Spring Flowers

Hello All,

Ahh, spring. I love this time of year. I have forgotten in the past how much I enjoy this time of year and this year, I promised myself I would go out and shoot for the fun of it. So I did. I took time for myself to go and enjoy the fruits of mother nature and it has filled my heart.
Here is a sample of the images I shot over the past month...
I hope you too take time to go and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us here in the mountains this time of year.

Be Well...




Tulips


King Solomon


Grass with Dew


Green Field


Texture Study


Perspective Shift


Bamboo Trio


Reaching for the Sky


Singular Strength


Great and Small


Light Study 01


Light Study 02


Old Soul


Green Morning


Land of imagination

Georgia Aquarium

I got a chance to visit the Georgia Aquarium while I was in Atlanta recently, and I highly recommend it to anyone of any age. The sheer size and and scope of the aquatic life and the tanks that they live in simply amazing. They have 4 Nurse Sharks, 4 Beluga whales, Hammerhead Sharks, Electric eels and my favorite (visually) Sea Nettle Jellyfish, to name a few. I spent four hours in the Aquarium wandering around in awe at all the beautiful aquatic life they have on display. Bringing a camera is fine, as long as you don't use a flash. I shot with my 24-105 mm f4 wide open at 800 iso and wished I had brought my 16-35mm 2.8 for the speed and the wider view to greater show the scope and size of the tanks. The picture with the little girl spinning, and the little boy with the fish right in front of him were taken in front of the largest tank they have, which is made of 24 inch thick plexi-glass weighing 220 tons, brought in in sections. Amazingly, the plexi provides no distortion, so the fish are viewed at their real size through the tank walls. The tank is 33 feet deep and 280 feet long, and holds 2.8 million gallons of sea water. Cool stuff!

Blue Ridge Parkway

My buddy Andy and I made it up to Grandfather Mountain and to the Linville Viaduct about a week ago and I grabbed this shot. I got very lucky and had one car coming and one car going while I had the shutter open. I like the detail in the railing supports that the headlights from the car moving away from me provided a lot. It is a heck of a perch to sit on and shoot from, you have to balance on the top of a very small, very steep rock outcropping to get the right angle. Hope you enjoy it.

Pacific Nortwest

I love where I live...Asheville is a special, beautiful place....that being said, if I had to move, it would be to the Pacific Northwest. Washington, Oregon, everything I have seen in that part of the country continues to amaze me. Chris is from Redmond, Wa. and gave me quite to tour. We went through Leavenworth Wa. which is a small Alpine / German village at the base of the Cascade mountains. Lots of great beer and brats....and from what Chris tells me one of the most stunning Christmas celebrations around. It's pretty wild to come off a 2 lane highway and all of a sudden there is this German village in the middle of these monster peaks, every building there has to be built according to the Apline village code, including the McDonalds and the Bank of America.




Outside Leavenworth, we followed the Icicle river over the Cascades back into Seattle on Rte 2. What a road! It creeps along the river until it crests the peak of the Cascade range and drops back into Seattle. Along the way we stopped at Desolation Waterfall and got some great shots that represent the Pacific Northwest really well. The forests are so lush and green, the cedar tress are really spectacular, and what I noticed as one of the main differences, and a fact that Chris explained to me, is the cleanliness of the forest floor. The needles from the Cedars and other evergreens are so rich in acid, that they dissolve everything that lands on the forest floor so quickly that the forest floor is really clear of clutter and debris like we have here.








I have been slowly working on a series of images that I feel are quiet and Zen like. Images that make you slow down and relax when you look at them. Images that almost force you to be quiet and still. At Desolation Waterfall Chris and I found some spots to capture images like that. These images have had only minor corrections done to them, the colors and light are straight out of the camera. Enjoy... (you can single click on these images to view them individually in a separate window)

Back From Missoula

I have returned from a hot 12 days traveling around Montana with my friend Chris. We spent two days in Yellowstone, 2 days in Seattle and the remainder in Missoula.
The two days spent in Yellowstone was less than optimal, it rained pretty much non stop for both days. It did stop once, long enough for us to think that it was done raining, and to go for a 5 mile hike. However, it started raining again (raining in Biblical proportions) about half way through, and we had the unique pleasure of hiking the rest of the way with all of our camera gear in ankle deep water. Nothing spells excitement like coming out of the woods into a large field carrying a tripod in a lightning storm. We did not get to see as much wildlife as we would have wanted to due to the rain, but the bison are always nice enough to pose for a couple of candid shots.