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“Part of the urge to explore is a desire to become lost.” ~Tracy Johnston
Bryce Canyon National Park
We almost didn't make it to this one. As I explained on my second chance Monday post, a big winter storm hit the area on the day we were going to drive to Bryce. The park even closed. So we headed to Zion where the weather wasn't as bad. On our last day the storm suddenly ended, so we decided to get up early and head out to Bryce, then come back to Zion and hike Angel's Landing before driving back to Vegas that night. It was a big day, but completely worth it. Bryce looked amazing covered in a pristine blanket of fresh white powder. It brought out the beauty, color, and details of the amazing rock formations.
And once again, no crowds. :)
Some beautiful light to start the day at Machu Picchu! Machu Picchu really lived up to its beauty and was an amazing place to explore!
🌿✨ Atemberaubende Aussicht über den Walensee und die Churfirsten – Natur pur, wie sie schöner nicht sein könnte. Ein Moment voller Ruhe und Weite. ️🌄
Welches ist euer Lieblingsplatz zum Abschalten? 🌍💬
Xakanaxa Lagoon | Moremi
I was looking especially for him on this boat-trip and put all my trust in the guide, who was fantastic and found one, that unfortunately flew away.
This one is special, as I found it and this little beauty was so nice to hop around from spot to spot, so we could follow him for quite a while through the channel.
One of my colleagues stole my printed copy of this when I originally processed it two years ago and put it on her office wall. I could never decide whether I was flattered by this, mainly because I didn't like the texture of it. The RAW file itself is quite harsh and full of structure, clarity and jarring colours, so much so that I was never comfortable with the image. So I've just had another go at it, partly to see whether I've learned anything, and partly because I wanted to make peace with it. I've softened it, cooled it, de-saturated it and calmed down the contrasts. Maybe we can live with one another now.
You might recognise where this was taken. It was our last day in the Highlands and we'd just doubled back from a truly wonderful hour at Lochan na Achlaise towards Buachaille Etive Mor because I remembered I'd wanted to risk my neck standing in the middle of the A82 shooting towards the northern beauties you see before you. This road is a double edged sword, because while it is a undeniably a feast for the eyes of jaw dropping proportions, its beauty does cause the odd driver here and there to get distracted by the view and suddenly veer away from its path without warning. If you're a passenger you're passing along a road you'll never forget. If you're a driver, you're also passing along a road you'll never forget, partly due to the frustration that you know you're missing all the fun, but also because you have to watch for the craters in the road that pass for pot holes around here. If you're in a very small car there's a chance you might completely disappear for several seconds at a time. When I was here a few months earlier, several vehicles were distributed randomly across the carriage way in various attitudes, one of them upside down in the accompanying ditch, with long queues of completely stationary traffic in either direction. We'd come to hike up Buachaille Etive Mor (on the left of the image) and had the pleasure of walking two miles along the car strewn carriageway towards the start of the climb, while explaining to irritated motorists that we didn't know what was going on either.
To look at this picture you'd think it was a quiet lonely highway to nowhere, with little passing traffic. But as the main route to Fort William and the North West of Scotland beyond it's busy, noisy and frightening, especially if you're hiking and have just arrived here after crossing the lonely and beautiful Rannoch Moor when any form of road traffic is a shock to the senses. It belies the truth of us having to repeatedly look in both directions, rush out into the centre, compose, see a car coming in the distance to spoil the moment and returning in disappointment to the kerb and wait for the next opportunity. It took a while before we could safely grab a shot of an empty road while at the same time being sure that a 38 tonne lorry wasn't about arrive from behind and to turn us into a lonely buzzard's buffet.
And with that I wish you all a happy and safe weekend, especially those of you who aren't able to get into wide open green spaces during these uncertain times. Keep well everybody.
People who know me well are still reeling in shock at this morning's news. "Dom Haughton - habitually and noisily heavy sleeper until he crawls out of bed at the last possible moment and hauls himself downstairs to drink tea in front of the television all morning seen outdoors before 8am," the headline might have screeched if I were anyone of interest to the general public.
