Lightscapes Nature Photography Blog

Posted by: kerryl29 | April 6, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Two Jack Lake at Sunrise

On my second trip to the Canadian Rockies–in September, 2015–I flew into Calgary on the evening of the 15th, stayed there that night, and then drove toward the town of Banff early the following morning. One of the things I did that day was scout a number of locations around Banff town–something I hadn’t done on my previous visit–before driving to the Lake Louise area, where I was staying for the first week of my two-week trip to the region.

One of the spots I visited that morning–and photographed, even though the good light was just beginning to fade as I arrived–was on the Lake Minnewanka Scenic Drive: Two Jack Lake. I was really impressed with the location, and–even though it waas more than a 30-minute drive from where I was staying–I resolved to head back to the location for sunrise later in the week.

In fact, I came back twice, because on my first return, it was windy, which wreaked havoc with reflections in the lake. (I photographed there on the windy morning anyway, because there was a very nice sunrise.) But on my second sunrise morning at Two Jack Lake, it was dead calm, and I made sure to take advantage of the ideal conditions. There was another top notch sunrise that morning, so there were no “if only it had been calm and a good sky” complaints to be made.

Having had the benefit of two previous sessions at the lake that week, I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I carefully found a spot to take advantage of the scattered protruding foreground rocks in the water, which allowed placement of a tree-filled spit of land in the mid-ground on the right, which–along with the evergreen slope on the left-hand side of the frame–just about perfectly framed Mt. Rundle in the background. The sky was filled with pink clouds this AM and the aforementioned lack of wind made for perfect reflections. It was one of those mornings when it all came together just about perfectly and I had been fortunate to pick this day to get up extra early to be on site.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Two Jack Lake Sunrise, Banff National Park, Alberta

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Posted in Images from Photo Trips, The Story Behind the Image | Tags: Alberta, Canadian Rockies, landscape photography, mt. rundle, nature photography, photography, sunrise, two jack lake

Posted by: kerryl29 | March 31, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Breaking Wave

When I was in Hawaii, in September of 2019, I split my time more or less evenly between the islands of Kauai and Maui. On my second to last day on Maui–the second to last full day of the entire trip–I spent the afternoon investigating a very lightly used trail that emanates from the end of the road in South Maui–the Hoapili Trail.

After about a mile skirting a couple of beaches, the trail twists inland for a bit. Here’s how I described it when I chronicled the trip back in 2020:

“After crossing several beach areas, perhaps a mile into the hike, the trail bends inland and then becomes really obnoxious, footing-wise. The route crosses a seemingly endless field of small, roundish rocks. The footing isn’t so much bad as it is annoying. Imagine walking on nothing but grapefruit-sized rocks for miles. The route splits at some point, with the shorter of the two paths heading off in the direction of a light beacon, perched on a cliff above the water. There was literally not another soul on this stretch of trail, which ran at least an additional mile in length.”

I ended up on a bluff, near a signal beacon, overlooking the ocean. It was a fairly windy spot, with an interesting view of the water below. Waves–large ones, roughly 15-20 feet in height–were repeatedly crashing on the black rocks that made up most of the shallow beach, and directly on the cliff side, in some instances. It was a pretty spectacular sight, and I decided to see if I could capture some of the breaking waves. Photographing the impact on the shoreline was impossible from my perspective–the view was mostly blocked from view, due to the shape of the cliff. So, I focused my attention on the waves that were breaking before they reached the beach.

