Continuing yesterday's theme, but this time in muted but fantastic color. I'm hoping to hold a very peaceful mood here, the park was dead quiet that morning.
Badlands in Snow and Fog
The Badlands of South Dakota take on a different mood in fog, dusted with snow.
Three Cranes, Bosque del Apache
A sunrise silhouette from one of the most famous avian photography locations in the US. Bosque is a chilly but terrific place to visit in January or so, just remember to bring some very long glass...
Dunes Abstract, Eureka Dunes
I've only visited the Eureka Dunes once, given that the second-largest dunes system is an overnight trip from my home, perhaps I need to correct that. It's a pretty amazing place, part of Death Valley National Park but better accessed from outside the park to the west.
Click to enlarge and peek at the bottom left color to get a better sense of scale.
Late afternoon over the High Sierra
A nice line of clouds cropped from an older image taken, I think, from Glacier Point. I really love the long line of clouds.
Ukkusissat Sunset
I don't do much in the way of travel photography, but I've always been pleased by this sunset moment from a village in the Disko Bay region of Greenland. Really wonderful people, and it's hard to feel separated from the natural landscape there, even though the scene is dominated by the hand of man.
The moment I realized I was in love with Iceland
Well, I don't know if it was precisely this moment, but this waterfall was a turning point, during my first visit to Iceland in 2006.
You might want to know the name of this waterfall. That would be perfectly sensible, for most of us, this is a pretty incredible five-tier waterfall on black rock. What's not to love? The thing is, this waterfall probably doesn't have a name. It wasn't on the map. There wasn't a parking lot for this waterfall. There wasn't a turnout for it. There was enough of a shoulder on the road to pull over onto the grass, but there was little indication that nearly anyone bothered to do that. The grass field below the bottom edge of the photograph was being used to graze sheep. It was not because Icelanders were entirely immune to beauty, but simply the fact that around the next corner there'd be another waterfall just as pretty, or even more so. And the next. And the next.
That sort of relentless assault of awesome is hard to ignore, and I didn't, instead, over the next few years, turned the feelings that I had from that experience into my Iceland portfolio. And this image didn't make it into the portfolio, because ... well, for the same reason that this waterfall doesn't have a name.
Arctic Sunrise
A simple sunrise over the arctic North Atlantic between Greenland and Svalbard in 2006. We were treated to incredible light as we came in and out of a low fog over the water. Bits of sea ice, probably a bit harder to find at the same time of year today, complete the foreground.
Throwback Thursday: Little Butano Creek
From about a decade ago. I often tell the story of how several long trips to photograph a particular area of redwoods, on consecutive days failed from changing weather, and how that eventually led to my series Signatures of the Sun, and my first gallery show.
What I rarely bother to mention is that I eventually got the shot I wanted, on yet another trip. I like the curved line of the water, how wet the environment is, and the vibrant Velvia greens.
I wandered by this spot in the last week or two, while scouting for a recent photography workshop, and noticed that this image is no longer there for the taking, a short cliff to the left of the scene has collapsed into the rock bottom left. Never count on being able to retake an image "when you have more time", or "when the light is better", if the scene is already good, shoot now, and then, if you do get the chance to reshoot later (as I did here), you can do that too.
Badlands Patterns, Petrified Forest National Park
My 2008 position as artist-in-residence at Petrified Forest National Park was an incredible experience in so many ways. I had terrific monsoon-season lightning and clouds, amazing access to the park and it's resources, wonderful support from the folks in the Park Service, and badlands. I fell in love with the amazing variety of textures and forms that these strange colorful formations appear in. This is a nice group of patterns in the Blue Mesa area. And I love how difficult this image is to even make sense of, I'd imagine there are few clues left as to the scale of this scene.
Sunset, Castle Tufa
Another bit of wonderful dusk light along the south shore of Mono Lake. The lake level has dropped significantly in the few years since this was taken, but it was certainly lovely, and a little bit more off the beaten track, at the time.
Virga over the Mono-Inyo Craters
Striking patterns of rain stretching to try and reach the volcanic formations below, across Mono Lake in California's Eastern Sierra. The peaks near Mammoth, with late snow, are visible along the horizon on the right.
Throwback Thursday: Granite and Snow, Little Lakes Valley
Probably my most prestigious show placement, a print of this image was shown at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC over a decade ago, after taking a prize in a competition from Nature's Best Photography magazine. Even though it's seven years later, that's still a "go to" moment for me when I face the inevitable imposter syndrome feelings that artists are prone to.
Winter Flight
A sandhill crane taking off from a frozen pond at Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico. This location is an amazing place to be for many winter sunrises, as often the hundreds if not thousands of birds present will decide to take off in sunrise light in a single burst, it was truly quite overwhelming. And yet some of my favorite images from that trip reflect quieter periods later in the day, with gentle color and simple forms. Incredible.
Moonrise over Negit
Sunset and moonrise conspire together in this older long telephoto image of a wintery Negit Island.
Summer Grasses, Mono Basin
Another texture study, some years back in the grasses near the Old Marina area of Mono Lake. Newer and older grasses created wonderful patterns in green and straw, and I made a variety of images of the scene, putting them aside because I was never quite happy with the color palette.
I'm currently working through a lot of my older Mono Basin images and revisited that set, and realized that there was an real opportunity for abstraction using monochrome.
Layering, Black Canyon
Fog-aided layering in Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I feel very fortunate to have had even a single uncommon morning of moving mists and fog in that amazing place.
Sunrise, Mobius Arch
Again, sometimes I'm a sucker for a good sunrise. Here an oblique angle on the Eastern Sierra's famous Mobius Arch provides some shapes that nicely complement the cloud patterns. Only two more months until my Eastern Sierra workshop, I'm already looking forward to returning to this location!
Fog Tendril, Black Canyon
A limb of fog reaches out to encircle a pinnacle within Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I was extremely fortunate to get some interesting weather conditions there for my first visit a couple years back, but this moment, in which the fog almost seem to take on a purpose, was a stand out moment even for that incredible day.
The palette here is unusual, as is the canyon, pinks and greens and greys, but I still prefer it to a black and white rendition, including the gentle hint of cool light in the fog itself.
Throwback Thursday: Polar Bear Walking
This image takes us back nine years to my first photographic visit to a polar area. We could have been no more than a day or two into the trip when, in northwest Svalbard, I got to see a polar bear in the wilderness for the first time.
It was cold, I was excited. I was shooting from a small zodiac with around ten other photographers, I didn't have the use of a tripod or even a steady patch of ground to keep myself grounded. And there was a crazy dramatic sunset poking through the mountains precisely in back of me, glaciers on the mountain, and birds flying in the air just to complete the picture.
I went through multiple memory card changes that afternoon, and a battery change as well, and it was really only when I got back to the Mikheev that I realized just how cold and exhausted I was.
I suspect that really was a turning point for me, that began my obsession with the high latitudes. In five months I should be getting my next taste, and I can't wait.