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.

I stayed home the last 4 weeks, so I was able to accomplish some serious photo editing.  It has been hard work, but also fun reliving all of last years’ amazing adventures and discovering some real gems that I missed during my initial edits, like this bald eagle portrait.  I photographed this majestic bird during my Haines Bald Eagle Photo Tour last November.  My 3 clients all had a great time, learned a ton, & came home with some real keepers.  I already have requests from several people to go back this November.  Since I will not take more than 4 clients on my trips, space will be very limited.  If you are interested in joining my trip, please contact me.

This is a cute tufted puffin that I photographed last June in Lituya Bay on the remote outer coast of Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska.  During my visit, I used my inflatable boat to explore the sea bird cliffs on the south side of Cenotaph Island.  There were thousands of kittiwakes but only a few breeding pairs of tufted puffins.  The puffins constantly flew back and forth from the tops of the cliffs down to the water to fish.  Through my persistence, I was eventually able to drift close enough to this puffin to take its picture with my 500mm lens.  I like the dark green water and pink reflection of the cliffs on the water behind it.

Most photographers do not appreciate how difficult it is to photograph sea otters in Southeast Alaska.  Plenty of people, myself included, have photographed the approachable sea otters in California, but the “wild” ones in Alaska see you coming from a mile away and want nothing to do with you.  This is probably a good thing, since sea otters were previously hunted for their fur almost to the point of extinction.  I have watched rafts of hundreds of sea otters in Glacier Bay, near Cape Spencer, and in Frederick Sound, but none of them have allowed me to get close enough for a decent picture, even with a long lens.  After being frustrated so often by their elusive nature, I was surprised to find this cooperative mother & baby during my brief visit to Torch Bay last June while returning from my amazing Lituya Bay visit.  It was pouring rain, but fortunately I was able to set up my 500mm lens & tripod underneath the rain canopy on the back deck of my 22′ C-Dory while my friend Dominik Modlinksi manned the helm.  The mother repeatedly dove to the bottom to catch some food.  When she returned to the surface, it was all she could do to grab a bite of her catch before her little one voraciously snatched it away from her.  (It was kinda like me trying to eat ice cream around my daughters.)  After stealing mom’s food, the baby would climb on top of her for comfort & bonding.  It was a beautiful wildlife experience in a unique setting and I am happy that I came away with a few images.

I am pleased to announce that my image Humpback Whale 6 is featured on the cover of the February 2010 issue of Alaska Airlines magazine!  Be sure to check it out if you are on an Alaska Airlines flight this month.  Also, the opening double page image to the humpback whale article was photographed by my friend Brandon Cole during a previous trip that we took together.  I have the exact same image, since we were next to each other in the water when we both almost got run over by a humpback whale mother & calf.  Photographing whales above or below water is my favorite kind of photography.  It also helps that I am comfortable swimming in the open ocean in 10,000 feet of water and enjoy staring down into the blue depths underneath my fins.

This is a great blog post to transition from my dramatic landscape photography to more of my new wildlife images from the last year.  I’ve been tightly editing my image archives the last few weeks and have come across a few keepers that are worth sharing in the days ahead.

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.