A setting looking to the northwest while taking in views across the Mojave Desert setting at a roadside pullout along California State Route 127. The Avawatz Mountains are off in the distance.

It was a cold day, I didn't feel like climbing out of the truck. I didn't feel like rolling down the window. I actually wanted to get home. I shot through the windshield, hoping to catch that last afternoon subarctic light. I think the windshield gives it a kind of tilt-shift effect.

In the foreground is Spotted Lake, rich in calcium, sodium sulphates, magnesium sulphate and other minerals and considered a sacred site with healing properties to the First Nations People of this region. In contrast lies Osoyoos Lake, further south, in the background. Osoyoos Lake straddles the 49th parallel, the Canada and USA boundary, as well as the two cities hugging its shoreline, Osoyoos, BC, and Oroville, Washington. Osoyoos Lake, Canada’s warmest lake is a hot summer magnet for tourists. Spotted Lake on the other hand is out-of-bounds for visitors but clearly viewable from a Highway 3 pullout. Although this spring photo does not depict its many natural colours, in the summer months the circular rings of Spotted Lake turn various colours as the intense summer heat evaporates the water in the lake. This southern region of British Columbia is Canada’s only desert. The blackened mountainside in the top right hand side of the image is the result of a controlled forest fire burn during the summer of 2024.

While at a roadside pullout along the Whitney Portal Road with a view looking to the south and up at a passing Air Force fighter jet performing maneuvers over the Owens Valley. I was located in the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area, up the road from the Face of the Alabama Hills.

A setting looking to the southwest while taking in views across ridges and peaks of the Northern Blue Ridge at a roadside pullout along the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is located at the Irish Creek Valley Overlook.

A setting looking to the west while taking in views across the Nevada high desert leading up to the ridges and peaks off in the distance in Great Basin National Park. This is at a roadside pullout along Nevada State Route 487. I took advantage of a slight rise from the roadside to create more of a sweeping view leading up to the mountains in the national park. That brought them higher into the image and hopefully helped to bring out more of a sense of grandeur and avoid any flattening.

Taken from a short stop at a pullout near the East entrance of Zion National Park, which ended being about a 2-1/2 hour exploration of this amazing terrain.

- Samuel Lover

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Today I want to talk about one of the absolute pleasures of travel photography. While travel landscape photography often take a lot of control out of photography, it gives back in another way. By providing locations and views that are totally unexpected. I have seen unexpected hot springs in the middle of high desert, spectacular cloud inversion on the way to Yosemite and once a quadruple rainbow near mono Lake.

Something similar happened on the way to the Mt Rainier National Park. We were driving from Seattle and passed Rimrock lake, the scenery looked impossibly pretty. With the lake and clouds filling in the valley. Little did we know that the very clouds will completely engulf the park and we will only get to see Mt rainier for about 20 mins during our 3 day stay. I saw this interesting rock formation while driving in and stopped at a pullout and try to capture the nice light that was falling on the rock. Late I learned the name of the rock formation, its officially known as Kloochman Rock. It is a popular site for hiking and about 10 mins after stopping the whole lake surface was covered in clouds and we could not see this rock formation again. So I felt it was a bit of a gift from mother nature for hiding the mighty Mt Rainier from us.

An image captured from a roadside pullout along Texas Highway 54 with a view looking to the north with the peaks and mountainsides of the Guadalupe Mountains. My thinking in composing this image was to capture a more sweeping view across this West Texas landscape. To do so, I had to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward and bring the mountains higher up into the image. The rest was balancing the setting to include some of the blue skies above.

At a roadside pullout along Colorado Highway 149 with a view looking to the southwest in Rio Grande National Forest.

He's courting an uptown girl near the view point pullout. She's used to all kinds of exotic foods!

Will she show up?

Continued... flickr.com/photos/4durt/1740438237/

nopa - san francisco, california

A setting looking to the northwest while taking in views across the Mojave Desert setting at a roadside pullout along California State Route 127. Telescope Peak is one of the distant peaks I identified and is in Death Valley National Park.

Taken on the way to go skiing at Alyeska on Inauguration Day. A nice bonus to an already happy day. 1/20/21- The end of an error! Taken at the Beluga Point pullout, about 10 miles Southeast of Anchorage on the Seward Highway.

