Sunrise over St. Thomas Church Slovenia St. Thomas Church in Slovenia is probably the most photographed scene in the whole country, despite the fact that the entire country is gorgeous and has photographs around every bend. The views are evident the moment you walk off the plane -- when you step out of the door you immediately gaze at the beautiful Alps and lowland foothills. Despite seeing a million photos of St. Thomas Church, I knew I wanted to spend a morning here. We flew into Slovenia, spent a day in the capital city of Ljubliana (pronounced Lee-oob-lee-ah-na) and then the next 5 near Lake Bled. This particular morning had a weather prediction of partially cloudy and was my only real chance of getting any color in the sky. Despite being extremely exhausted from hiking 16 miles the day before, I woke up hours before dawn, got in the car and drove to this very remote town. You're basically driving on 1 lane roads to get to this viewpoint. Of course when I arrived there were already 3 other photographers (some nice folks from Poland). Just as the sun came up, the clouds in the low portion of the sky took on the orange glow of the rising sun. I used a telephoto lens to focus on the church of St. Thomas and the rising fiery sky. D850 w/Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8: 120mm, f/11, 1/10 sec, ISO 64
The Aurora Dances Over Mountains Vatnajökull, Iceland The aurora came out in full force. What a beautiful display of Northern Lights. We jsut kept shooting till the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes it would be in one part of the sky, sometimes in another, and sometimes all over! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8: 32mm, f/2.8, 25 sec, ISO 800
Milky Way over Mt. Sneffels Uncompahgre National Forest, Colorado Growing up in the east coast I always loved fall. My parents house is surrounded by trees that would make a mess for my brothers and I to have to clean up. Of course that meant we got to rake big piles of leaves for us to jump into too! Yet when I got into photography I somehow never made a trip to Colorado to photograph the fall colors. The finally changed when my coworker Ana invited me to join her in 2019. We flew into Denver, stopped at Breckenridge, had our car break down in Crested Butte and then finally made it to the San Juan mountains. Fall colors were nearly peaking with the Aspen trees lighting up with beautiful yellow and orange. Unfortunately there wasn't a cloud in the sky our entire trip. David had taught me to make due with the conditions we had. Cloudless skies meant that epic grand scenes were off the table, so I looked for more abstract scenes I could zoom in on. Ana and I had spent the afternoon and evening looking for scenes along this particular county road. Just as the sun went down we found ourselves at this particular spot and nearly packed up when the other photographers did, but I had an idea: what if we stayed another hour and let the Milky Way come up. The view faced perfectly south and I knew the Milky Way would rise perfectly over Mt. Sneffels. We had bread and peanut-butter for dinner so of course we waited and this is what unfolded before our eyes. When the moon came out it also provided just a touch of light onto the Aspen trees to make them glow. D850 w/Nikkor 24-70mm: 62mm, f/2.8, 8.0 sec, ISO 800
