“Tufa, Dawn” — Mono Lake tufa formations under cloudy sunrise sky.
My most common way to approach Mono Lake photographically is to focus on the immense scale of the pace rather than on closer elements of the landscape. I like to set tufa towers against distant desert hills under the wide sky, or perhaps place them in front of the distant eastern face of the Sierra Nevada stretching away to the north. Initially I was doing something like that here, focusing on those offshore towers and using somewhat short focal lengths to take in the wider scene. But then I thought to include a bit of this near tower at the right side of the frame.
“A Cotswolds Trail” — Two Cotswolds hikers pause in the sunlight between old trees and a wheat field.
I have to confess some (OK, a lot of) ignorance about England outside of its cities. We’ve been to the country a number of times, but that usually means going to London and then visiting a few other relatively urbanized places. So “my England” has been basically London and a few (mostly popular) towns. We’ve passed through the country on trains and looked down on it from the air, but this trip was the first time that we actually went out and walked through it. I learned a lot!
“A Riquewihr Christmas Tree” — A small Christmas display beneath a towering bare tree at dusk, Riquewihr.
Riquewihr, in the Alsace region of France, is one of those “too-cute-to-believe” villages, made extra so around Christmas, which is when we visited. Like many of the old villages here, it fits the expected profile of cute old villages, with an entrance through an old arch and many half-timbered old buildings lining a cobblestone street. Add holiday lights and it is almost a holiday sensory overload.
We stayed on the edge of the town for several days, so we could simply walk into the village. That’s what we did on this evening, when we took a stroll up and down the main street. I saw this walkway, with its great old bare tree and Christmas decorations beneath.
“Chicago Towers” — Chicago towers on a cloudy autumn day.
We spent almost a week in Chicago in late November. We went for a long walk inside “the loop” on this overcast day, first visiting the opera house (where we had tickets for a performance later on) and then following the river back to the east before looping toward our hotel. I’ve long been fascinated by comparisons between Chicago and Manhattan, and while I love Manhattan, Chicago comes out ahead in many ways. For one thing there is more space between buildings, providing more light and more ways to photograph them.
Why in the world, you might wonder, would we go to Chicago in November!? It tends to be cold and windy then — though still not as cold as a few weeks later. We originally had plans to meet up with other visitors to attend some concerts, visit museums, and enjoy meals. Unfortunately, their plans changed, but since we had tickets and reservations we decided to go anyway — and it turned out to be an enjoyable trip.
