I arrived at the train station earlier than expected and had about forty minutes before Gina and JD were getting in. This was a great opportunity to walk around and explore with my camera. It was a perfect autumn morning in what has turned out to be the most enjoyable October ever (unless you are a plant or a lawn). The air was pleasantly warm, with the most gentle of breezes. The sky was clear blue, punctuated by quickly moving clouds.
I made my way across the street to a building I have seen for many many years. And it has always attracted my photographic curiosity. But, for the first time, I was on foot with a camera, and not in a car speeding to the parking garage to catch a train.
I made many images from different angles with different compositions. It was exhilarating seeing the patterns the clouds made in the sky and on the building. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, my forty minutes was gone as my phone lit up with texts from Gina telling me they waiting!
This occasionally happens when I am photographing... time just flies past without me even noticing. Forty minutes, or an hour, or even more speed by in what feels like no time. I get lost in the subject and the process of making photos. I think it is this total immersion that sometimes happens that is a big part of the enjoyment of photography for me.
Sometimes it happens... I really liked this image the second I made the exposure. But even today, I'm not sure exactly why I like it so much, I just do. We have a large framed print of it hanging in the upstairs hallway of our house. The photography magazine "Elements" contacted me after seeing this image posted in their online group and they are going to publish it in their next issue. And it received the most feedback of any image I posted in a photography forum online.
But not everyone likes it. A friend said it was nothing special. He had seen several others similar to this that I have made in the past and this one just didn't do anything for him. I won't name names... that wouldn't be right. Let's just say... he was my college roommate, lives in New Jersey, spends too much time with us, is terrible at Pickleball, and doesn't know anything about photography! :)
If I told you the location, you'd say "you went there and this is what you took photos of?" The location doesn't matter for this image. And it's not an exotic looking landscape from the canyons of Utah like the last image I shared. It's simple, and calming. It's the light and the gently rolling fence reaching up to the brooding clouds that makes this image interesting for me.
I have some more images to share in the coming months as I catch up working on them and selecting the best. I may share one more from my Utah trip in May, and I have several to share from a two week trip Marilyn and I took to England and Scotland. And then I have some interesting local images I might share.
Seems I'm making some new images again!
I couldn't resist sending one more blog post on White Pocket. This is from a trip I made to Utah earlier in May of this year. As you may recall, we drove for three hours, the last hour through deep sand, just to get to this location. On the afternoon we arrived we were sandblasted by fifty mph winds as we hiked over the rock formation. And we spent the night sleeping in the Jeep, wearing every article of clothing we had, barely able to keep warm.
The next morning, sixty minutes before sunrise, I started walking back towards the rock formation and saw something I had never witnessed before. A group of eight photographers were walking out of the landscape near sunrise. Out! Their back turned away from the beautiful pastel colors of the rocks. It turns out this was a group that spent the entire night on the rocks doing night sky and Milky Way photography.
I walked toward the pastel colored rock formations and made this image within twenty minutes of arriving. The harsh sunlight of yesterday was gone and a pale blue colored the surface of the white rocks. It was amazing how soft and different everything looked. I made this image and then kept walking and exploring, making more images along the way. As the sun came up, the light and colors quickly changed and it didn't take long for the harsh light of day to return. I am starting to prefer this pre-dawn, blue hour, light. It's very calming and peaceful. The only problem is that it comes even earlier than sunrise!
I have released the Southern Utah Gallery Page on my website. Click that link to get there and view a small collection of images from white Pocket, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, the canyons of Escalante National Monument, and a return hike on the Fairyland Loop in Bryce Canyon.
In May, my friend Rich and I made another pilgrimage to Utah for some hiking and photography. This is the seventh time I've been to Utah to hike and there are still so many things I haven't seen. There are five National Parks in the state, but you could make an argument that the entire southern half of the state should be a national park.
Since we had been to all of the national parks in Utah, this time we concentrated on staying off the beaten path. We traveled along dusty, sandy, one-lane roads; we hiked through canyons; we spent sunrise in the sand dunes; and we slept in our rented Jeep one night. Why?
