Blog Highlights
Peak experiences. Each journey in nature is unique, however there are some moments more unique of others, when I was priviledged to witness a awesome and rare moment that transcends the location. Each of them brough specific photography challenges.
- Yosemite National Park: Moonbows, the Meadow Fire, Horsetail Falls
- The Great Smoky Mountains synchronous fireflies
- The aurora in Alaska
- The lava ocean entry in Hawaii
- The solar eclipses of May 20, 2012, August 21, 2017, and October 14, 2023.
National Parks and Monuments
New national parks. The decade 2005-2016 saw a single new national park, but we saw the establishment of four from 2017 to 2020. I tried to travel there early and reported about my first impressions in multi-part articles.
- Gateway Arch National Park
- Indiana Dunes National Park
- White Sands National Park
- New River Gorge National Park and Preserve
Out of the beaten path in popular parks. You can still make surprising discoveries and beat the crowds even in the most well-trodden parks.
- Yosemite Unseen: Ribbon Fall, Fern Ledge, Diving Board, Indian Arch and North Dome, Mount Hoffman, Mount Conness Loop
- Three great hikes and a drive in Jedediah Smith Redwoods
- Fairyland: Bryce Canyons’s overlooked view and trail
- Least visited in Mesa Verde: a new angle on Square Tower House
- Photographer’s guide to Havasu Canyon: now and then
- Zion Canyons: Pine Creek Canyon, The Subway from the top
- Death Valley: Close call at the Ibex Dunes, Alternative icons
- Accessible wildness: Glacier National Park’s North Fork
- Hiking Mauna Loa Summit via Observatory Trail
Lesser known national parks. The national park system features a lot of hidden gems which are equally as interesting as the famous parks. For a quick overview, see Top Ten Less Crowded National Parks.
- North Cascades National Park Service Complex: Quick guide to roadside photography, Alpine larch at night
- Saguaro National Park: Five days and $314
- Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch
- Great Sand Dunes National Park: Medano Pass Road, Mount Herard
- Voyageurs National Park: How to visit by boat, Anderson Bay
- A summer visit to Dry Tortugas National Park
- Wrangell-St Elias National Park: Nabesna Road and Skookum Volcano, Stumbling into Alaska’s mining past, Bonanza Mine Trail
- Gates of the Arctic National Park via Anaktuvuk Pass
- The crux: Visiting Kobuk Valley National Park
- National Park of American Samoa: Tuitula, The Ultimate Guide to Ofu Island
National monuments. If even the lesser visited parks feel too crowded, developed or regulated, then there are plenty of other public lands that await your exploration. The national monuments are often a superb choice. For an introduction, start with Visiting America’s National Monuments, the Parks Less Traveled.
- Berryessa Snow Mountain Mational Monument, Northern California’s mysterious new park
- Two peaks in San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
- Palms to snow in Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument
- Mojave Trails National Monument highlights
- Afton Canyon, the unknown Grand Canyon of the Mojave
- Undeveloped in California: Castle Mountains National Monument
- Nevada’s Little Finland
- The forgotten rim of the Grand Canyon
- The White Pocket, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument
- The Third Wave
- Wonders stripped of protections in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument
- Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument: Maine newly preserved backwoods
National Park Service historic publications. Examining publications issued over a century reveals the evolution of the national parks and also of print design.
- The National Parks Portfolio: part 1, part 2
- National Park Service Visitor Guides: A Brief History, Looking in, Maps
Photography
Location-specific information. While the previous articles often mention photography to some degree, I’ve also written abundantly and specifically about photographing the national parks. For starters, the series National Parks Photo Spots highlighted one favorite location in each of the first 59 national parks, concluding with Pinnacles National Park: High Peaks Trail North. More recent writings include:
- Five Spots for Photographing Lassen Peak
- Four Death Valley midday images explained
- The Southwest under changing moon phases
- Five ways to photograph the Zion Narrows without people
- Guide to hiking and photographing Zion’s Subway
- Three unamed iconic rocks in Joshua Tree National Park
- Photographing waterfalls in Whiteoak Canyon, the scenic gem of Shenandoah National Park
-
Photographing
Cataloochee, the quieter side of the Great Smoky
Mountains/
- Photographing fall foliage in Glacier National Park
- Photographing fall foliage in Sequoia National Park
Gear. I’ve tried to focus this blog away from gear, but but my inner geak sometimes still shows up 🙂
- Inside my general purpose camera bag: what I carry, why, and how
- Tripod tales: almost all the tripods I have used and what I learned about them
- Four camera systems to photograph in and above water
- Drone photography with the DJI Phantom 4 Pro
- New LED lights for stationary-light night photography
- Lessons from losing a week of photos to memory card failure
- How to make 360 degrees spherical panoramas
- How to charge digital cameras in the field
- Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 lens detailed comparative review
- Polarizing filters and vignetting on a Sony FE 24-105 f/4 – Filter comparison
- Sony A7R5 vs A7R4: technical review from a landscape photographer’s perspective
- Two post processing examples in Lightroom
- Polarizing filters and vignetting on a wide angle lens: Corrections in processing
- How to brighten and retain highlight detail
- Highlights and shadows in high contrast scenes
- How to convert digital files for printing: Step-by-step example of RGB-CMYK conversion
- Change aspect ratio to preserve composition
- Topaz Labs Sharpen AI: Artificial Intelligence comes to the rescue
- Landscapes with stars: a primer and survey of state of the art tools
Book lists:
- A dozen classic color nature photography books and Fifteen more
- Ten classic black and white landscape photography books
- Past masters who inspired me: Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, Galen Rowell