River To The Sky

Sunrise on the river is one of my favorite ways to start the day.  When the water is calm it’s hard to image a more peaceful place.  Approaching the river fills me with a sense of wonder and a profound appreciation of what lies ahead.  Soon I’ll be out there among the herons and geese.

Storm Gathering Over The Rappahannock

My friends I and were on a multiday canoe trip on the Rappahannock River in July.  One evening we rounded a bend in the river to see massive storm clouds building down river.  Fortunately the storm took an alternate course and we were spared scrambling ashore to wait it out.

 

 

Goldfish And Water Lilies

Goldfish and water lilies at the Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond, VA.

Dark Hollow Falls, 50mm Challenge

When my friend and I reached the bottom of Dark Hollow Falls I decide to challenge myself a little.  I switched to a 50mm prime lense, rather than the two zoom lenses I had been using all morning.  My challenge was to only shoot with the prime lense for the rest of our hike.

When we arrived at this spot I immediately found myself frustrated because I couldn’t frame the entire waterfall with a 50mm lense.  It was simply too big and we couldn’t get very far away from it.  Knowing my wide angle zoom would easily frame the scene only made the whole situation more annoying.  Sticking to my self imposed challenge I started looking for different perspectives and ended up with this.  I am absolutely certain I would not have taken this photo if I was using the lense I normally shoot with.

Sometimes forcing yourself to do things differently can lead to different ways of seeing things.

Morning Paper

Passing through Piazza del Campidoglio we saw this man reading his newspaper.  When I returned the next day, he was there again, on the same step, reading his paper.  It struck me as very Roman.  I’m betting if you were to go there on just about any morning he would be perched on these steps enjoying the weather and catching up on the latest news.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Grand

Inside Saint Ignazio’s

If you are ever in Rome I recommend visiting Saint Iganzio’s Church.  From the outside it doesn’t look very exciting but once you walk through the door you will be amazed.  I’m sure some art history buffs will argue but I thought the ceiling was better than the Sistine Chapel’s and there was no waiting in line and no admission.  What you can’t see in the picture is all of the amazing sculpture that decorates both sides of the church.

The lighting in these churches ranges from very dark to extremely bright.  To create this image I had to blend 5 different exposures together.

Click on the image to see a larger version of it.

Via Luigi Petroselli

Long after the sun goes down traffic continues moves along Via Luigi Petroselli in Rome, Italy.

Lamar Valley

Puffy white clouds fill the sky over the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park.

Moon and Trees

A bright, nearly full moon shines in the clear evening sky.

Doyles River Upper Falls

When I reached the upper falls on the Doyles River in Shenandoah National Park, the lighting was horrible.  The foreground and most of the photo above and to the left of the falls were bathed in bright, direct sunlight.  The falls and most of the photo to the right of them were in dark shadow.  So I bracketed like crazy and combined two of the resulting photos to produce this HDR image of the scene.