Sunset Over Lake Louise
Sunset at Lake Louise, in Banff National Park - a stunning part of the Canadian Rockies.
Ah, the beauty of Lake Louise! I have a serious thing for landscapes, but sadly I rarely get to photograph them since I am most often in cities. So when given the chance, I jump at it. This was taken during our trip to Banff National Park in Canada about a year ago. I still have a lot of photos to edit from the trip. I'm excited just thinking about them all!
Hallstatt is just beautiful
A view over the lovely and beautiful town of Hallstatt, Austria…
I'm not sure what more I can say about Hallstatt, Austria...
I had wanted to visit Hallstatt for years and when I was in Salzburg, Austria last year I finally had the chance. We rented a car for the day and took off. It was about 2 hours of driving if I recall correctly, but so worth it! I finally got to stand here and fire some shots! In fact, I stood here a few times throughout the day, taking shots and then wandering back into town, only to return later for more shots. What can I say? That's what I do.
The endless beauty of Moraine Lake
A really long exposure from Moraine Lake in the Canadian Rockies...
We spent some time here last summer, and it was amazing.
This glacially-fed lake outside of Banff in the Canadian Rockies is just magnificent. Those are the real colors, by the way. All the minerals in the lake make it just so amazingly blue. We arrived so that I could shoot the sunset here, and in this photo I went with my 10-stop filter to get a really long exposure. That's why the clouds are streaking across the sky - I kept the shutter open a long time (I can't remember the exposure time, but it was something like 3 minutes).
Taking really long exposures is one of my favorite shooting techniques. It works really well at sunset over a beautiful landscape, but works just as well with cityscapes, too. I did some in London back in January, and particularly when there is a river in the scene, the water just gets so smooth. In this photo the wind was moving the water a bit - and there was a few canoes out on the lake, too - but all that disappears when you have the shutter open that long.
Sunset at Lake Louise
The day ends at Lake Louise in Banff National Park, Canada, and I am out with the camera trying to make some magic.
What an amazing place to watch the day end!
I love Lake Louise, as does probably everyone else that has ever visited. It's a gorgeous alpine lake surrounded by peaks, and the water has that amazing mineral-laden blue color that just screams "take my picture!". So I did. And did. And did.
I took a lot of them.
While I can't claim to have witnessed any amazing light that evening, I sure can't complain about the view. I love the little canoe dock there and that slight pop of red. So awesome!
Peyto Lake, finally
A destination that has been on my list for years, and I finally made it!
I've been wanting to visit this lake for years!
This is one of those things that you see online and say to yourself "I have to go there someday". That someday happened recently for me, and I'm glad that it did. Peyto Lake is about an hour and a half north of Banff, Canada which for me was a no-brainer. That's pretty close considering I was coming from Texas!
So I spent a day out on a photo tour with my daughter. What I was surprised to find is that the viewing deck that I took this photo from is only about a 10 minute hike from the parking lot. For some reason I assumed that a view like this required some serious work, but thankfully it didn't. You literally pull off the highway into the parking area and hike for 10 minutes. Then you fire away like mad and celebrate the fact that you made it here after all these years!
By the way, doesn't the lake look like a wolf's head?
Two views of Hallstatt
Two photos from Hallstatt, Austria today...such an inspiring little town, and so beautiful!
As i wrote in this previous post, Hallstatt Austria is a gorgeous little town. Though I was only there for 8 hours or so, I took a TON of photos. It was a bucket-list sort of place for me, which means I was in full-scale military mode, firing shots and moving, firing again and moving again, etc. I did slow down for a few breaks though. You always have to refuel!
This first shot is of the town from a dock at one end. After parking the car, we wandered up to town and literally just ran into this view. The second shot is from the same spot, just facing out towards the lake. It's a monstrous lake, actually, and being surrounded by these amazing mountains just makes it even more beautiful!
The mountains of Sedona
A trio of shots overlooking the mountains outside of Sedona, Arizona...so beautiful there!
Sedona, Arizona is a really beautiful place.
