All Posts By

Phil Colla

CaliforniaPanoramas

Panorama Photo of the Open Ocean

Open Ocean Panoramic Photograph I've spent a lot of time on the open ocean, in small boats, looking for big creatures. Some of the best days of my life have been spent on a glassy ocean surface, traveling one hundred miles or more under blue skies and summer breezes, waiting…
April 13, 2013
Paris

Art Seller, La Rive Gauche, Paris, France

Art Seller along La Rive Gauche, the Left Bank, Paris. La Rive Gauche, the Left Bank, is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris, France. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two: looking downstream, the southern bank is to the left, and the northern…
February 27, 2013
Paris

Les Invalides, Paris, France

Les Invalides, officially known as L'Hotel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war…
February 26, 2013
Tear Sheets

Tides of Time Cover

"Times of Time" was a coffee table-type book, a collaborative product of the Jaeger-LeCoutre Watch Company, the United Nations, the World Heritage Centre and the International Herald Tribune, focusing on ocean issues. My photo of a newborn gray whale calf, photographed 17 years ago offshore of Point Lobos / Big…
February 13, 2013
PanoramasWisdom

Choosing a Projection for Panoramic Photos

Some of my most profitable images are landscape panoramic photos, selected for large reproduction in office lobbies, museums or sometimes private homes. With the current generation of extremely sharp lenses and very high resolution sensors, and advances in photo processing software and hardware, it is straightforward to make enormous, high…
February 5, 2013
Paris

Leaving the Louvre

Leaving La Musee du Louvre, Paris, France. See more photos of Paris! As the evening visiting hours ended, we sadly departed the incredible Italian painting galleries and headed for the exit. Tracy walks down one of the long, masterpiece-strewn corridors on our way out. Leaving the Louvre Museum, evening, Paris.Image…
February 1, 2013
Paris

Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris, Trees and Streetlamp

Notre Dame Cathedral, West Facade, Trees and Streetlamp, Paris Notre Dame Cathedral, trees and streetlamp, west facade, Paris. Notre Dame de Paris ("Our Lady of Paris"), also known as Notre Dame Cathedral or simply Notre Dame, is a historic Roman Catholic Marian cathedral on the eastern half of the Ile…
January 21, 2013
Paris

Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France

Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France. See more photos of Paris! We walked the Champs Elysees on a cold, cloudy Paris day, starting at the Arc de Triomphe and finishing at the Louvre Museum with many stops in between. We walked beneath the Arc de Triomphe just to be able to…
January 20, 2013
Paris

Eiffel Tower over the Trocadero, Paris, France

The Eiffel Tower rises over the Place du Trocadéro, Paris I thought the reflection of le Tour Eiffel on the shiny tiles of the Place du Trocadéro was pretty neat. There were plenty of people walking around the Trocadero enjoying the cold, clear night in Paris, but you cannot see…
January 16, 2013
Paris

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France

Stained Glass Windows of La Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France La Sainte-Chapelle ("The Holy Chapel") is one of the only surviving buildings of the Capetian royal palace on the Ile de la Cite in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection…
January 15, 2013
Paris

Sacre-Coeur Basilica, Paris, France

Basilique du Sacre-Coeur, Paris, France The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacre-Coeur Basilica, is a beautiful Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Paris, France. A popular landmark, the Sacre-Coeur Basilica is located at the summit of the…
January 11, 2013
Astrophotography and Night Scapes

Landscape Astrophotography

New: check out my website for Landscape Astrophotography! What is Landscape Astrophotography? Here is my take on it! Landscape Astrophotography is the discipline of photographing scenes that include both astronomical elements and terrestrial landscape elements. The motivation for landscape astrophotography is a desire to depict the night sky, including stars,…
January 10, 2013
Paris

The Battle of the Nile, Chateau Versailles, France

Painting of The Battle of the Nile, Chateau Versailles, France The Battle of the Nile, also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay (in French as the Bataille d'Aboukir), one of the enormous, gorgeous paintings we saw at Chateau Versailles outside of Paris. The second image is a "vertorama", a…
January 9, 2013
Paris

Jardin du Luxembourg, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

Photo of les Jardins du Luxembourg, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris One of our favorite parts of Paris is the Luxembourg Gardens. We visited under both miserable, cold, rainy skies and again on a spectacular, blue sky afternoon, and enjoyed it both times. This is the fountain and pool in front of…
January 8, 2013
Paris

Chateau Versailles Ceiling Paintings

After a taste of the ceiling paintings in the Louvre Museum in Paris, Tracy and I made sure to look up when we walked through Chateau de Versailles at some of the magnificent ceiling paintings there. Louis XIV sure knew how to decorate in grand style! What is with the…
January 3, 2013
Paris

Ceiling Art, Musee du Louvre, Paris

Louvre Museum Ceiling Paintings One of the highlights of our October trip to Paris were two visits to the Louvre Museum. I was looking forward to seeing the Italian and Dutch painting galleries, and they certainly did not disappoint. However, what I found most striking where the many ornate and…
January 2, 2013
Pelicans of La JollaSeabird

End of the World Pelicans

I figured the Mayan World's End is coming soon, so I would go photograph some pelicans before it was all over. Here are a few new photographs of brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus). Cheers, and thanks for looking! Brown pelican in flight. The wingspan of the brown pelican is over…
December 20, 2012
Pelicans of La JollaSeabird

Brown Pelican and Belt of Venus

I set up to make photographs of brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus) in front of the thin pastel colors of the "belt of Venus", or "Earth Shadow", that forms just above the horizon at dawn and dusk when atmospheric conditions are favorable. If you can't envision what the Belt of…
December 19, 2012
Pelicans of La JollaSeabird

Braking to Land

This morning offered about 30 minutes of good light before the clouds took the sun away. Here are a few of photographs of brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus) returning from the ocean where they have been foraging for food, spreading their large wings wide as they brake to land on…
December 16, 2012
New Work

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.…
October 18, 2012
CaliforniaSierra Nevada

A Taste of Fall Color

Tracy and I will be looking for fall colors in a different place this autumn: Paris and the Loire Valley. A friend who has just returned from Paris says the Luxembourg Gardens are in magnificent bloom and trees should be turning along the Seine, so we are hopeful for some…
October 7, 2012