Leucadia Sunset
Sunset over the Ocean, Leucadia, California
This photo was made a few minutes after the sun went down, in Leucadia, California, an eclectic beach community in north San Diego county that is home to great surf, great taco shops and nouveau riche homes teetering on the edge of crumbling sea cliffs. I left the shutter open for 30 seconds to let the surf blur and allow the ocean to appear flat. I love living near the ocean!
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| Leucadia sunset, beautiful clouds and soft colors. Image ID: 27379 |
See more photos of San Diego.
Hotel Del Coronado with Christmas Lights, San Diego
Christmas Holiday Lights at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, California.
During the holidays I joined my photographer friend Garry McCarthy at sunset to photograph the Hotel Del Coronado on beautiful Coronado Island in San Diego. During the holidays “The Del” puts on quite a holiday show, with a beachside ice skating rink and holiday lights. Garry and I waited until the “blue hour” kicked in and shot some nice images of this distinctive landmark San Diego hotel at dusk. If you like these, take a look at my gallery of San Diego photos. Thanks for looking!
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| Hotel del Coronado with holiday Christmas night lights, known affectionately as the Hotel Del. It was once the largest hotel in the world, and is one of the few remaining wooden Victorian beach resorts. It sits on the beach on Coronado Island, seen here with downtown San Diego in the distance. It is widely considered to be one of Americas most beautiful and classic hotels. Built in 1888, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. Image ID: 27396 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Hotel del Coronado with holiday Christmas night lights. Image ID: 27405 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
Imperial Beach Pier
The Imperial Beach Pier is an old, charismatic wooden pier reaching out in the lovely Pacific from that funky and most-southerly city in California: Imperial Beach. The Imperial Beach Pier, of “I.B. Pier”, was most recently built in 1989. It is 1491′ long and 24′ wide and situated in water that is approximately 20′ deep. I like photographing the ocean and coastlines at dawn, and recently made a trip down to the Imperial Beach Pier to photograph it over the holidays. If you like these, see a few other Imperial Beach Pier photos. Thanks for looking!
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| Imperial Beach pier at sunrise,. Image ID: 27414 Location: Imperial Beach, California, USA |
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| Imperial Beach pier at sunrise,. Image ID: 27411 Location: Imperial Beach, California, USA |
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| Imperial Beach pier at sunrise,. Image ID: 27417 Location: Imperial Beach, California, USA |
See also my photos of the other four ocean piers in San Diego County:
Ocean Beach Pier photos
Scripps Institute of Oceanography Research Pier photos
Crystal Pier photos
Oceanside Pier photos
New Work - October 2011
If you want to go straight to the eye candy and skip the verbage, visit my “New Work - October 2011” gallery!
My October 2011 release of new photography is fairly focused and includes some underwater images of blue whales, nighttime photographs of bioluminescence caused by red tide dinoflagellate plankton, a few close underwater photos of fin whales (the second longest animal in the world, after blue whales), experimental images using new techniques of surf and surfers, and a couple panoramas of Petco Stadium in San Diego (made with the help of my daughter who manned the popcorn and terrible towels while I took the pictures).
The whale images in particular were quite exciting to make. There is a small number of people in the world who have come face to face with enormous blue whales and fin whales in the open ocean and managed to bring home publication-quality photographs to document the encounter. In other words, not only were the images tremendously exciting to make, they represent some of my proudest moments as a natural history photographer. Photographing these giants has been an ongoing project of mine for 17 years, and in spite of having very few opportunities to see whales this year I managed to make some of the best images I have ever made of these spectacular creatures, alongside my good friend (and skilled marine photographer) Mike Johnson.
Thanks for looking! Below are a few, and the rest can be found in my “New Work - October 2011 gallery” (that’s your cue to click on it).
