Incredible Iceland
My favorite images from Iceland 2022 - what a trip!
My favorite images from my Luminar Photo Camp trip to Iceland!
Back in November, my good friends over at Skylum included me as an instructor on their Luminar Photo Camp in Iceland. It was a week of fantastic photography and camaraderie with other photographers. We all walked away with great images and amazing memories - not to mention new friends!
Here’s a selection of my favorite images from the 2 weeks I spent over there. And while 2 weeks sounds like a lot of time - and in some ways it is - I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of taking photos of Iceland. It’s just an incredibly beautiful place and has a really strong pull for folks like me.
All of these images were captured with my Sony A7R3 and two of my favorite Sony lenses: the 16-35mm f/2.8 GM and the 14mm f/1.8 GM. These are fantastic landscape lenses and give me so much capability. And, I was using the Peak Design travel tripod too, in case you were curious. Small, light and compact - yet very sturdy. Works every time!
Next stop: Oregon!
Some thoughts and photos from a late summer trip to Oregon, as well as some upcoming plans for a return visit.
We are heading back to Oregon, where we will spend the week of Thanksgiving. I’m so excited!
I have loved Oregon since my first visit, which was back in 2001. Since then, I have been probably 10 times, maybe more. Some business, some pleasure - but it’s always enjoyable, camera or not. This time, I will be taking a camera and will get some time to photograph Portland as well as along the coast a bit.
I’m really looking forward to spending some time walking the streets of Portland with my camera. Despite many visits, I’ve never really had much time to photograph the city. Then after that I will be along the coast, where I have taken a LOT of photos - and of course I will be getting more on this trip. The Oregon coastline is my favorite place in the US - it’s just so beautiful and peaceful there. Oh, and it’s photogenic too, of course.
Today’s post contains a number of shots I captured on my last visit to the Oregon coast, which was back in August of this year. I’m not sure if I will get the same vibrant and beautiful light on this trip, since I haven’t been there during this time of year before. But of course I am hopeful. And regardless, it’s beautiful even if it’s a bit drab and overcast. I will find out soon enough!
Sunset next to Haystack Rock, at Cannon Beach
This was sunrise one morning - so glad I got up!
Lovely light to end another day on Cannon Beach
Renewing my interest in mobile photography!
I’m just back from Portland, OR where I shot only with my iPhone 12 Pro. Even in lower light, this camera is delivering some stellar images. Check them out!
I’m just back from a quick trip up to Portland, OR - and all I had was my iPhone!
Years ago, I shot with my iPhone all the time. I mean ALL THE TIME. I loved it. I always had it with me, of course, so I shot away with it. Eventually I ended up with an iPhone 7, which at the time I thought was great (this was 4+ years ago when I got the iPhone 7). After a while though, I just felt like the image quality was not up to par for me, unless it was in pretty great lighting. Time after time, I would look at the images, zoom in, and be disappointed. Eventually I just quit shooting with it altogether.
A few months ago, I upgraded to the iPhone 12 Pro (yes, I know the 13 just came out, but I had to get a new phone at the time, and couldn’t wait). I had read so much about the advancements in the camera, and I couldn’t wait to try it out. It’s just so much better than what I had (granted, it’s several years worth of advancements, but still). I have been pretty much blown away with how good the camera is.
So when this trip to Portland came up - and knowing I had limited free time to go shoot - I decided to forego my usual Sony stuff and just shoot on the go with my iPhone. It also happened to be peak Fall season, so there were lots of amazing colors in the trees, and additionally we were able to visit several different parts of town, so I ended up shooting quite a bit!
The thing that impressed me the most is how well it performs in low light. Now to be clear, it doesn’t compare to my full frame Sony in that regard, but still it does a pretty darn good job. The images look amazingly crisp to my eyes, and I am quite happy about that! And of course, this has renewed my interest in mobile photography, which is great fun! I’ve missed it. It’s good to be back at it! And now I will be using my iPhone much more often when I am out shooting!
And as far as editing goes, I edited all of these photos in Luminar AI. Just a few quick adjustments is all it takes!
Oregon - Still my Favorite State
I’m just back from a trip to Oregon, and I captured some beautiful shots while I was there. This is a little teaser of coming attractions - all shot with my new iPhone 12 Pro!
I just love Oregon, and can’t seem to get enough of it.
Arriving into PDX during a stunning sunset
We just returned from a trip to Oregon. It was part business and part fun, so it wasn’t entirely a photo trip, but of course I was able to squeeze in a little camera time here and there. Although we spent a fair amount of time in Portland, I didn’t really shoot there. I enjoy that city, but for me the main draw to Oregon, photographically speaking, is the coastline and the waterfalls. Basically, nature itself. I am often in cities, and I love to shoot them, but when I get a chance to spend time in nature and photograph it, I’m in.
