I did not go to Bath, England to do nature photography, but sometimes opportunities arise. We were actually there to do a bit of urban tourism — visiting the historic baths, viewing the nearby church, checking out the Georgian architecture. In fact, those were the things we spent most of our time on. But at by this point we were over four weeks into our trip, and sometimes it is nice to get away from the urban stuff. So we went for a walk.
Continue reading Leaves, Bath
I arrived here before dawn on an early October morning, planning to find a spot above a lake where I could photograph colorful aspens, the lake, and the forest and mountains beyond. I began photographing as the first sunrise light struck the peaks, and continued as the reflected light lit nearby aspens and the peaks’ mirror image appeared in the surface of the lake. Eventually the light in front of me became less appealing, and I turned my attention elsewhere.
Continue reading The Last Leaves, Morning Light
I came to this ridge overlooking Mono Basin and the Eastern Sierra well before sunrise. My intention was to photograph some extensive aspen groves along with other landscape subjects as the morning light arrived. It turned out that I was too late in the season for these aspens — I should have remembered that their drop leaves early — so I worked those other subjects as sunrise began to light up the terrain.
Continue reading First Light on Bare Aspens
One of the advantages of returning to the same subjects over the years is that this gives your vision for them time to evolve. Here I speak not just of aspens in general, but of this particular grove of trees. Some years ago, while photographing a different nearby subject, a large grove further up the hillside caught my attention. It posed two challenges. First, getting close to the grove would be extremely difficult. Second, it always seemed to have lost its leaves when the other trees I came to see were at their color peak.
Continue reading Aspen Thicket