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| Fin whale underwater. The fin whale is the second longest and sixth most massive animal ever, reaching lengths of 88 feet. Image ID: 27594 Species: Fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus |
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| Fin whale underwater. The fin whale is the second longest and sixth most massive animal ever, reaching lengths of 88 feet. Image ID: 27597 Species: Fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus |
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| A humpback whale raises it fluke out of the water, the coast of Del Mar and La Jolla is visible in the distance. Image ID: 27142 Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Del Mar, California, USA |
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| Blue whale underwater closeup photo. This incredible picture of a blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit earth, shows it swimming through the open ocean, a rare underwater view. Image ID: 27324 Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: California, USA |
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| Lingulodinium polyedrum red tide dinoflagellate plankton, glows blue when it is agitated in wave and is visible at night. Image ID: 27064 Species: Lingulodinium polyedrum Location: La Jolla, California, USA |
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| Blue whale underwater closeup photo. This incredible picture of a blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit earth, shows it swimming through the open ocean, a rare underwater view. Over 80′ long and just a few feet from the camera, an extremely wide lens was used to photograph the entire enormous whale. Image ID: 27325 Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: California, USA |
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| Athletic young girl underwater, performing isometric exercises. Image ID: 27057 |
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| Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres professional baseball team, overlooking downtown San Diego at dusk. Image ID: 27052 Location: San Diego, California, USA Pano dimensions: 3342 x 5982 |
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| Breaking wave fast motion and blur. The Wedge. Image ID: 27078 Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA |
Canon 7D Digital Camera and Tokina 10-17 Fisheye Zoom Lens for sale
While this is posted on my blog, these are still available. Note: lens is now sold, camera is still available.
THE CAMERA IS STILL AVAILABLE. Canon 7D digital camera, excellent condition, still under warranty, one owner. Approx 8900 shutter actuations. Used to shoot indoor sports and one dive trip, no longer needed. This is a camera a lot of pros and serious amateurs are using topside and underwater. Asking $1425 (new is currently $1600 after rebate)
THE LENS IS NOW SOLD. Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom lens, Canon mount, DX bodies only. Mint condition, one owner, USA warranty. Lots of people are using this underwater as their workhorse wide angle lens now on Nikon and Canon crop bodies (7D, 60D, D200/D300, etc). I used it on one dive trip in Nov and did not take it off the camera for days. If you want to see images with this lens I can provide you a private link with some large examples. Asking $590 (new is currently $670-690)
If you buy both at those prices I will throw in the battery/vertical grip for the Canon 7D. You are welcome to come by my home in Carlsbad to look at the gear or take a few test shots.
Here is a link to some images shot with this camera in the Sea of Cortez recently:
http://www.oceanlight.com/canon_7d_samples_photos.html
and here a few that I liked best from the trip:
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| California sea lion underwater. Image ID: 27418 Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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| Panamic Green Moray Eel, Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico. Image ID: 27466 Species: Panamic Green Moray Eell, Gymnothorax castaneus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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| King angelfish in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Image ID: 27470 Species: King angelfish, Holacanthus passer Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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| California sea lion underwater playing with sea star. Image ID: 27428 Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
Best Photos of 2011
Best Photos of 2011
In a past “best of” post I stated that one of my goals is to make a handful of really strong images each year, images that could be included in a career retrospective portfolio. This year I will admit that another of my goals is to produce a body of photographic work that outlives me, that has relevance throughout not only my life but those of my children and grandchildren. That’s a lofty goal and, truth be told, I will never know if I have succeeded or not. My hunch is that, of the photos I have made so far in my 20+ years of shooting, perhaps two or three may outlive me. Anyway, enough musing. Here are my favorite images, my “best photos of 2011″.
