Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

The dunes of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico are an endless fascination of mine. The landscape here is full of paradoxes. The regularity of irregular patterns formed by the wind create incredibly photogenic sand patterns. The rolling dunes provide an infinite fabric to catch contrasty shadows in the sand patterns throughout the day making optimal lighting virtually an all day affair. Yet what I love most about this terrain is the ability to find simplicity amid the complexity.

Click to Enlarge

White Sands Textures I - White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

Photo Details:
(3) Three photo panoramic, Canon 1Ds Mark III, TS-E 90mm f/2.8

Technorati Tags: photography, fine art, nature, landscape, panoramic, New Mexico, white sands, national monument, stock photo

Glacier National Park is one location that will forever capture my imagination and reverence of nature. No matter where I travel in Glacier National Park I can always find myself lost in thought as I gaze across the landscape. Whether its towering mountains, reflections, eroded stone, or wildlife it can be found with in the maze of glacially carved valleys. It is no wonder that this amazing place is considered sacred by the Blackfoot nation.

Technorati Tags: photography, landscape, nature, fine art, panoramic, Glacier National Park, NPS

Some landscapes are so sweeping its an incredible challenge to portray them properly in a tightly constrained photo, no matter what the format or lens used. The South Dakota Badlands fall into that category. Standing at any one of numerous scenic lookouts one’s field of view is completely filled with this amazingly surreal landscape.

South Dakota Badlands Spring Panoramic – Badland National Park, South Dakota
Click to Enlarge

On this particular day the weather was turning for the worst, but the cloud cover provided nice even lighting to bring out the color in the eroded hillsides. Sporadic rain rejuvenated grass and flowers sprinkled through out the scene giving this otherwise desolate landscape vibrancy of color and life. Impossible to capture in entirety I opted to capture this scene in a panoramic format with a hint of  life revealing itself amidst an endless maze of canyons.

Photo Details:
Canon 1Ds Mark III, 90mm tilt-shift, 3-image horizontal panoramic

Technorati Tags: photography, South Dakota, badlands, landscape, panoramic, stock photo, fine art

Glacier National Park never ceases to amaze even the most seasoned landscape photographers. The light show put on my Mother Nature on this particular morning was nothing short of breathtaking. The beauty of the rugged landscape here is so immense I felt compelled to take a series of panoramic photos. This particular panoramic was made from (3) three Canon 1Ds Mark III photos using a 24mm TS lens. While taking this photo I thought for sure that the fog was burning off, but it was actually reforming. This scene eventually was obscured by fog with in minutes.

Swiftcurrent Lake Panoramic, Glacier National Park

Technorati Tags: Glacier National Park, Landscape, Stock Photo, Fine Art, Photography, Mount Grinnell,   Swiftcurrent Lake,   Nature,   Montana,   Many Glaciers

There are so many wonderful things to say about Glacier National Park it’s hard to know where to start. One of my favorite locations to explore is the Many Glaciers area. Swiftcurrent Lake provides an incredibly majestic view of Mount Grinnell at sunrise and will hold you in awe all day long. On this particular morning Mother Nature put on an amazing show. A nearly full moon was setting at sunrise and as the mountains warmed from the early mornings sun a purple fog began to creep across the landscape. Just before the fog swept across the lake concealing this amazing view deer could be seen foraging on the far bank of the river.

Mount Grinnell Reflected in Swiftcurrent Lake at Sunrise

Mount Grinell Reflected in Swiftcurrent Lake at Sunrise, Glacier National Park

How this photo was taken:

This is a 32 megapixel digital panoramic taken with a Canon TS-24mm f/3.5 L  lens. Three vertical photos were taken by shifting the lens and later merged in Photoshop. I’ll end up sharing more about this technique in the future.

Technorati Tags: Photography, Landscape, Glacier National Park, Mount Grinnell, Swiftcurrent Lake, Nature, Montana, Many Glaciers

This photo could sum up the past couple of weeks nicely. Life has been coming at me fast and furious as of late. Taxes, a variety of projects and recently my dog Moe (dressed as Batdog) having some unexplained seizures. All is well with Moe fortunately, but I’m keeping an eye on him. Other than being severely sleep deprived staying up with him late at night… we’re both faring well. The same could be said of my wife and I regarding our tax prep The joy of tax season. The upside to all this mayhem is that I have been eeking out some progress to some photo projects. Now that the recent ’storm’ of events is passing I can resume getting out some over due reviews and articles on the blog.

Re-emerging From The Storm - Bay Bridge and Downtown San Francisco at Night

The above photo is a digital panoramic composed of 6 photos. This was taken last night as a rainstorm was moving east over downtown San Francisco. Photo details are as follows: Canon 1Ds Mark III, 70mm, f/13, 2 sec., ISO 1600

Technorati Tags: photography, panoramic, stock photo, fine art, bay bridge, san francisco, skyline, travel

This is one of the few large panoramic photos I took while out at The Wave in Arizona. As some might recall I covered elements of my time at this location in my aptly titled EXIF and Beyond podcast Landscape Photography: The Wave.  This particular photo is a 22 image vertical image stitch with a net resolution equivalent to 300+ megapixels.

Those that were with me when I took this panoramic thought I was a little nuts. I’m finding that is a more common reaction than not when out in the field. For better or worse I can’t stop myself from pursuing ultra-high resolution photographs of the locations I travel to.

Click to Enlarge

The Wave – Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness

More Wave Photos… and The Wave photo gallery

Technorati Tags: landscape, photography, panoramic, photo, The Wave, Arizona, Utah, Paria Canyon, Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, photography, podcast

Late last month when out in Utah meeting up with fellow photographer Guy Tal we photographed sunrise at Factory Butte near Caineville, Utah. The sunrise was incredibly beautiful and accentuated by a nearly full moon setting in the distance. The landscape being so vast I felt compelled to photograph the scene in a panoramic format. The resulting panoramic was made from 13 vertical photographs netting an equivalent resolution of 220+ megapixels. Clicking on the image below will load a considerably smaller version.

Click to Enlarge

While I was busy snapping away Guy snuck in a photo of me in action (see below).

Click to Enlarge
Photograph courtesy of Guy Tal

For more about Guy Tal listen to EXIF and Beyond: An Interview with Guy Tal

Technorati Tags: Utah, Panoramic, photography, landscape, sunrise