Light trails at 12,000ft on the highest elevation point-to-point road in the United States.
Rocky Mountain Milky Way
This is at a seldom visited location within Rocky Mountain National Park. Rocky is not that far from Denver and suburbs with all of it's light pollution, but on a super-clear low- humidity night the Milky Way viewing is great. I have spent many a night up there capturing night skies at various locations!
Rocky Mountain Sunset
This sunset happened at 12,000ft elevation captured from Trail Ridge Road at Rocky Mountain National Park. The high altitude road is only open during summer and early fall when the snow is cleared. Shooting the Sun like this is typicaly impossible as it's just too bright, but when there's thick wildfire smoke on the horizon it's possible!
Northern Lights at Glacier National Park
When the Sun is spitting-out strong enough solar flares that plasma reaches Earth after about 93-hours. It reacts with oxygen and nitrogen in Earth's high atmosphere and creates these colors. When the kp index is high enough you can see the Aurora at middle latitudes, in this case Galcier National Park at about 48.5 degrees north.
Balanced on Balanced Rock
This is not a composite image. Capturing a sharp moon with a clear foreground can be a challenge, but there's a sweet spot at sunrise and sunset when it's possible. This is a sunset shot, and it required some planning! I was quite far away from Arches' Balanced Rock with 400mm of lens reach, and got lucky with clear skies!
Yosemite Firefall
During the third week of February Yosemite's ephemeral Horsetail Fall will light up for a couple minutes at sunset. There has to be enough melting snow on top of El Capitan, so the Firefall does not happen every year. First the waterfall turns white, then yellow, then orange at sunset! Thanks to social media crowds fill the park during Firefall week!
Ponderosa Pine with Snow
When the temperature is close the 32-degrees the wet snow sticks to everything. This pine is likely gone now a year after I captured this shot. It's at Yosemite National Park where they perform prescribed burns to reduce potential fuel for wildfires. I captured this shot during April, before one of those controlled burns took place.
Upper Antelope Canyon
Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons are on property owned by the Navajo, so you must take one of their tours to experience the slot canyons. It's a bit crowded and pricey, but worth it. I have been through a few amazing slot canyons, but Antelope has the best curves and colors. Be prepared to feel claustrophobic and frustrated trying to get shots with no people in them!
Yellowstone Falls Reflecting a Golden Moon
I was at the Artist Point Overlook hoping to capture a shot of the Yellowstone River and falls with the Milky Way above. There were too many clouds for that to happen, but fortunately this did. I was about to leave, then for a short time as the Moon rose it was orange/yellow, and that color refelcted in the Yellowstone River!
Star Trails and Wind Power
This is a composite image built with hundreds of night sky images, and one image of windmills. With the camera pointed toward the North Star I let the camera run for several hours. Then I stack the images, brighten the colors and add some blur. I make a silhouette of the windmills and put that on top; a fun image that requires a lot of work to create!
Fog through the Pines
The scenery was so good during this clearing storm morning at Yosemite that it was tough to decide which way to point my camera. I had two cameras, one with a long lens for close-ups like this, and another with a wide angle lens to cover the whole valley. I was at the famous and busy Tunnel View overlook well before sunrise, amazing morning!