Miñiques

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Miñiques

miniques-volcano-atacama-desert-chile

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Taken from somewhere in the Atacama Desert, Chile, on April 7th, 2017.

The Atacama Desert is one of the most surreal, entrancing landscapes I’ve visited. It’s incredibly stark and dry, and in some areas there is literally zero plant life. In many ways the folded earth and giant salt pans vividly remind me of Death Valley in California. But just when it starts to feel familiar the Atacama will throw you for a loop.

First off is the elevation. Instead of being low and hot like Death Valley, the Atacama is high and cold, with elevations ranging from 7,000 to 19,000 feet. There are brightly-colored flamingos that inhabit mineral-rich lakes that are toxic to humans. And of course, there are the volcanoes. A chain of enormous volcanoes runs north-south, roughly along the Chile-Bolivia border. Each of them is snow-capped, hulking, and surrounded by a landscape that is inhospitable to all but the hardiest plants and animals.

One of the mightiest of these is Miñiques, which towers above the landscape at nearly 19,400′. It’s an enormous complex of peaks, craters, lava domes and lakes that is visible for miles in any direction. While out exploring the landscape south of the town of San Pedro de Atacama I spent the afternoon wandering around the attraction of Las Piedras Rojas (the Red Rocks). But getting on toward sunset I spied lenticular clouds forming on the lee side of the Miñiques volcano and knew it could make for an interesting photo.

Gunning the rental sedan down the rough and bumpy road I drove to a vantage point where I could get the volcano, the clouds, the moon, and the scrubby landscape all in one frame. As the sun dropped below the horizon it lit up the lenticulars a gorgeous shade of fuchsia and I was able to capture this photo.

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See more beautiful Chile photos here.

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Where Does the Time Go?

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Where Does the Time Go?

four-mile-beach-santa-cruz-rocks-waves-sunset

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Taken at Four Mile Beach in Santa Cruz, California, on January 30, 2012.

When I took this photo back in 2012 and shared it on flickr, my original caption read: “it seems to me that the days are simply flying by lately. I wake up, then before I know it it’s time to go to bed again. What the heck, where does the time go?” And now, looking back over six years later the sentiment rings doubly true. Where indeed does the time go? I spent FOUR YEARS living in Santa Cruz exploring the coastline and taking photo after photo of crashing waves. Four years seems like a long time, and in truth those years entailed hundreds of nights spent at the ocean, but looking back I realize I’ve already been gone from Santa Cruz longer than I ever lived there.

And then I think about all the adventures I’ve had since then, all the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met, and those moments too have just flown by. In the end you can only have one takeaway from a reflection like this: life is short and goes by too quickly. So take advantage of all the moments you can to spend time building beautiful memories in places that make you happy with people you care about.

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See more beautiful California Coast photos here.

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Light Sandwich

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Light Sandwich

palouse-washington-tree-clouds

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Taken along the side of the road near Colfax, Washingon in the Palouse on June 10th, 2017.

Jim Patterson and I were up in the Palouse scouting for a workshop we were holding in a few days. Driving around the beautiful backroads and highways of the region Jim mentioned a tree he’d seen in a few photos and would like to find. In one of those bizarre moments of serendipity minutes later we rounded a bend on the road and saw the exact tree hiding in a small valley between two hilly fields. We sailed past, slammed on the brakes, whipped around and drove back to investigate. Finding a small turn off just barely big enough for the car we jumped out, confirmed it was indeed the tree he was looking for, then marveled at our luck while grabbing a few scouting snapshots.

A few days later with the workshop in tow and ponderous, thick clouds filling the sky overhead we once again stopped at the tree and walked our photographers around the scene suggestion different ideas and compositions. As I was showing a couple of photographers some telephoto shot ideas the sunlight slipped through a crack in the clouds overhead and lit up just one side of the tree along with the hillside behind it. The deep shadows on the ground in front of me combined with the moody skies above made it seem as though I was about to sink my teeth into a light sandwich. So I did, I clicked the shutter, and it was delicious.

