Back in the last week of March, I spent nearly a week doing photography in the Charleston, South Carolina area.  There is a variety of subjects to take pictures of along the South Carolina coast. These range anywhere from historical plantations, cemeteries and old style street photography to landscapes of the swamps and beaches.  I joined with a couple of photography workshops hosted by Richard Bernabe and Tony Sweet.  

Below is an image close to sunrise from Edisto Beach.  

Edisto Beach Folly Beach Pier

This picture is from below the pier at Folly Beach.  

The Charleston area was affected by Hurricane Matthew back in October. Even though it weakened to a category 1 hurricane, it still had enough high surf and storm surge to wipe out the "boneyard" trees that were located on Edisto Island.   Therefore, we had to take a ferry to Bull Island, which still contains some of these boneyard trees.  What is a Boneyard Beach?  Simply put, a Boneyard beach is a maritime forest the is being eroded into the ocean.  Over time, the Atlantic ocean eats into the forest, stripping away its soil and killing the trees.  This creates a unique environment that is part forest, part swamp and part ocean.  It creates some eerily beautiful scenes. 

Bull Island Boneyard Bonyard Tree Sunstar

Away from the shores are many stately Live Oak trees.  One particularly large live oak tree is called Angel Oak.  It is believed to be the largest oak tree that exists.  It stands over 66 feet tall, measures 28 feet in circumference, and produces shade that covers 17,200 square feet. Its longest branch distance is 187 feet in length.  Here, I was lying on the ground and pointing an infrared camera up toward the many branches of Angel Oak.  

Angel Oak Infrared

One of the highlights of visiting the Charleston area are the beautiful plantations.  One of the most photogenic is the Tomotley Planation between Charleston and Hilton Head.  The earliest known date of existence goes all the way back to 1698!   The avenue of Oaks are believed to be planted around 1820.  

Tomotley Plantation

One of the biggest tourist attractions in Charleston is a visit to Magnolia Gardens.  It is a scenic place of live oak trees, former plantations, swamps and wildlife.  

Here I was able experiment with some "swipe photography" to make some impressionistic photographs that look like paintings.  Some will think that Photoshop was involved, but all it takes a camera, a tripod and the right technique on how you move the camera while it is exposing the picture. After that, you just have to start out experimenting.  Some will look good, many will not.  In this image of the trees in the swamp, first I placed the camera on a tripod.  Then I tilt the camera down as I am taking the picture. In this example, it was a 1 second exposure.  The pink and blue colors on the trees is a unique form of lichen.  

Swamp Swipe  

Magnolia Gardens also has numerous wildlife opportunities, including birds and alligators.  I was particularly enjoying taking pictures of the gators...at least from a safe distance.   

The above image was using a 400mm zoom lens, while the image below of the baby gator was at 340mm.  

Back in October, I spent some time in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona.  The photographic possibilities are almost endless in this special place of the country.  For nearly a week, I was based out the small town of Boulder, Utah for a workshop with James Kay.  What I love about Utah is the wide variety of landscapes that can be photographed there.  Anything from colorful aspen forests in the higher elevations to red rock sandstone deserts in the lower elevations.   

I was there in mid October when most of the aspen trees had lost most of their colorful leaves, but the fresh leaves on the ground made for pretty forest scenes focused on the ground.   

Balancing Rock

The sun was often shining for my visit to Southern Utah.  With the sun highlighting the forms and textures of the landscape, it can also make for interesting black and white photography.  However, the colorful landscapes can't be ignored either.  Although the aspen trees in the mountains had already lost their leaves, the cottonwoods still had plenty of their yellow leaves.   Cottonwood Curves

I love the "S" curve to the cottonwoods lining this creek!  One of the highlights of this week was getting different perspectives of the largest waterfall in Utah, Calf Creek Falls. We hiked the 3-mile one way hiking trail that goes to the bottom of the waterfall.  Like the picture below in the upper left, most people see the waterfall from this prospective.  Like me, James likes to photograph scenes that are off the beaten path and get different perspectives.  In the picture in the upper right, you can get a unique perspective the waterfall reflected in a pool of water off to the side.  

  Calf Creek Falls Pool at Calf Creek Falls

                                    Calf Creek Falls from above  

Many of the places we walked to were considered to be "off trail".  We hiked down from the highway and blazed our own trail down the sandstone slopes to get a birds eye view of the falls from the rim of the canyon.  We also hiked along a little used primitive trail and made numerous stream crossings to get Calf Creek just above the 200+ foot tall waterfall.  Here, there were nice intimate landscapes of the cascades and pools of water.  

