A weekend in St. Augustine, FL provided a ton of activity with busy nest building in the rookery at Alligator Farm Zoological Park. A fantastic opportunity to photograph different types of egrets such as the Little Blue Heron above.

The St. Augustine area also offers some wonderful seascapes like the beach at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park with its marvelous green covered rocks.

A drive down the coast south of St. Augustine is Flagler Beach featuring a pier that provides a great graphic counterpoint to the early morning sea and sandy beach.

More images from this trip can be found here.

Charleston, SC in springtime, is the place to be. Wildly popular with photographers, the area offers amazing beauty and color. One of my very favorites places to photograph in this area is Botany Bay in the Edisto Island area. This park has a ‘boneyard’ beach where dead trees stand against the ocean waves, until they are knocked down and wash up on the beach. The compositions are plentiful and the sunrises and sunsets are spectacular.

The image below, of the same tree as the image above, demonstrates the variety of compositions available at Botany Bay.

Charleston also features a number of southern plantations with incredible gardens. The scenes really showcase the south and its tranquil environment. This image below was taken at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, famous for its spring beauty.

More photographs from my recent trip to Charleston are located here.

I returned to the Oregon coast in late February to re-visit Bandon and to photograph around the Brookings area, which I had not visited before. The photo above is from an early morning on Bandon beach where we had great pastel light.

The image below was taken on another morning when I came upon a bright red rock buried in the sand. It’s color stood out among all of the other rocks on the beach.

On the Lone Ranch beach near Brookings, we stayed until well after sunset and I was able to capture this image of the sky reflecting off the beach.

A few more photos from this trip are included here: Oregon

Death Valley is surprising in the variety of color it offers. No matter where you are standing in this National Park, you will be amazed by the landscape. For instance, the sunrise in the image above, over the salt formations of Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below sea level.

Or the sand dunes at Mesquite Flats with their wind blown patterns leading to the mountains in the distance.

The morning sky from Dante’s View is just as spectacular as you look at the ridge lines of the Amargosa Range.

To view more images from my recent trip to Death Valley, click here.

Enjoyed some time along the Oregon coast and got to spend several days at Bandon beach with its fantastic sea stacks. Combine them with a great sunset and you have outstanding photographic opportunities!

Traveling north along the coast, the sandstone formations at Shore Acres State Park are fascinating and very graphic.

I had visited Cape Perpetua and the rock formation know as Thor’s Well about a year ago and had to return. The Pacific waters that fill the well and rush out over the top are dramatic and a ton of fun to shoot.

Click here for more images from Oregon.

I spent a wonderful October weekend in the Smokies of North Carolina with the Piedmont Photo Club during a workshop guided by Jennifer King Photography Workshops. The weather was perfect and the fall color was pretty decent. The early morning landscapes and mountain streams were great fun to photograph.

My trip to California ended on the coast and having the opportunity to once again visit Pfeiffer Beach in the Big Sur area and the arched rock formation that stands just offshore. Waiting for the sun to lower on the horizon, a wonderful orange glow was cast on the rocks along the beach.

My trip ended with a first time visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which turned out to be an exceptional photographic experience. The jellyfish exhibit is truly extraordinary and quite beautiful.