The centerpiece of our trip was a visit to a place called White Pocket. And yes, I know this is really just across the border in Northern Arizona. It took us three hours to get there and the last hour was on a narrow, very deep, sand road. I spent that last hour gripping the wheel tightly hoping we wouldn't get stuck, and hoping the few Jeeps coming from the opposite direction would get out of my way so I wouldn't have to pull over and risk even deeper sand.
We made it by mid afternoon and arrived at the most beautiful rock formation I have ever hiked on. Of course we had to contend with fifty mph wind gusts sandblasting our skin and making it very difficult to get sharp photographs. We hiked, explored, and photographed in the late afternoon, culminating in the photo above. After that, it was time for dinner in the Jeep (you guessed it... chicken in a can!) and then some sleep before doing another hike and photo session at sunrise.
After a freezing night of sleeping in all the clothing and jackets we had, a hat and gloves, under two heavy blankets, we went back out for sunrise. The soft pale colors before the sun came up made the place look completely different.
White Pocket is an amazing place to visit. It's hard to get there, but so worth it! Look for more images from the rest of the trip in upcoming blog posts.
Today marks ten years to the day that I sent out my first photography blog post! On December 4, 2013 I created my (then) new website and sent out the first blog post from a trip I did to Joshua Tree National Park. I didn't have any grand aspirations. I wasn't looking to build an audience of thousands. I just wanted a better way of sending out occasional photographs to a handful of friends.
And over time, I used the monthly blog post as a way to force me to create more photographs locally, rather than only when I traveled to National Parks or other far away places. And for many years it worked... Each month, I would wander around nearby places and see things in a fresh way and create a meaningful photograph. I still did great trips to National Parks. But I also did more photographic work locally.
And then I retired. And somehow became even busier than when I was working! My photography has suffered a little... I don't devote nearly as much time to creating images as I did in the past. But, things ebb and flow and I'm sure I'll find a way soon to balance photography with all the other things we're doing.
The image above is from a recent trip to Glacier and Banff National Parks. It's also a complete lie and fake. No, not the color of the water. It truly was that magical shade of brilliant blue-green. But the peaceful and remote feeling you get looking at the image is a complete lie. For anyone who has ever been to Lake Louise in Banff NP, you know that I was surrounded by hundreds of tourists, babies in strollers, teens taking selfies for Tik Tok, a chinese choir group singing on the south shore... with a five star resort right behind me. It's a beautiful sight to see... but I prefer much quieter places!
Thanks for sticking around these last ten years. And to ten more!
We awoke to a perfectly sunny, clear autumn day outside Glacier National Park. This was the first day of our trip and I couldn't wait to get up into the mountains. I could see the majestic peaks rise up quickly in the distance and they got even more impressive as we drove toward the park. But I noticed something else too... some clouds in the middle of the peaks. Probably nothing to worry about.
But the persistent cloud shelf wouldn't leave... in fact it got larger. And as we drove up Going To The Sun Road I started to think the National Park Service had the wrong name for this road. Sure, they had a hundred years of experience in the park and this was my first day... but I was certain I knew better... this road should have been called Into The Clouds Road!
We gained altitude as we gained distance and it started to get brighter... and brighter. The layers of mountain peaks in all directions were revealing themselves as the clouds and fog thinned out. And as we continued gaining altitude, we emerged above the clouds. The tallest peaks stuck out of a bright white foggy floor... thousands of feet above sea level. It was time to make some photos!
Things started changing quickly. Even though we stopped moving, the landscape changed before our very eyes. Light rays shone though thinning fog... unseen pine trees suddenly became visible... and the foggy floor high above the valley started breaking up. I made many images, but this is the one I liked the best. You can see the remnants of the fog and clouds that had earlier obscured the landscape causing me to think I knew more about this park than the National Park Service. Fortunately, they knew better than me!
Sometimes you are simply at the right place at the right time. All the planning in the world is of no help. When weather changes as frequently as it does in Newfoundland, it is hard to conceive of an image in advance and then go try to make that image. Sometimes you need luck... and you need to be at the right place at the right time.
It was a little past eight o'clock after a long day of hiking. We were driving back to our cottage in Rocky Harbour when we saw the sky start to light up. And... we had just driven past a scenic overlook. What luck!! We made a u-turn and zipped back to the parking lot of the overlook. I worked quickly to get the camera and tripod set up since the light was changing fast. I made several attempts and liked the image above the best of all.