There’s a lot of uncertainty involved in this kind of photography, at least there is for someone like me who has only attempted it a few times. The waves are, of course, a moving subject, and they don’t break in the same manner, or in the same location (relative to the beach) every time. I took a fair number of images over the 30 minutes (or so) that I spent on the point. The wind was pretty strong, and was creating a great deal of spray atop the breaking waves, which is reflected in the images. I very deliberately was using a fast shutter speed, to freeze the action, rather than blur it. I also decided to convert the image below to black and white, as I felt that the colorless rendition did a better job of conveying the power of the scene.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Breaking Wave Black & White, Hoapili Trail, Ahihi-Kina’u Natural Area Reserve, Maui, Hawaii

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Posted in Images from Photo Trips, The Story Behind the Image | Tags: black & white, hawaii, Hoapili Trail, landscape photography, maui, nature photography, pacific ocean, photography, south maui

Posted by: kerryl29 | March 23, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Bear Rocks Sunrise

I’ve photographed in West Virginia twice. I was in the Canaan Valley area in the first half of October on my first visit, but it was a poor year for color across just about all of the eastern half of North America that year and–as if that wasn’t enough–I was late, as well. The color was bad and it was past peak to boot. Great.

But! I saw more than enough during my parts of three days in the area to recognize that there were all kinds of photographic opportunities, so, I came back–for a full week–the next year. And I was earlier (first week of October), so I was on time. The color was much better. The only thing that wasn’t better, for the first three or four days I was on site, was the weather. It rained–or snowed (because it wasn’t much above freezing most of the time). But I persevered. The wind was light (most of the time) and many of the subjects I was photographing benefited from the soft light that was so prevalent. And then, the weather changed, dramatically. It cleared up, the temperature increased by roughly 40 (F) degrees, and the final three days I was there was like visiting a different world.

One of my favorite places in this part of West Virginia is the Dolly Sods Wilderness, which is part of the Monongahela National Forest. The Wikipedia entry for Dolly Sods describes it as “a rocky, high-altitude plateau with sweeping vistas and lifeforms normally found much farther north in Canada. To the north, the distinctive landscape of “the Sods” is characterized by stunted (“flagged”) trees, wind-carved boulders, heath barrens, grassy meadows created in the last century by logging and fires, and sphagnum bogs that are much older. To the south, a dense cove forest occupies the branched canyon incised by the North Fork of Red Creek.”

One part of Dolly Sods is known as Bear Rocks Preserve. It’s a boulder strewn heath area of blueberry and huckleberry plants, along with stunted and wind-swept conifers, that can be indescribably beautiful, particularly in the fall. The edge of Bear Rocks is an escarpment, and there’s a magnificent view, if–and it’s a big if–the weather cooperates. It’s east(ish) facing, so sunrise is the best time to get up there for the view.

My first two visits to Bear Rocks were met with extremely strong winds (a frequent occurrence at Dolly Sods). My third visit was dead calm…but fogged in. There were some marvelous photo opportunities in the fog, but there was no visible sunrise.

On my fourth, and final, visit to Bear Rocks, it all came together…dead calm, clear and valley fog. The color was magnificent in the heath. The sunrise opportunities were seemingly limitless, and included the image you see below.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Sunrise, Bear Rocks Preserve, Dolly Sods Wilderness, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

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Posted in Images from Photo Trips, The Story Behind the Image | Tags: bear rocks, dolly sods, landscape photography, monongahela national forest, nature photography, photography, west virginia

Posted by: kerryl29 | March 16, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Whaleshead Beach at Sunrise

When I was on a photo trip to the Oregon coast in 2015, one of the things I discovered very early in my time there was that, despite the fact that all of the beaches I visited were west-facing, sunrise was not to be dismissed. That’s somewhat counterintuitive because, after all, the sun rises in the east. But what I discovered–to the extent I didn’t already know it based on previous experience elsewhere–is that, not infrequently, wonderful things can happen facing away from sunrise or sunset.

I had scouted Whaleshead Beach–the southernmost beach at which I photographed during this trip–on my second full day on the Coast. I wandered around the beach midday, without my gear, just to look the scene over. I was sufficiently impressed with what I saw to make a plan to return one morning, which said something, because it was at least a 25-minute drive from my base in Gold Beach and there were a good number of very attractive beach locations that were significantly closer.