More surprised than anyone by my efforts this morning was myself. I sleep like a log - especially after staying up late to watch "Withnail and I" with a bottle of 10 year old Jura on New Year's Eve before finally retiring not long before 2am. Usually this would result in a lengthy unbroken period of sleep. It doesn't help that Ali is even worse than me - in fact she was still in bed when I returned from this morning's adventure.
The thing is, it had snowed yesterday evening as I returned from my final outing of 2020 at Gwithian, and to everyone's amazement it had settled. Forgive me for getting so excited if you live in hardier climes, but you'll have to indulge me this once. Snow just doesn't happen in our mild West Cornwall climate that often, and when it does, it's often gone within hours. But a dry cold night suggested that winter's magical touch might still be around at the start of the morning, so I hardheartedly set the alarm, assuming that I wouldn't actually get out of bed five hours after climbing into it.
Mornings are great though - I can't deny it, despite eternally cursing people who are habitually lively during these hours. There's a certain sense of smugness in being at large when most people are either in bed or at the breakfast table in their jimjams - I need to learn to get better at this. As I staggered through Scorrier Woods, the path deep in mud and my right eye weeping and refusing to open properly due to the ungodly hour, I watched the pink sky, convinced I wasn't going to arrive at my chosen spot in time for sunrise. And so it proved to be, although the low cloud saved me and helped to produce a beautiful diffused light over the Poldice Valley down towards Bissoe.
And then I stood and watched. I felt the warmth of the weak winter sun and listened to the birdsong all around me. As I walked home through the woods it seemed as if it were raining as the snow on the trees began to melt and fall all around me, yet for the first time in recent adventures it was a dry day.
Who knows what will follow, but in this little corner of the world, 2021 has got away to a wonderfully memorable start. And there's still a weekend ahead before I have to return to work. Happy New Year; Happy Friday!
If I were forced by some imaginary omnipotence to pick just one location in which to spend the rest of my days pointing my camera towards the sea, I don't think I'd look beyond Porth Nanven. It's never been lost on me that growing up in Cornwall has spoiled me with a glut of local hotspots, several of which I happily return to time and time again. Some photographers choose not to return to places after a visit or two, while others are content to retread their steps over and over, learning a location under all of its aspects. There's room for all of us of course. Yesterday unexpectedly, there was room for Katie, a friend I haven't seen for a while who is a wild swimmer and takes some spectacular underwater photographs. She's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside and greeted me with the worst display of social distancing since it was invented by bounding towards me and wrapping me an enormous hug. I've missed hugs. It was a delight to see her. She's one of those people who make the world feel like a good place to be in. She'd been swimming of course, and was making ready to leave. time was moving on and she's an early riser who confesses to being no use whatsoever after 9pm. Sunset was due after 9:30.
In one of the more distant counties of our nation, this corner of delights is particularly remote even for those of us who live here, and the approach to it from the lonely windswept outpost of St Just is a descent into what feels like a primordial other world. It starts with a twisting drive on a narrow road flanked by high Cornish hedgerows adorned with foxgloves and campion, before a sharp descent takes you past the last few houses, one garden boasting enormous Canarian echiums covered in tiny spikes bearing thousands of purple blooms. A little further down on the final bend, a massive gunnera, leaves at least a metre wide spreads towards the road. The final drag down to the small car park is festooned with ferns and bracken. Finally you arrive on a beach consisting almost entirely of huge egg shaped chunks of granite, worn smooth by year upon year of Atlantic attrition. Hence the nickname, "Dinosaur Egg Beach." And then you look out to the ocean to witness the view, in this case with an ominous bank of threatening cloud that had the audacity to interrupt my sandwich and found me racing to set up the camera more quickly than I usually would. I'm pleased to report that I stayed dry, and it seemed from the wet roads that the cloud had instead dumped its contents 30 miles to the east over Redruth as I arrived at home later on after one of the most enjoyable evenings with the camera for quite some time.