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| A humpback whale raises it fluke out of the water, the coast of Del Mar and La Jolla is visible in the distance. Image ID: 27142 Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Del Mar, California, USA |
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| Dusk settles on downtown San Diego with snow-covered Mt. Laguna in the distance. Image ID: 26716 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| The Milky Way galaxy arches over Arch Rock on a clear evening in Joshua Tree National Park. Image ID: 26792 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
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| Boulders and sunset in Joshua Tree National Park. The warm sunlight gently lights unusual boulder formations at Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree National Park, California. Image ID: 26730 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
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| Earth Shadow lies over Point La Jolla at dawn. Image ID: 26444 Location: La Jolla, California, USA |
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| Horseshoe Bend. The Colorado River makes a 180-degree turn at Horseshoe Bend. Here the river has eroded the Navajo sandstone for eons, digging a canyon 1100-feet deep. Image ID: 26635 Location: Horseshoe Bend, Page, Arizona, USA |
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| Fisherman at dawn along the La Jolla coastline, waves blur as they crash upon the Boomer Beach boulders. Image ID: 26447 Location: La Jolla, California, USA |
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| Water falling from the fluke (tail) of a humpback whale as the whale dives to forage for food in the Santa Barbara Channel. Image ID: 27029 Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Santa Rosa Island, California, USA |
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| San Diego harbor and skyline, viewed at sunset. Image ID: 27146 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Breaking wave fast motion and blur. The Wedge. Image ID: 27079 Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA |
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| Freediver photographing pelagic gelatinous zooplankton, adrift in the open ocean. Image ID: 26817 Species: Fried-egg jellyfish, Phacellophora camtschatica Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Yosemite Falls reflected in flooded meadow. The Merced River floods its banks in spring, forming beautiful reflections of Yosemite Falls. Image ID: 26888 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA |
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| T.A. Moulton barn with Teton Range, on Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Image ID: 26914 Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA |
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| Convict Lake sunrise reflection, Sierra Nevada mountains. Image ID: 26974 |
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| California sea lion underwater. Image ID: 27423 Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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| King angelfish in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Image ID: 27470 Species: King angelfish, Holacanthus passer Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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| Surf and sky at sunset, waves crash upon the sand at dusk. Image ID: 27234 Location: Carlsbad, California, USA |
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| Torrey Pines balloon aerial survey photo. Torrey Pines seacliffs, rising up to 300 feet above the ocean, stretch from Del Mar to La Jolla. On the mesa atop the bluffs are found Torrey pine trees, one of the rare species of pines in the world. Peregine falcons nest at the edge of the cliffs. This photo was made as part of an experimental balloon aerial photographic survey flight over Torrey Pines State Reserve, by permission of Torrey Pines State Reserve. Image ID: 27271 Location: Torrey Pines State Reserve, San Diego, California, USA Pano dimensions: 5001 x 11896 |
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| Ocean Beach Pier, also known as the OB Pier or Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, is the longest concrete pier on the West Coast measuring 1971 feet (601 m) long. Image ID: 27387 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
See also:
Best Photos of 2010
Best Photos of 2009
Best Photos of 2008
Best Photos of 2007
Sea of Cortez Underwater Canon 7D Video Footage
I recently finished editing still photographs made in the Sea of Cortez in November. While I was shooting photos I also took some time to grab video footage with the Canon 7D that I was using. This is a rough edit that I made from some clips, assembled in iMovie. Be sure to select “720p” in the lower right of the Youtube player. Enjoy …
Pacific Harbor Seal, La Jolla, California
Cute Harbor Seal Photo, La Jolla, California.
This is the third of three images I had that were Highly Commended in this year’s Windland Smith Rice photography competition.*
This is one of the famous or, depending on your political position, notorious Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardsi) the reside at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla, California. Some people really hate these seals and feel their presence on the beach has robbed people of the use of small cove and want to see the seals gone, forcefully or otherwise. Others love the seals and don’t want to see them bothered at all. I don’t really care either way, I just like to shoot photos of them. I’ve been photographing (and diving with) these seals since their colony first began forming in the ’90s. There are certain times of day when the light angles and water movement really work well here for photography. On this day, one of the more charismatic seals was moving about at the water’s edge and paused for a moment with its flippers raised, looking at me. I got off a series of photos and this was the most appealing of the group.
