February is a great time of year to visit Death Valley National Park in CA. The temperatures are pleasant and this year, February rains created a temporary lake on the salt flat which provided a nice sunset reflection.

You can also have some windy days here which help to shape the sand dunes and coverup the footprints of previous visitors. These dunes are at Mesquite Flat.

The trip this year included a ride out to The Racetrak, where the formerly ‘mysterious’ rocks sail across the playa (thanks to ice sheets) leaving trails on the dry lake bed floor.

Once place where is it usually very windy is up on Dante’s View, some 5,000 feet above the floor of Death Valley. From this vantage point you can see just about the entire length of Death Valley and its amazing salt flats, photographed just before sunrise.

Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah is one of those places you have to lay your eyes on, because it is almost unbelievable. The color in the rocks and if you are lucky, the color in the morning sky, is amazing.

The incredible number of spires, hoodoos, formed by erosion are the most found anywhere in the world in one location. It is a mind-boggling landscape.

There are a number of trails that take you down into and around these wonderful rock features, through areas like the aptly-named, Fairyland.

The photographic opportunities are endless but I have to say, photographs may not do justice to the magical quality of this place.

I had an opportunity to travel to Zion National Park in late October and photograph some of the iconic features of the park. The highlight of a visit to Zion for many people is the hike into “The Narrows”, a walk in, and along, the Virgin river as is runs through a slot canyon. It’s exciting and great fun to photograph here.

Zion also features a lot of slickrock which can be very graphic and dramatic to capture in an image. You just have to be aware of the angle of light to get the best definition in the rock.

If you are fortunate enough, you can spot Bighorn sheep in the slickrock area of the park.

Probably the most popular photo spot in Zion is the sunset view of the rock formation called “The Watchman”. The light on its face as the sun sets is beautiful.

Our 2015 Iceland workshop was bestowed with wonderful weather, a delightful group of people, and the always incredible landscapes that make this place a photographer’s paradise. For example, take the image above of the often visited and photographed Seljalandsfoss waterfall, this was my first opportunity to see a sunset there and it was spectacular.

The early morning view of the ice on this southern coast beach was just as wonderful.

It is mesmerizing to watch the large (and small) chunks of ice that have broken off the nearby glacier, move slowly through the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon on their way to the sea. Their shapes and stripes are always varied and changing.

Another morning on the black sand beach offered a different view of the ice as fog diffused the sunlight above.

Of course, the highlight of a fall trip to Iceland has to be the opportunity to see the northern lights and we were very fortunate to have clear skies and an active aurora during our trip. If you haven’t seen the northern lights in person, it is one of those spectacles that is literally jaw-dropping and I wholeheartedly recommend that you make the effort to see them yourself. I like this image below because the “Big Dipper” makes an appearance in the center of the sky over the Jökulsárlón lagoon.

Our 2016 Iceland workshop will be held Sep. 24 – Oct. 2. Click here for more information.

More Iceland images here.

Our Bodie and Mono Lake workshop was a great success. We had wonderful skies and special after-hours access to the Bodie ghost town which included going into the old buildings and stamp mill which are normally closed to the public.

The image above was at Mono Lake where large limestone structures, called tufas, stand around the lake as well as in the lake. As Mono Lake’s water level lowered over the years, the tufas became exposed.

The photograph below is in the area of the South Tufas and a little different view than normally seen. There were some very nice, soft grass mounds near the lakeside which contrasted with the hard, sharp tufa structures.

Our after-hours access to Bodie allowed for night sky photography using the abandoned town buildings. The star trail below shows the old town church that still stands. The church windows were lit by a flash. This star trail represents about an hour of time.

In the morning, we had access to the inside of just about any building we wanted to enter. The surviving stamp mill at Bodie is largely intact from its operational days. The picture below shows the machinery that crushed the ore from the mines. They say when these machines were in operation, you had a hard time carrying on a conversation in town due to the noise level.

Usually, mid to late August means summertime flowers covering the landscape in Mount Rainier National Park. This year however, summertime arrived about 8 weeks early and the flowers of summer have mostly departed the fields…mostly. There were still some blooms to be found but not only were there a few summer flowers hanging on, but the colors of an early fall have started appearing.

Both the remaining summer flowers and a little of the early color of fall are captured in the photograph above, taken during a glorious morning at one of the Reflection Lakes. The air was crisp and the fog was rolling through the woods and over the lake.

Fog was a major component of my recent trip to Mount Rainier. It dominated the views and continually changed the landscape.

While fog and clouds obscured the sun, it presented a great opportunity to photograph the streams and waterfalls in the park. Nice, even lighting is perfect for compositions that include running water.

Hiking the trails of the Paradise area of Mount Rainier is a good test of your physical conditioning and it provides breath-taking scenery such as this sunset along the Tatoosh mountain range with the yellows and reds of fall starting to appear on the landscape.

One last sunset image taken at the edge of Tipsoo Lake which sits on the eastern edge of Mount Rainier National Park.