At first we had the place to ourselves, but slowly a few more cars had the same luck we did. They were at the right place at the right time too. They quietly joined us and we all watched the light show eventually fade into early evening.
This is the last of the Newfoundland images I will share on the blog. Please visit my Newfoundland Page to see more images (you'll see Puffins!). I hope you enjoyed this "trip" to Newfoundland as much as we did! We recently came back from a trip to Glacier NP and Banff... so I hope that is what you will find in the next blog post.
Twelve days and not a single clear morning for sunrise photography. Twelve days and very few clear evenings for sunset photography. The weather in Newfoundland was very changeable and rendered all advanced planning almost useless. On my photography trips, I meticulously plan sunrise and sunset photography locations. Everything else is secondary... eating, sleeping, even bathing! It all happens only if time permits and only after the sunrises and sunsets.
We met our match with the Newfoundland weather. But we adapted and it turned out to be great weather! We had some beautiful periods of sunny skies. We had fog. We had clouds and even a short period of rain one day. What we learned was that each day would start off with fog or clouds, turn sunny by late morning, then cloud up again toward sunset. And on very few evenings, we would be treated to about five or ten minutes of absolutely magical sunset light.
In the case of the photograph above, we were on Cape Bonavista when the sunlight broke through a small gap in the evening clouds and lit up the coast with incredible golden light. I was literally running from spot to spot to get the right composition before the light faded. One hundred yards behind me and across the road, Marilyn and Rich were watching whales put on an amazing show... breaching, diving, blowing air and water and simply playing in front of an appreciative audience. The light faded quickly and my work was done, so I joined Marilyn and Rich and watched the whales enjoying their evening of fun off the coast.
I'll probably share one or two more photos from our trip. Newfoundland is not a place that many people know about. And hardly anyone has it in their top locations to visit. But it should be... it was simply beautiful. We will go back. For sure.
I've always been fascinated by extremes. If a place is described by a word ending in "est" it grabs my attention and almost begs me to see it! Tallest, driest, hottest, furthest, highest... these are some of the words that describe places that appeal to me.
While planning our trip to Newfoundland, I found out that it has a location that is the furthest east in North America. I had to see it. Cape Spear is a section of rocky coast on the eastern edge of Newfoundland. The sun's light touches this rocky coast before any other land in all of North America. And what a beautiful place!
We hiked for six miles along a thousand foot high barren headland along the coast... through small stands of stunted pines... over boardwalks through boggy marshy fields with granite outcroppings... alongside carnivorous pitcher plants... and more.
We saw humpback whales swimming in the waters below... breaching, feeding, and blowing air as they reached the surface of the water. We sat at North Head Point and just enjoyed the magnificent views and sounds all around us. Definitely one of my favorite hikes in all the places I have been. And we finished the day with five minutes of magical golden sunlight on the Cape Spear Lighthouse as the sun slipped out from under the clouds before dropping below the horizon.
We recently returned from a twelve day hiking and photography trip to Newfoundland. It was a fantastic trip through a rugged landscape, charming coastal villages, with warm and welcoming people. I'll have some more images to share as I review them to find the best.
This blog post is coming to you on the summer solstice... the beginning of summer and the longest day of the year. Unfortunately this also means the days will be getting shorter from now on! :(
Equally momentous is the fact that I was out in the landscape with my camera for the first time in a very long time. I spent a couple days on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay near the Blackwater area. I have been here several times and it is one of my favorite places to visit... flat, wide open, marshy areas with lots of wildlife... and hardly any people.
Those grand, wide open, flat marshy scenes require great light and interesting skies in order to make worthwhile images. And if you live in the northeast, you know we have had terrible hazy white skies almost all spring because of the wildfires in Canada. Hazy white skies are about the worst you can have if you are trying to make good photographs.
Luckily, the smoke does something else. It partially obscures the sun and gives a warm, orange glow to the land at sunrise. So, with a wake-up call at 4:45am, I went to my favorite place on Maple Dam Road and started looking. After some time, I found the right combination of color, sky, water, and trees. While the Jeep was parked on one half of the road, I set up the camera and tripod on the other half and created this image that I really like. It conveys how quiet the morning felt as the sun slowly rose through the smoke filled skies.
