Terra Galleria Photography

Posts Tagged ‘national parks’

Photographing the Lava Ocean Entry in Hawaii

Part 1 of 3: 1 | 2 | 3 One of the most mesmerizing spectacles of nature you will witness is glowing lava cascading into the ocean to form new land in front of your eyes, as clouds of steam rise from the dynamic meeting of fire and water. This winter, I traveled to the […]

Looking for fall colors in unexpected places

During the last two weeks of September, many photographers travel to Colorado to catch the fall foliage the state is deservedly known for. They congregate mostly in places such as the San Juan Mountains or Rocky Mountains National Park. I was in Colorado too, however I was looking in other places, part of my quest […]

A quick trip into the Maze district, Canyonlands

Canyonlands National Park is divided into three districts of distinct character by the Green and Colorado rivers: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze. Even at the most developed district, Island in the Sky, no water is available outside of the visitor center. The most primitive district is the Maze. Since I had […]

Southwest tour under changing moon phases

During the two last weeks of September, I took a road trip in the Southwest. One of my goals was to create landscape photographs by night in the National Parks. It was productive, but tiring. In the days of film, sensitivity was too low for stars (unless you wanted trails, which I am not that […]

QT Luong featured in Black Card Mag

Summer 2012 issue of Black Card Mag (the luxury lifestyle magazine for holders of the exclusive credit cards for the 1%) opened with a 24-page travel feature about the US National Parks. Yellowstone, Olympic, Arches, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Crater Lake, Denali, Glacier, and Everglades are introduced with a brief description, not-to-miss highlight, and […]

Big Bend National Park: Rio Grande River

Big Bend National Park, named after the prominent northward bend in the Rio Grande River, has three distinctive environments: the Chisos Mountains, the desert, and the river. During my previous visit, I spent most of my time in the Chisos Mountains, where the temperatures are much cooler than in the rest of the park. Since […]

Damaged Desert

I saw a few cactus blooms from the trail in Guadalupe National Park. Although they were less than a hundred yards away, it took me more than 15 minutes to reach them, because of thorny plants covering the slope. Returning with plenty of scratches, I decided that I’d put more effort into photographing desert plants […]

Back to Carlsbad Caverns,

During my two previous visits to Carslbad Caverns, more than a decade ago, I took the elevator to get quickly to the most scenic section of the Cavern, the Big Room. This time, I walked down from the Natural Entrance. I tried to make images to illustrate the experience of visiting the cave: the cavernous […]

Guadalupe Peak Summit trail

On the day I photographed the solar eclipse, I hiked for more than six hours (considering the morning scouting session) and did not return to the car until 11pm. My initial plan was therefore to take a rest day, photographing the desert plants near the visitor center, and in particular the cactus which were starting […]

Photographing the solar eclipse of May 20, 2012

The May 20 2012 solar eclipse was to be an “annular eclipse”, which occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is too far from the earth to cover the entire sun. This leaves a “ring of fire” with the full brightness of the sun around the black […]