We spent a few days down in Cannon Beach in the early part of the trip, along the northern coastline. This is my favorite spot in the entire United States. I find the rocky coastline and tide pools essentially irresistible. Every time I visit, regardless of the weather, I come home with some beautiful photographs. Add in the sense of serenity and calm from wandering along the coast, and it just can’t be beat. That was on the front end of the trip.
Sunrise in Arch Cape, just south of Cannon Beach
Sunrise on Cannon Beach
Tidepools are just awesome!!
Then, we were in Portland the rest of the time, but did spend one long afternoon/early evening hiking and shooting along the Columbia River Gorge, east of Portland. This is home to a long list of beautiful waterfalls - something I love to shoot - and is well worth a visit if you have the time (it’s about 45 minutes from downtown Portland).
A view over the Columbia River Gorge
I haven’t had time to really dig into my photos yet, so all of these were taken with my newest camera - the iPhone 12 Pro. My old iPhone 7 was really falling apart (I had it for over 4 years), so right before this trip I upgraded to the 12 Pro and WOW what a difference in that camera. I can’t believe I waited this long to upgrade, but I am glad that I finally did. I will be sorting through my “real” photos (taken with my Sony gear) here soon, and those will start appearing on my Flickr page and likely in some YouTube videos, but for now I leave you with a few iPhone shots.
Thanks for stopping by and see you again soon!
New England - Beautiful, as Expected!
I’m just back from a trip to New England. We checked out Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont - so fun! Here’s a few pics from the trip, along with a little summary of it!
We just got back from a trip to New England, and it’s beautiful up there!
I had never been to New England prior to this trip. I had been as far as Boston (a few times), but never beyond it. This trip was all about the core New England experience. We flew into Portland, ME and then after a night there, we spent a couple of days in Bar Harbor, ME to check out Acadia National Park. That place is gorgeous.
To be clear, this was not a full-on photo trip. While I did take a fair amount of photos, the trip was not about that. But let me tell you, this entire area (New England) is worthy of a photo trip for sure. I could shoot for days and days up there. I will have to go back. Acadia National Park alone could take several solid days of shooting!
Anyways, after a few days in Maine, we drove on to New Hampshire and Vermont. All 3 of these states were “first time visits” for me, which I love to do. I plan to get to all 50 states at some point, and only have a few more to go after this trip (although I visited many of them prior to taking up photography, so I guess I will have revisit a lot of them and take some shots!). We hiked and checked out all the natural scenery. All of it is lovely, and it just seems so peaceful up there. It really is a different way of life than I am used to, which is nice.
Oh, and coming from Texas, it’s so nice to drive for a little while and cross into a new state! Texas is just so large that you can drive all day and barely get to the next state over. So it was fun to feel like I was jumping from state to state in no time at all. 😁
All together this was a week long adventure across the area, and I came home with quite a few images that I really like, a few of which are below. You will see more of these images appearing on my Flickr account, as well as being subjects of some future videos on my YouTube channel. Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the photos!
Luke’s Lobster - portland, maine
pemaquid point lighthouse - bristol, maine
a waterfall in the white mountains of new hampshire
sunset in waterbury, vermont
Those Colorado sunsets
Sunsets in the Western US always seem better to me. Here’s a pair from a trip to Colorado last year. Those high altitude sunsets can be beautiful!
I don’t know what it is about Colorado and New Mexico, but each time I am in either place, there always seems to be an interesting sunset or two. Not sure if it’s the weather patterns, or the mountains, or just some happy coincidences, but the light just seems better out West.
These two shots are from last summer. We took a week-long trip up to Durango, CO to hang out in nature. Due to all the Covid stuff, it wasn’t really possible to go anywhere on a plane (or at least to feel comfortable doing so), so that left us with finding a place we could drive to.
Coming from Austin, and driving to Durango - that is a LONG day. Like 16 hours, door to door. But, we were able to get it all done in a single day, and enjoy the great outdoors (and some nice sunsets) for a week!
Nights in Bayeux
A couple of shots captured during the lovely, soft light of blue hour, in the small French town of Bayeux.
A few years ago, we took a trip to France, and one of the things we wanted to make sure to do was visit Normandy. It’s a beautiful area and there are several towns that looked interesting, but we settled on Bayeux and spent a couple of nights there. Of course, I hit the streets with my camera as much as possible, because shooting in foreign cities just makes me happy. It wasn’t crowded at all, which is great for me, and I was able to wander freely and shoot quite a bit. I just have a thing for street scenes, and doubly so when they are European. These two were captured on my wanderings. Nothing particularly spectacular about them - just everyday spots under the soft light of twilight.
Besnfoto Hiking and Travel Backpack Review
The Besnfoto Hiking and Travel Backpack is a durable, water-resistant bag that’s perfect for small to medium size capacity needs. Check out this full review!
