Where The Land Meets The Ocean

This is a photograph of the coast of County Clare meeting the Atlantic Ocean. The rocks here are part of The Burren, the unique land form of that part of Ireland.

This past week has been tough to find good photographs to post as i have been remiss in my time dedicated to taking photographs. Anyway this weekend I intend to make up for that as I'm going on a Photography Workshop to Owens Valley, in the Eastern Sierra Nevada's. It'll be a weekend of nothing but photography of some of the most beautiful landscapes in this part of the USA.

Tower Bridge

It's been a while since I posted a photograph from the homeland so Tower Bridge gets to be that photograph. I lived in England up to the age of 29 and I had never seen Tower Bridge open and it wasn't like I didn't visit there often. As a kid my mum, dad and grandmother would take us to London to see the sights and the history and to learn about our capital city. As an adult I drove trains into Liverpool St. Station, a 10 minute walk to Tower Bridge which we would do during our longer breaks in London just to kill time and get some exercise. So imagine my surprise as we walked around the Tower of London and heard the warning sirens coming from the bridge. We looked over and the next thing we saw was the bridge begin to open to let a boat through. I didn't get a photograph of the bridge opening but I did get a video and when I've cleaned it up a bit I will post it on here.

Final Destination?

I was sitting here looking at this photograph wondering how to improve it, when the story it was telling just hit me. The photograph is of a switch (points to my British friends) at Rice in South East California.

The story this photograph was telling me was how life is like a train running down a track. As a train comes to a switch it's route to it final destination is being controlled by someone else and that route is generally predefined. In life we come to switches every day, some can be predefined, some take us on a detour but still eventually take us to our destination and the big ones change everything we thought we were heading towards. As we reach those switches in life some are controlled by us, some by others, some by circumstance, but most a combination of all three. So at the point life reaches a switch we have to make a decision, hope it was the right one and make the best of it if it was the wrong direction until we reach the next switch, where we can change to a new final destination.

My First Pano

This is the first panorama photograph that I created so I thought I would put it on here for you all to see. It was created with two HDR photographs that overlap a little bit and then Photoshop combines the two into one image. This is a larger view of Artist's Drive in Death Valley. Hopefully I'll figure out the technique of panoramas a bit more and I'll post some more on here. If you want to see a larger version click on the image.

Ireland Revisited

So I thought it had been a while since I put a photograph from Ireland up. The only problem is I cannot for the life of me remember what this tower was called. All I do know is it's in County Clare and you come across it while driving around The Burren. I probably over emphasized the effects on this photo, but I thought hey it looks cool so what the heck. The funny story was while we were there I was wondering around taking photos and I hear this voice shout my name, I look everywhere and can't see where it's coming from. Then I hear "Up here" and i look up to see Janet has found her way to the top of the tower.

Good Looks & Charm

So if anyone ever wondered where I get my good looks and charm from, today's photo will show you. This is my dad and me in Death Valley, 282ft below sea level. Every year my parents and aunt come over for a vacation and I'm always trying to think of interesting place to take them to, of course all they really want to do is gamble on the penny slots in a casino and shop. Believe it or not my dad just turned 70, I hope I wear that well after 70 years. It feels great to have parents that I get along so well with and that I think raised me the right way. My dad and I used to work together on the railway, he was a Conductor and me the Driver, it was a good working relationship and only once did we ever really have an argument at work and that was over a sandwich! I always try and tell both my mum and dad how grateful I am to have them as my parents, but being a Brit with a Stiff Upper Lip sometimes that's hard, so mum and dad I love you both and thank you both for being my mum and dad.

Father & Son

I was out visiting one of our new radio sites that was under construction when these two pieces of machinery caught my eye. They looked like a father and son sitting there just waiting to do their job. As a kid growing up I was always fascinated by machines such as these, but they never held any fascination like trains did to me and in fact still do. That reminds me I need to go and photograph some more trains!

Night Time Over LA

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the Pet Shop Boys in concert at the Greek Theatre in LA. My mum and dad were here so I asked if they would mind dropping us off and finding something to do for a couple of hours and then picking us up after the show. My dad agreed but wondered what was nearby to visit while they were waiting for us. So after a quick search I discovered that The Greek is at the bottom of a road that leads up to Griffith Observatory on top of one of the hills in Griffith Park. The observatory overlooks Downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood and various other cities that form part of the Los Angeles sprawl. Anyway my parents dropped us off and headed up to take a look and came back with a good report and highly recommended a visit.

This past Saturday it was my time to pay the Observatory a visit, only to discover that Saturday is a crazy day to visit what must be one of LA's most popular tourist attractions for the locals. I wanted to get up there for sunset, but when my friend Mark and I arrived we could not get near the place to park. So being easily defeated we headed down to Hollywood for dinner, we waited a couple of hours and sucessfully managed to park very close by. The photograph above shows the nigthtime view and skyline of Downtown Los Angeles and in the next couple of week I'll make it back up there for some sunset photos.

Artists Palette

I mentioned yesterday that deserts are some of the most colorful places to see, even though my personal thoughts did not see that for a long time. So today I thought I would show you a photograph of one of the most colorful rock formations I have ever seen. This is Artists Palette in Death Valley and you can clearly see how it earns that name. The colors in the rocks are caused by the oxidization of different metals. Click on the image for a larger version.

Yucca Brevifolia

This is a view looking west across Yucca Brevifolia National Park or Joshua Tree National Park as it is really known. The national park gets it's name from the special habitat in the Mojave Desert of Joshua tree (Yucca Brevifolia) which grows there. I used to find deserts pretty boring places, I mean it's just sand and scrub right, but since I've been taking photographs of them I've discovered that they do have a beauty that no other type of view has. The different colors in the rocks and ground and the amazing skies that form above them make for a very beautiful place to see.