Photo captured from the pullout alongside and looking towards State Route 155, the Coulee Corridor National Scenic Byway, and Banks Lake, part of the Bureau of Reclamation, via Nikon Zoom-Nikkor AI-S 80-200 mm F/4 lens and the bracketing method of photography. Grand Coulee region. Grant County, Washington. On the last day of August 2014.

"April showers bring May flowers." While that might be the case in the lower elevations of the park, that's not really so in the upper elevations. If you visit during mid-late July, however, you'll see an explosion of wildflowers in the park, including the beautiful tiger lily.

As I was driving up the road from the Nisqually Entrance toward Paradise, one July a few years ago, I saw this patch of bright orange, strangely-shaped blooms. There was no place for me to stop along the narrow road, so I drove on, trying to figure out where I could park and then hike down to this patch. Luckily for me, a day later, while driving Stevens Canyon Road, I saw these flowers again, right next to a convenient pullout.

The tiger lily plant, also known as the Columbia lily, can grow to a little under 4 feet in height, with a few or numerous orange blooms dotted with brownish spots. They are apparently lightly-scented, which I did not know, otherwise I would have bent down to sniff (and probably breathed in pollen and then gotten an allergy, so probably just as well I didn't know this).

Tiger lilys are just one of the many wildflowers you'll see during a July visit to this national park.

Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved.

While at a roadside pullout along Tioga Road with a view looking to the southeast towards mountains of the Sierra Nevadas in Inyo National Forest. Given the haze from nearby wildfires, the skies had a very overcast look, even though at that point in the mountains at higher elevations, it was thinning out. There was also the brightness the sun added to that haze. Keeping that in mind, I exposed more for the highlights in the upper portions of the mountain peaks, knowing I could later pull out any shadows in post-production. I also used the ClearView Plus tool in DxO PhotoLab 5 to bring out more details present in the haze that morning.

While at a roadside pullout along the Skyline Drive with a view looking down the road to the east-southeast. This is in Shenandoah National Park around a location Google Maps lists as Low Gap. What I wanted to capture with the setting was the tall trees lining the road at this point in the national park. I decided on a portrait orientation in order to capture more of the full height present with the trees while still including the road ahead as a leading line into the image. The rest was metering the image properly to not blow any of the highlights in the leaves reflecting the noon-time sunlight while still being able to pull the more shadowed areas later and post-production.

While at a roadside pullout along Utah Scenic Byway 12 at the Calf Creek Viewpoint in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. My thoughts on composing this image was to take advantage of some nearby shrubbery and old trees and have that as a look beyond to the varied landscape present in this part of the national monument. Angling my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward would, in my mind, create more of a sweeping view looking across it. That would in turn raise the horizon higher into the image and perhaps create more of a sense of grandeur in the image captured.

There does seem to at least one Common Raven at almost every large pullout in Yellowstone.

A setting looking to the west-northwest while taking in views across a grassy meadow and nearby evergreen forest to more distant ridges and peaks of the Brazos Cliffs and Tusas Mountains. This is at a roadside pullout along U.S. Route 64 in northern New Mexico. My thought in composing this image had been to pull back on the focal length to include more of the surrounding landscape and with foreground interest, while still aligning the cliffs in the image center.

Taken from a short stop at a pullout near the East entrance of Zion National Park, which ended being about a 2-1/2 hour exploration of this amazing terrain.

It Is Not Autumn Yet for the Leaves Are Green

They have time in summer to shimmer in a passing breeze

For the aspens stand as one, clones are they often are.

On a road nearby, many a car drives by,

Never seeing their beauty and tales

But I will stop and have a conversation and ask of their day.

Here they love the mountains, a friend indeed, I replied

The sun passes in and out of the clouds,

Making for a pleasant morning

Oh, how I’d like to spend more time in Colorado

And enjoy a smile for the day.

Another work of short poetry or prose to complement the image captured one morning while taking in a scenic drive in Gunnison National Forest. Here I stopped at a roadside pullout for a short while to take in this setting of a large grove of aspens.

A setting looking to the east while taking in views at a roadside pullout along Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. This is in Great Basin National Park. The setting that I wanted to capture with this image was a look down the mountainside and then across the Nevada high desert leading up to more distant ridges and peaks. Angling my Nikon SLR camera would help do that as well as bring the horizon higher into the image, hopefully creating more of a sense of grandeur with the landscape present.

