“Go West, Young Man” is a quote attributed to Horace Greeley in an editorial published in 1865. Living on the east coast all of my life, I have been attracted to the west ever since my first trip there. I am very happy to report that tomorrow, I am headed to Arizona and New Mexico for the next two weeks. While it is not specifically a photography trip, you can bet I will return with quite a lot of images.

In selecting an image for today’s post, I decided to pick my favorite place in the Southwest, Monument Valley. This is a view of the valley that I took on a guided tour with a Navajo guide (the only way to see Monument Valley off of the public road). It was the trip that re-ignited my photography passion in 2005. I am really psyched that I will be hiring another guide on this trip to capture the wonderful scenery and colors of the park.

I will not be posting to my blog during this trip, so I will see you when I return. Look forward to catching up with you all when I get back.

Sometimes when you plan a vacation or photography trip, you are always at the mercy of one uncontrollable event: weather. We were spending a week in Maine with friends and we were headed from Camden to Newcastle. We had hoped to spend most of the day taking in the scenery and atmosphere of the Boothbay Peninsula. The weather forecast was for a constant rain all day. So what to do when this happens? Visit a museum to take in the history of the area. This led us to the the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath.

Being on the east coast of the United States, boatbuilding was a key industry in the economic history of the state. The museum has many exhibits throughout the main building and also has many outbuildings where the boats were (and still are) built. One of the cooler outbuildings was the boat workshop. All of the old tools were on display as well as boats that were built there. I took this shot of the workshop wall with the windows overlooking the river outside. Since tripods were not allowed in the museum, I shot a 7-shot hand held bracket.

This image is from an antique store somewhere in New Hampshire. The store owner was nice enough to allow us in to photograph whatever we wanted. While there were so many possible subjects, I was attracted to this old Smith Corona typewriter. I tried to research how old the typewriter was, but I was unable to find out anything about it. I would have contacted the store owner but I don’t even remember the store name or the town I was in. Anyway, it amazes me what our parents and grandparents had to do before the advent of computers, word processing software, iPhones and iPads.

One of the best places to spend the summer is the Jersey shore (don’t in any way attribute the Jersey shore to the reality show). Every year, thousands of people from the surrounding area (South Jersey, Philadelphia, New York and Delaware) head to Wildwood, NJ. Wildwood’s beach is arguably one of the best beaches in NJ with it’s two mile boardwalk. The crowds were sleeping in on this early summer morning so I had the beach to myself along with my nephew. I really liked the lines of this fishing pier and shot off a couple of brackets.

Just a quick post today. This image was taken at the beginning of a trail in Jasper National Park. It was my first time to the park and we had terrible weather for our 3 day stay as it rained pretty much the whole time we were there. In a brief moment of no rain, I spotted this birch grove and wanted to walk along it for a while. As soon as we started out, it began to rain again and this is as far as we got before heading back to the car.

Earlier this week, I posted an image of Mt McKinley Lodge’s cupola. After having breakfast, I headed to Byers Lake in Denali State Park with a small group of other guests at the lodge. While the adjacent national park of the same name is world famous, I discovered that Denali State Park was well worth a visit. I might even venture to say that it is the best state park I have ever been to. The lake was about 20 minutes away from our lodge and is accessible from the Parks Highway that connects Anchorage and Fairbanks. The park is undeveloped wilderness with the exception of the two day-use areas, three campgrounds, and two trailheads, one of which leads to Byers Lake.

I know that I have been posting a lot of images from Alberta but I can’t help it! I just love the Canadian Rockies and it’s surrounding lakes and towns. I would probably go to Banff every year if my wife said it was okay. Okay, now that I have warned you, today’s image is of Cascade Mountain from the town of Banff. It was very early in the morning, shortly after sunrise. The town was pretty deserted, especially for a summer morning. I am sure that it is very hard to shoot a bad photo when the subject is so magnificent, the light so nice and soft and the weather being just about perfect. Just another day in paradise (at least to me).

I always am surprised what other photographers see when shooting the same subject. I always seem to say to myself, “I didn’t see that.” This simple question has trained me to continue to work a subject from as many angles and perspectives as I can think of. I try to shoot high and low; left and right; and close and far. Depending on the subject, I always make sure I look up.

On our trip to Alaska last year, we stayed at a wonderful lodge in the wilderness, The McKinley Lodge. I wanted to photograph the lodge and realized that the only way to shoot it was to get up before dawn as it was crowded throughout the day and night. I was able to get some great shots of the lodge and it’s enormous windows looking out at the famous mountain. As I was finishing up, I started to look up at the ceiling and discovered this great view of the lodge’s cupola and it’s light. It is probably my favorite image of the lodge and was not even on my list of shots before I started to shoot.

Just a quick post and run today. I took this photo while walking around our neighborhood with my wife and dog, Jack. I don’t normally take my camera when walking around our home but, for some reason, I picked it up before the walk. I must have subconsciously wanted to shoot a flower macro (not my normal type of shot) but I am glad I did.

Today’s image is from a small farm in Sutton, Vermont. After shooting the Vermont countryside from the farm, I was walking back to my car and I spotted this milk sign on a weathered side of a barn. I was taken with it’s color against the weathered wall with it’s bright red color. For whatever reason, I immediately thought of the Got Milk? advertising campaign which is probably better than the “Drink Milk” sign.