Winter's MarkSunset on Yosemite Valley, from Tunnel View Yosemite National Park, California On the top of my photography bucket list has been to witness and photograph a snowy Yosemite. This year I've paid close attention to the snow in Yosemite and finally during my Christmas break I had my chance to see Yosemite covered in snow! A giant storm had just hit the Eastern Sierras and dumped about 10 feet of snow (in fact, Kirkwood received 7 feet in ONE DAY!). Willie, Alan, Sammi and I planned on arriving just as the storm cleared. Unfortunately by the time we rented a 4-wheel drive vehicle and made our way through chain control and into Yosemite most of the storm had gone. The radar showed more clouds coming and we held our breath that sunset would be nice. After visiting several stops around the Yosemite Valley and running into a couple other photographers that we knew we settled on returning to Tunnel View for sunset. Joined by a gazillion other photographers (or a "meat market" as Breezy would call it) we witnessed a beautiful sunset. Although the clouds did not light up with much color there was an absolutely beautiful stripe of color that appeared on El Capitan, as some clouds made enough room for the light to seep in. This evening turned out to be pretty much everything we asked for: a snowy white Yosemite, some color in the sky, a mark of light on El Capitan, and low fog creeping into the valley. It was quite a spectacular moment and I was glad I could share it with a number of great people! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 42mm, f/11, 1/15 sec, ISO 100 No Filters, No HDR 3 exposure manual blend for increased dynamic range
A light ray beams over Mt. Rainier with Indian Paintbrush and Lupine Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington Willie and I had been wanting to visit Mt. Rainier in the “spring” (August) for quite a number of years but we finally made it happen in 2016. With a wet winter we had high hopes that the wildflower blooms would yield carpets and carpets of flowers. Unfortunately we found only patches of flowers. While hiking above Myrtle Falls we came across this field of lupines that caught our eye. Mixed in here-and-there were little splashes of Indian Paintbrush, which provided a nice contrasting color to the red and purple lupine. We knew this would make a great spot for photos, if only the clouds would cooperate. We had initially setup our tripods to face south-west, towards the sunset, since Mt. Rainier was completely cloudless and there were a few patches of clouds facing the Tatoosh Range. Rainier had a different agenda in mind. It’s commonly known that the volcano peak makes its own weather and sure enough, within minutes beautiful clouds had formed around the mountain. When the sun hit them, it sent a giant light ray through the sky, and turned the clouds a beautiful orange, and then purple and pink before fading away. What a sunset! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 18mm, f/13, 1/4 sec, ISO 250
Milky Way over Jenny Lake Grand Teton National Park, Moose, Wyoming In 2014 I left my job of 9 years to start my dream job at SmugMug. Getting to work on a photography product that I'm extremely passionate about, for a company that knows how to treat its employees well, has been nothing short of "amazing". Every year SmugMug takes all of its employees and their families on a company retreat. My favorite part of the trip is the chance to get to know my coworkers better ... or get to know employees that I don't know at all. This year we were in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and it was a perfect chance to do a *lot* of photography! As one of the more serious landscape photographers in the company, I planned a few photo outings for anyone at the company to join. One of the first nights I took about 20 coworkers (and a few family members) to Jenny Lake to photograph the Milky Way. A few people had never seen seen the Milky Way with their bare eyes, so it was pretty fun to see their eyes light up when they looked into the southern sky and saw it sitting there. We photographed the Milky Way for a few hours and it was a lot of fun to play "workshop leader". I setup my camera to do a time-lapse, which meant I could run around making sure everyone else was getting the photos they wanted. Some people had never even taken a photo at night, and others had never even used a tripod before! The most amazing thing was seeing how each person had a different eye for the scene; I don't think anyone had the same exact photo, despite the fact that we were packed on a beach like sardines. Here the Milky Way reflects off Jenny Lake, as the Milky Way looms over Teewinot Mountain. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 15mm, f/2.8, 20 sec, ISO 3200