I know that may not be a real newsflash for many of you, but when we visited Sedona a couple of years ago, I was really impressed with just how beautiful the place really is. I had heard that for years, but I didn't know what to expect. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to have these beautiful mountains and of course some moody clouds hanging around helped too. :-)
A quick stop at the Plansee
A beautiful alpine lake that I came across by accident in Austria!
A beautiful lake in Austria that I lucked into!
When we were in Germany, we spent a week hitting some of the awesome spots near Fussen, including Oberammergau. After there, instead of driving back home the way we came, we decided to head over the border to Austria and circle back around to Fussen that way.
Win!
It ended up being not just a shorter drive but a more beautiful one as well. We came across the Plansee, which is this beautiful alpine lake. Of course, I had to swerve into a little spot as soon as I rounded the bend and saw it. This is not the sort of thing I ever come across, so as you can imagine I was pretty excited about it!
A walk in the woods
A beautiful little waterfall I found while hiking in New Mexico...
I don't do enough walking in the woods. It's refreshing and interesting and I should do more of it. I captured this image a few years back when we were visiting Red River, New Mexico. It's a great little mountain town and one afternoon we hiked up into the mountains for a while. At some point we stopped for lunch and I could hear water running, which is always a good sign in my opinion. So I clambered down into the small ravine nearby and found this beauty. I straddled the stream with my legs and my tripod and fired away for a while. It was awesome!
The simple beauty of the mountains
Today I wax a bit poetic about my love for the mountains. There's just something about them, in addition to the generous amounts of beauty and staggering landscapes. And of course I share a bunch of photos from a trip to the mountains last summer - when I caught some wonderful clouds over an alpine lake. Good times!
"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion." - Anatoli Boukreev
I can't possibly come up with a better way to describe how I feel about being in the mountains. They are awe-inspiring and glorious. They are beautiful and photogenic. Simply put, they fill my soul.
And while my bucket list of "hope to get there" spots is populated with places that are surrounded by mountains, or in the midst of them (a sample off the top of my head: New Zealand, Iceland, multiple spots across Europe, a return to Banff...the list goes on), the truth is that I live in central Texas, and apart from some hills here, the mountains are not even close.
What that means is that I rarely get the chance to go explore them. However, when I do, it's often in New Mexico, where we tend to go when we have the time. The key parts of New Mexico that we gravitate towards are a good 12 hour drive from here in Austin, so to be clear, this is not a regular occurrence. This is not a long-weekend-getaway thing. This takes planning.
So last summer, because we had the time (and we planned it), we headed up to Red River, NM which is sort of in the far north central part of the state, nestled deep in the Carson National Forest. It's about 3 hours north from Albuquerque, if that helps. It's way up there, and it's a hell of a drive from home (though well worth it!).
We've been there many times, and will surely return again some day. Some places have a tendency to draw you back. While there, we do all the usual things that people on a summer holiday do in the mountains: fishing, hiking, overeating which results in more hiking, you know - all the good stuff.
One day we had been out past another nearby town known as Questa, where I spent some time shooting this cemetery, and then capturing this road shot that ended up being a pretty popular blog post. Anyways, en route back to Red River (about 30 minutes), we passed this little lake.
I have passed it many times - and even shot there once a few years back - but never had anything that I liked, and thus never did anything with the pics. But on this visit things were different.
There were some incredible clouds out that day (as you can see in the other two blog posts highlighted above as well as in today's post), and so the sky was literally just insane. I would take a sky like that EVERY SINGLE DAY for the rest of my life. I love things like that. Such drama. Such beauty. Such intensity. The light was coming through and sprinkling itself across the scene in all the right ways. The water was as still as glass, and the reflections were crisp. It was perfect.
So we pulled over, and I hopped out to grab a few shots. I would love to tell you that I struggled to climb over a steep ridge, scrambling with my gear the whole way, nearly slipping a few times, and finally arriving to a pristine alpine lake buried deep in the mountains...but that would be complete bullshit.