It felt good to be out there again. I have a couple more trips planned and some other nice images from Blackwater. So... there just might be some regular monthly blog posts coming again!
Why not? I had never been to a real live auction in my life. I’ve heard the stories and I had a good idea of what I thought it would be like, but I had never been to one. So when the sign went up on the property of a local farm saying the auction was next Wednesday at 9am, I thought… why not?
We arrived early and were surprised at the large parking lot in the field… with a separate area for trucks and trailers. We parked the Jeep among rows of huge pickup trucks and walked up the hill to where the machinery and farm equipment were on display. We immediately noticed the auctioneers in their black hats and coats and couldn’t wait for it to start. People greeted each other with warm recognition. Clearly we were the outsiders here… the only ones in sneakers and the only ones with a camera. Once the main auctioneer started with his sing-song melodic voice, the reality matched what I imagined auctions to be. It was a great way to spend a couple hours on a Wednesday morning.
Click on this link to see seven more images. And be sure to click on the button with some background audio while viewing the photos.
For regular followers of my newsletter, you will obviously see this is very different from the photographs I normally create and share with you. As you know, my pickleball addiction has caused me to spend much less time creating new landscape images. But it has done something else as well. It has provided a break and allowed me to experiment with other kinds of photography. And this has brought back some of the excitement in making images again. Who knows if this is a real change in direction or just a temporary experiment. Either way, its been fun!
"Just another sunset"... that was the reaction I got from a friend when I previewed this image. Now I know he was joking, but it really got me thinking. Are we that jaded with images showing special moments in nature that we don't even appreciate them anymore? Jaded means "lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something". Do we not get excited at a spectacular sunset image simply because we have seen so many highly saturated, over-processed sunset photos on Instagram, or Facebook, or the Internet? How about the real thing? Are we so flooded with photos that we don't even slow down the car when we see the real sunset?
I hope not! Each special moment is unique, and worth noticing. We can afford a few minutes to stop the car, or stop what we are doing, and witness the beauty in something as everyday as the sunset.
We were on the gulf coast of Florida visiting close friends when I created this image. Not only did we stop the car, but our friends purposefully made dinner reservations for thirty minutes after sunset so we would have time to stand on the beach and watch the sun sink below the horizon. And for the second day in a row, we were on the dividing line with clear skies to the north and clouds to the south... giving us this beautiful mix of clouds and sunlight and color that simply could not be seen anywhere else. At least fifty other people took the time to stand on the beach with us and watch the colorful ending to a beautiful winter day down south.
Thanks for bearing with me as I share just anther sunset photo. Maybe next month I'll get back to a more meaningful image! :)
Happy New Year Everyone!
Here is something a little different from my normal photographs. I've often noticed how street lights illuminate the bare trees of winter. The light source seems to change the physical shape of the trees by revealing some branches while others remain obscured by the dark of night. As you drive by in a car, the shapes change as your perspective changes.
I decided to make a few images to see if this might become a small project. I was pleasantly surprised by the first image I created a few nights ago. It looks mysterious and almost as if it's from a different world. I like how the trees just seem to fade away into nothing as you move further from the light. What is hidden in the dark world beyond?
The trees in the light seem to provide a line of defense against unknown forces. What are they protecting? Why are these trees so important that they are illuminated? Many questions, but no answers. (As a side note, I posted this image in a fine art photography group on Facebook. It received a very positive response and gained the "Editor's Applause" award for the week! There were many comments... most unique is that from a distance, the image looks like two animals engaged in a fight.)
Stay tuned. It may turn into an interesting small project. Or it simply may be one nice picture taken one warm winter evening. Either way... I'm using my cameras again!
That’s a curious title… isn’t this a picture of three trees? At first glance it is. And in our fast paced world, that is all most people will give this picture and even the real scene. A quick glance… “Oh, that’s nice”… and then move on. But when you slow down and let the picture sink in a little, you notice the larger gap between two of the trees. And once you see it, you cannot “un-see it”. It very clearly changes to a picture of two trees and one tree.
