• West Coast Roadtrip!

  January 31st, 2012

  Not since my Europe trip back in 2009 have I had the chance to experience so many new places. This was a bittersweet trip for more than one reason. The goal of this trip was to get a friend to her new home in San Francisco. But our eventual destination was actually Portland, Oregon. The plan was to cover almost 3,000 miles in 5 days. The first day was a long drive to the Grand Canyon. The next morning we were off to Vegas. After that, the itenerary took us into California. Big Sur the third night, followed by San Francisco and finally a long day of driving up the California and Oregon coast to Portland.

  In theory, this is how the trip was supposed to go. By the time we got the Grand Canyon, it was snowing and they had closed off most of the part. We were still able to visit the touristy Mather Point for a few sunrise photographs, but the atmosphere was definitely not what I had hoped. I still managed to capture a few shots, which you can find in the Desert Southwest gallery. Vegas was Vegas. The mountains around it were actually fairly stunning. They may be rocky and desolate, but when storms are hanging over them and the sun and clouds show the right mixture of light and shadow, they definitely have their own kind of beauty. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stop to take any photos, with the exception of a quick panorama in the Desert Southwest gallery.

  Then next stop, Big Sur, California was one of the biggest disappointments of the trip. Not because Big Sur is lacking in beauty at all. The rainstorms from the weekend before caused a major rockslide that closed the PCH down in Big Sur, which meant missing out on miles of gorgeous scenery to photograph. I did manage some beautiful sunrise images near San Simeon and a few coastal shots on the north end of Big Sur. But my desire to capture a beautiful shot of McWay Falls just never materialized. San Francisco was the next stop, and I can see now why so many people told me it's a photographers dream city. You have the ocean, mountains, rolling hills, foggy weather and a beautiful city all rolled into the Bay Area. The best shots I managered were night shots over the Golden Gate bridge and an interesting shot of Lombard Street.

  The next morning's drive up to Redwood National Park and beyond was bittersweet. It seemed everytime I wanted to stop and shoot a photo, the fog would disappear on me. I had hoped for some quality fog shots in the redwoods, but had to make due with just a few decent shots. These, along with the Big Sur and San Francisco shots can be found in the California gallery. After the redwoods, we were back at the coastline, and entering Oregon. Unfortunately, the long drive meant that daylight was almost gone, and the fog was so thick, it became hard to even see much of the Pacific Ocean. I managed a few average shots on the coast, and felt disappointed that the beauty of the Oregon coastline would have to be revisited sometime in the future. However, all the storms that had been pounding Washington and Oregon had an upside. It may have been winter, but the waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge was flowing like it was springtime. Due to lack of time, We decided to visit the most famous of all the waterfalls in the gorge, Multnomah Falls. This is where I captured my favorite photo of the trip, The Legend of Multnomah Falls. This and the few foggy Oregon coastline shots can be found in the Oregon gallery.

  Overall, it was a blast of a trip and gives me plenty of reasons to explore more the west coast. I'm particularly interesting in spending some time in the Pacific Northwest. The Columbia River Gorge must be absolutely stunning in the spring and fall. And the mountains, forests and coastline of Washington awaits too!

• Aerial America Semifinalist!

  November 2nd, 2011

  On Monday I logged into my Flickr account and found a wonderful surprise message. I had entered a few of my photos into a contest for Smithsonian Channel show, Aerial America, and out of the 1,400 photos or so that had been entered, my image Calling Down Fire made the final cut. It's listed in the top 10 for their landscape category along with many other fine photographs. I should find out soon whether it makes it into the finalist round.

  You can read more about the contest and view the other semifinalist images on the Photo Contest at Aerial America's website. With a little luck, hopefully I'll be updating again soon with news that my photo is in the finalists round!

• New Colorado Photos!

  August 11th, 2011

  I've added 16 new images from my recent trip to Colorado. This trip spanned Rocky Mountain National Park, the Maroon Bells, Hanging Lake and the Mount Sneffels region of the San Juans near Ridgway. The biggest challenge of these photos is that I shot the first two days in JPEG before realizing I wasn't shooting in RAW. Most of the better images were salvaged (I'm particularly happy with a few of the Maroon Bells shots) but won't be printable at my normal large sizes.

  Thankfully I realized my error by the time we reached the San Juans, allowing me to shoot the Blue Lake region in RAW. This area was absolutely stunning. The lower Blue Lake reminds me of the color of Moraine Lake in Banff National Park up in the Canadian Rockies. In addition, we hit the area when wildflower season was at it's peak, so stalks of all sorts of flowers surrounding the lake and meadows nearby. These were certainly the best images from the trip. I've set up a newest additions gallery to show all the newest photos from this trip (along with a more recent shot from Wichita, KS). You can view them in the Newest Additions photo gallery.

  I'm still not sure where my next photo trip will be, but I'll be trying to shoot a few new Kansas shots over the coming month or two. If anyone has any suggestions on where I should go shoot next, feel free to drop me a line! I'm always open to suggestions if I can manage it!

• FWA Photo Of The Day!

  August 3rd, 2011

  I just found out my photo, The Marble Room from Spiez, Switzerland just won fwaphoto.com's photo of the day for August 3rd! I'm pretty excited about that as I've submitted a few photos into their system and now can finally say one of them passed with flying colors! You can check out the page for it by going to www.fwaphoto.com/#/2011-08-03/.

Recent Trips:

West Coast Road Trip

January 2012

Grand Canyon, Vegas, Desert Southwest, Big Sur, San Francisco, Redwoods, Oregon Coast, Multnomah Falls, Portland

Upcoming Trips:

Colorado Wildflower Season

Late July 2012

Rocky Mountaion National Park, San Juans

Tentative:

Yosemite, California Coastline

June 2012

Big Sur, Yosemite, San Francisco, Redwoods

Pacific Northwest

Fall 2012

Oregon, Washington, British Columbia

New Zealand

Winter 2012

New Zealand South Island

Europe

Summer/Fall 2013

Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, France