Favorites from 2018

I was very much blessed this year with the opportunity to visit some amazing places, including two “trips of a lifetime” with my wife. I had the chance to spend time in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt along with making a few day trips to Yosemite (my local national park).

This left me with an overabundance of images to choose from for my annual list of favorites. I wanted to include images from a variety of the places I visited, so some photographs I really like have been left on the cutting room floor. Such is life. So here are my choices, presented in the order they were taken.

Vermilion Sunrise – Banff National Park, Canada

It is always a treat when you can combine the most intense sunrise I think I’ve ever seen with a beautiful location like the Canadian Rockies. This was from a cold January morning in Banff and the color just exploded behind Mt. Rundle.

Wanaka Tree Twilight – Wanaka, New Zealand

We spent a week in New Zealand in March, the first time I’ve visited this beautiful country. Our hotel was just a five minute drive from this iconic tree growing near the shoreline of Lake Wanaka, so of course I had to check it out at sunset on our first night. The sunset was just OK, but the colors got much more intense as we got into twilight. A long exposure smoothed out the lake.

Lake Matheson Sunset – Westland Tai Poutini National Park, New Zealand

Lake Matheson is known for its mirror reflections of Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Tasman on New Zealand’s South Island. There is a really nice hike around the lake with several spots to enjoy the view. This was taken at the Reflection Island viewpoint and the location is well named. It was also mobbed with people. Fortunately I like to shoot low when photographing reflections so I was able to set up under someone else’s tripod. The sunset light on the peaks along with the wispy clouds made this image stand out for me.

Half Dome Color – Yosemite National Park, California

I made a few trips to Yosemite in the spring and summer, but one standout was this sunset from Glacier Point in the spring. We had some thunderstorms that day and the clouds and light were changing rapidly. We decided to shoot sunset at Glacier Point before doing some star shots and the view that evening was wonderful. The hardest part was deciding which composition to include as my favorite. I’m going with this tight shot of half dome because it really emphasizes the light on the dome and an in the clouds. But I could change my mind tomorrow…

Crack to the Stars – Davenport, California

There are a lot of nice photogenic subjects near the town of Davenport just up the coast from Santa Cruz. This crack where a small creek runs into the Pacific Ocean is a fun one. There are great rock formations on both sides and the surf creates some nice action in the crack itself. I’d envisioned lining the Milky Way up with the end of the crack for a couple of years and finally got all of the conditions right this fall. So here is the obligatory Milky Way entrant into my annual list of favorites.

Half Dome Merced Autumn – Yosemite National Park, California

I was a little early for the peak of fall color at this location, but there was enough to add some interest to the trees in the scene. There had been some clouds in the sky earlier that afternoon, but they moved out of the way for sunset. With an empty sky I looked for a nice foreground and decided that these leaves framed the scene well. I used a polarizing filter to cut some of the glare from the water so you could see the bottom in the foreground, but not so much that it would weaken the reflection. Some nice pink alpenglow on Half Dome completed the scene.

Jerusalem Temple Mount – Jerusalem, Israel

In December we took our second “trip of a lifetime” of the year – this time covering Israel, Jordan and Egypt. This trip combined several of my passions including Christianity, history, different cultures, art, and even a little bit of nature. Having a chance to stand before some of mankind’s most famous creations was amazing. We were with a tour in Israel, which makes shooting challenging. I got up early one morning and walked into Old Jerusalem for sunrise while everyone else was sleeping and/or eating breakfast. I had wanted a wider scene, but a construction crane was in the way. In some ways that helped as this composition focuses more tightly on the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall with some nice light in the background.

Siq and Treasury – Petra, Jordan

After our Israel tour we knew we needed to see Petra – a 2000 year old city carved into the rocks in Jordan and made famous in the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. The Al-Khazneh or “Treasury” is the most famous structure in Petra but is somewhat difficult to photograph. The area in front of it isn’t large and tends to be crowded. I decided to frame it through the exit of the Siq, which is the slot canyon leading into the site. Shooting this late in the day with a narrow view removed most of the distractions and a little Photoshop work took care of the rest.

Great Pyramids – Giza, Egypt

What visit to the historical sites in the Middle East would be complete without paying homage to the Great Pyramids in Giza? Not this one! We arrived in Cairo early in the morning and went straight to Giza. We were rewarded with some really nice light and sparse crowds. I took many photographs, but this one stands out to me with the light on the pyramids along with the city of Cairo showing through the haze on the right.

Chicago Skyline – Chicago, Illinois

Our family spent Christmas in Chicago, a city I’d never had a chance to visit before. On Christmas day we did some exploring and were greeted with empty streets and a beautiful day. I wanted to shoot the skyline at sunset so we found a spot along Lake Michigan and enjoyed the evening. This is a 5-shot panorama taken about half an hour after sunset, allowing the sky to get dark enough for the lights to really shine.

I hope you all have had a great year and will have an even better one in 2019. Feel free to comment with your favorites!

Bonus – Cape Disappointment Lighthouse – Ilwaco, Washington

I meant to include this in the original list when I published it, but frankly forgot. I’m not sure what I would have removed to include it anyway so I’m going to cheat and call it the bonus image in my top 10 list. While in Ilwaco for a family reunion I talked my dad into hiking to the lighthouse with me, hoping to capture something cool with the stars. I tried several compositions but when I saw this image on the back of my camera I knew that this was the shot.