Calf Creek Yellow Leaf

After the conclusion of the photo workshop, it was time for me to join up with Alex Noriega for a camping trip at a place called "White Pocket" in northern Arizona.  White Pocket is a hard to place that is only accessible by high clearance vehicles with the ability to drive on deep sand.  Once there, it is a strange landscape of oddly shaped white and red rocks.  

Brain Rock

It has the feeling of what it could be like on Mars. This rock seen above is known as "The Brain".   You can also see it in the distance in one of the pictures down below.  Our group also had a fun time doing some light painting on the rocks with the Milky Way here.  As you can see, I was fortunate to time the alignment of the Milky Way, a single tree and a long singular crack in the rock!  

White Pocket      Milky Way at the White Pocket

It was time for another trip to California.  So much to explore and such a varied state!  This was my third trip to Death Valley National Park in the last 3 years and it was probably my most productive trip so far. As I approached Death Valley while driving from Las Vegas, one thing that was a little different this time was the amount of snow on the mountains.

A winter storm brought widespread rain to California and a blanket of snow to elevations above 4,000 feet nearly a couple of weeks before my arrival.  Snow still remained on the mountains and as well as some puddles of water in the lowest basins.  

This time I joined David Kingham and Jennifer Renwick.  They are a nice couple to hang out with and great hosts for their photography outings.  This was their "Extreme Death Valley" trip, which involved more walking than most photography tours. One day involved a total of 9 miles of walking!  There was camping each night, some in very remote locations where we were by ourselves. Our first night was near Ibex Dunes, one of the more remote sand dunes of the park. Even thought the light and sky were not that great, the dunes were peaceful in part because we were only ones there.  Well, except for this beetle. It turns out that you can see life in the sand dunes.  

Bigger sand dunes were to come at Eureka Dunes, which are the tallest dunes in California and the second tallest in North America.  Here, the light on the dunes and colors in the sky were better.  This might be my favorite place in the park.  We also visited the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, where several movies have been filmed, including "Star Wars". 

Water at Death Valley Mesquite Dune Ripples

At first glance, the desert seems desolate and static.  However, it is an ever-changing environment that depends on the winds that blow and the rains that fall. The shifting sands make for new scenes each visit to the same place.  Cycles of droughts and floods can alter the landscape here, too. Recent winter storms have brought rains to Badwater Basin. The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of "bad water" and accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name. After rain collects on the salt deposits, repeated freeze–thaw and evaporation cycles gradually push the thin salt crust into polygonal honeycomb shapes.

Salt Polygons at Death Valley

At Death Valley, even the mud can be beautiful.  These were the deepest mud cracks that I have ever seen.  Some cracks were even as deep as a few inches...so deep that I was worried about dropping my lens cap into them! Thanks to David for scouting these locations that contained the fantastic polygons and mud cracks before I arrived!  

Death Valley Mud Cracks

Now on to Yosemite...

You have probably heard in the news that California has been receiving a lot rain this winter with higher elevation snow.  This was very evident as I drove up the Merced River Valley leading up to Yosemite National Park.  The river was swift and higher than it would be normally. Numerous waterfalls were pouring off the side drainages. Before I even entered in the park, I could tell that I would be seeing Yosemite in rare form.  

I joined up with Gary Hart, who led our 4-day photography workshop. Gary has been coming to Yosemite since the 70's and told us that he was seeing waterfalls where he had never seen them before. A special treat for us was that the waterfalls that are usually there were flowing in their full glory. On the left is the base of Bridal Veil Falls and the right picture is Yosemite Falls. 

  Yosemite Falls

The wet conditions this winter not only made for great waterfall pictures, but also created water in places that usually aren't filled with water. With the Merced River recently flooding, some fields had standing water that would normally be just grass and dirt.  These field conditions made for great reflections of Half Dome. 

Half Dome Reflections

The weather was completely overcast for my first 3 days in Yosemite, with about 24 hours of almost non-stop rain. On the final day, the sun was shining all day and the air was still which made for great reflections as you can see.  With the flooded fields in the valley, it created for this especially unique picture of Yosemite Falls (complete with a rainbow!) from Cooks Meadow as well as river reflection of the rock formation known as El Capitan.  

  El Capitan Reflections

With the waterfalls flowing and the sky now clear, it made for a good evening to see the "firefall" known as Horsetail Falls.  It is a stream of water pouring off the side of El Capitan.  For about 2 weeks in February, the last light of the day shines directly on the waterfall. If the sky is clear on the western horizon at sunset, you can see the color of the waterfall evolve from golden to red before the sun completely sets.  Although I was there on February 11th, this phenomenon peaks around the 3rd week of February.  Even though I was there a little before the peak, I was fortunate to be there on an evening when the sky was perfectly clear. 

Horsetail Falls (aka Firefall)