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See more beautiful Palouse photos here.

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Barely There

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Barely There

mt-whitney-moon-alabama-hills

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken from somewhere in the Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra, California on February 17th, 2018.

On a clear weekend in mid February a friend and I camped in a place that is endlessly fascinating, the Alabama Hills. Aside from being one of the oldest and most interesting rock formations in the US, the ‘bama Hills serve as an excellent vantage point to gaze at California’s high peaks. Williamson, Russell, Langley, Le Conte, Lone Pine Peak: these mountains dominate the skyline for dozens of miles in any direction. And of course, you have the tallest of them all, Mt. Whitney. Although Whitney is tucked back in, nestled in its mountain throne, and doesn’t look quite as imposing as the more easterly summits, one only has to zoom in with a telephoto lens to see the magnificence of the peak, along with its two attendant needles.

On this trip I wasn’t really planning to do any serious photography, but after checking with my favorite app, PhotoPills I saw that a tiny crescent moon (4.3% full) would be setting over Mt. Whitney, as seen from one of the dirt roads in the area on February 17th. I thought it would be cool to shoot an extreme telephoto image of the crescent as it sank behind the mountains, and positioned myself to do just that.

But after the sun went down and the sky began to darken the moon’s disc became easily visible. What a gorgeous sight that was: the tiny sliver of sunlit moon blazing like a beacon in the sky, then the paler, more subtle disc making itself visible like a visual aftertaste. Knowing the sky would be pitch black by the time the moon actually sank behind the mountains (meaning I’d lose the silhouette of Whitney), I lined up this wider shot, capturing the crescent moon, the full moon disc, the inky blue sky, the silhouette of the mountains, and even a few of the brightest stars. This is a single shot, no compositing, taken with a Nikon D850 and 200-500mm lens at:

ISO400
f/5.6
2 sec
320 mm
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See more beautiful Sierra Nevada photos here.

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Hallelujah

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Hallelujah

The Story Behind This Photograph:

Taken from the Mueller Hut in Aoraki / Mt Cook National Park on May 16, 2016.

There are three things that can get you into trouble when you’re playing in the mountains. The first is overconfidence in your abilities for the terrain. The second is not being prepared in terms of equipment. And the final thing is changing weather. A lot of times you can work through one of those issues and be alright. But when those things start to collide and you have cascading failures, that’s where you can get into a serious situation.

That was exactly what happened when my friend Jessica and I decided to hike to the Mueller Hut in Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park in New Zealand in May of 2016. The Southern Alps were getting blasted by storm after storm, making trekking difficult, but when we spied a 24-hour break in the weather forecast we decided to head up to the hut. Unfortunately for us the break turned out to be much shorter than we expected and brought much colder temperatures with it, including two days of blizzard conditions.

To make a long story short, we ended up being stranded in the hut for three days, ran out of food, and built a mattress fort to stay warm. In addition I also missed my flight back home to the US. After those three days of enduring the battering of this storm, the accompanying winds, thunderclaps, and avalanches, we woke up our final morning in the hut to extraordinary calm and clear skies. We walked outside to find three feet of fresh snow blanketing the surrounding countryside, and some of the most intense alpenglow I’ve ever seen igniting the atmosphere.

That, along with the news that the Department of Conservation was sending a helicopter to extract us from the hut (we couldn’t descend the hiking route due to extreme avalanche danger), led to a profound Hallelujah moment.

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Hey Bear (Grass)!

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Hey Bear (Grass)!

citadel-mountain-glacier-national-park

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken from the shrubbery near Gunsight Lake, overlooking Citadel Mountain, in Glacier National Park on June 18, 2016.