I may have walked 10 yards from the car to take these shots. No, I'm not lazy - it's just that the parking lot is RIGHT THERE. It's next to the lake. So I climbed out, took these shots, and climbed back in to the air-conditioned car. It took me less than 10 minutes, by a wide margin. I might even have been able to shoot from the car, had I thought of that. It's that close.
That's an easy day in the mountains - and a wonderful one, at that!
By the way, all of these photos are from single exposures - no HDR today. Although I still enjoy HDR, I am doing a bit less of it as I continue on this creative journey. But more on that later. Thanks for stopping by, and hope you enjoyed the photos!
A week in the mountains
A week in the mountains is never enough for me, but as an escape from the Texas heat, it sure goes a long way! Here's a collection of 10 photos from our family trip up to Red River, NM last summer. Great waterfalls, sunsets, and more! Oh my!
I just love New Mexico - it's so beautiful!
I have been to New Mexico many times over the years. As a neighbor state to Texas, it's pretty easy to get to in the car (and by pretty easy, I mean it's still a 9-12 hour drive, depending on which part of the state you are headed to! Yep, Texas is pretty large.). In particular, I love the northern parts of the state, from Santa Fe up to around the town of Red River, an area known as the Enchanted Circle. It's all just so beautiful.
In fact, I created a list of great spots to shoot around Santa Fe, if you are ever heading that way.
This past summer, our family went up to Red River for about a week or so. It's always great to get out of the Texas heat and escape to higher altitudes for a break! We spent the week hiking, fishing, relaxing, and in my case, taking a lot of photos! That's no surprise, is it? :-)
What all did I shoot? Waterfalls, mountains, some fabulous sunsets, several road shots (including this one) and of course, we went tubing down a mountain one day, so I had to shoot that! Thanks for stopping by!
(click any photo to view in a lightbox)
Hanging with the dead in Questa, NM
I stumbled across a little church and a cemetery along an empty road in a deserted corner of New Mexico. So I stopped and took a few pics! That's what you would do, right?
I don't usually go shoot at a cemetery - but in this case, it was hard to resist!
I was in Red River, New Mexico for a vacation with the family last summer, and of course just had to get out and shoot a bit. (Ok, a LOT.) But anyways, one thing that I wanted to shoot was the Wild Rivers Recreation Area outside of Questa, NM - basically, about a 30 minute drive from where we were staying. Close enough to squeeze in one afternoon!
So I headed out that way and did a fair bit of shooting, though my favorite part of that area was the road shots I was getting. With mountains in the background and amazing clouds overhead, it was hard to resist, and pretty easy to get some amazing photos. In fact, I wrote a blog post about the road shot, where I took the same photo but adjusted it with 8 different software packages, with lots of different results. Check that out and let me know what you think!
Anyways, once I was done there, I started heading back to Red River, and before I got very far I was upon this little church and cemetery, which are just outside of Questa. Actually, they are pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Questa was a couple of miles away.
So of course I stopped to pay my respects and once again, that amazing sky and mountains in the background just had me drooling. Coming from Texas, this is not stuff I get to see too often. So even though a cemetery and a fairly plain church may not be my usual subjects, I am a sucker for wicked clouds and looming mountains.
In some ways, this just screams "the old West" to me, as though it's something you would find on a wagon trail 200 years ago. Well, except for the paved road and that shop in Questa, of course!
Shooting the Taos Mountains
Ah, the mountains! Cool breezes, fresh air, and wicked cool clouds! I do love the mountains, and whenever I get a chance to visit and photograph them, I'm like a kid in a candy store. It's just what I love. Perhaps I should move?
I just love mountains - aren't they incredible?
It seems to me that you can categorize people in two ways: mountain people or beach people. For some reason, it seems folks lean heavily one way or the other. It's kind of like The Beatles or Elvis Presley - one is favored over the other. Or Coke vs. Pepsi.
While there are some beaches that I do love (like the Oregon Coastline), I am definitely in the "mountain lover" camp. I just can't get enough when I am near them. I want to photograph them, hike up them, clamber over them, dig around in them, bring home a few rocks and do whatever else to just hang around them. They're massive. They're beautiful. They're awesome.
