Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography

Have a favorite photograph and story?
Take part in my Photography Blog Project

The project has ended… see the results here
21 Favorite Photos And The Stories Behind Them

I thought it might be fun to share (5) five of my favorite photographs and accompanying stories. Stories that until now have been shared with only a few close friends. In the same vein as many reality shows depicting dangerous or unwise situations I’ll begin with a disclaimer:

“The following photographs were taken after careful planning enabling me to barely avoid inclusion in the Darwin Awards, completely losing my gear or putting important relationships in jeopardy. If interested in a long career of photography one should avoid repeating the following circumstances no matter how well the end result turned out… unless you’re like me and absolutely can’t resist getting that magical photo.”

#5: Full Moon Over San Francisco

Click here for a larger version of Full Moon Over San Francisco

What could be so risky about taking a photo of San Francisco? Looking past my rapid exit from the freeway, upon seeing the biggest moon I’ve yet to see rising over the city… I was returning home after picking up my girlfriend from her job. My girlfriend had made it known that she really had to go to the bathroom. An extremely good sport she put up with my “quick” detour, which wasn’t so quick. Pulling up to a lookout I unloaded my camera gear, set up my tripod, secured my camera, attached my cable release and fired away. What I only thought was a few minutes turned into 20 or 30. Fortunately no accidents happened, the girlfriend didn’t get too mad, and after another few years of torment my girlfriend became my wife. If I had been any slower finishing up my shoot… on the other hand I don’t want to think about it. Read more… »

One of my fondest memories after hiking through 30 miles of the Pacific Coast Trail through Crater Lake National Park was emerging to see this view. So calm and so serene this sunrise view is one of my personal favorites.

A larger version can be seen in my gallery Daybreak At Crater Lake

Technorati Tags: Crater Lake, National Park, sunrise, daybreak, Pacific Coast Trail, landscape, view, hike, photo, photograph

As a follow up to my Top 10 Most Annoying Photo Critique Comments post I’m going to be posting a running series on photography terms and definitions. Some of these terms will be pretty straight forward and others will be new to most. The idea is that perhaps this will boost the vocabulary of those that make critiques and provide greater understanding behind much of what we see in photography.

The first entry in the series is Aerial Perspective

“Aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective is the effect on the appearance of an object by the atmosphere between it and a viewer (or the technique of depicting this effect in a work of art, such as a landscape painting). As the distance between an object and a viewer increases, the contrast between the object and its background decreases. The contrast of any markings or details on the object also decreases. The colours of the object also become less saturated and shift towards blue.

Aerial perspective was discovered and named by Leonardo Da Vinci, who used it in many of his works, such as the Mona Lisa, in order to suggest distance.”

An example of this phenomenon can be seen in this image:

Read more… »

This has been a long time favorite of mine and recently has become a favorite of quite a few others on Flickr via the Explore page. The story behind this image is quite painful. After hiking through 30 miles of the back country of Crater Lake National Park along the Pacific Coast Trail I decided to venture into the crater. A little too sore and with a few too many blisters on my feet I walked down the Cleetwood Cove trail (a 700 foot descent or about 60+ stories). In the end it was worth the discomfort after getting my slide film back and seeing this…

Read more… »