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
Streaking BonsaiSunset at Bonsai Rock Lake Tahoe, California Ever since I first saw David Shields photos of Bonsai Rock I had wanted to shoot this location. For the past couple years I've leased a ski cabin with several of my friends for the entire winter. Being so close to Lake Tahoe and Bonsai Rock you'd think it would be easy to get here to shoot. Last year I had made it up to the eastern shore to photograph Bonsai but I waited too long into the year (it was almost May when I made my way over there) and the sun was setting more northerly than I wanted. Willie and I decided to do a Tahoe photo weekend at the end of March, hoping the sunset would still be south-westerly enough for a nice sunset. It was storming all week and we rented a 4 wheel drive SUV for the trip. Hoping to get a great sunset we departed plenty early from my cabin and arrived at Bonsai Rock pretty hopeful. Random side-story: I've driven all over California (and many parts of the United States) over the past 6 years and although I've seen "Caution: falling rocks" signs, I've never actually really paid attention to them or had any issues. On the drive to Bonsai Rock the car in front of me rolled down his window and started waving his arm, pointing to the left, signaling something that I couldn't figure out. He quickly changed lanes and that's when I realized what he meant …. GIANT F'ING BOULDER!!!!!!! There were 3 cars to my left and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the giant rock. This thing would have seriously messed up the SUV. So Mr. Car in front of me … thank you! We arrived at Bonsai Rock with plenty of time before sunset. Last year there was so much snow that the lake level rose fairly significantly. Even with a dry winter the lake level is much higher than we really want for good Bonsai Rock photos. The beautiful foreground rocks are mostly under water. Willie and I spent a couple minutes looking at compositions but with so few rocks exposed we were pretty limited and found our shots pretty quickly. We had plenty of time to kill before sunset and it was partially cloudy so I decided to pull out the Lee Big Stopper and see what kind of effect I could get. I set up a 3.5 minute exposure, clicked the button and sure enough, I got a super neat pattern in the sky. The water was pretty choppy and the long exposure turned the water into glass. Perfect! Now we just need a beautiful sunset and I'll repeat this. Unfortunately we didn't get a sunset (thick clouds blocked the sunset) but I did manage to get a nice long exposure photo! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 36mm, f/16, 3 min 20 sec, ISO 200 Lee Filter Holder + 0.6 HiTech Soft ND Grad + Lee Big Stopper
Yosemite Valley Covered in Fog, from Tunnel View Yosemite National Park, California There's a reason why Ansel Adams' photos of Yosemite National Park became so famous – they’re absolutely stunning. Tunnel View is one of those iconic spots that everyone *has* to see in real life at some point. Photos don't do it justice. Well, often they do, and even after seeing a million photos from this spot, I never get tired of them. That's because the scene can change so much from photo to photo. Willie, Zack, and I had ventured to Yosemite early on a Friday morning in December 2015, in hopes of capturing a beautiful sunrise. We drove all through the night, arrived just before sunrise, slept an hour, and then spent the day exploring. The beautiful snowstorm didn't produce what we wanted and by noon most of the snow had melted off the trees. Towards sunset, however, a new storm started to roll in and we had high hopes that sunset might provide us with an excuse to take some beautiful photos. Sunset turned out to be a dud, the storm blew in and covered the entire scene in clouds. What it did do, however, was provide an amazing display of light, fog, and cloud coverage just before sunset. The golden hour glow turned the low storm clouds into a golden mask, hiding El Capitan, Half Dome, Cathedral Peak, and the other mountains in a beautiful golden blanket. Fog rolled in and danced amongst the trees, while blue sky tried to fight back against the incoming storm. It provided quite the extraordinary view before the entire thing became covered in clouds again. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8: 45mm, f/13, 1/25 sec, ISO 100
