Sunrise, Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine

Hey everybody,

I’m working hard to catch up on my processing, and am beginning to go through images from Maine in June. The summit of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point in Acadia National Park, is a fantastic place to photograph at sunrise. It was completely socked in with fog down at sea level, but I figured there was still a chance of having good conditions up there. I’m glad I made that choice!

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Elk on Dream Lake reprocessed, Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Hey everybody,

This image is from last July at Dream Lake, in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. This morning was one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had as a nature photographer. Having a gigantic bull Elk wander into this scene was just incredible! I’ve been slowly (very slowly) improving my skills at processing, and thought I’d give this one another go.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

One more from WV!

Hey everybody,

I’ve finished working through my shots from WV and I have to say that this one is my favorite! I’ll have some new stuff up here soon, I promise! I’ve got dozens of shorebirds I could share from Conneaut, and I’ll be shooting along the coast and at Great Falls this week!

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Peaceful Summer Sunrise #2, Canaan Mountain, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

Hi everybody,

Continuing on with the theme of posting images from my recent West Virginia/Ohio trip, here’s another image from sunrise at that favorite overlook of mine! You know, although the graduated ND filters will never leave my bag, I am really beginning to get comfortable with digitally blending my images.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Peaceful Summer Sunrise, Canaan Mountain, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

Hi,

Chris Kayler and I just got back from a 5 day trip spent photographing landscapes in Davis/Canaan Valley, West Virginia, and migrating shorebirds in Conneaut, Ohio. Overall the trip was a great success, with great light in West Virginia, and great birds in Ohio! Here’s the first of a few images I’ll be sharing with you all from this most recent trip. I made this photograph atop a favorite rocky overlook in the Monongahela National Forest. Chris and I hiked up in the evening and camped out at the overlook in order to be there at sunrise.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

More sunrise over the Mather Gorge, Great Falls National Park, Virginia/Maryland

I like this one more.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Sunrise over the Mather Gorge, Great Falls National Park, Virginia/Maryland.

Hey there,

I hope everybody enjoyed the past holiday weekend. I sat around and did a whole lot of nothing, and it was honestly wonderful. Over the past few weeks, and hopefully for the next few weeks, I’ve been trying to make the most of local summer photo ops. I’ve been concentrating on the White-tailed Deer fawns up in Big Meadows of Shenandoah National Park, sunrises, sunsets, and the resident Great Blue Herons of Great Falls National Park, and I’ve been searching for decent locations to photograph Least Bittern and Pied-billed Grebe, since they’re among the few area birds that are easily photographed in the summer that we have here. If all goes as planned, some time soon I’ll be making a weekend trip up north to photograph Common Loons.

Anyhow, I’ve been making many a sunrise/sunset trip to Great Falls over the past few weeks. I haven’t had great luck with the Herons, but on a morning trip with my friend Chris, we had this nice sunrise.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Maine Day 2: Sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine

Well, today was a heck of a day! I got up and left at 4:00AM to catch a lovely 4:45 sunrise. I then spent the rest of the day chasing warblers, which was mostly a bust besides one good American Redstart. I also did a good amount of scouting during the day, and found some nice cooperative birds to try and go back to in better light.

Anyhow, I shot this scene with a GND filter, but I also bracketed exposures to blend when I get home. Regardless, this isn’t my final version of the shot, but here’s what I worked up on my craptop!

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Misty Spring sunrise on Bear Rocks, Dolly Sods, West Virginia

Wow, it has been a whole week since I updated this. Geez. I’ve been super busy. This past weekend, I assisted on one of Joe Rossbach’s photo workshops. It was a great time, and great learning experience for me. I drove from there straight to Maine, where I’ll be photographing for the next week and a half. I’m going to have to wait another week or so for the lupines to be at their best here, so until then I’m focusing on sunrise/sunsets on the rocky coast, and breeding songbirds! I’m trying to get the most out of this spring, if that wasn’t obvious 🙂

Here’s one from the morning after the workshop. Myself, Joe, and a workshop participant, Reza, camped up on Dolly Sods overnight to catch sunrise at Bear Rocks. It was some nice light! Please excuse any errors that may be present in the processing, because this was done on my uncalibrated laptop monitor.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Thoroughfare Dawn

Here’s an old favorite from Shenandoah National Park last spring. I have yet to see any natural light show top this.

The Thoroughfare Gap overlook is a favorite spot of mine to photograph sunrise from in Shenandoah National Park. I had gone to the park that day to photograph White-tailed Deer fawns in Big Meadows, but when I saw this cloud formation with the clear patch of horizon on the east, I had to change my plan!

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Whew!

It’s been a whole week since I last posted on here. Wow. I’ve been ridiculously busy photographing springtime scenes throughout Virginia over the past seven days. I photographed many different things in Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, some waterfalls down by Covington and Blacksburg, VA, and lots more. Over the next few days I’ll be sharing some recent shots from all over Virginia’s mountains.

I’ll start with yesterday morning. I photographed sunrise atop Shenandoah National Park’s Blackrock Summit. There were two main layers of clouds; very thick, puffy, rain clouds at approximately my elevation, and a lighter, thinner cloud base a few thousand feet above. I figured my odds were pretty slim on getting a good sunrise, but I stuck with it anyways. I hit the trail in the pouring rain, with the full expectation of returning to my car with nothing more than waterlogged shoes. Just as I had hoped, the lower level of rain clouds broke for about ten minutes right at sunrise! It’s hard to say this when you have 20 duds in a row, but sometimes it’s really worth it to brave harsh or uncomfortable conditions on the off chance of some amazing light!

