Monument Valley is my favorite place in the southwest to take photos. The valley is part of the Navajo Reservation located on the Arizona and Utah border. The valley has dramatic vistas which contain unique sandstone formations. If you visit, I would advise bringing a four-wheel drive vehicle that can travel the 17 miles unpaved road. An entrance fee allows for a one-day pass provided that visitors stay on the road. To see other parts of the park, you must hire a Navajo guide. We ended up hiring a guide for 4 hours (expensive but worth it)...
read moreFor the past few years, Scott Kelby holds a worldwide photo walk every summer. The photo walk is a terrific way to meet new people and spend a morning walking around a location taking photos. The year I participated, about 30 photographers were set loose in downtown Hartford and took photos of everything they could find. This reflection on Hartford’s Gold Building caught my eye and it turned out to be my favorite of the day. Scott is a great photographer and very involved in teaching other photographers. His website, Scott Kelby’s...
read moreStayed with my brother-in-law at his condo at the Jersey shore. I had promised my nephew that I would teach him about photography. I warned him that good landscape photographers get up before dawn to get the great light. Much to my surprise, he was easy to get up and we headed out. It had rained hard the night before, leaving puddles everywhere. I noticed this reflection of the Cape May Lighthouse in the parking lot. The sun had just cracked the horizon gently lighting the lighthouse.
read moreOne thing I love about Yosemite is that there is so much to do. While the guys were rafting down the Merced River, I headed down to the other end of the river to catch the great light coming through onto El Captan.
read moreWhen planning our first cruise in the Mediterranean, we looked over all of the locations that we would visit. We mentally ranked which ones would be our favorite and Kotor, Montenegro was near the bottom of the list. Little did we know that by the end of the trip, it would be one of our favorites. To enter the Bay of Kotor, the ship transversed a long inlet into the only natural fjord of its kind in the world. In fact, the bay has made the list of the most beautiful bays in the world. The trip to the dock was terrific even though the fog was...
read moreThe best times to photograph landscapes are the golden hours of the day. Depending on who you ask, the golden hours are defined differently. Most photographers would include the first hour and last hour of sunlight of the day. Images shot during these times typically have softer light; warmer tones; and longer shadows. This is due to the fact that the light must travel through more of the Earth’s atmosphere as the sun is close to the horizon. This image was taken of Herbert Lake about one half hour after dawn. Herbert Lake is located...
read moreLake Louise is a mountain lake in Banff National Park with its blue-green water set against the stark backdrop of Victoria Glacier. The actual location of the lake is in the hamlet of Lake Louise about a half hour north of the town of Banff. Chateau Lake Louise, a resort hotel, borders one end of the lake. The lake is one of the most beloved and photographed scenes in the Canadian Rockies. This particular morning, I gathered my camera and tripod up and walked to the lake well before dawn. There were only a few people up at this hour, mostly...
read moreAfter a long day in San Francisco, we drove around the Presidio looking for the perfect place to see the Golden Gate Bridge. We found it at Baker Beach although Carol ended up with the “most sand she ever had in her shoes”.
read moreOn a very frigid day (about 2 degrees) in Manhattan, the sun was shining and the air was crisp. Every few blocks we would run into a store or a building lobby just to warm up. As I left one of these “shelters”, I happened to look up and saw this wonderful reflection in the building across the street. The scene had a lot of contrast so I decided to hand hold and snap 5 photos which I used later to create this HDR photo. The resulting image captured the reflection perfectly even down to the clouds on the side of the building.
read moreThe most difficult challenge in capturing a macro shot of flowers is the wind. Macro lenses exaggerate movement so even the slightest breeze can cause blurry shots. The best advice is to use a tripod whenever you can but, of course. this is not always possible. This photo of the flower’s stamen was taken without a tripod as I was walking through our neighborhood. I was really lucky that the air was absolutely still and camera shake was minimal.
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