In 2016 I was invited to Glacier National Park to help Fusion TV film a short piece about the loss of the glaciers in the park. After filming wrapped I made plans to spend the next week in Glacier exploring the landscape, as it was my first visit to the park. My friends Elisabeth and Ty were also in the area and we made plans to meet up for a backpacking trip. After flipping through the options at the backcountry permit office we decided on a place called Gunsight Lake. It seemed very beautiful, and was relatively easy to get to: a 6 mile hike in with only a few hundred feet of elevation change. So on the afternoon of the 17th we hoisted our backpacks on, strapped on our cans of bear spray, and set off down the trail.

This was my first time in Montana’s grizzly country and as such I wanted to be prepared. The main rules to avoid bear encounters are 1) hike with other people, and 2) make lots of noise. That was easy enough as the three of us tromped down the path, oohing and aahing over the flowers and mountains surrounding us. A few hours later we rocked into camp, set our tents up, and waited for sunset (which was lovely). Then it was time to hit the sack, because sunrise comes very early in Montana in June. At around 5 am my alarm went off and we all wriggled out of bed and grabbed our cameras. Ty and Elisabeth went off to shoot sunrise by the lake, but I wanted to photograph a patch of wildflowers I’d spied on the hike in the day before. This meant heading off by myself into the dawn hours, breaking the first rule of avoiding bear encounters: Don’t Go By Yourself! Luckily I could still adhere to the second rule and I made a fine racket that morning, belting out songs at the top of my lungs about the sunrise, about bears, wildflowers, the creek nearby, and anything else I could think of. And it must’ve worked because the only sign of bears I saw that morning was the bear grass popping up in front of my camera.

Key Learning Tip:
It’s important to think of your photographs like visual stories. And just like a written story an effective photograph will have some kind of an opening hook to lure viewers in, details that help propel the story through the frame, and a finale. When using a wide-angle these three elements can be found in your foreground, middle-ground, and background. choose an eye-catching foreground element to draw your viewers into the frame. your mid-ground should give some environmental details that tell what a place is like. And your background element should provide some kind of visual payoff and sense of place. the more deliberately you choose these three elements for your photograph, the stronger the visual story you will create.

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See more beautiful Glacier National Park photos here.

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Electric Light

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Electric Light

Neon-Canyon-Escalante-Utah

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken from a bluff overlooking the entrance to Neon Canyon near Escalante, Utah, on October 10, 2016.

In late 2016 my Hungarian friend Julia let me know she was planning another trip to the America Southwest. She’d lived in New York for six years and during her time there a yearly pilgrimage to Utah was a staple in her spiritual diet. And since I enjoy exploring southern Utah almost as much as my own beloved Sierra I leapt at the chance to head out there for 10 days of canyon goodness. Julia recommended we make a backpacking trip into one of the more famous canyons in the Escalante area, Neon Canyon, and having never been there I was happy to agree.

The hike in to the entrance of Neon canyon is fairly easy, if a little boring and exposed: five miles of trudging across sandy, rocky desert, followed by a startlingly quick descent down to the Escalante River. A thigh-deep ford of the river, followed by 50 feet of knee-deep, sucking mud, and you’re in the mouth of the canyon. Then the question becomes where to put your tent. After exploring a few bends up canyon we settled on a wonderful bluff a few hundred feet above the seasonal creek that has hollowed out the canyon.

From our campsite we could see a clear use trail leading to the top of the cliffs to the west so we wandered up that way and found a high perch with incredible views of the Escalante River to the west and Neon Canyon to the east. We spent the next day exploring Neon Canyon, which ends with a truly spectacular sandstone cathedral. As well as Ringtail Canyon, an extremely tight and narrow slot which at the time was chest-deep with frigid water. Brrrr.

On our final morning of the trip I woke up early and hustled up the use trail to the canyon rim. And although the day began with relatively few clouds in the sky they soon developed, and filled the heavens horizon to horizon with puffy, colorful goodness. I set up my camera low between two giant boulders and used a number of technical techniques (including focus stacking and exposure blending) to capture the beauty of the morning. All that was left to do was tear down camp and hike back out.

