A quick post and run today. This is another image from the archives that takes us back to Monument Valley and the famous view from Artist Point. It is a spectacular setting and is aptly named. The butte seen in this image is the East Mitten Butte and it is tremendously large, dwarfing the houses that can be seen along the road. You can truly understand why so many westerns and commercials were shot in the valley. It is one of my most favorite places to visit and I am looking forward to retrace my footsteps there in May. Have a great weekend, everyone.
Rainy Day on the Thames
There are so many sights to see in London that you can get overwhelmed what to do next. We wanted to take a ride on the London Eye but the line was hours long. As much as we wanted to ride it, we weren't willing to stand in line so long. Instead, we spied boat tours to Greenwich at Westminster Pier and decided to take the trip. Our trip down the Thames to Greenwich was quite nice although a bit windy. The cruise takes you on a journey through London, passing through Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf and London's Docklands, finally arriving at Greenwich, from where time all around the world is measured. After spending a few hours in Greenwich, we headed back to London. Unfortunately, the weather worsened and we started the return trip though a constant rain. As we came around a bend in the river, we came upon this scene of the famous Gherkin Building and I was able to get a decent shot of it.
Ice Cave
Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska is a World Heritage Site with 3.3 million acres of spectacular sights and wildlife, including 11 glaciers of which 8 can be seen from the bay. It is a very remote and rugged park as there are no roads that lead to it. The only way to get to Glacier Bay is by either boat or plane. There is only one lodge within the park (Glacier Bay Lodge) and there are no campsites. Campers can stay in the park in almost any area that they want. This past July, we spent almost a full day cruising the bay, taking in it's glaciers. One of the coolest things we saw was this ice cave in the Lamplugh Glacier. The cave was huge, towering about 30 feet at it's highest point, and we had just missed some kayakers that left the cave moments before. The most interesting thing about the cave was that it was temporary. The National Park Forest Ranger told us that it didn't exist several weeks prior to our arrival and that it would likely collapse in the near future.
Venice Rooftops
When one thinks of Venice, the first thing that comes to mind are it's canals and rightfully so. But there is some wonderful architecture in Venice that is pretty amazing too. One of the hidden gems that we had read about in Rick Steve's excellent guide book was Scala Contarini del Bovolo. It is a unique structure with it's external spiral staircase and arches. We would not have found it without Rick's directions as it is located in a less-traveled side-street near the Campo Manin, near the Rialto. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit there. The next day, we went up into the St Mark's Campanile (bell tower) to take a look at Venice's rooftops. Much to my surprise, I was able to spot the Scala Contarini del Bovolo contrasted against the red roofs.
Cliff Walk Golden Hour
Newport, Rhode Island is a great place to visit and has something for everyone. Whether you want to tour the famous mansions, shop, sail, or visit the International Tennis Hall of Fame, it is a must visit destination. For photographers, it is a great place to shoot, especially on it's famous Cliff Walk. Cliff Walk is a 3.5 mile public access walkway that lies on Newport's eastern shore, in between the Newport mansions and the bay. In 1975, the walk was designated as a National Recreation Trail, making it the first in New England. About two-thirds of the walk is in easy walking condition. The balance is a little more challenging but not too strenuous.
This particular October morning was crisp and clear and the colors were spectacular. This composition is from the more rugged end of the walk.
Beach Dreams
Just a quick post and run today. The weather in New England has been quite cold this past week so when I came across this shot that I took last year in Fort Lauderdale, I started thinking about how nice it would be at the beach. The good news is that I will be headed to Florida in a few weeks and hope to get warm.
Nature's Courthouse
This the second image that I have reprocessed on my recently found archives or as Jimi Jones named them, “Lost Treasure of Len” (my wife is still chuckling about that). This image is from a trip I took with my son where we hiked for two weeks in Utah. This particular trail is the Park Avenue Trail in Arches National Park. It is a one-mile relatively flat trail that traverses the bottom of a canyon where some of the park’s well-known monoliths can be seen such as the Three Gossips, Courthouse Towers, the Organ and the Tower of Babel. This particular structure is the Courthouse Towers. Most visitors to the park stop at the Park Avenue Viewpoint, take a few snapshots, and return to their cars without really exploring this trail. They really miss a spectacular walk that is quite memorable. Once on the trail, it opens up to a wide dry wash, filled with a number of shallow sandstone basins and potholes carved out by erosion.
New York Escape
Today we visit New York City's Carnegie Hall which is one of the last large buildings in New York built entirely of masonry, without a steel frame. Originally built in 1891, the exterior of the Hall was updated around 1900 with several marquees being added to the front entrance. A few years later, city building codes required the addition of the fire escape in this image. The fire escape spans the entire Seventh Avenue façade. When I was composing the shot of the Hall, I was taken by the late afternoon sun hitting the fire escape and decided to change my composition to that of the fire escape rather than the the whole facade.
