Tag: Iceberg Lake

Moab, Arches, Canyonlands & Bears Ears

As I have every year since 2011, I spent a few weeks in Moab, Utah, exploring the photographer’s paradise that is Southeast Utah.  We are really lucky to own vacation rental property in Moab,  so that has become a second artistic home for me, typically in the off-season.  In January I made a brief foray into the newly formed, and more recently endangered, Bears Ears National Monument.  I have only begun to briefly scratch the surface of the thousands of natural and cultural wonders to be found within the boundaries of the Monument, and look forward to exploring more in the years to come.

The president has issued an order abolishing two of our most cherished public land areas: Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, potentially exposing 2 million acres of unique wilderness, and 10’s of thousands of cultural sites to drilling and mining.  I have created a Endangered Monuments Gallery.   It highlight some of the beautiful historical and natural resources that are now endangered by losing protection as National Monuments. I promise to donate 25% of all sales from this gallery to Utah Diné Bikéyah or the Natural Resources Defense Council, to support legal challenges in defense of these unique areas.

Underwater and Overwater photography in Roatán, Honduras

I got to make my first open water dive, and played a bit with some underwater photography on our April trip to West Bay Beach on the island of Roatán, Honduras.  Unlike its larger cousin in Australia, the coral reef off Roatán is alive and well, and full of marine life!

I captured this photo from a platform on a cliff above the reef.  I was originally shooting wide angled shots of the extensive reef and turquoise waters, but when I looks at screen, I noticed a dark shadow that moved from one photo to the next!  Sure enough, there was a school of Blue Tang swimming nearby, so I quickly swapped my lens for a telephoto and captured the shot above.  The swirls of refracted light in the water remind me of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  Plus it’s a photo of Dorys!

National Parks Grand Tour Camping Trip

This was a trip I had been dreaming about and planning for many years.   This summer we packed up our camper-trailer and drove West from NY on a long summer camping trip to the Mountain West.   We visited 5 national parks in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, 4 of which were new to me!  We first camped at Many Glacier Campground in Glacier National Park, where we had camped in a tent 10 years earlier.  This time the mid-June snowpack kept me from hiking to some of the higher elevation places I had hiked to before, like Grinnell Glacier, but the waterfalls were glorious in their Spring melt, and I managed 9 or 10 hikes in 8 days, the last of which was an awesome ranger-led hike to Iceberg Lake, which was just beginning to thaw (right).

Right Place, Fourth Try

Occasionally as a photographer you get lucky – right place, right time.  Most of the time it takes careful planning, some amount of luck, and often a certain amount of stubbornness.   In our 8 days in Glacier, I visited various parts of Swiftcurrent Lake four different evenings to shoot the sunset.  Each of the first three afternoons, the clouds looked to be setting up nicely for a lovely evening, only to have the sun sink behind a think bank of clouds that filled in over the mountains to the West.  Finally, on a windy and bitterly cold evening, I parked my tripod on the deck of the Many Glacier Hotel, and captured the image below

Magic in Yellowstone

While I don’t necessarily recommend visiting Yellowstone for July 4th week, nonetheless I experienced some serious Yellowstone magic on my first visit (the trick was to get up early to beat the crowds!)  I have never seen so much wildlife: bison, pronghorn, elk, ospreys, even a lone wolf.  The wildlife was outdone only by the natural wonders of Yellowstone: geysers, huge waterfalls with rainbows more predictable than the geysers, and a seemingly infinite variation of thermal water features.  My favorite was the Grand Prismatic Spring.  Ever changing in colors and moods, it was truly one of the most vibrant things I have witnessed in nature.

Autumn Color in Four States

It was a challenging Autumn for photographers.  A weirdly cool stretch in late August followed by a hot September played havoc with the trees.  It was not the best fall foliage season.  Nonetheless, I was able to capture some interesting fall color shots, on a foggy mountain lake in the Catskills, on the Little River outside Stowe, Vermont, surrounding waterfalls near Highlands, NC, and in Neon Canyon in Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument in Utah.

Antelope Canyon Swirls of Light and Stone

To be honest, I had been avoiding Antelope Canyon.  We’ve all seen the vivid shots in magazines and coffee table books – breathtaking.  I had visited other slot canyons, and loved the experience and got some great shot.   I had buyers come into my art fair booth to request Antelope Canyon.  So why my reticence?  I had heard stories and read accounts about how overcrowded and dusty Upper Antelope Canyon could be, with herds of tourists in the narrow canyon.  I envisioned huddling over my tripod in the dark, trying to protect my gear from dust, and rushing to get a shot off before the next wave of tourist came around the corner.  Well, I am glad I finally went, and I am sure I will visit many more times in the future.  Our guide on the photo tour did a fantastic job of keeping the crowds away, and pointing out the changing light, and I came away with several keeper images that I imagine will be nest sellers at future festivals.  Only two images made the best of 2017 list, but there easily could be five.  Truly a wonder of the natural world.  Just, wow!

I could go on and on about each of these 40 photos.  I will go into more detail about some of these images and adventures in blog post to come, but let’s get to the exciting part – the sale!

Please Leave Me Feedback!

As I try to figure out which of these Best photos of 2017 images might be most interesting to my buyers in the coming year, it is crucial that I get some feedback from my fans and fellow photographers.  I would love to hear from you, either by leaving comments here on the blog, leaving comments on the website page of your favorite photo, or on my Facebook or Instagram feeds, where you will find most of these images from post over the past year.

I hope you enjoy your trip through my 2017 that was.

Colin