Besnfoto Hiking and Travel Backpack - a great backpack for active, outdoor use!
Recently I was contacted by Besnfoto, a company that makes a lot of photographic accessories, about a new backpack design they were launching. It was promoted as being designed for hiking and travel - two of my favorite things - and they asked me if I would be willing to review it. I was about to take a little trip up to Colorado, specifically for hiking, and it seemed like a great fit. So they were kind enough to send me a review sample, I packed it full of the things I needed for my trip, and off I went.
I knew that this would be the perfect opportunity to see how it performed in real world situations.
You can find the bag here if you want to check it out (Amazon affiliate link - I earn from qualifying purchases). And below are some of their marketing photos of the bag. The rest of these photos were taken by me while out hiking with the bag full of gear.
DISCLOSURE: I was not paid for this review. All opinions and experiences are my own.
In short, it worked perfectly for me and performed exactly as the product descriptions indicated. I really like this bag. It is sturdy and durable, the comfort level is very high, and yes I even tested the water resistance and it was great!
One thing that I nearly ALWAYS want in a backpack is the ability to carry along my 16” MacBook Pro. I may do some editing on the road, along with all those other computer-related things, so any backpack that does not fit my laptop is a no-go. My laptop slid into the interior laptop section just perfectly.
In addition, the interior is spacious enough for a decent amount of gear. Now it won’t hold a TON of stuff - it’s billed as a small to medium-sized bag - but for a weeklong trip with a few choice items in tow, it was just the right size for that. You can of course configure the interior to fit your specific needs, thanks to the padded Velcro dividers that are included.
In addition to the laptop, for my photography needs the bag carried:
Sony A7R3 camera
Sony 24-70mm f4 lens
Sony 20mm f1.8 lens
Samyang 75mm lens
Sony RX100m7 camera
Battery chargers for both cameras
Extra batteries for both cameras
Memory card holder
DJI Osmo Pocket
Manfrotto handheld mini tripod
Small accessory bag for miscellany items
Laptop and iPhone chargers
ND filters and filter holder
Flashlight
Multi-tool accessory
There is also a top pocket which provides quick access to smaller items, such as a small mirrorless camera or even a small drone. Alternatively, you can use the interior space on the reverse of that top pocket for storage inside the bag, because you can compress/collapse that pocket. I generally just packed some of my accessories there on the inside.
Additionally, the two side external pockets work great for carrying a tripod (or water bottle, etc), so I attached my Peak Design travel tripod to it as well whenever I went out to hike and shoot. Tripod attachment straps are included of course.
And don’t forget the front zippered pocket which is great for an iPad or other slim items. It even came with a rain cover, a lens cloth and an air blaster - quite the nice package!
That’s a LOT of stuff for a small bag!
The great thing is that the bag is very comfortable when wearing it. It is well-padded and very light, and there is also an interesting build design that they call the Anti-Gravity System. It effectively bounces when you walk, relieving pressure on your shoulders. This allows the backpack to feel lighter than it is, and it seems like that is the case in my experience. I did not get tired shoulders even when carrying a lot of gear around. Trust me that you will appreciate this on a long hike! I did 9 miles and over 22,000 steps one day while wearing this bag, and my shoulders were just fine at the end of the day. That’s a win for sure!
But one of the best features in my opinion is that the bag is water-resistant. I’m not willing to dunk it in the river with my gear inside, but inevitably when out hiking you set your bag down and it gets dirty. Several times I would sit next to a stream and just splash water on the bag to clean the surface. Worked great and looks clean and new again! This is much better than with other bags made of some woven material, which basically get dirty and stay dirty. I cleaned this one quickly and safely! The water just beads up and rolls off it - perfect!
All in all it is a well-designed bag and I can tell a lot of thought went into crafting it. It’s durable, can carry a fair amount of gear, and yet doesn’t wear out your shoulders when walking around with it on. I enjoyed using it during my trip and definitely plan to use it on future trips too!
Thanks to Besnfoto for letting me test out the bag, and don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions!
Sunrise on Diamond Beach
Sunrise on Diamond Beach in Iceland, complete with flowing water and massive chunks of glacial ice. A dream come true for sure!
Diamond Beach is the famous beach in Iceland where all these chunks of ice lay about, and photographers like myself run around taking photos and screaming with excitement. Well, ok maybe I was the only one screaming, but still. It’s exciting.
We got up early one morning to make sure we were in place for sunrise, though thankfully sunrise was around 9:30am this time of year. Regardless, I was up around 6am to get dressed and fed, and we left by 7:30am or something like that. It was maybe a 30 minute drive, and when we arrived it was still relatively dark and of course we had the beach to ourselves. The exploring began.
I wandered around, taking stock of these ice chunks and trying to find a composition that I liked. While there were a lot of chunks of ice on the beach, based on the tide it was obvious that most of them would never get touched by a wave - and let’s face it, we were all going for those cool shots of water moving around these ice chunks.
