Exploring A Special Swamp Note: All of the images in this post were made before the New Jersey closed the parks and state forests. One of the most unusual features of the New Jersey Pine Barrens are the swamps. Atlantic White Cedar swamps in particular. These are dark and wet places. Being in one is like entering a timeless, eerie and mystical [...]
Big Sur California We first visited Big Sur California in 2012 and recently made a second trip there. More than one person I know emphatically states that Big Sur is the most beautiful place in the world. I'll just let the images speak for themselves. Usually these posts have an instructional element to them, but with this one it felt better to [...]
Do No Harm With Your Photography Lancaster County in Pennsylvania is known for its Amish and Mennonite religious sects. The Amish are a closed sect that shun the modern trappings of life and choose to live without electricity and the machinery driven by it. They farm with horses and travel in horse drawn buggies which makes them particularly attractive to photographers. But, [...]
I know this is a photography blog but recently a problem on a trip to Lake Tahoe opened the door to an amazing experience.
Here are some recent photographs of Spring in the New Jersey Pinelands.
Preserving the Black Run Preserve with a Controlled Burn When a crew of New Jersey Forest Service Firefighters show up at the 1200 acre Black Run Preserve in the Pine Barrens, you'd think they were there to fight a fire, not start one. However, that was what they were there to do. Fire in the Pine Barrens is part of the natural [...]
What many sunset peepers don't realize is that the show is just starting as the sun dips below the horizon. The afterglow, also called alpenglow, caused by the sun reflecting from below the horizon can be even more intense than the actual sunset.
Journey Into Night at Ryan Ranch Our recent trip back to Joshua Tree National Park was a great time to explore the night. Thanks to some handy jetlag, I was wide awake at 3:30am and hiked to the ruins of Ryan Ranch. The moonlight was bright enough to make wearing a headlamp unnecessary. Ryan Ranch was built by JD Ryan who ran [...]
Fall in the New Jersey Pine Barrens is always a great, but it was exceptional this year. Landscape photographer Richard Lewis spent 3 weeks out photographing the changing colors of fall in the Pinelands.
When the fog lifts (even partially), one can see that these rugged beaches are a small but significant part of the almost million acre Olympic National Park.
A Northeast Vision Of The Pacific Northwest - Part 1 Artistic vision is an interesting thing. It's like your personality, no matter where you go, you take it with you. This became obvious when we headed to the State of Washington recently to check out the great Pacific Northwest. Being comfortable with your vision can help you help adapt to a landscape like [...]
See How To Help Preserve The Pinelands With Your Photography Of all the seasons to be photographing the New Jersey Pinelands, summer can be the most challenging. It's not just the heat or the bugs, the landscape also changes drastically and may not look the same as it does in the other seasons. Plus the long days mean waking up early for [...]
The Judges Shack Revisited New Jersey excels at many things including great places to photograph a moonrise and quirky little gems of history. Those two things came together on a cold winter night along the windswept New Jersey shoreline of Island Beach State Park. The Judge's Shack, located in the park, is always interesting to photograph. When the January Super Moon rose [...]
For the Love of Lava While there are many reasons to visit Hawaii, for me it was the lava. As someone who often gets a lot of peace out of the quiet, settled natural landscape of New Jersey, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that it was formed thousands of years ago by some powerful and violent forces of [...]
More Adventures In A Great National Park HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! The previous post about our fourth trip to Joshua Tree National Park challenged landscape photographers to think differently in places that they photograph on a regular basis. Here is another little project that resulted from this challenge. Light Painting For me the purpose of night photography is to portray the solemn [...]
Seeing Differently in Black and White. On our fourth trip to Joshua Tree National Park and I wanted to try something different, but wasn't sure what. So I decided to let the Park show me the way. The challenge to every photographer is keeping inspired by a place you return to many times. Whether you photograph frequently in your own locale, or [...]