2024

connecting with 2024...
I spent a couple of hours near these formations in the Bisti Badlands, waiting for the perfect light for the picture and carefully climbing around the formations. While blue hour often brings a marvelous glow to the terrain in places like this, ironically the best picture from that evening was taken long before sunset, right from the trail below.
When you think you need to be a good friend and take at least one picture of your buddy during your trip together, but the best you can manage as a portrait photographer is something like this. Well, the portrait didn’t turn out so bad, as long as he can find himself in the picture. Not even sure why he still talks to me...
I don't know what the minimum distance a path needs to be to be considered a hiking trail but the Window Trail in Badlands National Park is 0.15 miles long one way.
If you happened to look at the world light pollution map, you’d find out that there are almost no places with true dark sky in the entire US east of Mississippi (Western Europe is even worse in this sense). A few exceptions include Northern Maine, Adirondack mountains in upstate New York and, to some degree, Dolly Sods/Spruce Knob area in West Virginia. And at the same time, on the other side of the ocean, in the country I was born, the electricity now is one of the most valuable assets.
It is such a simple yet profound process of living the cycles of nature. Feeling every moment instead of letting them disappear in the routine of a regular day. Thirty minutes before the first twilight, full darkness, taking pictures of the sky, astronomical twilight, nautical twilight, a few other shots of the foreground, civil twilight, sunrise, then driving back home and to the office.
Despite the clear path that draws the eye here, there is no trail leading down into the valley in these badlands.
Those are the moments when you are eternally grateful to a stranger who hiked the big dunes and helped create something that became one of the most valuable and important pictures I have ever taken.
Almost all dune photographs in the U.S. are taken in one location - the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park. There are several reasons for this - easy access, short hikes, minimal elevation gain, and firm sand. Grand Sand Dunes National Park, on the other hand, offers none of these. Add to that the 8,000-foot elevation at the base of the dunes, which hits you immediately if you’re unacclimated. But the Colorado park gives you something the other dunes lack - the “Grand“ in its name perfectly reflects the feeling you get when spending time there.
Otherworldly landscapes of New Mexico badlands
Even after learning how hoodoos and similar formations are shaped by nature and time, these “Cracked Eggs” still look too unreal to be natural—as if they belong to another level of wonders.
If there were to be a museum of mountains, it would be here in Badlands National Park. Rolling hills of the Carpathians, sharp razors of Patagonia, and the massive Himalayas—everything is represented here. Various shapes and colors, just reduced in size a few dozen times.
While some entrepreneurs promise to send people to Mars in the near future (apparently because there is not much left to f..k up on this planet), some people just casually travel there…
Here should be some sophisticated text about how gorgeously photogenic my wife is, but hey... you can see it yourself!
Warm pre-sunrise colors gave an extra reddish hue to the already colorful badlands of Death Valley.
One day I will learn to predict which part of the sky will be lit up by the sunset or sunrise in the most beautiful way. Until then, I'll just have to run up and down the hills searching for the best composition and risking breaking my legs.
While I might look so peaceful and balanced on this photo, I might actually be in panic mode, worrying about my tripod being knocked over by a sudden wind blast.
Do you know the best part of an approaching storm in the badlands? Definitely not the chance for incredible light for landscape photography. It’s the fact that sometimes these storms actually bring falling water—which immediately turns the clay-like soil into a slippery mess. After only two previous experiences skating in my life, this was my third. A two-mile hike on a skating rink back to the parking lot.
When you come here for a sunrise and have no doubt why this massive rock is sacred to the Navajos.
An iconic place that has been gaining more and more popularity in recent days.
There were dunes. And there was silence. Daunting silence. Then came the roar from two fighter jets performing their routine exercises in the sky above. Then the planes disappeared and the silence returned. Even louder than before. Then there came the sunset and shadows. And when it got almost dark, there came a cloud of utmost beauty and color I had never seen before… I know those all are totally unrelated. Or maybe...
On the verge of day and night, between clouds and clear sky.
One of the reasons I love photography is the absolutely priceless feeling of utmost balance and completeness that I experience when driving back after evenings like this. It doesn't matter what the final result, picture-wise, will be. What matters is the experience I've been lucky to live through.
The dry and hot conditions of Death Valley can sometimes result in a spontaneous combustion effect.
One doesn’t often have a chance to feel like a saint. Unless it’s gliding on a surface of a many-mile wide but just two-inch deep lake. What typically is vast salt flats of the lowest point in the North America, recently turned into ephemeral lake due to the unprecedented rainfall in the park the past 6 months. Previously it happened almost 20 years ago. Nobody knew how long it would last this time. The Death Valley is undoubtedly full of life. The quintessence of its fleeting aspect.
Photography as a hobby is a mini version of my life. It doesn’t make much sense; I'm just desperately trying to get as much beauty out of it as I can. And even though it often feels like a competition, there is actually nothing and no one to compete with.
After photographing this waterfall many times before, I was eager to capture it in a different way.
Probably my favorite spot in Ricketts Glen State Park. I often feel that confluences—whether of big rivers or small creeks—carry a special energy in the air.
A very classic view in Ricketts Glen State Park. Even the painful realization that it wasn’t unique didn’t stop me from taking the shot.
One of the most popular waterfall of Shenandoah National Park.
Likely the most popular waterfall in Shenandoah National Park with an easy 0.5-mile hike access. Multiple streams, levels, and cascades create opportunities for a variety of compositions. Of course, only if you manage to beat the crowd (I mean by arriving early, not by using a tripod as a weapon).
It is somewhat ironic that possibly the most photogenic waterfall in Shenandoah National Park is not accessible by any trail. Rocky steep terrain, fallen trunks, stinging nettle and prickly underbrush for a mile of bushwalking. Nevertheless, the reward is priceless and all to yourself. Having both ankles not twisted and picking up no ticks would be an absolute bonus too.
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