So many of us ended up photographing this same huge chunk, albeit from slightly different angles. Regardless, I was very pleased to be standing there in the first place, capturing these two photos which I consider my best from that outing. Having seen so many shots from this place in the past, it was quite literally a dream come true to be standing there taking my own.
A quick teaser about my Iceland trip
I’m just back from Iceland, and about to head out again on a business trip. So until I have the time to properly edit my images, I thought I would share a little summary of the trip with some iPhone images sprinkled in for illustrative purposes. It was an amazing trip and I have some fantastic images to share. Here’s a teaser!
Oh my, Iceland truly is an epic landscape photography destination!
I have spent the last ~8 days in Iceland, and it is amazing. Epic. Unreal. All those superlative descriptions work just fine. It was an incredible trip and one that I will be digesting for a long time. I walked away with a lot to think about, and I intend to share it all here once I get a chance to really absorb everything that happened. (It was all extremely positive, just in case that wasn’t clear.)
In short, I was there with my friends at Skylum Software (makers of my favorite photo-editing app, Luminar). They hosted their first ever Luminar Photo Camp, and I was lucky enough to be invited along to help with the camp as one of their staff, as well as to deliver a couple of sessions on Luminar editing to the camp attendees.
Overall, it was an amazing trip filled with incredible and iconic photo locations, and led by some amazing photographic Masters. I was honored to be there with them, hang out with them and get to know them. Heck, I even consider them friends now. I learned so much, and I am eternally grateful to Skylum Software, the Masters, and of course all the camp participants. I feel like I owe every one of them a huge THANK YOU.
Until I get the time to really cull my photos, edit the best ones and write about all the adventures, I thought I would at least put out this quick summary with some iPhone shots that I took on the trip, from various spots around the country. Consider this a teaser of sorts, a preview of coming attractions.
You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and/or Twitter which I will use to share these shots as they are ready. But of course there is no better place to really write about something than on a blog, and I will make sure to share my thoughts right here. By the way, feel free to join my newsletter if you would like to stay up to date on these things. The subscribe ink is in the upper right on my main blog page. I just sent one out yesterday so feel free to check that out right here.
So in no particular order, here are some quick iPhone snaps from this amazing trip - enjoy!
A view over the lovely city of Reykjavik from the top of their church tower
The famous sculpture “Sun Voyager”
An interesting side street I noticed while wandering in Reykjavik
The amazing Skogafoss
The beautiful glacial lagoon Jokulsarlon
Sunrise at Blue Lagoon, their famous geothermal baths
We had a lovely sunrise at Diamond Beach!
One of the most interesting experiences was shooting sunrise from inside this ice cave.
An incredible cloud formation over the coastal village of Vik
Skulking about in London
Lovely long exposure work from lovely London…
I love to just wander the streets of London. It’s my favorite city and I always find beautiful things to aim the camera towards. This was one of those evenings. I was all over the place and whenever I see a busy street (at every turn in London LOL), I like to set up the tripod for a long exposure and capture some passing cars.
The Pantheon
The Pantheon in Rome, an amazing structure and well worth visiting!
Rome is just lovely. I would be really happy to go spend a week or so there, wandering and shooting like mad. So much history, beautiful architecture…I think I would skip as much sleep as possible! Here’s one I captured there a few years ago, just as blue hour descended on the Pantheon. I really thought it was more powerful in monochrome.
Lovely Llanrwst
The teahouse in Llanrwst, in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. Such a gorgeous setting!
I just fell in love with this view while in Wales. I came by twice to shoot it, and would have come back a third time if my schedule had allowed it. It’s just a beautiful little spot, and even though my compositions are essentially the same from both visits, I didn’t care. I just wanted to stare at this gorgeous little teahouse, take its photo, and revel in the fact that I was there.
On the streets of Chicago
Evening starts to arrive in Chicago and I am out capturing some street scenes…
I love wandering the streets when I visit a city, and places like Chicago give you a lot of interesting things to photograph. Although my trip there was fairly short - and thus I did not have a lot of time to shoot - I still made the most of it and came home with some shots that I really liked. After getting rained on over at the Bean, I was in search of a meal. As I walked, I really liked the look of this English pub, and the color of the sky. I just had to wait a moment for someone to walk into the frame.
Exploring Lake Ogwen
A lovely waterfall in Snowdonia National Park, in Wales…
When I was in Wales back in August, one particular area that I wanted to see was the valley around Lake Ogwen, in Snowdonia National Park. All the photos looked lovely and everything I read about the area made it sound just beautiful - and it was all correct. The area is gorgeous and I found all sorts of things to point the camera at. Not the least of which were several waterfalls, such as the one you see here. This was just under the bridge at one end of the lake where is spills into a lower valley.