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I got my first real camera in high school and took photos for many years.  After taking a break during my early work career, I re-engaged with photography more than twenty years ago.  I created my photography website and this monthly Photo Blog eight years ago in December 2013 and I've published an image and story at least once each month since then, and sometimes more.  This is the 118th blog post I've created and I enjoy it even more now, than when I started. 

If you have been doing something for this long, it would make sense to ask yourself why you do it.  And so this is why I photograph the landscape...  

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I have had a passion for the outdoors my entire life.  I feel different when I am outside… surrounded by trees, water, and rocks… or standing alone in a high mountain meadow… or enjoying the solitude of the desert.  The act of photographing… looking closely and "seeing"… deepens my experience and my interaction with the landscape.  Taking a camera into the landscape allows me to experience it more fully, which in turn, allows me to create better images.  The experience and the images are forever linked.

I share my images with friends and family to perhaps influence them to spend more time in the landscape and to slow down, explore, and look closely.  It is critical that we preserve as much of our wild spaces as we can - whether in national parks or nearby places.

As Edward Abbey said...  “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” 

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The image above is the last one that I'll send out from my Capitol Reef trip in October... time to move on!  But it really was an incredible trip, a beautiful place to visit, and a place I will return to for sure.

I completed the gallery page for Capitol Reef and you can find all the images and the stories that tie them together at this link. I have also included some "behind the scenes" images for you to enjoy. Take a look, and consider adding this park to your travel plans at some point in the future. But don't tell too many people... this one is a hidden gem and I'd like to return some day without fighting crowds of people at every turnout in the road!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!

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We spent the day exploring a dirt and sand 4WD road called Henry Mountains Road - named for the Henry Mountains that are ever-present on the horizon. It is probably the most scenic road I have ever been on. Around every bend, over every crest of the desert floor - was a view more impressive than the last. We stopped the Jeep so often that it would take several days to fully explore this incredible road in the desert.

As the light was ending, we started the long drive back to our hotel in Torrey UT, just outside Capitol Reef. We guided the Jeep up the final steep incline and saw this beautifully lit scene in front of us. The sun was sinking fast and the clouds were moving even faster. I didn't think there would be enough time to set up the big camera, so I took an iPhone picture. The clouds were arranged in a perfect arc over the glowing golden butte in the distance.

After the quick phone snapshot, I raced to get out the real camera and tripod. I ran into the field, careful to cause no damage to the fragile plant life. I made several exposures but cursed my bad luck because the perfect arc of clouds had moved off to the left of the butte and lost their "perfect-ness". But, over time, I began to enjoy this version for its own unique qualities and the memory of that special light at the end of the day.

I titled this image... "Just Another Day’s End". While the final minutes of light were beautiful and seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime event to me, I was struck with the feeling that this is just a routine ending to yet another day here in the desert. This butte glows in the late golden light with a tapestry of clouds in the sky every day... for a million days before I got there... and for a million more after I left.

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I have been photographing this old friend of a tree for more than eight years. I've seen it in all seasons and all kinds of light. Many days it blends into the background - but in those dramatically lit October evenings, with the brooding clouds and setting sun, it calls out to be noticed.

"Has anyone seen dad?... I think he's up in the field again!" Once more, during a family gathering, I quietly disappeared for a few minutes to listen to what my old friend had to say.

This is a short break from the Capitol Reef desert images and a reminder that you can find special moments in the landscape in your own backyard - or the backyard of your sister-in-law! I didn't plan to send another image so soon, but then this special light happened... and I'm just drawn to sunsets, trees without leaves, and the brown color palette of approaching winter. :)

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“This one is growing alone… and wears therefore the special beauty of all wild and lonely things.”

(Edward Abbey)

During my recent trip, I made many images that “illustrate” Capitol Reef NP in the traditional way you might all expect to see it… beautiful red rock canyons, large white Navajo domes, cliffs glowing in the low sunlight of an autumn afternoon.  Those are the images that are on the cover of the national park maps and books. I made many of those images and you will probably soon see some of them. 

