Red Rock Canyon at night

I shot this image on the same night as the Milky Way photo. It was a moonless night and we wanted to get more than just a silhouetted mountain, so we needed a light source. First, we tried to paint the canyon with a 2 million candlepower flashlight, but that was providing far too concentrated light. Covering the flashlight with a white t-shirt and diffusing the light did the trick.

Haleakalā ("house of the sun")

When my brother visits the US with his family, the first destination is usually Hawaii. This time around, I decided to join his vacation on the island of Maui. We took a day trip to the Haleakala volcano. After a 2 hour drive through fog and clouds, we reached the 10,023 ft (3,055 m) peak. Luckily, there was a break in the clouds over the volcano and I got the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Milky Way from the Red Rock Canyon State Park

I randomly decided that I wanted to go photograph the ghost town of Bodie, CA. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the time to go that far this weekend. Instead, we decided to explore a ghost town in Southern California which turned out to be a few destroyed structures far from being spectacular. I scanned the map to see if there was anything in the vicinity that would be worth visiting and found this small state park. Something about it gave me hope that we'd be able to make the 120 mile trek worthwhile. When we arrived, the sun was setting, so we only got a few shots. We decided to get some dinner and return to the canyon after dark and experiment with some night photography. I was amazed at the fact that we could actually see the milky way. After about 3 hours, here's what I came up with.

It's a big World

It appears that I've only covered 6% of the world. Looking at all the green, it feels like it should be more :-/

Ocotillo

The ocotillo plant can be found in the southwestern US and northern Mexico. It looks like a bunch of prickly dry sticks, but when examined closely, it appears to be quite green. Some uses of the plant are for live fences, walking sticks and even fencing. The last one seems odd :-/

Kiss

I took an amphibious bus tour in Santa Barbara. It was fun watching our bus drive right into the water and sail off shore. We sailed for a bit until we came across a buoy with some sea lions on it. I'm not quite sure if these two were fighting or kissing, but it was fun to watch their interactions :)