So on our trip to New Mexico this past summer, I was able to do all of that quite a bit! We stayed in Red River, a nice little ski town which sits nearly 9,000 feet up in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. This range extends from southern Colorado down through a good chunk of northern New Mexico. There are a lot of peaks in the range, with Wheeler Peak at over 13,000 feet being the tallest and thus best known (though not visible in today's photos).
About an hour drive from Red River is Taos, which is fairly well known for it's ski valley, a thriving art scene, and of course the Taos Pueblo. I just realized I need to process and share my photos from our visit to the Pueblo - it's a very interesting place. It's the ancestral home of a Native American tribe, and has been around for over 1,000 years. That's impressive! So let me come back to that one - I have a lot from there!
Anyways, after a day in Taos doing some touristy things and taking a lot of photos (and a fabulous lunch at Michael's Kitchen!), we hit the road back north to return to Red River. The Taos Mountains pretty much dominate the surrounding area (hence the popular ski valley) and literally feel like they just burst out of the ground, rising substantially in front of you. It's awesome.
So I was taking some shots from the passenger seat, and at some point just couldn't stand it any longer. I had to get out. So we pulled over, and I was able to grab these shots.
The shape, the light, the shadows, the clouds - mountains have it all!
I saw a bumper sticker there that simply said "Taos is a four letter word for steep." So true.
Below I did a little experiment, sort of like what I did in this post. I took this photo below from the car, before we stopped. I thought it would be fun to try out different software packages on this one, just for fun. The software used on each photo is included with it. Do you have a fave?
(click any photo to embiggen)
This was edited with Color Efex Pro.
Intensify Pro by Macphun was the software of choice here!
I used Topaz Simplify to turn this one into a painting.
And here it was Topaz Adjust.
Thanks for clicking by today!
A waterfall in the woods
How about a little waterfall that I found by walking OFF the trail? I recommend that when hiking. If you hear running water - go look for it! You might find something beautiful.
Doesn't that just sound nice?
I love waterfalls - but that's not exactly a revelation. I shoot them when I come across them, which isn't too often, considering I live in Texas. It's not like we are famous for that sort of thing. I'm not sure what we're famous for, other than barbeque. But that stuff IS good.
Anyways, we all love waterfalls. I think it's a combination of the motion and the lovely sound, but I'm no psychoanalyst...I just take pictures. I personally also enjoy the effort that usually comes with getting to them. Often it requires a hike, which is always good for the mind and body. Then when you get there, in addition to the pleasing beauty, you get that pleasing sound and sight.
So the family took a trip recently up to Red River, NM which is a quiet little mountain town. It's beautiful there. I asked a local about any "awesome waterfalls" that he knew of (this was a hiking and fishing guide, mind you), and he said there really weren't any. Hmmm.
One afternoon we hiked up to Middle Fork Lake, which is about 2 hours one way (it's a gain of about 2,000 feet in elevation, ending at nearly 11,000 feet up). On the trail during the hike, there is a creek that the trail sort of follows the whole way. You can't always see it or hear it, but many times you can (and you cross it a few times too).
Whenever it was near enough to hear or see, I kept heading off into the woods to get a closer look. I knew there had to be some nice waterfalls. There's no way a creek comes all the way down a mountain without SOME waterfalls...even if they're not big.
So, this is what I found on one of my off-trail explorations. It's not large, but I sure thought it was pretty. These are both single exposures shot at a tight aperture (around f/22 if I recall) and I also used my ProMaster Variable ND filter. Those two in combination allowed me to drag the shutter for a bit (it was mid-day and thus pretty bright out) and get that nice silky water effect that we all love. Or at least I love it. I hope you do!
Above the mountain
Continuing with the winter theme, today I have a shot from atop a mountain in Beaver Creek, CO. I had arrived there and had some spare moments, so I was of course driving around and looking for things to photograph - which isn't hard when you are in the mountains, and it has been snowing. Everything is beautiful. I originally took a 5 bracket set for this one, but instead opted to take a single exposure and convert to black & white. It's probably a cliche, but snowy scenes do look great in monochrome.