As a person who has spent a lifetime exploring California’s High Sierra Nevada, I have seen a lot of rugged, alpine scenes. “My” mountains typically require me to climb to near or above 10,000′ to see scenes like this. But here in Scotland, on the Isle of Skye specifically, the mountains rise from essentially sea level. While the peaks are all below 4000′, they nonetheless present the same alpine scenery I find among the highest peaks in the Sierra.
Continue reading Mountains, Morning Light
We had finished dawn photography of nearby formations on this October morning at Arches National Park. As I was working that subject I kept noticing this remarkable bit of cliff, also in the direct morning sunlight. The larger formation of which it is a part did not offer me any obvious photographic subject, so I switched to a long lens and zeroed in on the colors and textures of this small portion of the scene.
Continue reading Cliff Face in Morning Light
Arches National Park is red rock country, a landscape dominated by the colors of Southwest sandstone. Almost all of my photographs of the area are in color, for that obvious reason. It is not just the rocks themselves — the complementary greens of vegetation and the blue of the sky feature strongly, too. But this particular view, a veritable moonscape, seems to call for a monochrome interpretation.
Continue reading Sandstone Terrain and Mountains
We arrived at Salt Creek before sunrise, planning to walk down to the end of the boardwalk and photograph some further areas at dawn. It used to be that you could continue on from there and investigate other interesting terrain, but there is now no obvious way off the boardwalk, likely because the park service is trying to protect those areas. So we photographed from the boardwalk as the sun came up.
Continue reading Boardwalk, Morning