Crowfoot Glow
The Icefields Parkway is one of the longest and most beautiful scenic drives that I have ever been on. The parkway traverses the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies and connects Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. The Icefields Parkway is 140 miles long and named for ice field and glaciers that are visible from the parkway. One of the glaciers that can be seen from the parkway is the Crowfoot Glacier pictured in this image. The Crowfoot Glacier's runoff is the main source of water for Bow Lake that can be seen between the parkway and the glacier. The glacier has retreated and has lost an entire "foot" so it no longer resembles the shape for which it was originally named. Even with its missing part, it is still magnificent and provides a breathtaking view especially when seen in the glow of sunrise.
Ready to Ride?
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Just a quick post and run today. This is a fall Vermont scene highlighting these three horses looking for a place to run. Either that or trying to figure out why the 20 or so photographers are taking their pictures.
I Like That Old Time Rock and Roll
Today we revisit the Route 66 Restaurant in Bar Harbor, Maine. As I explained in this earlier post, the owner of the restaurant was nice enough to allow 20 photographers to photograph the place. As I looked around the place, I was immediately attracted to this old time jukebox, namely the "Seeburg Selectric Symphonola Jukebox". The JP Seeburg and Company was a family-owned business founded by Justus Sjöberg of Gothenburg, Sweden. In the late 1940s, Seeburg manufactured its popular and distinctive "trashcan-shaped" series of jukeboxes.
When I spied this jukebox, I could only imagine the fascination people had when the first jukebox was introduced. It must have seemed to them a new and exciting invention. It's interesting to contrast the jukebox with today's iPod and iPhone. Wonder what they would say now.
Domes, Domes, Everywhere
Any visit to Rome must include spending time in Vatican City and especially the Vatican Museums. The museums are among the greatest museums in the world and they display centuries of works that include some of the most renowned sculptures and masterpieces of Renaissance art. The lines to get into can oftentimes go on for blocks that take several hours to navigate. When we visited, we had arranged for a special tour and were able to bypass the line. Once inside the museum, the crowds were everywhere. It was very difficult to move and take photos but if you were patient, you could get off a few unobstructed shots.
What was really amazing was the number of galleries (there are 54), each of which had quite a number of sculptures, tapestries, paintings and murals. The Sistine Chapel is the last museum and the only way to see it is to proceed through the other 53 galleries. Talk about a sensory overload!
Every time I looked up, there seemed to be a mural or dome above me. I'm not sure what the name of this dome was, but it sure is beautiful.
Rialto Bridge View
The Rialto Bridge is probably the most visited and most photographed bridge in Venice. The bridge connects the districts of San Polo and San Marco across the Grand Canal. The present iteration of the bridge was completed in 1591 and is a favorite destination of tourists. Getting a view from the top of the bridge takes patience as the rails are lined with people taking photos. Once you get the desired spot, it's easy to see why the bridge is so crowded. As you can see, the view is pretty awesome and it is easy to get mesmerized with all of the boats and gondolas maneuvering the Grand Canal. Scenes like this one make Venice one of my most favorite places in the world.
Contemplation
Okay, it seems that I received an unexpected late Christmas gift this weekend. I was looking for something and came across some backup DVDs that contained some of my images from 2003 - 2006. You may ask why I am looking at this as a gift. The easy answer is that I took some memorable trips during that period and, at that time, really didn't know anything about RAW files and processing (other than that, everything was fine). I processed the JPG files in Photoshop Elements with my very poor skills and DELETED the original files. That's right, all gone. I have rued the day I deleted them ever since. Now for the good news, the DVDs that I found contained the original JPGs. I now have a lot of my favorite images that I can now reprocess. This is the first image that I have reprocessed and it is significant in that it is the photo that started my photography hobby in earnest. I always had an interest in photography and in the early 1980′s even took a high school course in developing black and white film (boy, did they lose money on me). Career, family and finances got in the way of photography and I didn’t pursue it again until the early 2000′s. Then in 2005, I decided to see if I was serious about it.
My son Greg and I headed to Utah for two weeks for the sole purpose of hiking and photography. One of the places that I had longed to visit was Monument Valley. Located on a Navajo Indian Reservation on the Utah/Arizona border, it was the location of many famous westerns (Stagecoach and The Searchers to name a couple). I had seen a photo of Tear Drop Arch on the cover of a tour guide and always wanted to shoot it. The park has a 17-mile dirt road, but in order to photograph the more iconic places such as Tear Drop Arch, you must hire a Navajo guide. Our guide took us all over the park for four hours and saved Tear Drop Arch for our last stop at sunset. The biggest surprise was that Tear Drop Arch is actually about 3 miles outside the park. While Greg and the Navajo guide talked about his culture, I shot the arch until well past sunset.