Here are two images I made within a few minutes of each other. Not long after the second was taken the clouds came back and drenched me yet again, so as to say “you had your chance, now get the hell out of here!” I complied.

Please click the above image(s) to view larger.

To purchase a print or stock rights, please contact me. Feel free to view more of my work at my website.

Monongahela Sunrise

Hey everybody,

I’m still working my butt off to process these files and get up to date! Here’s an image from a sweet sunrise I shared with Joe Rossbach this past October in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia. This particular overlook is one of my favorites. On this day, we were treated to some awesome valley fog, thanks to a very slight temperature inversion. This image doesn’t show off a whole lot of Autumn color in the mountains, but I still feel like it’s one of my favorites. In my next post, I’ll show you a different shot from the same morning.

On the road and going home.

Hey,

I’m just a few hours from leaving Wyoming and beginning the long drive home. It’s about time! Here’s a quick shot I got in Grand Teton National Park a few days ago.

Rainy Day

Hey guys,

I wrote this last night and scheduled it to show up now. I’m probably out in the rain photographing some petroglyphs right now. I’m not particularly interested in them, but I think it’s a fun way to spend a rainy day, and it’s nice to have images of them.

Here are two more from Death Valley that I’ve worked up.

I made it to Moab!

Hi everybody,

Due to the fact that precipitation is forecasted over each of the next eight days, I’ve chosen to cut my time in Escalante and Capitol Reef short. I figure that the rain, snow, and ice will make many of the dirt backroads of those areas impassable, and well, that’s where a lot of the good stuff is located. Theres a lot of awesome places to shoot like that here in Moab as well, but there are also more paved roads, thanks to the National Parks in the area.

Over the last few days, I’ve made my way across the state, shooting at Bryce Canyon, Cottonwood Canyon, Devil’s Garden, slots in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Mon., and Cathedral Valley. I only had one day of sunshine when I was in Escalante. I was being ambitious, and had hoped to get to Spooky Gulch, Peek-A-Boo canyon, and Zebra slot all on the same day. I abandoned that plan once I realized I spent 5 hours inside of Spooky. Anyway, here are some shots from Bryce Canyon and Spooky Gulch.

In the Smokies

Hey,

I’m now in Gatlinburg, TN, grabbing some wi-fi. The fall foliage is not so hot around here, with most areas past peak, green with high amounts of leaf drop, or just simply green! I don’t anticipate staying in this area for too long, but I should stay for a few days and see what the forecasted cold nights will do, as it’s supposed to be in the 20’s a few nights in a row. I think the leaf drop over here has been too great for the color to be very good, though. I’m hoping to catch some good color around the Linville Gorge, which was just starting to turn when I visited last week. I’m also hoping to catch some decent color around southern parts of the state, and even into South Carolina/Georgia before I have to be in Texas on November 7th.

I’m toying with the idea of calling it quits on the Blue Ridge around Nov 1st, and going to shoot somewhere closer to Texas. Maybe the Ozarks, or maybe even the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma (there’s a Buffalo herd in the refuge out there, which would be pretty cool to photograph.) Let me know if you have any ideas!

Here’s a photograph I made from Black Balsam Knob, NC on the morning of the 23rd. I wouldn’t typically compose an image like this, but I feel like it worked in this instance.

More More More Great Falls!

Hey Folks,

Here’s the last of my Great Falls shots for the year. I swear! I won’t have any more mornings to spend at Great Falls until next year. I’m quite excited, actually. I’m just a few days away from beginning a massive photo trip. I’ll be leaving on the First of October, and getting back in Mid-December. I plan to photograph Autumn foliage throughout the Blue Ridge, Wildlife in Texas, and wintry desert scenes throughout the southwest. It’s going to be a marathon, and it’s going to put my dedication to test, but I know I can do it!

Be sure to check back for updates as I plan on updating as much as possible from the road.

Anyways, this photo was taken during the little “group outing” on September 14th. Joe, Chris, Pini, and I all made some quality images in the breaking fog at sunrise.

More More Great Falls!

Here’s a photo from one of my many Great Falls outings from this and last month. All morning the clouds looked like they were going to produce more dramatic light than this, but I’ll take it however it comes! Some ambitious work on CS3 really makes a shot stand out from time to time.

More Great Falls!

In this post you’ll see yet another shot from one of my many Great Falls sunrises with Chris Kayler. On this particular morning, the sky was fairly overcast, and the color never really came out any more then this. I still think this was a nice scene. It was on this morning that I came across a really attractive bit of lichens on the overlook rocks that I hope to utilize with better light.

Update

I’ve been spending a ridiculous amount of time in preparation for a rather lengthy trip this fall and winter. I’ll be photographing autumn foliage throughout the Blue Ridge, Wildlife in Texas, and winter desert scenes throughout Arizona and Utah. My journey begins in the West Virginia highlands, and should wrap up around Capitol Reef NP, Utah. I’ll be out for over two months, and I absolutely can’t wait.

Anyhow, enough about that. This is yet another Great Falls shot from the trip with Joe, Chris, and Pini. I used the backlit fog to my advantage, and composed with a somewhat unique composition (for me, at least.