Landscapes
Cathedral Peak
Yosemite, California
Sunset creating beautiful alpenglow over the Cathedral Peak and neighboring ranges. The wind died down just minutes before the sun set, allowing us to capture the almost flawless reflection in the lake. It had been windy for the whole hour leading up to sunset. I had come to this spot 3 weeks before this picture was taken, but it was snowing hard and there were no signs of it letting up. The day we got this picture, we did not have our hopes up because the weather predictions for this part of Yosemite are unreliable. I guess sometimes you get lucky!
Moonrise over Half Dome
Yosemite, California
Half Dome is one of the most famous peaks visible from Yosemite Valley. The moon rising appears pretty large in this photo because it was taken a day before the "full" super moon. The moon light actually helped fill a lot the shadows cast by the sunset making the mountains in the distance glow. Glacier Point, where this photo was taken from, is a beautiful drive and offers breathtaking view of Yosemite Valley and the surrounding Sierras. The color of the glow off the granite faces during sunset changes with the seasons. It is pinkish in the winter months and a fiery orange in the summer months.
El Capitan from Taft Point
Yosemite, California
Taft Point is a short hike from Glacier Point road. It is famous for its sheer cliffs that drop straight into the Valley. There is only one guard rail at one of the cliffs - just to give those afraid of heights something to hold on to as they look at the valley below. The lack of any rails adds to the thrill of exploring this part of Yosemite. Because of the many jagged outcroppings of the granite faces, you get a lot of reflection of the sunlight onto faces which would otherwise be in shadow during sunset. The large granite monolith on the right of this picture is the famous El Capitan.
Antelope Canyon
Lower Canyon, Page, Arizona
Antelope Canyons is one of those places that looks completely unreal in photographs. You have to see it to believe it! Before visiting Antelope Canyon, I always thought the photographs were highly post processed and that natural canyons could not have such a large color range. But, as soon as I stepped down the ladder into the canyon, I was mesmerized by the colorful waves of eroded stone. Photographing the canyon is not only a challenge from a dynamic range perspective, it is an ever bigger challenge to compose. The problem is that there are too many interesting features! The beautiful wavy striations are created through millennia of erosion. The canyon changes every year as it goes through another cycle of flooding and erosion.
Sunrise over Monument Valley
Utah
My wife was the key driver for this picture. We had to wake up at 4 am and drive for 2 hours to catch the sunrise! It was numbingly cold (23F) and very very windy. The monuments - rock formations - look like structures built for a purpose. Many look like tombs and the entire landscape has an other worldly feeling to it. The reddish pink mud, the vast flat planes and clear skies make the rock formations seem completely out of place - as if someone put them there intentionally.
Horseshoe Bend
Page, Arizona
Just a few minutes drive from the town of Page gets you to the Horseshoe Bend. This picturesque view is both amazing and terrifying because you need to get to the edge of the canyon to see the river below. In fact, the camera was slightly over the edge to get the full river beach under our feet.
Three Sisters
Canmore, Canada
Around 20km south of the Banff National Park entrance is the town of Canmore. The Three Sisters peaks are visible from almost everywhere in the town. As we were driving to Banff, we stopped at Canmore to grab a quick bite to eat. The sky grew overcast rather quickly and when we looked north, we could see that it was raining heavily in Banff. So, we decided to take a walk along the Bow River. With overcast conditions, we got lucky for a few minutes when the sun shone through the clouds and lit up the sky in spectacular fashion.
Mount Rundle
Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Canada
Vermillion Lakes are located around a 5 minute drive outside the town of Banff. Mount Rundle is one of the most well known mountains in Banff. I tried photographing this composition twice during the week before I got this shot. I was unlucky because of overcast skies and heavy wind in my previous two attempts. On the third attempt, the skies were clear and the sun lit up the mountain creating a beautiful reflection in the lake. The glow of the mountain is almost unreal - it is like someone pointed a spotlight only on that part of the earth!