Yet, the very first image I processed from the entire trip when I returned home was this simple, quiet image of a vibrant desert shrub growing seemingly out of nothing but sheer rock.  This captures some of the feeling I had while in the desert of Utah... the beauty of the harsh desert landscape… and the determination of life to thrive, even in those harsh conditions.  And Edward Abbey's quote from Desert Solitaire above captures it equally well in words.

Capitol Reef NP is 241,904 acres or about one trillion square feet.  If I were searching, the odds of me finding this one small bush would be one in a trillion.  Finding it in early morning soft light emphasizing the vitality of the plant against its harsh surroundings would be even less likely. Yet I did.  It wasn't by searching and planning... it was by wandering around, open to seeing what is in front of me.  And that is what I love about the kind of photography I do. 

No stories about how early we got out of bed, or how far we drove, or how long we hiked to get there. This image simply describes the feeling I have when I visit the desert.  If you have never visited a true desert, consider going there sometime soon.  And if you do, get up early and see it in special light when no one else is around.  And pull over (anywhere) and get out of the car and walk around. Walk slowly, explore, and marvel at the life that is around you. You will be amazed.

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I recently went to Capitol Reef National Park for a week of hiking and photography.  Capitol Reef is centered around a one hundred mile long wrinkle or fold in the earth’s crust that gives rise to amazing canyons, cliffs, domes, and colored rocks that glow long after the light is gone. In many guidebooks, Capitol Reef is listed as the fifth of Utah’s five grand National Parks, but that does this place a great disservice. In my book, it ranks near the top for the the grandeur and sheer beauty of the landscape, largely un-marred by all that comes with huge crowds of people. We witnessed an incredible landscape, a surprisingly diverse set of plant life, and weather that changed often and defied explanation. It was the last national park in Utah that I visited. It may be one of the first I return to… over and over again.

On the last day of my trip to Capitol Reef, I was given what felt like a parting gift and a call to return to this magical place where the light glows in the sky and on the rocks. It felt like the land was telling me that I just scratched the surface during these five days and that I should come back because there is much more to see for those who are patient and look closely. Many of the people that took the time to come to Sunset Point that evening left as the sun dipped below the horizon. I knew better, and stayed to see if there might be a glow in the sky… and there surely was!

Other mornings and evenings I was running around trying to capture as much as I could. But this last evening was very calm and very satisfying. I found this tree with the perfect ring of shrubs around its base and the perfect sunset behind it. And I just sat there and watched the light change… growing in intensity, glowing first with orange, then tinges of red, and finally fading out. Other than pressing the shutter button a few times, I really didn’t move much - I just enjoyed this great end to the trip.

Look for a few more images from this trip in the coming weeks!

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Fifteen minutes away from the bustle, noise, and traffic of Tysons Corner, VA and just thirty minutes from our nation's Capitol is a small but grand spectacle where the Potomac River thunders through Mather Gorge.  This is Great Falls of the Potomac and it provided some beautiful light and clouds one May evening, earlier this year. 

I had some time after taking my daughter back to Wash DC, so I decided I would give Great Falls my undivided attention for as long as I was inspired.  It turns out that was about one afternoon!  It’s a bit too crowded for my liking.  I enjoy solitude during my photo walks and I just wasn’t going to get it on a late spring Saturday, this close to DC and the sprawling corporate centers of Northern Virginia.

But after all the picnic’ers left, and the teens taking selfies left, and the screams of young kids died down, it became quiet and something magical happened.  Beautiful golden light filled the air and the clouds arranged themselves in a perfect copy of the rock formation.  It's as if the clouds were imitating the rocks below... acknowledging the great scene.  It was nice of them to do this just for me!  :)

I probably won’t go back,  but I will remember that last hour of magical light and clouds for a long time, and it was a very satisfying way to end the day.