Whaleshead has some nice boulders on the beach, some attractive seastacks just offshore, and Whaleshead Creek empties right into the Pacific. I had looked closely enough on my scout to know that I should don my knee-high rubber boots before hitting the sand (in the dark) the morning of my photo shoot. (I’d also taken note that there were a couple of spots on the unpaved driveway to the beach parking area that needed to be very delicately approached due to the size and depth of some of the potholes that might be difficult to see in the dark.)

Based on my scout, I had decided to photograph from the creek first this morning. I approached the creek from the parking area by walking on the dry sand in the rear of the beach. As I’ve said several times previously on this blog, when photographing on beaches (and in sand dunes), one must be careful where one treads, so as not to potentially ruin an otherwise pristine scene by leaving footprints in sandy areas that might be part of a composition. When I reached the creek I actually walked in the water while I found the spot I wanted to set up, to minimize the footprint problem.

It was a clear morning, and as the light came up–with the sun rising behind the trees on the bluff behind me–the earth shadow effect arose in the western sky that would serve as my backdrop. I came across a good-sized rock in the creek–I’d actually first seen it during the scout, so I was actively looking for it–and decided to use it as part of the foreground interest. I placed myself to avoid sea stack mergers, and included a bit of the headland on the right-hand side of the frame.

The scene in front of me made for a very nice start to the morning.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Whaleshead Creek Sunrise, Whaleshead Beach, Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Oregon

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Posted in Images from Photo Trips, The Story Behind the Image | Tags: beach, earth shadow, landscape photography, nature photography, Oregon, pacific ocean, photography, samuel h. boardman state park, sunrise, whaleshead beach

Posted by: kerryl29 | March 9, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Denali Moonrise

On my first trip to Alaska, in 2018, Ellen, Debbie and I spent one evening hoping we’d be able to witness (and photograph) an aurora borealis display in Denali National Park. We were in the park in the evening and, as sunset approached, we decided to simply wait, at a pullout on the paved part of the park road, and see if anything happened after dark.

The post sunset glow, at far north altitudes like that of Denali, can last for a remarkable amount of time, and this evening was one of those instances. It took more than an hour, after the sun set behind the mountains, before the sky became completely dark. (Spoiler alert: we did, in fact, have an epic Northern Lights event that night.) And while we were waiting for full darkness to set in, the moon rose in the east.

When I noticed the moon creeping over a mountain ridge, we’d been sitting in our vehicle for a little while already. Something about the scene–which I could see looking out of the window to my left–spoke to me, and I got out and pulled out my gear: my tripod and, on this occasion, my camera with the 80-400 mm lens attached. The sky was almost completely clear, which would aid us immeasurably when the aurora appeared, but there was a small bank of clouds just visible above the mountain ridge to the east, and the rising moon was playing footsie with those clouds.

I really liked the effect, and zoomed to around 200 mm to frame the scene, focusing, of course, on the moon’s rise. I moved about 200 feet from where we were parked on the deserted park road to capture the moon in a notch in the mountains. I fired off a five-frame exposure bracket, to make sure I could retain some detail in the mountains without blowing out the moon, which was by far the brightest object in the scene.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

The Story Behind the Image: Medicine Lake Sunset

The last time I was in the Canadian Rockies, Ellen, Debbie and I took the time to take the last boat trip of the day to Spirit Island, which is an iconic location in Maligne Lake, in Jasper National Park. The only practical way to see Spirit Island is to get a ticket to take the commercial tour boat that goes there. You can paddle there yourself, but it’s a long way, and you’d need a kayak (or a canoe) to even consider making the trip there, neither of which we had. And, at the time, I’d never been in a kayak (though that is no longer the case).

We were on the last run to Spirit Island on that day, and then, of course, had to make the trip back to the Maligne Lake docking area, get to our vehicle and start the long drive (the better part of an hour) back to the town of Jasper, where we were staying. Roughly halfway back to town, the Maligne Lake Road passes by Medicine Lake, a much smaller body of water than Maligne Lake, but a highly photogenic subject in its own right.