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| Pacific harbor seal, an sand at the edge of the sea. Image ID: 26315 Species: Pacific harbor seal, Phoca vitulina richardsi Location: La Jolla, California, USA |
* I was fortunate to have three of my photographs receive Highly Honored recognition in this years Windland Smith Rice photography competition sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. The first was a photo of photographer Garry McCarthy working in the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. The second was a composition of the Giants Marbles in Joshua Tree National Park. 21,000 images were entered in the competition, 500 made it to the final round of judging and 131 were winners or highly honored and appeared in the most recent issue of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I am crossing my fingers that one of mine will also be featured as part of the competition’s six-month exhibition next year at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
Torrey Pines State Reserve Running Photos
It is for views like this that I run. I’ve been running for 35 years and will keep running until my body can’t do it anymore. I estimate that I have run at least 32,000 miles (1.25 times around the Earth!) and it is views like this that keep me fired up for more. I have probably run the trails in Torrey Pines State Reserve (north of La Jolla, California) 1500 times or more during my life. The other night during my run I enjoyed one of the finest sunsets I have ever seen there. Clearing storm, golden light, clouds, wet sand. I had my iPhone strapped to my arm but I had no “real camera”. There was no one else on the beach and it appeared I had two miles of spectacular low tide beach all to myself which in San Diego is a virtual impossibility. I spent the last 30 minutes of the day composing panoramas of the golden waning light shining on the cliffs and breaking storm clouds with my iPhone. That night I fed a stack of 45 individual iPhone images to Photoshop. Photoshop cranked away all night making a panorama and the following morning the first image below is the result. I’ve checked it at full resolution and the quality is really impressive. Thanks for looking and keep on running!
Click any of the images to see them larger. In their full resolution form, all of these panoramas are quite large, made from 20-45 individual iPhone photos that are stitched together in Photoshop. Sizes range up to 10,000 pixels in length and 3800 pixels in height. In the images that include waves, there are stitching errors in the waves which are largely unavoidable. However, in the images that face away from the ocean there are few if any stitching errors and in my estimation the images are clean enough to print up to 30″ or more in length .
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| Torrey Pines seacliffs viewed at sunset from Flat Rock, Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, California |
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| Torrey Pines seacliffs viewed at sunset from Flat Rock, Black’s Beach and La Jolla at far right, Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, California |
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| Torrey Pines seacliffs viewed at sunset from Flat Rock, Del Mar and Solana Beach at far left, Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, California |
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Giants Marbles at Dusk, Joshua Tree National Park, California
Giant’s Marbles, Joshua Tree National Park, California.
This is the second of three images I had that were Highly Commended in this year’s Windland Smith Rice photography competition.*
I made this photograph in Joshua Tree National Park just as the sun was setting, at a series of granite boulders that is quite popular (being near one of the campgrounds). The sun had already left the first of the Giant’s Marbles in shadow in front of me, but the warm light was still kissing to the topmost Marble perched atop the rocks. These nearly spherical marbles are natural anchors for any landscape photo of this boulder group, and indeed one sees various compositions of these rocks in many landscape photographers’ portfolios. This is my rendition. Thanks for looking!
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| Boulders and sunset in Joshua Tree National Park. The warm sunlight gently lights unusual boulder formations at Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree National Park, California. Image ID: 26720 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
* I was fortunate to have three of my photographs receive Highly Honored recognition in this years Windland Smith Rice photography competition sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. The first was a photo of photographer Garry McCarthy working in the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. . 21,000 images were entered in the competition, 500 made it to the final round of judging and 131 were winners or highly honored and appeared in the most recent issue of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I am crossing my fingers that one of mine will also be featured as part of the competition’s six-month exhibition next year at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
Photographer in the Virgin River Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah
Photographer in the Virgin River Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah
I was fortunate to have three of my photographs receive Highly Honored recognition in this years Windland Smith Rice photography competition sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. 21,000 images were entered in the competition, 500 made it to the final round of judging and 131 were winners or highly honored and appeared in the most recent issue of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I am crossing my fingers that one of mine will also be featured as part of the competition’s six-month exhibition next year at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.. Here is the first of the three, taken in a bend of the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. This is an utterly fantastic hike with spectacular photography possibilities at every turn, and a place to which I am anxious to return in 2012. My buddy Garry McCarthy serves as an “anchor” to lend some perspective to the scene and create a little tension from the corner of the composition across to the beautiful cottonwoods in the Narrows.
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| Photographer in the Virgin River Narrows, with flowing water, autumn cottonwood trees and towering red sandstone cliffs. Image ID: 26106 Location: Virgin River Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah, USA |
Skips Stubbs in the Sea of Cortez (2011)
From Skip:
I and five friends had an 8-day diving charter out of La Paz in the Sea of Cortez in early October. We had no “set your hair on fire” moments, but great weather, fabulous food and company for sharing, and good sea conditions. The largest waves we saw were 6-10 inches! We visited all of our usual places, and found a couple very good new ones (see photos), and went back to Las Animas for the first time in several years. We didn’t see much there, but had nice clear water to appreciate the beautiful setting. All in all, a very pleasant and relaxing trip. The water was unusually warm this year 84-87 degrees F everywhere, so the visibility was a little off, but we never got chilled on dives, no matter how long. I still remember this one sunset…
Click on the image for more great underwater photos!
