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Posts tagged ‘Trees’

Joshua Tree National Park

I was in southern California recently, and had an afternoon to drive over to Joshua Tree National Park. I first visited there in 2007, when I was in Palm Springs for a NANPA photography summit.

I planned my trip to arrive for sunset light. There weren’t many clouds in the sky, but I still managed to get a little sunset color. I just had a great time quietly hanging out among the Joshua Trees and watching the sun set.

Afterwards, I drove down to the town of Joshua Tree and had dinner before driving back west towards the city. It was an incredibly short visit, but I loved every moment.

Fallingwater

I’ve spent the past week in Pittsburgh, at a conference and visiting some professors at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.  Today, I escaped the city—Pittsburgh’s a great city, by the way—and did a little sightseeing in southwestern Pennsylvania.

I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood Museum.  But most of my time was spent at Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater. There’s a hint of fall color just beginning to appear—this part of the country is beautiful.

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A year or so ago, I visited Taliesin West.  Both it and Fallingwater have an enormous sense of fitting exactly into their surrounding environments.  Taliesin West sitting perfectly in the desert of Arizona, and Fallingwater belonging no other place than along the stream called Bear Run in Pennsylvania.

Grand Canyon, South Rim

On Friday, I drove up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, driving from east to west. There were a few inches of snow along the rim, but with a little care, I managed to get to some of the overlooks. Here’s an infrared shot from Grandview Point. (To see more detail in each image, click on them to enlarge.)

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For sunset, I drove to Pima Point, which is along Hermit Road almost all the way to Hermit’s Rest. Here’s some of the last of the evening light falling on the Tower of Ra [see the comments].

Tower of Ra

Here’s another infrared photo.  I think this does a good job of showing the variety of textures and layers in the rock.grand_canyon_infrared

Fall Color in Colorado

AspensClick Images to Enlarge

I’ve just returned from a week in Colorado.

I enjoyed…

  • visiting great friends,
  • great weather,
  • the peak of fall color of the aspens.

A mountainside of beautiful fall color is a wonderful thing, but my “traditional portraits” of the aspens just weren’t exciting me.

So my friend Micaela and I walked into the forest a few yards.  I aimed the camera up.  And down.  I slowed the shutter speed.  I overexposed.  I underexposed.  I twisted the camera during the exposures.

I was having fun with my camera. And I finally felt creative. Let me know what you think.

Aspen Leaves on the Forest Floor

 Aspens and Clouds

San Antonio Trip

Yesterday, I traveled down to San Antonio with one of my best friends for a photography expedition.  Our goal was to just explore and play.  I took my infrared Nikon D200 (converted by LifePixel) and my visible light (unmodified) Nikon D300.

We visited several of the missions that are part of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.  Here’s an infrared tree portrait from Mission San Juan Capistrano.

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We also visited the San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden, which had completed a major renovation the day before.

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One of my favorite photos is this one looking straight up at the ceiling of the pagoda.

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