Land

Calla Lilies

Since I had seen images of the Calla Lilies in this little gully I had wanted to see it for myself and to photograph this spot. So, in mid-March this year I drove for 6 hours throughout the night to be at this well-known Big Sur location for sunrise. The lilies only bloom for a limited time and I had already heard that that it was near the end of the bloom. So when I arrived at location in complete darkness, checked out that I was at the right spot and wandered down a narrow path avoiding all the poison ivy around I was initially very pleased to have no other one person around. The whole place for myself!! However, when I was looking for a nice composition, I noticed that a lot of plants had been bent, trampled down and were just in a very sad state. Since the roads had been very wet and previous days had been windy, I wasn't sure if the plants were just shredded by the strong winds, rushing stream in the gully or through human activity. Carefully wondering around with my tripod, trying not to slip and break off even more plants, I found this one composition which I am very happy with. I mounted my brand new 11-24mm super wide angle lens and captured this at 11mm! It was the only composition that provided a nice looking flower arrangement. I stayed throughout the whole day around Big Sur to also shoot the location at sunset, but when I came back in the afternoon the whole place was like a zoo. There were masses of people around: photographers jostling for positions, heaps of people posing selfies in front of the flowers, families with kids and dogs running around pretty much carelessly and it was no longer a surprise to me that the whole plants and vegetation were in the sad state. I watched for about 15 minutes without ever taking my gear out, walked back to the car and started the 6hr drive home before sunset arrived. There have been a lot of discussions in the past how some of the spots have become so popular and overcrowded and maybe what impact we have as photographers showing off these locations (to the public). I have been thinking a lot about this issue and if we as photographers should ‘share’ every place or just keep some secret – I haven’t come to a conclusion.

Waves of Sand

My good buddy Ryan Buchanan and I met a few weeks back in Death Valley National Park for an awesome photo weekend. It was my second time in Death Valley, so there was still plenty to explore, in particular my favorite area - the dunes! We had used the late afternoon to scout a number of compositions, I had settled on this one, Ryan was a few dunes further north. Waiting for the light I had decided to compliment the composition with the 'famous' sunstar generated by the Canon 16-35, one of my favorite lenses. 10 months ago I had dropped it out my camera bag while on a trip in Glacier National Park and it snapped right of the camera in half, heavily missed for the remainder of the trip. Luckily the excellent crew at Canon brought it back o life, so I could produce this image. It still seems to work alright!! I hope you enjoy!

Hexagon

Badwater Basin is such a vast spot with plenty of exploration required. During the first afternoon of my visit I ventured out what I thought was plenty of time before sunset, but it turned out not sufficient. As the sky turned into the most amazing sunset colors, I still hadn't found my ideal composition. Badwater Basin was slightly flooded with surface levels of water and it was something I hadn't expected and had a hard time of integrating into my foreground compositions. In hindsight, I was probably too set on a preconceived idea.

Seljalandsfoss Sunset

My only sunset image with a sun in the frame during my first visit to Iceland in 2016. Camping within walking distance to this waterfall was a special experience. One of my favorite places to roam around at midnight!

Dunes Delight II

An abstract image of the Mesquite dune field in Death Valley National Park, California, USA

Watercrossing at Waipio Walley

The Waipio Valley is often referred to as the "Valley of the Kings" because it was once the home to many of the rulers of Hawaii. The valley has both historical and cultural importance to the Hawaiian people.

At the Edge

A selfie during the midnight sunset at Dettifoss waterfall. Unfortunately this moment didn't last very long as fog came rolling up the waterfall from further downstream. I enjoyed it very much though.

The Red Carpet

After a 3hr walk throughout the night, we finally spotted some small lava flows in the Volcano National Park. Hope you like it.

Gush

Midnight at Dettifoss

Aspendell Zig-Zag

I loved this view on the side of the road to North Lake/Lake Sabrina - nature provides the best compositions.

Glacial Flow

When I visited the Vik area on my first trip to Iceland this June, I was pretty disappointed about the windy and rainy weather conditions that prevented me from taking classical scenes such as the Vik church amongst the blooming Lupine fields. Also Dyrhólaey lighthouse and coast and Reynisfjara beach were a complete wipeout. Based on the recommendation at the Tourist info, we decided to stay for the night on a campsite just outside of Vik – it turned out that this campsite was a 45min drive through glacial plains into the mountains to an area called Pakgil. After heavy rainfalls throughout the night, it finally briefly stopped in the morning and allowed us for a short stroll. I came across this little river and shot this image handheld. I researched the area a little bit later on and it would have been awesome to do more hiking there – that’s for next time.

S-Curve

This was my first visit to this overlook near the Torrey Pines golf course in San Diego. I was just there to scout the area a bit and was not really intending to stay for sunset as the forecast was kind of average. I had visited a friend before and left too late, so I didn't have much time for scouting around, but I set up my tripod at this spot and was delighted when the soft light at sunset produced a nice glow on these sandy badlands. I hope I can go back there soon to finish my scouting.