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If I Shoot Raw Do I Have To Pay Any Attention To Exposure? No!
Ask The Digital Photography Expert
Q: If I shoot raw, do I need to worry about getting my exposures correct anymore? I remember when I took photography in high school, the teacher had us bothering with confusing settings like shutter speed, apartachure and film fastness, and all of that was very hard to understand especially because I was really in photography to meet chicks and sniff the fixer tank fumes. Now I have decided that I am going to travel the world and take glamorous photos like a pro, teach glamorous photo workshops, and get a glamorous job at Life magazine where I will meet chicks, so I have decided to buy a camera and get started. I have been told that with today’s super smart digital cameras I don’t even need to be concerned with exposure settings anymore. Is that true? Sincerely yours, Nubert Eye’essoo.
A: Yes, Nube, it is true! You can pretty much take any photo at any exposure setting you wish, and fix it later in raw.* I do it all the time. Let’s consider an illustrative example…
I was editing some images I shot this summer to get them organized for a copyright submission and found a sequence of a blue whale that I had forgotten about. It was underexposed by at least three stops, perhaps four stops. I must have pressed the exposure-hold button while the camera was pointed up at the sky or some other lame-brain move. In the days of film a bluewater four-stop underexposure surely would have gone straight in the trash as fast as possible. Keeping something like this around, dwelling on it and thinking about the “what if”, is like remaining friends with an old flame — the tears, regret, and tequila gnaw at your gut. Better to put such things behind oneself, make a clean break and move forward. However, for some reason this sequence stayed on my hard disk, so today I took a look at one of the frames to see what image was buried in there. Low and behold I was able to pull out decent color and detail, enough for a half-page repro or web use. Yet again I am amazed at what we can do with a raw image — even a vastly underexposed one — with today’s software tools. Note also this is not even shot on a modern digital camera. The body that made this image is a six-year-old Canon 1DsII. I wonder how much better it would have been shot on a 5DII or 1DIV. Shown here are two frames in the sequence, one of which is “saved” and the other of which appears in its straight-from-the-camera form. Raw is amazing and can fix just about any mistake you can make. So go ahead and blast away and don’t worry about details like exposure settings or focus. As you can see, I certainly don’t!
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| Blue whale, spectacular underexposure, California, Balaenoptera musculus, copyright © Phillip Colla / Oceanlight.com |
* Ok, there are elements of poetic license of that answer. Actually, it was pretty much a total lie.
Stock Photo Gallery: Bodie State Historic Park
Bodie State Historic Park Photos
A few years ago I visited Bodie Ghost Town, aka Bodie State Historic Park, near Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra to photograph the old buildings in early morning light. It was a great experience. I had heard that Bodie is one of the the finest examples of an old Western mining town and after seeing it first hand I can see why. I got to the park gate about 30 minutes before sunrise, and to my delight found that only two other photographers were there that morning. Solitude, at sunrise, in one of the finest ghost towns in the country. (OK, granted, Bodie is not technically a “ghost town”, but I think of it that way.) I effectively had the entire town to myself and did not bump into another person for at least an hour. It was quiet, cool, with clear skies and dew on the grass. I spent about two hours wandering around, peering around into the old homes, barns, shops and town halls. To see some of my favorite images from that morning, see my gallery of Bodie State Historic Park photos. Thanks for looking!
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| Wagon and interior of County Barn, Brown House and Moyle House in distance. Location: Bodie State Historical Park, California, USA |
Whytake.Net
I received an invitation from Alister Benn recently to take a look at, and contribute to, Whytake.net. This new website and social networking tool founded by Benn and Rafael Rojas is designed to bring nature photographers together and help them share their work with the world. The design of Whytake.net is simple, clean and very appealing to me, and the quality of work appearing on Whytake.net from contributing photographers is impressive. Take a look today! Click the image below to see my portfolio on Whytake.net but be certain to check out the INSPIRE and EXPLORE links at the top of the page to see the work of other great photographers.
