“Eilean Donan Castle” — Eilean Donan Castle, on the inland sea near Isle of Skye
We have been traveling. A week ago we returned from a six-week visit to the British Isles — a couple of weeks in Scotland, a bit more than a week in Ireland, a one-week walk in the Cotswolds, and then some time in English cities. The photograph comes from near the start of the trip, just before we arrived on the Isle of Skye. We paused at the Eilean Donan Castle along the inland sea before crossing to the island. It was a welcome break on my first day of driving on left side of the road!
“Wetland Island and Fog” — Tule fog mutes the wetland landscape beyond reed-covered islands.
Fog can make photography wonderful… or difficult when I photograph migratory birds in California’s Central Valley. There are practical issues, such as driving on roads that are dangerously obscured, or not being able to see the birds in the murk. It is cold and damp. But I love the atmosphere that tule fog brings to this landscape, and that’s why I keep going back.
I also like the way that it lets me “minimize” the landscape. Fog blanks out any subjects that are not close to the camera position. On a clear day you would see trees, possibly utility lines and poles, a sky with clouds, and who knows what else. But when the fog is thick all of those distractions disappear and I can work with the most minimal of materials.
“First Light — Tufa, Clouds, Mountains” — The first dawn light on Mono Lake tufa towers, with desert mountains and morning ing clouds in the distance.
The landscape of Mono Lake and Mono Basin seems reduced to essentials: rocks, mountains, water, sky, light. And all of this is in a place of uncommon quiet and immense space — it is difficult to truly comprehend the scale of the basin. These qualities seem especially strong if you come down from the peaks and intimate landscapes of the nearby Sierra Nevada.
I was out there early on this July morning — having literally “come down” from those peaks near the Sierra crest in predawn darkness. Rather than getting close to the famous tufa formations, my goal was to photograph the lake and its surroundings from a distance, using long lenses to bring together some of the close features and distant elements of the landscape.
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“Sea Stacks and Surf, Big Sur” — Rough surf and rugged sea stacks along the Big Sur coastline.
California’s coast is quite varied — in places you can find classic wide beaches, but there are impossibly rugged, inaccessible areas, too. (One section in far-northern California is so rugged that engineers were forced to divert the route of Highway 1 far inland.) This photograph comes from a section of the upper Big Sur coast that combines that ruggedness with a degree of accessibility.
I visited on the late-June morning because friends and fellow photographers were visiting the area — so it was a chance both to photograph and to meet up with them. We arrived very early, before the tourist crowds, and photographed soon after the sun cleared the coastal hills and light arrived on the rugged, rocky shoreline and surf.
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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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