to be corrected but a mood to be preserved. In this…
You’re Ignoring Your Camera’s Most Powerful Dial
Published: Apr 15, 2026 · Duration: 10 min 13 sec · 134K views
*👉 Set your camera up once and never fight your settings again. Get my free Camera Setup Guide here There is one dial on your camera that can completely change how your camera behaves, yet most photographers either overlook it or underestimate how powerful it really is. If you find yourself constantly adjusting ISO or rebuilding your exposure every time the light changes, this video will show you a faster and more…
Making Your Photos Sharper Is Making Them Worse
Published: Apr 8, 2026 · Duration: 12 min 25 sec · 11K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *👉 If you want consistently sharp, natural-looking photos, download my FREE complete RAW photo editing guide here Most photographers believe the key to sharper photos is simply adding more sharpening, but in many cases, that approach can actually make your images feel less sharp. If you’ve ever taken a photo that looked perfectly…
The Tool Lightroom Still Doesn’t Have — Until Now
Published: Apr 1, 2026 · Duration: 13 min 19 sec · 104K views
*👉 Join The Morning Blaze for weekly photography tips, editing workflows, and field insights:* * If you’ve ever used a sky mask in Adobe Lightroom and noticed that harsh halo or unrealistic edge where the sky meets the landscape, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most frustrating limitations in Lightroom, and surprisingly, there’s still no dedicated control to fix it directly. In this video, I’ll show you the exact…
Your Blown Highlights Are Not Ruined — Here’s the Fix
Published: Mar 25, 2026 · Duration: 12 min 14 sec · 29K views
*👉 Download the Free RAW Editing Guide* Stop guessing what to adjust, what to ignore, and when to stop. Most photographers assume that once highlights are blown, the photo is finished and there’s no way to fix it. I used to believe the same thing.
Your Exposure Isn’t Wrong - It’s Your Metering Mode
Published: Mar 18, 2026 · Duration: 12 min 54 sec · 19K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *👉 Stop second-guessing your settings. Get my free Camera Setup Guide so you can set your camera up once and focus on composition instead: If you’ve ever taken a photo that looked perfectly exposed according to your camera’s meter, only to get home and realize the image looks too dark or too bright, you’re not alone.
Why Your Photos All Look the Same
Published: Mar 11, 2026 · Duration: 12 min 26 sec · 12K views
*Use this link to get $25 off your PPA membership today! *👉 If you want to take your landscape photos from flat, lifeless RAW files to fully realized images with depth, color, and impact, I put together a free step by step editing course that walks through my entire workflow from start to finish. Download it here: Most photographers try to fix weak photos by adjusting camera settings, but more often than not the…
The Focus Mistake Many Photographers Make
Published: Mar 4, 2026 · Duration: 11 min 55 sec · 18K views
Go to to get a free trial and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. *👉 Get the free focus stacking guide here:* Most landscape photographers have heard this advice: stop down to f/11 or f/16 and focus about one third of the way into the scene to get everything sharp. Sometimes that works.
Finally! Ultra Wide Filters Done Right
Published: Feb 25, 2026 · Duration: 11 min 24 sec · 14K views
*Check out the ultra wide filter kit here:* Ultra wide angle lenses create some of the most dramatic perspectives in landscape photography, but using filters on a bulb front element has traditionally meant oversized holders, extra adapters, and limited stacking options. It works, but it’s rarely simple. In this video, I take a closer look at a new magnetic filter kit designed specifically for ultra wide lenses,…
