My image “Racetrack Sunset” will be the April cover photo of Outdoor Photographer!  “The Racetrack” is a seasonally dry lake located in the northern part of Death Valley National Park and is famous for its moving rocks.  With the right combination of rain and wind, the rocks move slowly across the surface of the playa, leaving a track as they go.  I photographed this amazing rock at sunset during my first visit to the Racetrack in January 2006.  I was enthralled with the unusual arc that it had created as it was moving.  This rock was still in the same location during my recent Death Valley National Park Tour.

Here is another unusually dramatic image of Mobius Arch that I photographed last month.  The clouds went from pink to orange, yellow, and then white by the time the early light began to illuminate the arch.  I was very happy to finally shoot the arch with a more interesting sky after several typical blue sky attempts over the years.

Here’s an image that I took from the Piedras Blancas elephant seal colony near San Simeon, CA last month. The day I got this shot I was not having any luck shooting critters, so when the sun started to set I turned my attention to the landscape. The scene before me was the epitome of Big Sur: waves were crashing against the rugged coastline and heavy clouds were billowing down from the mountains towards the ocean. This spongy mat of icicle plants covering the cliffs served as the anchor point for this image of unspoiled California. (Correction-Icicle plants are an invasive species from South Africa. My bad.)

I just spent a nice week with my family camping near San Diego. We flew home yesterday, and Monday I fly back down for 10 days with some client-friends. All this while trying to balance my family responsibilities. Wish me luck!

This is another dramatic image that I took on New Year’s Day at San Elijo State Park in California.  I can’t believe that I have been home for over 4 weeks and it is now time for me to start traveling again!  I could stay home for the next 6 months just working on my website & new images, but how fun would that be?  Tomorrow morning, my family and I are flying back down to San Diego for my daughters’ mid-winter break to use our truck & camping trailer that I stored there last month.  Not too much planned, other than enjoying the nice weather with my girls.

For the third time this year, one of my images graces the cover of Backpacker magazine.  The March 2010 issue’s cover shot is my image “Lago Pehoe Fiery Sunrise“.  I also give tips on photographing wide-angle landscape scenes in the article “Shoot Like a Pro” on pages 36-42, and my image “Spray Park Wildflowers 1” is featured on page 37.

In other news, I am currently updating my website to make it is easier to sign up for my photography tours, purchase my fine art prints, and license my images.  The overall design is going to stay the same, I just need to simplify access for my customers.  I also need to add several new galleries and update my older ones with the new images that I have created during the past 16 months.

This is another image that I created during my recent Death Valley National Park Photo Tour.  My 3 LA based clients unfortunately missed this photo opportunity because they drove home the day before.  My remaining client & I left the Badwater parking lot in the dark an hour before sunrise.  We wore our headlamps and hiked towards the center of the salt flats.  After 40 minutes, we stumbled upon these salt patterns and set up our cameras to capture the magnificent scene.  I like the textures on the salt flats, but I love the puffy sunrise clouds over the mountains.

I created this dramatic image on the Badwater salt flats during the 2nd morning of my recent Death Valley National Park Photo Tour.  My favorite landscape lighting scenario is the one that you see here, when sunrise light illuminates a mountain range underneath ominous clouds.  I could not have asked for anything more.  Over the next hour, the light interacted with the clouds giving me some very different images, but this early one is my favorite.  On my way to Death Valley, California photographer G Dan Mitchell was kind enough to send me a Facebook comment about looking for nice salt crust patterns around the first corner south of the Badwater parking lot.  I’m not sure if I found the exact spot that he was referring to, but I probably would not have parked in that area and walked the short distance from the road to these bizarre salt crust eruptions without his recommendation.  As the sunrise began, I was mostly walking back & forth answering my 4 clients questions, but I still managed to briefly set up my camera to capture the wondrous scene unfolding before me.

Here it is!  My “epic” sunrise image of Mobius Arch, created last week in California’s Alabama Hills.  I spent over 1 hour photographing this arch as the color of the sunrise light intensified from pink to yellow and the clouds swirled in different textures.  This was the most dramatic sunrise that I have witnessed from this location.  I had visited Mobius Arch a half dozen times over the last 10 years hoping to create an image more dramatic than the typical one involving blue sky.  I am happy that my persistence finally paid off with this incredible opportunity.

As promised, I am finally posting one of my incredible sunset images from New Years Day here at San Elijo State Park in California.  Not only was the sunset one of the most spectacular that I have ever witnessed, but there was also an extreme low tide that afternoon that exposed the reef & eel grass beds just in time to make an interesting foreground.  I’ve got a few more that I will eventually share, but this will have to do for right now.  I don’t have great internet access while traveling in California.  Hopefully, I will see many more sunrises or sunsets like this during my Death Valley Tour this week.  Wish me luck!

This is my favorite (and 1 of my only!) landscape images from my recent trip to Hawaii’s Big Island.  I was fortunate to photograph this amazing sunset early in my trip during one of the few vog free days.  I created it near Pu’uhonau o Honaunau (Place of Refuge) National Park, which is just south of Capt Cook.  The park is one of my favorite places near Kona to spend the day snorkeling, hiking, & exploring.  It has a long history & powerful spiritual presence.  In ancient Hawaii, kapu (laws) governed every aspect of Hawaiian society.  If  you violated a kapu, the penalty was death.  Your only option for survival was to elude your pursuers and reach the nearest puuhonua, or place of refuge, where you would be safe.  Fortunately, I was not on the run from anyone, but I did have to quickly set up my camera to capture these brilliant clouds before the sun dropped below the tropical horizon.