On a previous trip to the Canadian Rockies, I’d discovered that, from the far end of Medicine Lake, in autumn (the time of year we were there), the water level is sufficiently low to create a kind of flood plain, where pools of water are separated by sandy interludes. After sunset, when the lake is light this, the resulting scene can be magical. I mentioned this to Ellen and Debbie–that if we could make it to Medicine Lake in time, it would be worth stopping. There were a couple of places, almost right off the road, where the scene could be nicely photographed.

We did, in fact, make it to Medicine Lake in time, but when we got there, I quickly discovered that the few places along the roadside where the scene could be photographed were no longer viable, as growth, over the period of about a decade, had obscured the view. If we wanted to see–and photograph–what I had mentioned, we would have to follow an informal trail down to a spot with a clear view. And so we did. I think it was worth the time it took and the trouble we went to investigate the scene, as we had a nicer sky than was in place on my previous visit, which provided some additional color to complement the silhouette that naturally flows from the post sunset scene, when ambient light is quite limited. Fortunately, we had headlamps to help us climb out of there and get back to our vehicle without any pratfalls.

I do encourage interested viewers to click on the image below to view a significantly larger version of this image.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Medicine Lake at Sunset, Jasper National Park, Alberta

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Posted in Images from Photo Trips, The Story Behind the Image | Tags: Alberta, Canadian Rockies, jasper national park, landscape photography, maligne lake road, medicine lake, nature photography, photography, sunset

Posted by: kerryl29 | February 23, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Sunset Crater at Dusk

In the late summer of 2012, I flew to Phoenix in preparation for a photo tour of northern Arizona. The tour was to begin at Monument Valley, so I booked a flight the day before and drove to Flagstaff, in preparation to making the drive to Monument Valley the following morning. I had an afternoon and evening in Flagstaff and decided to spend my time checking out Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, which is only about 15 minutes north of the town.

On this weekday evening, the monument was nearly deserted, so I freely drove around and explored some of the trails. It was a very interesting location, and not at all typical of what comes to mind when most people think of Arizona, as this area isn’t desert-like.

Shortly before sunset, I decided to revisit (as I’d already made a quick tour earlier) the Bonito Vista Trail, which is a short hike on a paved trail through the cinder that abuts many of the volcanic craters in the monument. I wasn’t sure that I’d find anything of any great moment, but as the northeast sky turned to pastel colors, I found a very attractive ponderosa pine. Taking care to remain on the trail (as instructed by occasional signage), I placed the tree at the right of the frame and let the sky tell the story of evening’s end.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Dusk, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona

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Posted in Images from Photo Trips | Tags: arizona, landscape photography, nature photography, photography, sunset crater volcano national monument

Posted by: kerryl29 | February 16, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Spruce Creek Viewpoint

11 years ago this coming May, I spent about a week on the southern Oregon coast. I based myself in the small town of Gold Beach and over the course of seven days, photographed at a variety of spots between Brookings, to the south, and Bandon, to the north, a coastal area of roughly 100 miles.

One of the places I stumbled across was Spruce Creek Viewpoint. There are a number of pullouts on the Coast Highway as it runs through Samuel H. Boardman State Park, which is located between Brookings and Pistol River State Park. One afternoon, as I was stopping at most of the various pullouts, I noticed a kind of social trail, emanating on the cliff side of a guard rail that borders the particular pullout I had chosen to explore. The trail–such as it is–is a bunch of tall grass pressed down by footsteps. I stepped over the guard rail on this day–without my photo gear, since I had no idea if this led anywhere interesting–and followed this path for no more than 100 feet down an emankment, where it led to a grassy landing area.

The area held a wonderful view of China Creek Beach, to the south, with a clear view of many sea stacks in the Pacific shallows, the beach itself, several rocky headlands, and a pair of beautiful spruce trees, framing the scene below just about perfectly. Even though it was mid-afternoon, hours before sunset, the light–somewhat diffused by a very thin marine layer–was rather pleasing.

