New Work - April 2013
To go straight to the new images: New Work - April 2013.
I have been slowing down the release of new work on my web site. This is partly due to my desire to be more contemplative and rigorous during the editing of my images, but also I had my shoulder nearly rebuilt when three tendons were reattached during a major surgery in February. It is only in the last couple weeks that I have been able to get out again and photograph, and even now I have to hold back on what I can do. No wave photography, backpacking or scuba diving for me this year it seems, at least for 6-8 more months.
Included in this release are some favorite locations, such as La Jolla’s Torrey Pines State Reserve, Joshua Tree National Park and Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park. I have photographed them at night in order to try to produce images that are new, interesting and hopefully unlike the many images being made at these locations these days.
Here is a small sample of the new work. You can see others at New Work - April 2013. Cheers and thanks for looking!
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| Approaching sunrise and star trails over the San Diego Downtown City Skyline. In this 60 minute exposure, stars create trails through the night sky over downtown San Diego. Image ID: 28386 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Milky Way galaxy rises above the Fire Wave, Valley of Fire State Park. Image ID: 28428 Location: Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, USA |
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| Broken Hill and view to La Jolla, panoramic photographic, from Torrey Pines State Reserve, sunrise. Image ID: 28397 Location: Torrey Pines State Reserve, San Diego, California, USA Pano dimensions: 4332 x 11344 |
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| Joshua Tree National Park, Milky Way and Moon, Shooting Star, Comet Panstarrs, Impending Dawn. Image ID: 28408 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 4205 x 10821 |
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| Torrey Pines State Reserve at Night, stars and clouds fill the night sky with the lights of La Jolla visible in the distance. Image ID: 28402 Location: Torrey Pines State Reserve, San Diego, California, USA |
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| Image ID: 28426 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
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| The Fire Wave by Moonlight, stars and the night sky, Valley of Fire State Park. Image ID: 28442 Location: Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, USA Pano dimensions: 6250 x 6887 |
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| Live Oak and Milky Way, rocks and stars, Joshua Tree National Park at night. Image ID: 28417 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 4848 x 7431 |
New Work - October 2012
I’ve been remiss about publishing my new photography and have only released two groups of images on my website in 2012. Tracy and I are about to head off for some R&R in Paris and I figured I should publish a blog post about my new photographs before we leave. (Who knows, if the food is really good we may not return.) As in May, my October collection of images includes many night photographs including some really nice ones from Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah, Yosemite and Joshua Tree National Park. This year I made one good blue whale photo and participated in my first aerial mission for Lighthawk, documenting development in the desert east of San Diego. A few new images of San Diego are mixed in this release. And perhaps the most fun of all: new wave photos! Below are a few from the release but you’ll want to see all of them so please have a look: New Work - October 2012. Cheers!
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| Milky Way and Shooting Star over Delicate Arch, as stars cover the night sky. Location: Arches National Park, Utah, USA |
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| Breaking wave, morning, barrel shaped surf, California. Location: California, USA |
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| Sunrise breaking wave, dawn surf. Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA |
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| Humpback whale breaching, pectoral fin and rostrom visible. Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| The Milky Way Galaxy shines in the night sky with a Joshua Tree silhouetted in the foreground. Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
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| Mesa Arch and Milky Way at night. Location: Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park, Utah, USA |
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| Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| The Milky Way rises above a huge wall of stone, stars fill the night sky and soar over the distant lights of campers. Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
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| Blue whale 80-feet long, full body photograph of an enormous blue whale showing rostrom head to fluke tail, taken a close range with very wide lens. Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: San Diego, California, United Kingdom |
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| Clouds and mountains, San Diego mountains near Rancho Guejito and Black Mountain, sunrise. Location: San Diego, California, USA |
New Work - May 2012
I have posted a collection of newly released photographs from February through May 2012. Included are many night photographs including some from Yosemite, Joshua Tree National Park, Los Angeles and the ancient bristlecone pines of Inyo National Forest. Please take a gander: New Work - May 2012. Thanks for looking!
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| Downtown Los Angeles at night, street lights, buildings light up the night. |
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| Half Dome at sunrise, viewed from Glacier Point. |
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| Juniper and star trails. |
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| Stars and the Milky Way rise above ancient bristlecone pine trees, in the White Mountains at an elevation of 10,000′ above sea level. These are some of the oldest trees in the world, reaching 4000 years in age. |
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| Yosemite Falls reflected in a meadow pool, spring. |
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| Yosemite Falls and star trails, at night, viewed from Cook’s Meadow, illuminated by the light of the full moon. |
New Work - November 2011
I have posted a collection of newly released photographs from November 2011. Included are some dynamite blue whale underwater portraits including several just a few feet from my underwater camera housing, images of the Hotel Del Coronado, sunset and sunrise cityscapes of gorgeous San Diego, and new underwater images from the Sea of Cortez and Baja California peninsula. Below are a few, or you can see lots more in my New Work - November 2011 gallery. Thanks for looking!