I had a little help in noticing this because I made several images of this scene over the course of several days. I was certain that I wanted a very clear sky with no clouds. I waited until we had two days of clear weather and went out at sunset on the first day to ensure a clear sky for the background. And, initially I thought I was making an image of three trees in an open field. And the first images were in fact three trees… with evenly spaced gaps between them. But on the last day, I changed my tripod location just a little, and the gap on the right opened up. And the picture, and story, completely changed.
I’ve often thought bare winter trees take on human shapes and emotions when you look at them long enough and let your imagination wander. With a little creativity, you might see two parent trees wishing their child tree well as she leaves to go who knows where. It’s a bittersweet scene… the parent trees are proud as they wave to their child. But she already has her back turned and is striding quickly into her future.
Yes, it’s just an imaginative story. But that story never gets created or told if I didn’t spend time shivering in a field at sunset on a cold winter day and move my tripod ten feet to the left.
It’s good to be back out in the field with my camera, with an excuse to notice the little things. I hope you are having a great holiday season and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Remember me? I used to go out hiking, spending quiet time in nature, capturing what I felt with my camera. I would then share these images with friends in a monthly blog post along with a sometimes humorous anecdote. Alas, that was before I succumbed to a pickleball addiction. I haven't sent out a new image in several months - only the second time I've missed a monthly post in nine years! And, to show how harmful this addiction is, it has spread to my wife too! Now we are both battling it! Maybe as the cold weather approaches it will ease up and I will get the chance to once again go out into nature and create some meaningful images. Fingers crossed.
In late October, Marilyn and I took a break from pickleball and went to Sedona with friends. This was a repeat visit to red rock country and it was a very enjoyable week - beautiful weather, great hiking, nice meals, and we attended the annual Plein Air Painting festival. We even did a couple side trips.
One excursion was a trip to Page Arizona to visit the slot canyons... Antelope Canyon to be exact. These slot canyons are incredible things to see. They are areas of Navajo sandstone eroded by flash floods and wind into twisted, multi-colored shapes. As the sun passes overhead, the light changes and the eroded canyons change constantly. Marilyn and I had been there seventeen years ago with our daughters. And while the canyons remained the same, the time certainly brought changes. It seems the crowds of people who discovered our National Parks and outdoor areas during Covid are still visiting these places... I wish they'd go back to their sofas and TV's so we can enjoy the outdoors with a little less crowds! :)
It feels good to share a new image with you all. Hopefully more good images to come as I get back out into the land with my camera.
One more image from our National Park trip in May. I haven't been out photographing much because I have a severe Pickleball addiction problem. They say the first step in solving the problem is admitting you have one. Maybe I do... maybe I don't. Is eight times a week for three hours each session a problem? Depends who you ask! Whether it's a problem or not, it does take up a lot of my time leaving little time left for photography. But I'm sure I'll get back out there with the camera sometime soon.
If you have followed this blog for awhile, you'll know I have a weakness for certain recurring themes... lone trees, rocks, desert canyon landscapes, etc. It's no surprise then that I couldn't pass up this image of a lone tree, in a desert canyon, surrounded by rocks! This image was made in Bryce Canyon at the end of a sunrise morning photo walk. It is such a beautiful place to be when the sun rises. I'd go back any time!
I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Maybe next time I'll have a new local image to share... if I make progress on my Pickleball problem!
This is another image from the trip we took with friends in May to the National Parks out west. We arrived at our Yosemite NP lodging in late afternoon. After unpacking and sitting around talking, I saw there was still a lot of light left and cloud banks were forming and breaking up. We were only twenty minutes from Tunnel View so I decided to drive over to the Valley. My friend Bill wanted to come along. I did give him fair warning… I told him if the light was great, there’d be no rushing to get back for dinner! He reluctantly agreed.
We drove the twenty minutes on winding mountain roads through snow squalls and sunlight. It was unusually cold and with the altitude, the conditions were right for snow. No amount of snow on the steep, winding mountain roads was going to stop me from seeing what the valley looked like in these conditions.
We arrived to magnificent late evening light, partially blocked by constantly changing clouds and snow squalls. First you could see all the way up the Valley, then that view closed and El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls would magically appear. It changed every ten minutes. I knew instantly that my friend Bill had no chance of getting back for dinner! I finally settled on a composition where you could see the granite face of El Cap and Bridalveil Falls, with snow squalls opening just enough to show the golden light on Half Dome far up the valley. It really was the right place at the right time.
