Lupine in Bloom at Kehoe Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore

The yellow bush lupine is in full bloom at Point Reyes National Seashore, and the park's coastal scrub is carpeted in yellow. This photo is a view of the Great Beach of Point Reyes, looking south over the dunes along the trail to Kehoe Beach.

View more landscape images from Point Reyes National Seashore.

Tunnel View during spring storm, Yosemite National Park

A classic view of Yosemite National Park from Tunnel View. The weather during this quick trip was fantastic with a mix of sun, rain, and late season snow, and this shot was taken just as a hailstorm opened up above us and moved across the valley. For those curious about the technical aspects of this image, it's an HDR blend of 4 exposures.

View more of my landscape images.

Sunrise over Point Reyes National Seashore

Landscapes are certainly not my strength, although I'm making an effort to get better at them. It can be tricky though since I almost always have my wildlife lens (ie, 200-500mm zoom) on the camera to make sure that I'm ready if an interesting animal appears. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and it was hard to pass up an opportunity to shoot the gorgeous sunrise light falling on the sandstone cliffs of Drake's Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore in early January. This particular sunrise was one of the most amazing I've ever seen, since most of the park had a fog bank hovering above it, except for the area I was in.

Here's a second view, taken a few minutes earlier from the parking lot area (looking in the opposite direction).

Rainy day, Lake Tahoe

It's raining here again in the Bay Area all weekend long. It feels like we haven't had a dry weekend since October. Its definitely a bummer to be stuck inside again, so in honor of the dreary weather outside, here's a shot from a rainy trip around Lake Tahoe. This is an HDR blend of multiple exposures from the Sand Harbor area of Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side. The storm clouds passing through complement the cold colors of the large boulders that surround the lake. And an extra special thanks to my wife, who was holding the umbrella over me and the camera for these shots!

Stormy shoreline, Lake Tahoe

Our trip to Lake Tahoe in October wasn't all bears and salmon, as we took a drive around the lake on Sunday afternoon. It was unfortunately a rainy day, but we did get periods of time without precipitation, which provided a chance to shoot some landscapes with a wonderfully dramatic sky. This shot is from the Sand Harbor area on the Nevada side of the lake during a mostly dry walk along the shore.



Since the sky had such wonderful color but was rather bright, I thought this would be a good chance to take some bracketed sets and try my hand at HDR for the first time. This is a combination of 3 frames, each one stop apart. I'm not sure that this was the most ideal situation for requiring a blended exposure, but compared to what I was able to do in a single frame in Lightroom it did seem to help a bit. I was able to retain more of the color in the sky, while still keeping the rocks evenly lit in the foreground. This is definitely something I need some work with, but it was a fun exercise all the same.



I've included a "making of" shot, courtesty of my lovely wife, since she takes such great pictures of me taking pictures. I had to laugh when I saw this one too, because I know she was chuckling at me during this shot since I had just explained how I would need to go to the furthest rock I could reach in order to get just the right composition. Of course, when I compare the results of my HDR efforts to what came out of my wife's point and shoot in auto mode, perhaps it wasn't worth the trouble!

Mount Olympus

The summit of Mount Olympus as seen from the Obstruction Point area in Olympic National Park. When starting out on the hike I figured I would want a more wide-angle lens, however, I quickly changed my mind when I realized how small these glorious peaks would be in the frame. Instead, I slapped on my wildlife lens (Tamron 200-500 zoom) and felt that the way I was seeing the sights along the trail was much better represented by the tighter composition of 200mm. It also was nice to be ready when we saw an Olympic marmot along the trail.

Trip through Carrizo Plain National Monument

On the second day of our post-Thanksgiving road trip, we headed inland from the coast to Carrizo Plains National Monument, in hopes of finding some pronghorn antelope. We did find them, but I didn't get any good images (they were too far off) -- but maybe I'll tack one or two onto a later post, anyway. During the afternoon we drove a loop of what was basically the entire length of the park, and in the southeast corner, we crossed over what I believe is the tip of the Temblor Range. After driving for over an hour in what was more desert than grassland, it was a true delight to take this tiny dirt road over these hills. The view from the top was just spectacular!



As a note to anyone interested in visiting the park (which I do highly recommend!), the roads are not well marked, and we missed this turnoff, as it looked like any of the other non-descript dirt roads.



This is a place I would love to spend more time in -- it gave me a great appreciation for plains ecosystems (something I have not spent much time in), and it would be awesome to photograph these magical grasslands during the golden hours of light. While I don't have any pictures to show, I can tell you that the park took on a whole different and truly spectacular character as the sun rapidly approached the horizon. The tips of all of the grasses just lit up, and it almost looked as if snow had covered the ground. We got to experience this beautiful scene from the car, as we raced the last of the light to get out of the park and back to a farming field we saw on the way in that had the pronghorn in it. To our delight, they were in the same area at the end of the day, and we were able to watch them through the binoculars until it was finally too dark.