Check out these behind the scenes photos:


camping-neon-canyon-utah
camping-neon-canyon-utah
escalante-river-neon-canyon
escalante-river-neon-canyon
neon-canyon-amphitheater-utah
neon-canyon-amphitheater-utah
ringtail-canyon-escalante
ringtail-canyon-escalante

See more beautiful Escalante photos here.

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The Berti Bomb

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The Berti Bomb

dolomites-rifugio-berti-italy

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken above the Rifugio Alfonso Berti in the Dolomites, Italy, on July 18, 2016

Rifugio-Berti-Dolomites-Italy-HikeThe Dolomites are full of quaint little gems of huts, and Alfonso Berti is certainly one of them. A fun, 1-hour hike through extraordinary scenery leads to the hut, which boasts pristine alpine views in every direction. The beauty doesn’t end there though. Trails lead off higher up over, through, and around the mountain cirque. In fact, you can see the Rifugio in the lower left part of this snapshot from an afternoon scamper I took with my buddy Cip. On our second night staying at the hut we hiked up an hour or so to the northwest ridge of the mountains, to where WWI trenches are still in place, and still explorable. As afternoon turned into evening clouds built up and began to interact with the sun in glorious ways. Just before sunset I stumbled on a patch of wildflowers that complemented the color of the clouds as the sky exploded, a true Berti bomb.

 

 

Key Learning Tip:
It’s important to think of your photographs like visual stories. And just like a written story an effective photograph will have some kind of an opening hook to lure viewers in, details that help propel the story through the frame, and a finale. When using a wide-angle these three elements can be found in your foreground, middle-ground, and background. choose an eye-catching foreground element to draw your viewers into the frame. your mid-ground should give some environmental details that tell what a place is like. And your background element should provide some kind of visual payoff and sense of place. the more deliberately you choose these three elements for your photograph, the stronger the visual story you will create. 

 

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See more beautiful Dolomites photos here.

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Heads in the Clouds

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Heads in the Clouds

The Story Behind This Photograph:

Taken in the Cocora Valley in Colombia on April 22, 2017

The wax palm is the world’s tallest species of palm tree. Amazingly, they spend their first few decades on the ground, building a crown of fronds that lifts barely a few meters from the earth. But once they reach their teenage years the trees rocket skyward, reaching as high as 200 feet. In the Cocora Valley, where the trees have reached almost legendary status, thunderstorms and humidity reign. There is often a lingering mist of clouds sweeping down off the mountains through the valley, blanketing the trees in a thick of cloud. But like thunderstorms everywhere those in the Cocora Valley often begin to lift and evaporate around sunset, allowing the beautiful tropical light to drizzle in.

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Los Cuernos

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Los Cuernos

Cuernos-del-Paine-Chile

Behind the Scenes of this Photo


Taken from the Lago Grey area of Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, on February 26, 2017.

Chile’s most famous national park is Torres del Paine, which means The Blue Towers. And although those specific towers are striking -gigantic monoliths of rock jutting thousands of feet into the sky- they are somewhat inaccessible. Most people will only ever see them from far away, from a viewpoint miles and miles and miles away from the towers themselves. In contrast, Los Cuernos del Paine (The Blue Horns) are omnipresent in the park. The most famous, the most iconic views of Torres del Paine all involve Los Cuernos. And with good reason: these enormous columns of rock erupt over 6,000 feet from the shores of the lakes below. Their craggy nature give them an incredible character and aesthetic, and they are surely some of the most well-known and iconic mountains in the world.

Being mere miles from the western Chilean coast, this sub range of the Andes is also subject to a battering by the severe weather of the southern latitudes. Ferocious winds, blustery squalls, and intense downpours can spring up out of nowhere, mingling with perfect sunshine in a frustrating display of fickleness. But that same weather, when it hits Los Cuernos, often dances and plays with the light and atmosphere in a way that is a delight for photography.

On this particular day, after a beautiful morning exploring the Lago Grey region of Torres del Paine National Park, I was driving back toward my campsite as the winds picked up and began howling over the peaks. That led to the formation of incredible interlocking lenticular clouds over Los Cuernos, all of which basked in the afternoon sunlight.

