1 - Stonehenge Star Trails
95 two minute exposures (f5.6 @ iso 400) stacked to give 3-hours startrails above Stonehenge in Wiltshire.
The orange glow is from the local Army barracks and demonstrates that light pollution can be enhancing as well as irritating.
This is my first successful UK star trails since I was bitten by the night photography bug with Jim Goldstein in Death Valley and hope to do many more in 2012.
20% Waxing Crescent Moon (After Moonset)
29-OCT-2011
2 - Milky Way over Death Valley
180 night sky panorama of the Milky Way arching over the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, taken during Jim Goldstein's Death Valley Photo Tour in October. Panorama stitched from 13-images. The night sky in Death Valley is a sight to behold and you can't help but come away with a passion for night photography. Add it to you bucket list.
3 - Seven Sisters Moon Rise
XG9M19879 - Moon rising over The Seven Sisters - April 2011
20-JUL-2011
4 - Niagara Falls Panorama
In July, my wife and I spent an evening at the Horseshoe Falls. We arrived late in the day with the sun already getting low creating this most wonderful rainbow archway for the maid on her way to the falls. I'm sure this has been done a thousand times before, but it was a really magical moment for us. Handheld panorama
28-OCT-2011
5 - Zig Zag
XG9M22649 - A little different than the usual Racetrack Playa photo, and I may be the only person who loves the way the low angle sun really highlights the zig-zag path that these three stones have carved as they exactly mirror each others movements across the playa.
30-OCT-2011
6 - Purple Haze
XG9M22970 - I have been to Badwater a number of times, but never before at Sunset. We had to walk out about 1-mile before we found the classic salt formations and they were in really great condition. As the Sun dipped below the distant mountains, the salt lake first turned a brilliant white, and then this fantastic purple colour. The strangest thing, is that everyone else had deserted the place leaving this fantastic sight to our small photography group. I do wonder how many people who visited Badwater that day went away disappointed because the didn't venture out far enough to find the good salt, or because the light was too harsh when they were out there.
27-OCT-2011
7 - The Racetrack
XG9M22111 - A more traditional view from the racetrack playa. Some of these stones are huge, and even though I have read the science, in practice it is really difficult to imagine the circumstances under which such large lumps of rock actually glide across the playa.
8 - Bluebells
XG9M19842 - We get fantastic bluebell woods in the UK, but the timing to get good pictures has to be precise. It is a time of intense growth in the forest and there is only a matter of days between the bluebells opening, that the other forest plants taking over. I went back to this exact spot only 2-days later by when the growth in the ferns was already starting to break through the purple carpet and the additional growth in the tree leaves had totally destroyed the light.
25-OCT-2011
9 - Old Moon
XG9M21912 - What better way to get over jet-lag than to watch dawn at the "Valley of Fire" State Park, Nevada, and the last moon rise of the cycle.
26-OCT-2011
10 - The Wave - Black & White
S100_000094 - The weather for my day at "The Wave" was grey and miserable, but it did produce some fantastic close up pictures that show every detail and texture in the rock.
Here is a fun time-lapse video I shot whilst at The Wave, Coyote Buttes North permit area in Utah. It shows all the photographers over a period of 4-hours
http://bit.ly/unqw6b