Desert Icecream

Slowly I am processing my images from my trip through the SW of USA. I absolutely loved the deserts of the SW and had a great time in Death Valley. Shooting the Mesquite Flat sand dunes was lots of fun even if it was quite exhausting to climb dune after dune to find the perfect one!

Ancient River Canyon

I was lucky to be spoiled by a wonderful sunrise in this ancient river canyon in Iceland. A couple of days before this capture, I waded through the stream to find some cool perspectives from the ground, only to return to these fantastic conditions a few days later. Best of all, I was able to greet this new day just being by myself - that's the way I like it!

Trillium Lake

This was one of the great locations that I visited for the first time during my stopover in Portland/Oregon on my way to Glacier National Park in Montana. I had seen many fantastic images by Tula Top of this place, so I really wanted to see this myself - and no it didn't disappoint at all. Such a great location that I want to visit again, ideally to camp at the lake for a couple of days..... Enjoy!

Prague at Dusk

View over Prague from the Hanavský pavilon

Morning Mist

Recently I visited Yosemite National Park to scout a few locations for future winter trips. I took me only several hours to get annoyed with the masses of people, so I searched for lesser (at least for me) known locations to find peace and solitude (I know I shouldn't expect this at YNP). I stopped at this creek, stumbled over a number of rocks and - in addition to fresh bear poop - found this vista. I returned back the next morning to photograph the scene in better conditions. There was also more fresh bear poop, but thankfully no critter was spotted during image capture. Unfortunately, while turning my polarizer to reduce some of the glare, it dropped off the lens and fell into the stream and was never to be seen again.

The Guardians of Skogafoss

How many troll faces do you see in the cliff faces? According to legend, the first Viking settler in the area, Þrasi Þórólfsson, buried a treasure in a cave behind the Skogafoss waterfall. The legend continues that locals found the chest years later, but were only able to grasp the ring on the side of the chest before it disappeared again. The ring was allegedly given to the local church.

Swiftcurrent Falls

One of my first images from this summer's trip to Glacier National Park with a fantastic bunch of people. Our trip was severely hampered by the wildfires that were in the park with the spectacular 'Going to the Sun Road' partially closed. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun and still came back with great images. I took this one at Swiftcurrent Falls, perching onto a rocky ledge to get the best composition of the falls that I could get. All around me were signs of grizzly activity, so with one eye I was also looking for a big guy to come and push me off the edge - thankfully that never happened!!

Seljalandsfoss Sunset

Last month I traveled the first time to Iceland and spent 14 days there to see the icons and not so famous places of this fantastic island. Unfortunately the weather was not very kind to me and this sunset at Seljalandsfoss would turn out to be only spectacular sunset in the whole two weeks I was there - maybe I was always at the wrong place at the wrong time? Nevertheless I enjoyed Iceland immensely and my favorite spot was Seljalandsfoss. Camping within walking distance to this waterfall was a special experience. From a technical perspective, the spray at this waterfall was a huge problem, especially as I shot this image ultra-wide with my 11-24mm - having a 186mm large Wonderpana filter on it, catches spray within seconds and required constant cleaning.

Pele's Flow

This photo was taken during a 3 day photo tour with Tom and Bruce from Extreme Exposure on the Big Island of Hawaii. We started our trip to the lava fields at 1.30am and hiked for several hours over the rocks so we could shoot the lava at sunrise. However, since the Japan earthquake, the lava flow has slowed down enormously (you could stay it has nearly stopped) and therfore we had to really search for lava breakouts. When we finally found a spot I was lucky to frame this one - often the heat haze makes the rock appear not sharp and also the rock could be start moving and expelling lava.

Cracked Earth

A year ago fellow photographer David Thompson told me that I would likely be able to find mudcracks at this location in Death Valley. After shooting sunrise at a different location I scouted this area and found a number of good spots. A year later, I dedicated sunrise at this location and searched in twilight to see if the mudcracks were still there. I found this location and looked for a nice looking one in the direction of the sunrise. This is taken with an ultrawide angle lens, so I am only a few centimeters away from these mudcracks. I hope you enjoy.

Sunset at Horseshoe Bend

During my visit to the Grand Canyon National Park last Thanksgiving, I did a day trip to shoot some slot canyons near Page and on my return journey I decided to stop by at Horseshoe Bend for the first time and to shoot sunset there. During this holiday period the location of course was like a zoo! I have usually no issues of standing close to the cliff edge, but with hundreds of people around I was really worried that someone with a selfie-stick would accidentally bump me of the edge. So while I placed my tripod literally inches away from the edge, myself I stood quite 2+feet away and used the remote shutter cable to take the images. This is taken with an ultrawide angle lens to allow me to capture the whole scene! This composition is of course pretty standard for this location, but the sunset turned out to be quite cool!!!