I know, I know...these shots have been done a million times before. But there is something fun and challenging about hunting these compositions down and lining everything up. Furthermore, the images I took last year were too underexposed and I had to push the files too far, losing the white color of the Aspen trunks. This was taken at an awesome grove of huge (biggest I have seen) Aspens in the Hope Valley area today. It caught my eye a few times as I drove by, and so I turned around at a pullout on the way up to the lookout above Red Lake, and bushwhacked through the brush to check out these giants up close. Hope valley is looking very close to peak right now, and should be absolutely perfect this weekend. Still a bit of green here and there but tons of good color around Red, Caples, Blue Lakes Rd, and the Cabin. Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think!

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This was at a roadside pullout while taking in views along the Colorado State Highway 92 in Gunnison National Forest. The view is looking to the south across nearby ridgelines, crisscrossing the other, and then to distant peaks of the San Juan Mountains. I decided to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward in order to capture a more sweeping view across the nearby landscape. That would bring the distant peaks a little higher into the image and minimize the overcast skies present that morning. I was though able to add some definition to that though using the DxO PhotoLab 4 ClearView Plus tool.

Based on a peakfinder iPhone app, the distant peak is Storm King of the San Juan Mountain Range.

From a roadside pullout on the main park road with a view looking to the southeast across the desert landscape in this part of Big Bend National Park. Far off in the distance are the Sierra del Carmen, along with Pico de Cerda and other ridges and peaks. The different ridgelines created a layered approach across the image.

A Trumpeter Swan looks on while its mate flaps its wings during courtship.

The largest of all North American Waterfowl, the Trumpeter Swan is considered one of the great conservation success stories. These Swans were nearing extinction in the first half of the 20th century. According to Forbush in 1912: "The Trumpeter has succumbed to incessant persecution in all parts of its range, and its total extinction is now only a matter of years." Multiple sources report that in 1932 only 69 Trumpeter Swans were known to exist in the lower 48 states. Thanks to conservation efforts, including reintroduction at breeding grounds, in 2010 estimates showed this species nearing 50,000 Swans. Along with lead poisoning and habitat loss, one of the biggest threats to their continued survival is human disturbance. According to Wikipedia, "The swans are also extremely sensitive to human disturbance at their breeding sites and will abandon nests and cygnets if disturbed." Ongoing conservation efforts include improving breeding habitat and limiting human disturbance at breeding sites.

I photographed this mated pair at Yellowstone National Park from a pullout. While driving by we spotted a small group of Trumpeters near the opposite shoreline on Yellowstone River. It's not currently breeding season, but we kept our distance and did not stay long. And for that short time I marveled at what a great privilege it was to be in the presence of these beautiful birds that almost didn't make it into this century. October 2015

A setting looking to the west while taking in views across a mountain desert landscape present at a roadside pullout along California State Route 127. I liked the varied plant-life across this Mojave Desert setting led up to the ridges and peaks off in the distance. I angled my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward to bring the horizon higher into the image and perhaps bring out more of a sense of grandeur with those mountain peaks. Using the PeakVisor app on my iPhone, I was able to identity the snowcapped mountains off in the distance as Charleston Peak in Nevada on the other side of the state border.

I looked back from a small pullout beside Lake Crescent and initally saw this as a bw abstract. The day was very dull and gray, though, and I think the blue works best for me.

Large: View On White

A pullout at the El Capitan Viewpoint with a view looking to the north at the namesake peak. I had two thoughts in composing this image. One was to capture the majesty of the peaks and ridges to my front in this part of the national park. The other was, as a Pearl Jam fan, to capture a yield sign in front of those mountain peaks. The rest of my thought in capturing this image was to meter the image for the sunlight and line things up to out the best I could, recognizing that there was a concrete barrier that I couldn't avoid from the highway construction on going. I later worked with control points in DxO PhotoLab 6 and then made some adjustments to bring out the contrast, saturation and brightness I wanted for the final image.

A setting looking to the west while taking in views across mountain desert setting in this part of Joshua Tree National Park. This was at a roadside pullout along the main part road.

A setting looking to the west while taking in views at a roadside pullout and exhibit along the Red Rock Parkway in Waterton Lakes National Park. My thought on composing this image was to zoom a little in with the focal length, centering Mount Blakiston off in the distance, while also having a sweeping view across the grassy meadows leading up to that. Helping to frame the mountain, I used the v shaped created between the two ridges that were coming off nearby mountainsides in the Clark Range.

