During my last long road trip, I visited Tucson, Arizona for a few days. During my visit, I captured some architectural abstracts while walking around the downtown area.

To take this photograph of the New York Life Insurance building, I had to keep moving back away from the building in order to remove some of the distortion that results from tilting the lens up. I wanted the lines to be as straight as possible in my in camera image. Before I knew it, I was standing well within the property of the Tucson Police Department.

A police officer saw me setting up my tripod and asked me what I was photographing. From where we were standing, the subject of my photograph wasn't at all obvious. I showed him the Live View image on the back of my camera. It was going to take me about 5 minutes to precisely line everything up before taking the final picture. He said that he would stand with my until I was done shooting--otherwise I would likely get hassled by other police officers to get off the property.

Once I finished taking this picture, the police officer left to begin his patrol.

Although one of my photographs has appeared on the cover of Rand McNally's 2017 road atlas all year, I just discovered that today! This morning, it was brought to my attention that my Bass Harbor Lighthouse photograph is on the cover. I captured this picture in Maine during my 2015 road trip through the northeastern section of the United States.

Rand McNally purchased this image through a stock agency. The stock agency doesn't disclose the buyer of the images to me--which is why it often take a long time before I happen to see, if ever, how my pictures are being used.

Here's my photograph:

The road atlas is being sold through Amazon for $13.46. I think I'll be ordering one!

While in Las Vegas during my last long road trip, I visited the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. Since Frank Gehry is the architect, I knew this would be an interesting building to photograph.

Before sunset, I captured some abstracts of the structure. Here's one of those images:

Lou Ruvo CenterLou Ruvo Center for Brain Health at 888 W Bonneville Avenue in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 5, 2017 But, my main reason for visiting was to capture this building at night. At night, red lights illuminate the interior and shine through the windows. Or, at least I hoped the interior would get lit.

I arrived at the Brain Center about 30 minutes before sunset, scouted the various compositions and then set up for my first pictures. To my surprise, the building remained dark after the sun went down. Since I was there on a Saturday night, my concern was that the building might not get lit on weekends when the Center is closed.

After another five minutes or so, the lights suddenly went on. In my view, the red lights make a world of difference in these photographs.

Lou Ruvo CenterLou Ruvo Center for Brain Health at 888 W Bonneville Avenue in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 5, 2017 Lou Ruvo CenterLou Ruvo Center for Brain Health at 888 W Bonneville Avenue in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 4, 2017 Lou Ruvo CenterLou Ruvo Center for Brain Health at 888 W Bonneville Avenue in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 4, 2017 While killing time waiting for the sun to set, I "checked in" to the Ruvo Brain Center on my Facebook page--as I often update my Facebook with my current location while on a photography road trip. Before long, some concerned friends left me messages asking if everything was OK!

I shared some of my Brain Center photographs on various photography forums. A common response was that anyone who looks at this building long enough will soon require the services of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brian Health! 

I placed an order for the Nikon D850 camera on the morning it was announced (August 24, 2017). I'm anxious to get the D850 for the following reasons:

1. I'm currently shooting with just one camera. I really need a backup, but don't want to buy a backup since I would like my existing D800 to take that role. I feel like I've been rolling the dice too much lately taking photography trips with just the one camera. Going to Iceland this winter without a backup is not going to be an option!
2. I don't expect the images to look a whole different between the D800 and D850. But, I think it will be a bit easier to capture some of the images with the D850. I sold my D700 a while back...and really miss the higher frame rate for sports. The D850 will enable me to shoot youth sports with more keepers again.
3. I'm hoping the D850 will have a quieter shutter as I shoot inside churches a lot.
4. A more flexible LCD screen will help me when I'm laying on the floor under my tripod trying to line up shots of ceilings!
5. I find it challenging to zoom in to focus manually with Live View with my D800. It's my understanding that the resolution is much better on the new screen...and that will make life a little easier.
6. I often shoot wide to create straight lines (requiring cropping) in architectural images. The extra megapixels will provide extra cropping capability.
7. I will enjoy ISO 64 as a base...I shoot a lot of longer exposures.
8. I find the focus stacking feature of the D850 to be intriguing.

Those are the main reasons...but there is no bigger reason than needing the backup!

For those of you who track such things, I placed my order at 8:00am Central Time on August 24th through B&H Photo. I have no idea where I stand on the waiting list...just hoping to get my camera by the holidays!