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Stock Photo Gallery: Blue Shark Underwater Photographs
Underwater stock photos of Blue Sharks (Prionace glauca)
I’ve updated my collection of blue shark underwater photos. Most of these blue shark photographs were taking freediving (breathhold diving) with a few friends in the open ocean near San Diego or just below the border in Mexico. In days gone by, a small bucket of chum would bring in 5-20 blue sharks, sometimes more, and they were big beautiful sharks, sleek and long and graceful. Longliners and the fishing industry has decimated the blue shark (Prionace glauca) population in the eastern Pacific (along with many other shark species) and today a bucket of chum might attract a few sharks which will typically be small. Some of the best days of my life have been spent swimming around a small boat under the hot California sun, in clean blue offshore water, trying to keep track of the sharks swimming around and frame up a few good images. Life is good! Thanks for looking. Click the image below to see my gallery of blue shark photos.
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| Blue shark, Baja California. Species: Blue shark, Prionace glauca |
Stock Photo Gallery: Antarctica Photos
Antarctica Pictures and Stock Photos of the Antarctic Peninsula
I have assembled my favorite Antarctica Photos into a stock photography gallery. The Antarctic Peninsula is perhaps the single most photogenic place I have ever been. The photographs nearly take themselves and every direction one turns holds a scenic view. Some of Antarctica holds a stark beauty, while other regions are so chock full of life it is unbelievable. I cannot wait to return to the Southern Ocean and sea Antarctica again.
Click the image below to see a selection of my favorite Antarctica photos. Thanks for looking!
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| Pack ice, a combination of sea ice and pieces of icebergs, Weddell Sea. |
Stock Photo Gallery: Gorgonian Photos
Underwater photographs of Gorgonians
When I was doing a lot of diving in southern California, some of my favorite subjects were gorgonians. Gorgonians are colonial invertebrates that, as a group, form flexible calcareous skeletons several feet across. The tiny individual polyps positioned on the branches of these “sea fans” wait for planktonic animals and small bits of food and debris to pass by in the current, at which time they grasp the particles with anemone-like tentacles and consume them. The overall fan-like shape of the gorgonian colony is usually oriented at right angles to prevailing currents to maximize the amount of plankton the polyps are able to capture.
Click the image to see a selection of my favorite gorgonian photos.
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| Red gorgonian on rocky reef, below kelp forest, underwater. The red gorgonian is a filter-feeding temperate colonial species that lives on the rocky bottom at depths between 50 to 200 feet deep. Gorgonians are oriented at right angles to prevailing water currents to capture plankton drifting by. |
Stock Photo Gallery: Joshua Tree National Park
Stock photos of Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park is a stone’s throw from my mom’s home (ok, a long throw) and only about 3.5 hours from where I live in Carlsbad. In the last five years I’ve made a number of visits to JTNP. It is easy to find solitude in Joshua Tree National Park; even on weekends in spring when the campgrounds are full much of the park itself is empty of people. I have finally put together a collection of Joshua Tree National Park photographs that I am happy with and, reviewing them this morning, I am motivated to get out there again soon. Thanks for looking!
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| Sunrise in Joshua Tree National Park. |
Stock Photo Gallery: Fall Colors
I’ve lived in California and travelled throughout the western United States my entire life, but it was not until 2006 that I began to really look for autumn color in nature. Since then I’ve made a few trips to see turning aspens in the Eastern Sierra Nevada and plan to return to Bishop and the Mono Lake Basin for another look in a few weeks. Easily the most beautiful fall colors I have seen, however, have been in Zion National Park in November. I cannot wait to get back there! However, another look at autumn in Zion will have to wait until 2012, since I’ll be tied up sipping cerveza in the Sea of Cortez in early November this year. Click the image below to see my Gallery of Fall Color Photos to which I hope to add some fine new images in a few weeks. Thanks for looking!
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| Aspen trees cover Bishop Creek Canyon above Aspendel. |
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Updated: January 27, 2012