Waimea Canyon in Kauai is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific...It is truly parvelous in the formations and such a pretty side to watch and catch the brilliant light
photomanm.com/personal-photography-project-architecture-t...
Architecture the light #25
Hong Kong, 2021
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Hong Kong’s landmark—dense buildings.
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works by photomanm
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Kernofornia. That's what they call it down here. If that's leaving you confused, you may need to know that Kernow is the name of my home county in its own ancient Celtic language. Not my invention, but I've rather taken to it, and in recent weeks we've been enjoying the sort of conditions that Cornwall may have a reputation for, with blue skies and dare I say it, hot sunny afternoons, although in truth are not really justified as people who live here will testify. I've often maintained that we have two seasons here - cold drizzle and warm drizzle. In fact the locals call it "mizzle," a contraction of mist and.........well you get it.
Of course until very recently the calm sunny days have been enjoyed from the safety of the garden, where on working days I've spent my morning coffee breaks, my lunch hours and the early evenings sprawled in a chair with a cup of tea and a good book. But now, with care we can head out into the big wide world once more. I wouldn't say we're like sugar hungry kids who've been released into a sweet shop with limitless cash, but we have headed beyond the end of the garden, or "The Wall" in Game of Thrones parlance on a handful of occasions since our nation's leaders told us we were allowed to again.
Last Wednesday found us on the beach at Gwithian for the second time in three days, with our supper in tupperware containers, and a sneaky draught of ale in my Chilly's bottle. After enjoying a delicious helping of pasta, accompanied by what I was later astonished to hear were vegetarian sausages, I looked at the camera bag and wondered what to do with it. And so I headed towards the lighthouse that I've photographed so many times before. I stood, stared, pointed the camera at it and scratched my head in confusion. Nothing was connecting the foreground to the back of the shot and all of the lines were leading the eye right out to sea and away from the subject. If I were alone I'd have advanced closer to it in search of a composition, but my partner was on one of her middle distance beach hikes somewhere to the west and she was driving. So I turned around and looked back over the beach where I'd sat on the dunes filling myself with pasta. And vegetarian sausages. And I saw lines in the wet sand which gave me an idea. I just needed a surfer or two with a nice white board to walk in the right direction.
I'm trying not to get too carried away with these ICM style images, but they've been well received by friends and family, especially the small circle of them who've appeared in the images I've taken and are currently ordering prints of them for their kitchen walls. I have no idea who these two chaps are, but they were in the right place at the right time. I really should leave my camera at home and get in the sea as well. Roll on summer!
The mountains rise like waves turned to stone — soft edges kissed by cloudlight, silence broken only by the wind. Up here, everything slows down; even the sky feels patient.
It seems strange that almost three months have passed since my brother Dave decided to offer himself as a competing focal point on the dunes for this composition at Talacre in North Wales. In one sense so much has happened. The world as we know it has changed to something that almost all of us have never seen before. Who knows how long for, or whether it will be the same again afterwards? In another sense it feels as if almost nothing has been going on. Lockdown is a strange experience with each day much like the next, and even though I continue to work from home, the dividing line between the Monday to Friday routine and the weekends seems almost paper thin. And above all that, everyone keeps telling me how they feel the days are passing so incredibly quickly. Somehow it's already early May, but it feels like I took this photograph yesterday. In fact it was at the beginning of February, when Storm Ciara was the thing that worried us most and Covid-19 was something that most of us knew was coming to these shores, but I wonder how many of us realised quite how destructive it would be and quite what an effect it would have on our daily lives. I didn't.