I retraced my steps to grab my camera and tripod and returned to the overlook. I set down the tripod and, with just the camera in hand, found what I considered to be just the right spot to capture the scene, very carefully avoiding critical mergers of the many included elements. This was a vertical image, no doubt in my mind, and I gathered up the tripod, fine-tuned the spot and height, composed the scene just as I wanted it, and made the image you see below.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

China Creek Beach from Spruce Creek Viewpoint, Samuel H. Boardman State Park, Oregon

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Posted in The Story Behind the Image | Tags: china creek beach, landscape photography, nature photography, Oregon, Oregon Coast, pacific ocean, photography, samuel h. boardman state park, spruce creek viewpoint

Posted by: kerryl29 | February 9, 2026

The Story Behind the Image: Snowy Eagle Creek Reservoir

When I lived in Indianapolis, I would occasionally visit Eagle Creek Park, which was all the way on the other side of town. (We lived in the northeast corner of Indy; Eagle Creek Park was on the western edge of Marion County.) One time, I made the drive over to the park the morning after a fairly heavy, wet snowfall.

Much like most locations in the Midwest, there are no iconic photo spots at Eagle Creek Park. It was similar to most of the locations I cut my teeth on photographically; finding compelling images in places like this requires the photographer to really see. It was quite challenging.

Going through the exercise after a snowfall made things both easier and more difficult. How’s that for a paradox? The more difficult part was that the snow covered up many elements, meaning there were fewer subjects to photograph. But that was, ironically, also what made things somewhat easier: if you were willing to look at things a bit differently, a lot of the distractions were removed (i.e. covered by snow), creating image making opportunities that otherwise didn’t exist.

On this day, I followed a snow-covered trail to a spot overlooking the Eagle Creek Reservoir. The temperature had been hovering right around the freezing mark for a couple of days. (This was the reason why the snow had been so heavy; it had been just barely cold enough for the precipitation to manifest itself as snow.) The water temperature, too, had been hovering right around the freezing mark, so part of the reservoir surface was frozen and part of it was slushy. The snow was covering the frozen parts, but the slushy parts couldn’t support the snow.

I looked over this landscape. It was completely cloudy day, so there were no shadows anywhere. It was the middle of winter, so there was almost no extant color of any kind. Given what I had to work with that day, my mind had already moved into a different zone, where I was kind of actively looking for patterns and textures, rather than “reality-based” scenes. When I looked at the reservoir, what I saw was an abstract, monochrome perspective, so that’s what I captured. Converting to black and white during processing was the obvious choice.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)

Ice, Snow & Water Patterns Black & White, Eagle Creek Park, Indiana

The Story Behind the Image: White Pocket Black & White

Some of the sandstone formations in the White Pocket section of Vermillion Cliffs National Monument are, basically, black and white, even without being converted to monochrome. I learned this on my first exploration of the monument, which I undertook just minutes after arriving there for the first time. It was early afternoon in May, so the light wasn’t good, but that’s what made the scouting exercise worthwhile; it wasn’t as though I’d be foregoing good photo opportunities at that point in the day.

As I was walking around an extended area of white sandstone, I found a lone tree, somehow growing out of a gap in the rock. I saw all kinds of compositional possibilities and made a mental note to return to this area when the light was better.

The first opportunity to do so was later that same day and, sure enough, I came back to this area. The skies were a captivating partly cloudy this PM, and among the numerous compositions I played with that included the tree is the one you see below. I wanted to give plenty of room for the wonderful complementary sky, but I didn’t want the tree to be so small that it would be barely noticeable. I was well below the ledge where the tree was, and used a short telephoto focal length, while placing the nearest object to me that was in viewfinder–the rocky slope below the tree–in the lower right of the frame. The undulating, shadow-strewn sandstone, was the mid-ground interest with the sky completing the background.

There weren’t many people at White Pocket that evening–maybe a dozen or so, perhaps fewer–and no one was anywhere nearby when this image was made. Viewing this image brings me back to that feeling of solitude.

(Click the image below to view a larger rendition.)