Trees

connecting with Trees...
I noticed this tree right off Skyline Drive a couple of years ago and had wanted to capture its portrait ever since. Finally, the weather conditions cooperated, and the wide-angle lens did exactly what I was hoping for.
A cottonwood tree in Capitol Reef National Park.
The transition from dense fog to sunny weather is my favorite time to chase the light.
Words spoken to you<br/>Find no response, nor echo.<br/>Sinking in fall fog.
The trail winds through colossal trees and blooming rhododendrons. Only 1,000 feet from the parking lot, it draws you into an entirely different world. You feel like an ancient human—or even a dinosaur—someone from another time. Then, a loud rattle from the nearby road echoes through the forest, and for a brief moment, it blends perfectly into the illusion, like the roar of a prehistoric beast. The truth comes quickly—but jarringly. It's just a truck. And suddenly, everything man-made—every achievement of humankind—feels completely out of place here.
Some might think this photo was taken in the fall, but I actually captured it in April. These leaves made it through the harsh winter on a windy mountain ridge—almost like a quiet inspiration for all of us.
During foliage peak time, areas just off Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP offer numerous photo opportunities.
...they are gone. When scouting this area just 1.5 years after I took this photo, I was trying to recognize these trees among the others. Finally, I realized that there were only two of them left.
Boneyard beaches like this one in South Carolina completely change their appearance during low and high tides. They also become completely impassable during high tide. After all, the dead trees “grow” exactly where the beach gets flooded and exposed twice a day.
A very special and intimate combination of colors during a high-tide sunrise at Edisto Beach.
I love staying somewhere not far from potential photo locations during my photo trips. There's no need to wake up at 4 a.m. Instead, I can enjoy my sweet slumber until 4:30 a.m.
I literally fell in love with the grace and beauty of this tree at the visitor center in Capitol Reef NP. It’s simply perfect—don’t you think?
I wish there were a magical forecast that could predict foggy conditions with a high level of certainty. That would be a game changer.
Even having a remote shutter release doesn’t spare you from running back and forth between the camera and the “selfie” spot at least a few times. But after all, it turns into decent morning exercise.
Just about 100 feet of a 2,000-mile Appalachian trail. Roughly 1,000 miles stretch north from here, and a similar distance heads south. For the average thru-hiker, completing the entire journey takes about six months.<br/>After traveling the past 12+ months mostly in desert and badlands regions, one thing has become clear, while the East Coast might not offer many jaw-dropping vistas, it has something else — the luxury of lush, green landscapes for about nine months of the year. It’s a joy you often take for granted until you’ve spent time in places scorched by the sun.
I keep complaining all the time that fog conditions are not very frequent here in Virginia. When they do happen, even ordinary scenes often turn into something magical. However, when they do happen, it's always in the morning, and I'm typically too lazy to drag myself out of bed.
One of those occasions when you spot the perfect light while driving down the road and, after a few seconds of hesitation, decide to turn around, find a place to pull over, and take the chance.
When God grew tired of precision — of tracing, line by line, the sharp silhouettes of mountains; of mixing endless blues to capture the restless moods of the sea; of flicking his brush to scatter white sparks across the black stillness of night — he paused, the weight of creation heavy in his hands.<br/>Frustration stirred. With a sudden, human kind of impatience, he hurled his palette at the canvas. The colors burst and spilled, tumbling into chaos — gold bleeding into crimson, green dissolving into amber, the hues colliding in wild, careless beauty.<br/>God stepped back, stunned by what he saw. The accidental masterpiece shimmered before him — vibrant, fleeting, alive.<br/>He smiled, half in wonder, half in irony, and called it Fall.
“Sleeping is a way of dying or at least of dying to reality, better still it is the death of reality, but reality dies in love as in dreams. The life of man is entirely occupied by the bloody osmosis of dreams and love.“<br/>- Salvador Dalí
I didn't have a remote shutter release with me that day, so I had ten seconds between hitting the camera button and sprinting to the spot where I was going to stand and express something profound. And I had to repeat this entertainment a dozen times. Luckily, the dense fog meant nobody could see this idiot with his bizarre morning exercise.
Something that often irritates me about American parks is that many of them have opening hours between sunrise and sunset, which hinders photo opportunities for people trying to aim at the precious blue or golden hours. After sitting in front of the closed gates for thirty minutes, I almost gave up on any chances to photograph that morning. Luckily, the stormy clouds meant the best time for pictures was after sunrise.
It took me more than two years to get around to processing this photo. I love the feeling of discovering an initially underrated photo and turning it into something special.
Sunset at Yellowstone Lake. Consistent smoke from the Western wildfires dominated the sky those days. Which in turn resulted in interesting light effects.
The beginning of a new day brings a sense of life to this somewhat apocalyptic location.
Everything is much bigger on the West Coast, even the dead trees.
When blue and golden hours meet.
Other themes:
Deserts gallery
Deserts
Golds gallery
Golds
Landscapes gallery
Landscapes
Rocks gallery
Rocks
Seascapes gallery
Seascapes
Skies gallery
Skies
Waterfalls gallery
Waterfalls