Key Learning Tip:

It’s easy to over-complicate composition. In those moments where I’m not sure how to compose a scene I tend to fall back one of the simplest “rules” of composition: the Rule of Thirds. The rule states that you divide your frame up into an imaginary Tic-Tac-Toe board and place important objects in your photos along the lines and intersections of that grid.

In this image you can see I’ve done exactly that: the sky gets a third of the photo. The grass and forested hills at the bottom of the photo get a third. And the mountains in the middle get a third. So simple, yet so effective. Also notice where I’ve placed the most prominent tower in the scene: its most eye-catching, sunlit section is placed on the upper-left third intersection point. It’s a power point in the image and your eye goes right to that tower.

So the next time you’re stuck trying to figure out a decent composition don’t be afraid to fall back to the tried-and-true Rule of Thirds.

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See more beautiful Chile photos here.

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Montaña Colorada

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Montaña Colorada

montaña-colorada-bolivia.jpg

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Taken somewhere in remote southern Bolivia on April 9, 2017.

Southern Bolivia is a land of extremes: altitude, dryness, vulcanism. It’s a weird and marvelous place full of natural wonders. In a sub-range of the Andes, somewhere down there, there is a mountain cascading with minerals. Each mineral is a different color, and when the sun strikes the hillside they light up in a peacock-esque display of color.

Key Learning Tip:

In landscape photography it is hammered into our heads that we should only ever take photos at sunrise and sunset. But the truth is that there are certain kinds of landscapes that work very well in bright, direct sunlight. For example, high contrast black and white photos can be great in direct sun. Or intentional panning shots. Or macro photos. Or, as in this case, intimate images of landscapes with smooth curves and flowing lines. Think rolling agricultural land like the Palouse, sinuous sand dunes in Death Valley, or the beautiful mineral deposits of Montana Colorada in Bolivia.

In fact, this photo works better because of the direct sunlight. The neutral color of daylight brings out the colors throughout the whole spectrum, not just the reds or blues. And because the sun was directly behind me as well it eliminated the shadows of the landscape, allowing the shapes and colors to take center stage.

Remember, the best light for any scene is light that enhances the features of the landscape that you want to emphasize. So if direct sunlight is working for your scene then use it and shoot!

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See more beautiful South America photos here.

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Ice See You

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Ice See You

Perito-Moreno-Ice-Tunnel-Argentina

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Taken in a ice tunnel on the Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina on March 2, 2017.

People are drawn to glaciers in a powerful way. I think it’s because there’s almost nothing so foreign from our daily lives as a strip of ice miles wide that slowly and inexorably slides through mountain valleys, carving them up, and depositing ice and rock in the landscape below. I too am drawn to glaciers and I relish every chance I get to explore on top of one. During my visit to Perito Moreno I went on a guided excursion that explored a tiny part of the glacier, probing some of its fascinating features, including moulins, crevasses, surface rivers, and impossibly blue ice. But one of the most mesmerizing features we explored was a 3-foot high ice tunnel that provided fantastic views of the snow-capped peaks ringing the valley. To me it seemed like nothing so much as a gigantic frozen eyeball looking out on the world.

Key Learning Tip:

One of the best tips I’ve learned about connecting your viewer to your scene I picked up from Pulitzer-prize-winning photojournalist Deanne Fitzmaurice. She told me that she loves the power of layering and framing to draw viewers into her photos. In her work you often see exactly that: photos of two men talking, viewed through the windows of a car. Or a baseball player greeting the press, viewed from the dugout. It’s an effective technique and it makes us feel as though we are participating in the moment being photographed instead of simply looking at it.

In this photo I used the same technique to photograph the distant mountains of Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina, as viewed through a tunnel in the Perito Moreno glacier. As a result you don’t feel separate from the landscape. Instead you’re immersed in the glacial ice, peeking out onto the gray, rugged landscape beyond.

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See more beautiful Argentina photos here.

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