Zion National Park is one of the great natural treasures of the Southwest. Majestic mountains, red rock walls, graphic sandstone hillsides, deep canyons, the Virgin River, colorful Cottonwood trees, Bighorn Sheep, Mule deer and more are all here. The view above is found at the end of the Canyon Overlook trail, a 1.1 mile hike with 163 feet of elevation gain to the overlook at 5300 feet. Our photography workshop group set out on this trail in darkness, well before sunrise, so that we could capture the view in the best light.

In the bottom of the canyon runs the Virgin River, which created the canyon by carrying away thousands of feet of rock over the centuries. The Cottonwood trees, the river water, the red rock cliffs come together to produce a beautiful landscape.

The Virgin River is also the location of Zion’s most famous hiking trail, The Narrows. A hike in the river itself between towering canyon walls. The image below is the very beginning of the hike traveling upstream.

Our journey to Iceland this year was nothing short of incredible. The weather was perfect and actually untypical for Iceland as we saw little rain during our stay there. However there was no shortage of fantastic skies as this sunset over the lava field waterfalls called Hraunfossar, demonstrate.

The sunrise sky over the Atlantic ocean lights up the pieces of glacial ice and adds reflective color on the black sand beach along the southeastern coast of Iceland.

The most incredible skies were at night, where we enjoyed the great fortune of fantastic displays of the northern lights for several days. The most brilliant light shows I have ever witnessed.

Despite all of the color we experienced, I thought a black and white image of a black church we came across on the western coast of Iceland, provided the appropriate atmosphere for an Iceland scene.

August is harvest time in the Palouse area of eastern Washington. It’s also a dry and hot time. While in the area for our JKPW workshop, we saw the evidence of several fields of wheat on fire. In the image above, you can see the red in the sky from the flames in one field.

The fires did not deter us from finding images of the fantastic landscape that the rolling hills of the Palouse offers. This view from Steptoe Butte shows off the fields of lines and patterns, and the dusty conditions.

We were lucky to come across a nice field of sunflowers, still in bloom, right off the highway.

We also had a marvelous sunrise which filled the sky with color at the site of the ‘Palouse Country’ barn.

Early August is a great time to visit Glacier National Park along the northern border of Montana. The Going-to-the-Sun road has been cleared of last winter’s snowfall and you have full access to the entire park. One of my favorite spots is at the water’s edge of Two Medicine Lake during sunrise.

A lot of wildlife was in view on this trip, especially bears. I lost count of the number of grizzly bears seen but one of the most striking of the bears was this golden mantled black bear with a white chest.

In addition to a great number of bear sightings, this was my first opportunity (after several visits) to photograph mountain goats up close.

Of course, the equally impressive landscape of Glacier is a photographer’s paradise with majestic mountains and cascading waterfalls.

I spent the longest days of the year (at least the longest amount of daylight…) in Grand Teton National Park where the weather was beautiful, the scenery spectacular and the wildlife was taking it easy. The early sunrise provided us a colorful sky over the famous mountain range at Jackson Lake.

Our Jennifer King Photography Workshops group also traveled to the Idaho side of the Teton range where farmlands stretch for miles and where horse ranches populate the area.

The hot summer weather kept the wildlife laying low in the park but there were still plenty of animals to see and photograph. A female moose rests with her calf, a silver fox observes the photographers and a curious ground squirrel looks for a new food source.

I recently returned from our Tuscany Experience photo workshop which was shared with a great group of photographers and for many of them, their first visit to Italy. Tuscany did not disappoint with the hospitality of the people, the fantastic food and the light and landscape providing beautiful views.

The weather also gave us dramatic skies and after a hard rain one afternoon, this incredible double rainbow which seemed to form directly over the famous Cappella di Vitaleta sitting on a distant hillside.

The Tuscan sun also competed for the ‘best landscape’ category with this early morning view from the hilltop town of Montalcino.

It wasn’t very hard to find wonderful subjects to photograph, from vineyards surrounded by colorful flowers, to local intimate town scenes, to the wheat fields around the famous group of cypress trees called the Torrenieri Trees….Tuscany gave everyone photographs to cherish for a lifetime.