A setting looking to the south while taking in views across a mountainside and forest. This is at a roadside pullout along the Alpine Loop Scenic Backway in Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. My thought on composing this image was to use the side of Mount Timpanogos and have that frame a setting for a look to the more distant peaks and ridges. I also felt that the different hues of yellows and greens in this forest added a layered look, leading a viewer further into the image.

At a roadside pullout along the Whitney Portal Road with a view looking to the southeast and up as an overflight with an Air Force fighter that Sunday morning. In order to capture in detail as much of the plane flying over as I could, I zoomed in with this Nikkor 28-300mm lens on my D850 SLR camera. Given the extremely short notice of this overflight, I did not have enough time to center the plane in the image captured.

For post processing of the image, I worked with control points in DxO PhotoLab 5 and then made some adjustments to bring out the contrast, saturation and brightness I wanted for the image. I then exported a TIFF image to Photoshop and used the newly release Super Resolution and focused on the fighter jet portion only. An example article I used to walk me through this process is here (mediamodifier.com/blog/enlarge-images).

This very large, radio-collared "bronze" colored wolf is a member of Yellowstone's wild Wapiti Lake pack. The pack had been availing itself of the generous nutrition in the carcass of a bison that dropped dead near the road, by happenstance also near several large pullouts where people could park safely and set up their scopes and cameras to watch numerous animals - Wapitis, coyotes, foxes, ravens, an eagle - take turns chowing down on the late winter boon.

The Wapitis are one of the largest packs in Yellowstone. Their home territory is Hayden Valley, much farther south along the Yellowstone River than where this photo was taken. They'd been spending a lot of the winter in this area, which is the territory of a couple of other wolf packs. Somehow they avoided the territorial wars that in fact result in more wolf deaths than any other cause.

This day, the alpha wolves and most of the other adults had departed for Hayden Valley, I would guess to re-establish their dens there in anticipation of the arrival of pups in the coming few weeks. Those left behind (who may catch up, or they may use the opportunity to establish a new pack) are mostly last spring's grown pups. In any case they were full of vim and vinegar, playing gleefully with their full bellies in ample evidence.

Photo taken with a long telephoto from a safe 90-100 yards, as required by Park policy, and cropped to remove negative space. The wolves showed no sign they were at all disturbed by the presence of people. And all the people were all unable to remove the happy grins from their faces at the opportunity to watch such magnificent animals at relatively close range.

On my recent trip, I wanted to find new ways of looking at the forest. One day I took a drive, stopping randomly at ordinary places, not parks, not landmarks, just roadside pullouts. At this location I noticed an old 4WD road into the bush, and hiked it for a few hundred metres until it faded and disappeared in a dense tangle of undergrowth.

The forest here was an unexceptional mix of red alder, bigleaf maple, western red cedar, western hemlock, and so on. Beneath my feet, the fallen leaves were already breaking down, turning into the next layer of soil. I spent half an hour with the tripod and macro lens, searching for the least colourful, earthiest looking leaf litter. A light rain was falling. Surfaces were shiny. Everywhere I pointed my lens I saw intense beauty.

Photographed near Woss, British Columbia (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2019 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

Valley View Yosemite is by far the most popular view in Yosemite National Park. It's also known as Gates of the Valley. Valley View is my favorite spot in all of Yosemite. I could sit here for hours and watch the light change. As you leave Yosemite Valley, it's a roadside pullout you don't want to miss. Here you'll see of the Merced River flanked by monolith of El Capitan on the left and on the right the majestic Cathedral Rocks with Bridalveil Fall.

This morning I met up with a friend to shoot Valley View for sunrise. There weren’t that many clouds so I thought we’d get skunked and then for a brief moment the sky lite up in the most amazing colors I'll never forget.

While at a roadside pullout along Texas State Highway 54 with a view looking north to the Guadalupe Mountains and the national park. My thought on composing this image was to bring the horizon a little higher into the image, along with the mountains. That would in turn help to create more of a sweeping view across this Texas high desert landscape. I didn't see much in the skies above to really have them fill more of the image, so raising the mountains, in my mind, helped to minimize that negative space that I saw there.

- Malcolm Forbes.

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My first trip to Zion National park was the first time I genuinely spend time planning for a road trip. I painstakingly created an excel page with locations that I wanted to visit with GPS coordinates, notes, and sample images taken at the site. I was proud of the planning and was confident that this new planning method would help me with my pictures. It did not quite work out as I intended. The trouble was light. I underestimated how much of a role light plays in the success of the photography in a canyon.