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My apologies to the Doobie Brothers for slightly modifying the lyric for the title of this post. But the song kept popping into my head when I made a return visit to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Last time it was a short photography scouting trip... to see if this area was worth getting to know more deeply through multiple visits... It most certainly is!

This time, the photography was secondary. This visit was to be an epic cycling and kayaking trip with my college roommate, Rich. We loaded up both bikes and both kayaks on the Jeep and made the two and a half hour drive south. If you stay on the highway, you will miss everything. But fifteen minutes after leaving the fast food strip of Route 50 in Cambridge MD, you are in another world. A world of beautiful marshland, expansive open water views, incredible wildlife, and almost no people. It is perfect.

We did 104 miles on our bikes over four days. We saw countless egrets, great blue herons, osprey, and bald eagles during our rides. They were everywhere. We rode our bikes on my favorite stretch of asphalt… Maple Dam Road! We rode our bikes on a piece of land that was only a roadwidth wide, surrounded by open water on both sides. And on one 28 mile ride, we were passed by only four cars. We rode until we couldn't ride anymore.

We also kayaked the slow moving marsh rivers of the Blackwater area. We saw jellyfish in one river (from the bay), American eels darting on the river surface, sea gulls gliding down and then swooping back up, and fish jumping out of the warm water into the even hotter air!

And while the photography was secondary, it pays to always be ready. The camera equipment was in the Jeep ready for the storm light we got one fine evening. We thought we were done for the day, when I slammed on the brakes as we crossed over a stream, glowing red with the last light of the setting sun. I pulled over and rapidly worked to find something interesting to go with the incredible sky. The image above seemed to capture that last "flash" of light at the end of a great day.

I'm sure there will be future blog posts about more trips to this special area that I am just getting acquainted with.

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I have been to Acadia four times now, but this was the first time I have been there in fifteen years. As I write this, I’m still shocked that so much time has passed - it just doesn’t seem possible it has been that long. I’ve visited Acadia with my family, with my roommate from college twice, and now with some close friends who had never been there before. With the passage of time, all those years, and the different trips… Acadia remained the same, timeless.

I’ve never felt the impact of time as strongly as I have on this trip. We marveled at the rounded granite stones on the beach that are endlessly turned and worn away by the surf over tens of thousands of years… you can even hear this grinding action as each wave pounds the rocky beach and each granite stone comes to rest in a new position on the shore. We could see the rounded granite stones slowly transition to sharper boulders, then magnificent granite cliffs cracked and eroded by wind rather than the surf, marking the passing of the years. On every clear morning, the pink granite coast glows other-worldly orange at sunrise… just as it did that first time I saw it, and for countless years before I ever arrived. And, the North and South Bubbles were still at the end of Jordan Pond, where I last left them fifteen years ago.

My photography (and the photographer) has changed over the years as well. The images I made many years ago almost make me cringe. You might not see the difference, but I do. Click on this link to the Acadia Gallery to see images from the recent trip next to images from the earlier trips. The rocky Acadia coastline remains the primary subject, but the passage of time and my photographic growth is shown in the newer images… more refined, more simple and calm, better attention to light, and better composition. Time became the real story… told through these images of Acadia.

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I'm still on Maple Dam Road in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with this blog post. In my previous blog post, I shared with you the beautiful golden color of a quiet Monday Morning Sunrise. In this post, I am sharing a brief moment of directional light on an otherwise moody Sunday evening.

Most of that Sunday afternoon was cloudy with a featureless grey sky - not exactly great for photography. I was debating back and forth in my head about whether I should stay out in the landscape or pack it in and go home. Going home was the easy choice... staying out in boring light was the right choice!

I scouted the few roads in this sparsely inhabited area, really enjoying the quiet landscape, and wished unreasonably for a burst of orange sunset color as the day ended. I didn't get exactly what I wished for, but I enjoyed a gift of soft directional light from a thinning of the clouds on the horizon as I approached this low bridge over Coles Creek at the end of the day. I had to work fast before the light faded. And I positioned the bridge right on the horizon line to give an impression of the bridge holding up the heavy, cloudy, evening sky.