After pulling myself away from the fading light, it was time to head back home. I drove a bit fast for Bill, who kept telling me he didn’t mind getting home ten minutes later! But we needed to get back before dark, since the location of our VRBO was not easy to find. We finally made it and we arrived at our darkened house. How could they all be asleep at 8:30? They weren’t… we found the power was out to the entire neighborhood! Bill did manage to eat a Subway hoagie and then we called it a night!
Three years ago a group of our closest friends suggested we all go on a two week National Park hiking trip out west. Never one to turn down a chance to visit the National Parks, I said as fast as I could... "We're in!". And so began a lot of planning, and then a two year delay due to the pandemic. But, finally the day of departure arrived and the trip was on!
We spent the first two weeks of May in the deserts of Utah and California and finished in the high mountains. In total, we saw Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, Zion, Death Valley, Sequoia, and Yosemite. We shivered in 30 degree temperatures while watching the sun come over the canyon rim and light up the orange and white hoodoos of Bryce. We hiked two thousand feet up to the top of the West Rim of Zion. We arrived to 109 degree heat in Death Valley followed by a day in the 40's in the high altitude of Sequoia! We doubled back on a pleasant hike around a meadow because a mother bear was guarding her cub too close to the trail. And we put our hands on the Dawn Wall of El Capitan and even climbed part of the famous wall of granite (ok, we only climbed five feet, but we still got off the ground on El Cap!).
It was a fantastic trip... a bit tiring, but everyone got to see an incredible variety of landscapes in a short amount of time.
I arose for six sunrises during the trip... great times to take out my camera and explore these landscapes in the beautiful light of early morning. One such sunrise was the sand dunes of Death Valley. I had done this before, ten years ago, and insisted that the group get up with me and experience it. That meant a 4:50am departure and some walking up and over the swells of loose sand... all before the sun came up. But it was worth it and the image above captured that calm, quiet feeling of being there as the sun crested the mountains and lit up the sand.
Look for a couple more of my favorite images coming over the next month or two. And consider planning your own visit to some of these great parks - they are simply amazing to experience!
Spring is my absolute favorite season of all. After being forced to live and eat indoors for what seems like an eternity during the winter, Spring holds the promise of endless days living outside, eating outside, sitting outside... just being outside!
I tend to notice the Spring long before most people. In February, you can already see the swelling buds on hardwood trees... even while the twenty degree air whips by in twenty mile an hour gusts! In March, from a distance, you can see the faint pastel colors tinging the treetops. And in April, seemingly all at once, the trees take on a myriad of colors. The most obvious of colors are the flowering blooms of the magnolia, cherry, pear, and plum trees. Everyone sees those.
But there is an amazing array of colors on non-flowering trees too! When the buds burst open with the beginnings of what will soon become leaves, they do so in a rainbow of colors... many shades of yellows and greens, and of course the striking reds that will catch your attention from a mile away! Like in the image above.
As I send this post out, most of those colorful bursts have turned into fresh young leaves of varying shades of yellow and green. A sure sign that you will find me eating, sitting, and just plain living, where I belong... outside!
Whenever weather conditions are special but won't last long, I make my way to the Unami Creek for some photography and solitude. It's only a fifteen minute drive from my home, but it feels like it is in a different world. The suburban Philadelphia sprawl is replaced with mountainous terrain, trees, large boulders, water, and almost no inhabitants. It truly is a small escape from the normal world.
It's also a bit of a frustrating photographic subject for me. I really enjoy hiking along the creek's edge, and I have made countless images there. But whenever I get back home and review my images, the excitement fades away. And I am staring at bland, average images that just don't capture the feeling of the place. I have been photographing the Unami Creek for eight years now, and I only have about ten images that I truly like, out of the hundreds of images I have made there. I'll keep trying, but for some reason it's a tough challenge for me.
On this foggy morning however, I was able to create an image that captured the true feeling of the Unami Creek. The fog was held in place by the trees giving a faded blue color to the background. And over my shoulder, the sun was just breaking through and lighting up the creek's edge in a special way. There's a lot going on in this image, yet it seems to work. And you can look at it for a long time and keep finding new things to see. I hope this image gives you a sense of the feeling of this small, calm refuge from the busy world.