A second shot of the Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park Utah. While the comp is not that much different, this one is just a few minutes later and does not have the sunburst in the frame, which makes a big difference in how you look at and perceive the photo. Distant details in the canyon become easier to focus on. The outline of the famous 'washerwoman' hoodoo is easy to make out here.

Tags:   Mesa Arch glow sunrise canyonlands grand canyon rock desert Pentax K-3 Utah washerwoman hoodoos sunlight orange Red streaming

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I enjoyed a wonderful Father's Day today, out taking photos with my two amazing daughters. I am so very lucky to have these girls in my life. Unfortunately, we were not actually taking those pictures in Antelope Valley, California as seen here. I took this photo last year on a trip out through California/Nevada during the superbloom of 2019 (not to be confused with the superbummer of 2020). I loved the beautiful sunrise colors and the blazing field carpeted in wild poppies, but I sort of missed the mark on composition a little bit and I always felt like the picture needed something extra. So today I added the extra 😊 - I photoshopped in the two horses. I needed the horseback photos shot from a certain angle to line up with the path here, and I needed to get the right shade so as to try to match the light as best I could, thus a little photo shoot project was born today.

I'm no photoshop wiz, and I generally avoid adding things to images but I have nothing against it if it makes for a more compelling image. In this case, I think it definitely benefits. Regardless it was good practice for my photoshop skills and always nice to be out at the barn with my girls. They are riding my youngest daughter's horse, Dreamy, each taking turns, so there are actually two Dreamys in this image (thus two "dreams" in the title), but I gave them slightly different coloration. Dreamy is a Thoroughbred ex-race horse courtesy of the Retired Racehorse Project. Thoroughbreds are wonderful athletes and they can live happy and successful lives in second careers once their racing careers are done.

Being a parent is immensely challenging, frustrating, exhausting, exhilarating and rewarding all at the same time. It is actually hard to remember what life was like before children. One curious effect of parenthood I have noticed is that all the guessing about other possible lives becomes meaningless. Before I had children I would sometimes wonder if I should've made different life decisions, gone to different schools, lived in different countries, taken different jobs, what have you. How might life have turned out differently? Once my children were born, those doubts faded in to trivial curiosities. No amount of money, fame, or success would count a penny against the riches that my girls have brought to my life. The only dream I need is the one I have.

Tags:   Lancaster California United States of America Antelope Valley wild poppy flowers superbloom horses thoroughbred sunrise horseback riding Pentax K-1 Pentax 70-200mm sky matthews photography Dreamy OTTB

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I was browsing through some older shots and came across this photo from Beacon Ridge along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. It was an unusual morning in that the clouds almost completely obscured the sun, except for a couple of glorious minutes at sunrise. It was also a lesson in timing for me. I had started a very long exposure just before the sunrise to get some cloud streaking and a little color in the cloud. As the sun broke over the horizon, it caught a little gap in the cloud and the sky lit up spectacularly for a few short seconds. While I caught the sunrise, the LE caused the sun to appear less substantial than usual, kind of translucent, and I missed a lot of the better color in the cloud. After some time away from it, it doesn't look as bad as I originally thought, and the sunburst is rather unusual because of the LE.

Tags:   Blue Ridge Parkway mountains North Carolina long exposure fall leaves sun star sunburst red rocks sunrise clouds Pentax K-3

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A monochrome version of Horseshoe Bend. I posted a color horseshoe bend pic a couple of weeks ago. This is not an identical comp, it was taken from a different (and less precarious) perch that provided a bit more angle on the river.

I keep thinking I am coming to the end of the postable photos from my New Years trip to Nevada/Utah/Arizona with friends Kevin Benedict and Josh Krasner, but then I keep finding "one more thing" that I like enough to work on. Sometimes monochrome shots reveal detail and beauty in landscapes that appeal greatly to me. I particularly liked the "oily" look of the water in this picture. The monochrome also lends a sense of the timelessness of this classic western US landscape.

Tags:   Horseshoe Bend monochrome black and white Arizona Colorado River snow rock Grand Canyon Page AZ Lake Powell Pentax K-3 Pentax 12-24mm

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Well it's been a while since I've had much to post, but the next few shots I have to post I'm probably as excited about as I've ever been. I recently had the good fortune to get invited on a corporate outing to the island of Maui in Hawaii. My girls had a horse show that same weekend and my incredibly understanding wife let me take off anyway, so I invited fellow photographer Kevin Benedict along. Kevin had the brilliant suggestion that we set out a day early and visit the lava fields of Kilauea. I have always found lava photos to be extraordinarily fascinating so the more I thought about it the more this seemed like something that *had* to be done. As we researched the idea, we discovered that Bruce Omori of Extreme Exposure was world renowned and the obvious choice to lead our inaugural lava expedition.

Bruce told us that the flows are only accessibly by helicopter at the moment, but we were hooked on the idea by then, so helicopter it was! Bruce arranged a dawn outing with Paradise Helicopters on a "doors off" ride low over the lava fields. We found several live flows on the fields and I shot off over 800 shots in an hour. I was quite surprised that in spite of having a new lenses (Pentax 24-70mm and 150-450mm) and shooting from a moving helicopter I was able to come away with some decent ones.

What struck me about my photos afterward is just how many "faces" and imaginary creatures I saw in these formations. So, I decided I will make a little fantastical lava creature series. It was actually quite difficult to pick the first shot, but this one was perhaps the most dramatic with something that looked to me like a giant flaming claw emerging from the blackness.

I have a whole back story to tell on the camera I *should* have been shooting with, but to keep this from becoming a novel, let's just say I had my trusty Pentax K-3ii with me.

Tags:   Lava Hawaii Big Island Kilauea Volcano helicopter Bruce Omori Extreme Exposure Paradise Helicopters Pentax K-3ii K3ii rock fire eruption flow Pu'u 'O'o Kilauea National Park Pentax 24-70mm

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