The light didn't last long, but it lasted long enough to allow me to make this image which perfectly summed up the day. And it is a reminder every time I see it to "stay out there" - you never know what you will get.

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Maple Dam Road… what a colorful name for this scenic road that winds through the open marsh on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where the land gradually gives way to the water. I spent a beautiful Monday morning watching the sun rise while a loud chorus of birds and animals played at my back. It felt like I was the only person on Earth... and I was here because of a shortage of leaves and gas.

I’ll explain… several weeks ago in late April I had planned to photograph in Shenandoah NP. But when I got there I found there weren't yet any leaves on the trees above 2000 feet - and all my photography hikes were planned for locations above 3000 feet. I was simply too early, so I decided to go back three weeks later. Excited for my second attempt at Shenandoah, it coincided perfectly with the Colonial Pipeline shutdown which caused a severe lack of gas exactly where I was going - Virginia. So, I revised my plans again and decided to visit Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the southern part of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I’d been interested in this place for photography and kayaking for years and now was my chance.

I spent a couple days exploring this unique area of wetland. The highlight of this first trip was a beautiful Monday morning sunrise as shown in the image above. I saw several bald eagles... could hardly hear over the "roar" of frogs, birds and other animals... and watched and listened in amazement as a beaver worked on its lodge. I did all of this in the hours before most people even start work. In my enthusiasm, I sent a text with the image above to my wife and grown daughters at 6am on Monday morning... they didn't share my enthusiasm until much later that morning! :)

There is much for me to see here and I definitely plan to go back!

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Spring is a time of quick change, and for me, spring is described most by the changes in trees.   Several warm days in March will cause the magnolias to burst open almost overnight.  And before long, those large white and pink petals have littered a large perfect circle under the tree. Quick blooming cherry blossoms stay on the trees for mere days before they give way to young bright green leaves.  And we count the days anticipating the subtle opening of each ivory flower on the craggy old dogwoods.  Pay attention every day or the progression of spring will pass by without you ever noticing.

It's not just the passage of time that causes change, spring also varies greatly by type of tree and location.  Long after the magnolias and cherry’s are fully covered in leaves, the hickories still stand bare, casting skeleton shadows on fresh green grass and dandelions. Drive seventy miles south on an early spring day and it's as if you've driven two weeks into the future.  Leave home on a beautiful spring morning and drive to your favorite mountaintop for a hike and it will look like spring has not yet even arrived!  If you plan your visits well, you can give yourself extra weeks of this magical season.

On a recent spring morning I went to Hawk Mountain and walked the trails.  It was not yet spring at the ridge top... but when I stood on the overlooks, I could see the progression of spring in the trees, making its way from the valley floor up the side of the mountain.  It was like a still image of time travel - documented by the trees of spring.  Trees in different stages of budding with many shades of yellow, orange, green and sometimes red caught my attention as they climbed the mountain side.

Don’t get distracted or turn your eye for even a minute... or you will miss much.

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What a spectacle to witness! My mother-in-law has been telling me about the snow geese migration at Middle Creek for years. But I could never make time to go see them because their migration coincided with the end of our sales quarter - dumb geese have poor timing! With my new freedom of retirement and no commitments other than what I want to do, I decided to go see what it was all about. I was amazed!

I left the house at 5am to arrive at sunrise on a Tuesday... thinking there might only be about five of us there... wrong! The place was packed... and not just with geese! As I got out of the car, I heard it... a constant roar in the distance that guided me to where the action was. There were a hundred thousand snow geese roosting on a lake at sunrise. And even though I heard about it and researched it online, nothing prepares you for the instant fifty thousand snow geese take off in a swirl of white and black - the constant roar becomes louder and rises and falls as the geese take flight - almost sounding like the roar of a jet engine. It was truly something to see and feel.