During my last long road trip through the western portion of the United States, I visited Tucson for a few days. While in Tucson, I enjoyed photographing the Barrio Viejo neighborhood. The old neighborhood features many very colorful homes. It's a photographer's paradise.

One house in particular was super colorful with bright turquoise walls and a red door. I timed my visit for what I hoped would be the best lighting. As soon as I had everything set up and was about to start taking pictures, the owner of the house arrived and started to park her car between me and the house. She noticed that I was taking pictures, so she offered to park down the street instead--but only if I would carry her groceries into the house from her car! She was just returning from shopping at Costco.

I agreed to this offer and went on to photograph the house, as well as several other houses in the neighborhood, for quite some time. To view my photographs from Barrio Viejo, please CLICK HERE.

Here are a few from the turquoise house:

Barrio ViejoBarrio Viejo near 915 S Meyer Avenue in Tucson, Arizona on August 8, 2017

Barrio ViejoBarrio Viejo near 915 S Meyer Avenue in Tucson, Arizona on August 8, 2017

Barrio ViejoBarrio Viejo near 915 S Meyer Avenue in Tucson, Arizona on August 8, 2017 Barrio ViejoBarrio Viejo near 915 S Meyer Avenue in Tucson, Arizona on August 8, 2017

This morning, my "Palouse Hills" picture won Imaging Resource's "Photo of the Day". CLICK HERE to view Imaging Resource's Photo of the Day page.

This is the first picture from my "Great Western USA Loop" road trip to be recognized with a Photo of the Day. Until just a few years ago, I had never heard about the Palouse. While planning for this long road trip, I was looking for an interesting location to visit between Spokane and Crater Lake National Park. I decided to stay in Colfax, Washington to photograph the Palouse region of eastern Washington. During my stay in Colfax, I drove to the summit of Steptoe Butte three times--twice for sunset and once for sunrise. The haze from the local forest fires diminished my results from the two sunset photo shoots. But, luck prevailed for a few minutes just after sunrise one morning--and I was fortunate enough to create one of my favorite images of the trip.

This marks the 45th time that one of my photographs was recognized by Imaging Resource as its "Photo of the Day". Click here to view all of the winning entries over the past few years.

Palouse HillsImaging Resource's Photo of the Day for October 8, 2017.

This photo won Second Place for the month of October.

Nearly every time I return from a trip, I'm asked about which lenses I used to capture the images. At the end of a trip, I like to look at the distribution of shots by lens. Here's how it looked for my most recent "Great Western Loop Road Trip":

I used just one camera for the entire trip--the Nikon D800. More than 75% of my photographs were captured with one of Nikon's "Holy Trinity" of lenses--the 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200. Before leaving on this trip, I upgraded my Nikon 70-200 VR lens to the most current version. I was so impressed with the quality of this lens that I am now considering upgrading my Nikon 24-70 as well!

Initially, I wasn't going to pack the massive Nikon 500 VR for this trip. I didn't expect for that lens to get much use. But, I'm glad I decided to bring it. In the end, I used the lens to capture 88 photographs--and they were some of my favorite pictures of the trip. It came in handy for some wildlife images as well as landscape pictures (particularly from the summit of the Steptoe Butte in eastern Washington). Here are a few of the 500mm images from this trip:

Steptoe ButteThe Palouse from the summit of Steptoe Butte in Steptoe Butte State Park near Colfax, Washington on July 25, 2017 Snow Leopard KittenSnow Leopard kitten at the Triple D Game Farm at 190 Drake Drive in Kalispell, Montana on July 21, 2017 Sea lionSea lion at La Jolla Cove at 1100 Coast Blvd in La Jolla, California on August 2, 2017

During my last road trip, I stopped for a couple of nights in El Paso, Texas. I'm always looking for a good vantage point for a cityscape--and the Scenic Drive Overlook certainly provided that.

El PasoEl Paso skyline from the Scenic Drive Overlook in El Paso, Texas on August 10, 2017 This scene was captured at f/8...but I blended in an exposure at f/22 to create the starbursts. If I had selected f/22 for the entire scene, I would have lost sharpness due to diffraction. So, I only used f/22 for the street lights by blending them in using the "Lighten" blending mode in Photoshop. This way, I was able to get the best of both apertures in a single frame!