This was one of the most magical experiences I’ve ever had and it lit the passion that I still have for photography.
Dreary Day at Beckley Furnace
This is an image of Blackberry Falls in East Canaan, Connecticut. It is located at the Beckley Furnace Industrial Monument and is Connecticut's only official Industrial Monument. Built in 1847, the Beckley blast furnace produced iron primarily for the manufacture of railroad car wheels that were known for their excellence and durability. The furnace closed in 1919 and stands today as the best preserved example of a technology that has long since vanished. This particular day, the weather was quite dreary with harsh overhead light. This exposure was made with a neutral density 10-stop filter for 32 seconds. While the result was pretty good for the falls, the surrounding sky and trees were a challenge. As a result, I created a HDR from the image and was able to bring back details into the surrounding areas.
White Mountain Crossing
Today we re-visit the the Albany Covered Bridge located off of New Hampshire's famed Kancamagus Highway. Some of you may remember a past post of the of the bridge with a view from the inside (which can be seen here). The Kancamagus Highway (also known as the "Kanc") is a 34 mile scenic drive that is known as one of the best fall foliage viewing areas in New England. The Kanc in October is the destination of choice for thousands of "leaf peepers" from all over the country. There were quite a number of photographers and visitors there and I had to be careful to keep them out of the scene. It helped that we visited the bridge right after Columbus Day otherwise I would have been editing this forever.
Rustic
Once again, we visit the Inn at Mountain View Farm in East Burke, VT. The inn is located on a 440-acre historic farm on top of a mountain with picturesque views of the surrounding Vermont countryside. We were given the run of the place for three hours and this image was taken in one of the barns on the property. The rustic look of the barrels and the walls contrasted very nicely with the red building and green leaves seen through the window. The light from the side window gave the barrels a very nice glow. The Inn at Mountain View Farm is a wonderful place to stay as well as a photographer's paradise.
Iconic Pemaquid
Okay, I admit it. I am fascinated by the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. I visited and shot the lighthouse four different times in 2011 in all types of weather except snow. This is amazing to me as I had absolutely no plans to visit Maine in 2011. I have posted four very different images of the lighthouse from the inside to the great view from the rocks below. To date, I haven't posted the iconic view of the lighthouse until today. Why? I wanted this perspective of the lighthouse to have a great reflection with very little wind in terrific light. I had given up hope that I would catch the right conditions but I convinced my wife and friends to take a detour to the lighthouse on the way from Camden to Newcastle. The ride turned out to take much longer that I thought. They probably would have made me turn back, but when driving down the northern side of the Pemaquid Penisula, there are very few choices to cut across to the other side. When we finally arrived at the lighthouse, it was late afternoon when the light is really good from this vantage point. I knew my time was limited given the looks I was getting and I quickly scrambled down the rocks, hoping that the wind was still. As you can see, it was.
I know many of you are as crazy as me to "get the shot". If it wasn't for the support (and patience) of our spouses and friends, we wouldn't be successful in pursuing it.
The Lone Cypress
I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year. I know it is a sacrilege, but I spent the time off to spend with family and decided that I wouldn't even pick up a camera during the holidays. I took more photos in 2011 that I have ever had in one year and just decided too take a short break. Now that we are entering a new year, I feel recharged and ready to go. Today's photo is the famed Lone Cypress on the Monterey Peninsula's Seventeen Mile Dive. The Lone Cypress, also known as the Monterey Cypress, has sat on its rocky perch for over 250 years with supporting cable around it to keep it from falling. It is one of the most famous trees in the world and has become the official symbol of Pebble Beach.
Seventeen Mile Drive is one of my favorite drives and I always look forward to it. I remember how excited I was the first time I was to visit the Monterey Peninsula in 1982. Little did I realize that the week I was supposed to visit, the U.S Open was held there and the drive would be closed. I was crushed but have more than made up for it since then as I visit whenever I travel to San Francisco.
The Chapel on the Hill
This will be my last post before the Christmas holidays. I will try to post a couple of images next week while visiting family, but if I don't, I would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and a fantastic new year. I would be remiss if I didn't thank everyone who has visited my site or left a comment of encouragement. I have made many new photography friends this past year and am deeply grateful to the on-line photography community that share my passion for photography. In this image, I bring you an interior shot of The Chapel of the Holy Family. The chapel is located on Darling Hill Road in Lyndonville, Vermont. It is situated at the edge of a beautiful wooded area on a knoll that overlooks the beautiful Vermont countryside.