We'd planned to head home from North Wales via a detour to Porthcawl on the south coast until one of us thought it might be an idea to look at the tide times and realised that there would be little point. And so we headed east towards Merseyside and the M6, stopping at Talacre, a place that none of us had been to before. Well it is a long way from Cornwall. We were only here for an hour, maybe less, and soon lost ourselves in our own little worlds of joy behind our viewfinders. Although Ciara had done her worst it was still very windy, but that never prevents me from trying a long exposure to catch the movement in the dunes and the sea. Dave is often the last to return towards the car, and as I stood on the highest dunes thinking I'd finished and just enjoying the view he called out across the space between us to tell me I was going to include him in my photo. Quite often I'm calling out to him over a similar distance to tell him he's going to be in my photo, so this came as a bit of a surprise. But I'm glad he invited himself into the scene. Check out the photo he took. It's an absolute beauty!
Keep well Flickr friends.
Usually I like to take my time to compose a scene. You see I've listened carefully to the advice of my favourite landscape photographer on YouTube (Nigel Danson - he's a man who understands how to do this stuff) and absorb a location before I open the camera bag. I even do this in places I know well - places such as the space between Cape Cornwall and Botallack Mine here at the Edge of Eternity where the Atlantic Ocean stretches west for 2200 odd miles before arriving in Newfoundland. It takes a while to leave the journey to a location behind and settle in the surroundings. Often I will sit and watch for an hour or more, hoping to sight that pod of dolphins that so rarely appears, straining my eyes over the horizon for the distant Scilly Isles, and simply gazing at the sea below me. It's a place that brings the senses alive, whatever the time and whatever the weather. Eventually I'll fix on an idea and set the camera on the tripod, take a test shot and then wait for the light.
And so it was on this Saturday afternoon at the end of June. The lockdown restrictions in the UK had eased a little, and we were able to get out and about to the places we love so much. The summer holiday to Andalusia had been postponed because neither of us really fancied the idea of wearing a mask everywhere in 40 degree heat, but with places like this in our own back yard it didn't seem to matter. In fact despite what's going on around all of us this year, it's been a particularly enjoyable summer. It's only really dawned on me this year how lucky I am to be able to leave my home and stand here, at the edge of the British Isles in under an hour.
We sat at the edge of the granite outcrop high above the sea - they're known as castles here, which used to confuse me but I believe it's in reference to the hard igneous rock that makes the backbone of our county. We were facing north, directly away from the scene in the picture. You might wonder why on earth we'd be looking in any direction other than this, but the view towards the sunlit old engine houses of Botallack Mine, perched perilously over the sea is something in itself. The deed was done; I'd settled upon a composition and now it was a matter of timing and light. I sat and waited. It's a place where you can lose your sense of time and drift away on a tide of daydreams, but my reverie was interrupted by the voice of Ali, who was looking in the opposite direction. "Behind you!" she called across the stiff breeze, pointing enthusiastically towards the Cape Cornwall side of our vista. From her obvious excitement I was expecting to look round and see a pantomime villain advancing towards me.
And I turned to see this. A leaden sky with yellow sunlight filtering eastwards from over the sea. Of course light like this never lasts more than a minute or two and an almighty flurry of activity ensued very quickly as I hastened to a new position, the opening of the camera bag flapping about furiously in the wind. These are tricky places for the unwary and you have to take care unless you want a terminal bath before being dashed upon the rocks, and framing the shot wasn't as unhurried as I'd have liked it to have been. But in less than three minutes the ominous black and grey had been replaced by fluffy white on blue and it was as if this moment had never happened. The weather in this country, especially along its wild western edges is so delightfully capricious. It makes planning a family barbecue an ever risky affair, but for us photographers it's an absolute dream.
It's Saturday - the weather is forecast is looking decidedly fickle. I think I know what I'm going to do today.
Panorama stitched out of 10 single-shots. Shortly after a hailstorm hit us and during light rainfall. Big patches of blue sky were behind us, but everything in front was, what just passed us.
You can easily see the heavy rain still falling in the distance.
A breathtaking view of adventurers ascending the sharp ridge of a colossal desert dune, their silhouettes contrasting against the golden sands and deep shadows. The vast, untouched beauty of the desert unfolds beneath them, as each step leaves a fleeting mark on the timeless landscape. This mesmerizing play of light and shadow captures the spirit of exploration and resilience in one of nature’s most stunning landscapes.