It was so amazing, I decided to rent a longer, super telephoto lens from my local camera shop and go back the next morning. This time I would be smarter and leave at 4:15am and get there before anyone else... wrong again! But at least I got a spot in the parking lot and nabbed the last prime camera position. I watched a beautiful sunrise on a warm March morning... not exactly peaceful or quiet... with a hundred thousand of my closest geese friends, and about hundred photographers and nature lovers there with me too.

The image above is my favorite of the two days I was at Middle Creek. I like the color and light with just a few geese - it's more of a landscape photo that happens to have snow geese in it. To see what it looks like with thousands of geese in the air, click on this link to my website story.

If you live near one of the stopovers on the migration route, east coast or west coast, it is well worth getting up early just to be there and see it and feel it.

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The cold weather and snow have put a damper on my outdoor activities for the last six weeks. And I've had to hang around the house while we had our master bathroom renovated. So I haven't been outside photographing much since the last blog post.

While I've been stuck inside, I have been updating the Ocean City NJ Gallery on my website (check it out at the link). The gallery has images spanning twelve years and I thought I would use this month's post to share one of my favorite photos ever - the 59th Street Pier from OCNJ.

Over the years the pier has been a favorite subject of mine. I’d go to the old abandoned pier in different seasons and different weather - whenever we visited OCNJ - and it was always there, always the same. I'd get up early and spend a few hours there before our beach activities for the day. On the day I made the image above, the light was incredible. It started off very cloudy, but as the morning grew later, the clouds thinned, the sun started to peek out, and the water seemed to glow with the light.

It’s a good lesson in making time to observe and photograph special places that interest you, since things change over time and nothing lasts forever. The pier was built in 1913 and stood up to many challenges over its one hundred years. I made this photo almost ten years ago in 2011, only four years before the old pier was completely washed away when Hurricane Sandy came ashore. But while it no longer physically exists, I'll remember the many mornings I spent at the pier and it will exist in photographs and memories.

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I was in southern NJ two weeks ago exploring some new areas of the Pinelands to photograph and looking for new places to kayak in the spring. I know it's only January, but you can never be too early to think about Spring. And look outside... it's still light at 5:30!!

After a long day of driving in cloudy lousy light (not the forecast!), I was heading home on a small road with only a vague idea of where I was. But I did see a large area of water on the GPS and I saw a small road on the map that went to the water's edge. I was already passed it and didn't feel like turning the Jeep around. A couple miles later there was another small dirt road that led to the water. This time I took it. It was not in great condition and the holes in the road made me drive at a painfully slow pace.

I emerged on the shore of the Delaware Bay looking west toward a faint glimmer of light on the horizon. There was an abandoned decaying dock in the water and I took a few photos even though the light was still terrible. But, I was excited because I knew this would be an area to return to in better light and so I saved the location coordinates in my app for that return trip. I went back out to the main road, drove a couple miles and decided to explore another road to the Bay. When I got to the water, I could see that small band of dim light on the horizon was getting larger and more orange. Damn... I need to get back to that old dock... and quick!!

The Jeep was bouncing all over as I went a bit too fast down the pothole filled road. But I made it. I got my camera and tripod and ran out onto the beach. I ran back and forth three times - each time forgetting an important piece of equipment! I finally had everything I needed, and proceeded to spend the next hour until almost dark taking photos under some pretty nice light!

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This is one of my all time favorite trees! Is that weird... to have favorite trees? Doesn't everybody? Seriously, this is one of my favorite trees, and while I have photographed it several times, I don’t think I am done. I think there is more to see here under different light and different seasons. I like this tree most when there are no leaves... when you can see the complex and incredible lines made by the branches. And I especially like that there always seem to be just a few leaves that hang on and refuse to let go.

I made this image on the same snowy winter day as my last post. If you look closely, you can see it is snowing pretty heavily - obscuring the entire background and adding atmosphere to the overall image.

I don't have a great story to share for this one - I didn't lose my camera bag, I didn't forget my water bottle, the area wasn't closed due to hunting. This one is all about the image (it is a photography blog and website after all!).

Just a simple tree... in a field... in a snowstorm.