Naturescapes

Leaning Away

Visiting tulip fields is aboud admiring the the rows and rows of neatly planted tulips, in all shades from brilliant whites to deep purple. But not all end up blooming successfully, and add a bit of variety to the monotony of the parallel lines of tulips

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm
OR USA

Spring of Flowers

Springs in California were spent driving around to various parts of the golden state to seek the colorful blooms of wildflowers. Hills, brown and dry during the summer and fall, transform in February to a verdant English landscape, and play host some of the largest varieties of wildflowers. Resplendent blooms of the california poppy, pygmy lupines, fiddlenecks, asters, daisies and many others carpet the sunlit slopes of the Sierra foothills. I am yet to witness such a transformation in any other part of the country.

Table Mountain Ecological Reserve
CA USA

A Fallen Rose

From above, the tulip fields were geometrical patterns of straight lines of different colors: yellows, blues, whites, pinks and reds. Coupled with assortments of an agricultural life, these patterns were interesting to photograph.
But down below, the compositions and scenes were strikingly different. Gone were the patterns where details were lost. Instead, I tried to focus on the minutiae, and on the uncommon occurrence.

Woodburn
OR USA

First light in the glades

As the pre-dawn light was slowly whisked away by the rising sun, the sounds of the forest began to rise up: the chorus of crickets, the cacophony of storks and ibises, the shrieks of ospreys and the chatter of woodpeckers. Photos can do justice to the range of light, but never to the diversity of sounds.

Everglades National Parks

FL USA

Golden Gardens

Fall is still a month away, and yet I can't stop thinking about the hiking through the golden wall of larches that are pervasive in the drier parts of the Pacific Northwest. I found this grand forest of larches hiking in one of these areas, growing in profuse abundance around a deep blue alpine lake. I reveled in every step in this golden forest, admiring the bright yellows adorning the white bark of the conifers.

Will this year be just as good? Only time will tell.

Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest
WA USA

Rising above the fog

More often than not, when I am heading out to shoot, I have a place and time in mind that has been carefully planned for, taking into consideration the weather, smoke, light and landscape. And that constitutes a majority of what I shoot. And then I have others that I shoot by happenstance - I just happen to be at the right place at the right time.

This morning, as I was heading back after a long night of shooting, I noticed a river valley completely enveloped in ground-level fog, reducing visibility to a few hundred feet. I ventured a bit more cautiously, hoping to get out of the thick fog. But as the sun came up, this fog started to glow with an inner fire, and I knew I had to shoot it. Around me was the everyday workings of a rural farm: barns, tractors and a few cornfields. As I scouted for locations, I came upon a little rise in the road where the fog, now below me, was spreading through woods and catching the morning light. That scene matched an image I had had in my repertoire of a classic sunrise over a foggy Napa Valley, and while not the same, made me stop to catch the light.

Whatcom County
WA USA

The Lonely Tree

A twisted ash, a ragged fir,
A silver birch with leaves astir.

Men talk of forests broad and deep
Where summer-long the shadows sleep.

Though I love forests deep and wide,
The lone tree on the bare hillside,

The brave wind-bitten lonely tree
Is rooted in the heart of me —

A twisted ash, a ragged fir,
A silver birch with leaves astir.

- Wilfred Gibson

Theodore Roosevelt National Park
ND USA