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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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| San Diego harbor and skyline, viewed at sunset. Image ID: 27146 Location: San Diego, California, USA |
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| Finescale triggerfish underwater, Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico. Image ID: 27478 Species: Finescale triggerfish, Balistes polylepis Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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| Reef with gorgonians and marine invertebrates, Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico. Image ID: 27502 Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico |
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 |
New Work - August 2011
If you want to go straight to the good stuff and skip my base prose, visit my “New Work” gallery!
My latest sampling of new photography originates from a variety of great outdoor experiences, all with my family and a couple of good friends. All of these images were produced during family travel (with kids alongside!) or on weekend-warrior outings, which means all of these photographs are attainable with reasonably little effort. If you like these, hopefully that will be encouraging and you can go out and make your own similar outdoor photos! However, I am holding back one image in particular shot during the last 8 weeks. It is truly a lifetime image, and represents the very best that I can do with a camera in the wild. It was an opportunity presented to me after about 18 years of waiting, and to my surprise I did not screw it up, and came home with a real keeper. I need to consider how best to market and publish it along with others from that same sequence. I look forward to sharing it on my website someday, but that may not be for some time. So, with that curious exception noted, the best images from the last two months for me are found in my “New Work” gallery (that’s your cue to click on it).
Thanks for looking!
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| Old Faithful geyser, sunrise. Reaching up to 185′ in height and lasting up to 5 minutes, Old Faithful geyser is the most famous geyser in the world and the first geyser in Yellowstone to be named. Image ID: 26939 Location: Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 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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| Sky Rock petroglyphs near Bishop, California. Hidden atop an enormous boulder in the Volcanic Tablelands lies Sky Rock, a set of petroglyphs that face the sky. These superb examples of native American petroglyph artwork are thought to be Paiute in origin, but little is known about them. Image ID: 26979 Location: Bishop, California, USA |
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| UCSD Library glows at sunset (Geisel Library, UCSD Central Library). Image ID: 26908 Location: University of California, San Diego, USA |
This months new work originates from the following locations:
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, White Mountains, California
The Pacific Ocean, Offshore of Southern California
Mono Lake, California
Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, California
Convict Lake, California
Volcanic Tablelands, Bishop, California
University of California, San Diego
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, California
New Work - July 2011
I was fortunate to make a return trip to Joshua Tree National Park with Garry McCarthy to try to improve on the night time arch photos we made there earlier. I think I succeeded, producing three keepers including one large panoramic image of the Milky Way spanning the night sky over Arch Rock. Printed, without interpolation, this image would be 9′ long! I also managed to join Mike Johnson on the ocean for a few days, where we had a couple photography opportunities that yielded images of bottlenose dolphin above water and strange planktonic colonial gelatinous tunicates (salps) below the waves. My daughter Sarah and I took a little road trip to Yosemite National Park for our annual hike up the Mist Trail, giving me a chance to wade into the Merced River in search of new reflection shots of the spring-flood waterfalls pouring into the valley from the granite heights above. My favorite of the bunch is the panorama below, of Yosemite Falls reflected in a sidewater of the Merced that has flooded a nearby meadow. We then continued up to the recently opened Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass and on through a clearing storm in Mammoth and Bishop where we were treated to some beautiful but fleeting storm-laden sunrise light above Convict Lake.
Click the photo below to see the latest edition of my gallery of “New Work July 2011“. Thanks for looking!
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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: 26887 Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 5256 x 11469 |
Here’s a tip for photographing Yosemite Falls in spring and early summer: wait for the sun to rise high enough that it lights the falls directly. This occurs about 9:30 to 10am. Earlier than that and the falls will actually be in shadow. Once the light hits the falls directly, they visually “pop” off the rest of the shadowed wall making for a more striking photograph than that taken just 30 minutes earlier. When Yosemite Falls is fully lit, it will also appear with greater contrast when reflected in the Merced River. The easiest, and one of the best, reflection images to make of Yosemite Falls is from the middle of the Swinging Bridge at the west end of the Leidig Meadows area. Swinging Bridge is sometimes closed when the Merced River is too high, but when that occurs there are plenty of other reflection pools you can use.
New Work - June 2011
See my most recent set of New Work or go back in time to see what I was shooting in New Work - June 2011.
I just added some new images from Joshua Tree National Park to my stock photography archive. Take a look at a selection of my Joshua Tree National Park photos including both recent images and photos from prior years. Thanks!
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| Star trails and Arch Rock. Polaris, the North Star, is at the center of the circular arc star trails as they pass above this natural stone archway in Joshua Tree National Park. Image ID: 26794 Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA |
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Updated: May 24, 2013