At most locations, early morning and evening lights are perfect for making images but not when you are inside a canyon. The area depicted in this image is a rather popular pullout on the Zion-Carmel highway that provides a nice view of the Zion canyon, the switchbacks, and the canyon junction. The photo was taken at 7:45 am, and you can already see the massive shadow in the composition. I initially did not want to process the image because when I cropped the shadowy bit out, the picture did not look well balanced. I learned the valuable lesson of minding the direction of light after this trip. If you plan a trip for landscape photography, I think it is imperative to consider planning your photo locations based on light quality and direction.

Looking into the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve from a Bealville Road pullout. Blue oaks, Quercus douglasii, in a sea of green. Much of the green is foxtails gone to seed, but still very green. The yellow flowers in the foreground are the invasive species London Rocket, Sisymbrium irio. The orange patches of flowers are a variety of fiddleneck.

From a roadside pullout along the main park road with a view looking to the southwest across the New Mexico mountain desert landscape. While the view was facing kind of towards the sun as it rose in the morning skies, I was able to minimize any lens artifacts while still angling my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward to bring out more of a sweeping view across this nearby hillside leading up to more distant mountains. I later worked with control points in DxO PhotoLab 5 and then made some adjustments to bring out the contrast, saturation and brightness I wanted for the final image.

Woke up real early to hike around Bear Lake and some of the surrounding trails/lakes, In Rocky Mountain National Park. Was fairly cloudy morning.While on road (yup, Bear Lake Road), there was a pullout, and I stopped quickly to just take shot or 2 of the Aspens which were just about at peak. Within 5mins, quick short storm came over and produced this beautiful rainbow (its a double, but the double didn't come out in the photo). I got soaked, but it was worth it. Continued on to Bear Lake, and further uphill to Dream Lake, got rained on a lot, but was a great day..........

And no.......No pot of gold anywhere to be found.......Thats just the way my luck goes! :-)

Thanks to all my friends out there, appreciate all the well wishes..

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At a pullout along I35 in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma, one old wind powered water well pump and one modern wind turbine. The old one is about 30 feet (~10m) tall, the new one stands at least 3 times that (I couldn't get close enough to really estimate), but is sitting below the ridge where the old one sits.

A setting looking to the north from a roadside pullout along the main Scenic Drive in this part of Capitol Reef National Park. The focus of my composition was the monocline and cliff walls leading of into the distance.

While planing for this trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Ohio, I decided to spend time on Flickr and 500px to scout out ideas for places to explore and hike with my Nikon D800E. I came across this image on Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/3blackdogs/9290207367/in/gallery-14...). I've found Evernote and clipping images and thoughts a handy tool to attempt to keep track and even organize so that I can better use the time there to visit what can often become a long list. That's the story behind this image in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It's a roadside pullout along Riverview Rd with the bridge of the Ohio Turnpike stretching above. Because of the overcast weather I had the days during my travels, I did not get to experience a sunrise or fog like the other images but I was able to capture a similar feel with the look across this grassy meadow with the bridge on one side to frame the setting. I found angling my Nikon SLR camera also allowed for a more sweeping view that added to a sense of scale for this setting.

The trees wear their moss like coats in the winter. I'm actually quite envious of their style... soft, lush, verdant. This image was taken along Germantown road last weekend. I was driving up to a trailhead and these trees caught my attention, so I parked in the next pullout and dashed back down the road to make this image. I probably should wait for the Hasselblad version, but I was organizing images tonight and didn't want to lose this one. It's pretty much unedited from the original... I left the blue cast alone, because that's really how the world seemed at the time... the branches, fleshed with green, reaching into a pale and ethereally blue void.

And so as a result, you get two images from me tonight.

Road to Apex Mountain is a very picturesque drive with the trees laden with snow. It also has lots of hair pin curves and is very slippery in the winter months ..... but that doesn't stop those F150 drivers from sitting on your bumper flashing their lights at you because you're only going 5 kph over the speed limit.

Fortunately there are lots of pullouts like this one.

Taken with 7Artisans 10mm fisheye lens - this is actually a straight road.

Last summer. Driving home, heading directly into a wall of grey, hail pinging off my car, I could barely see the road. Finally the worst of it had slid past, and I found a familiar pullout, stopped, made a few shots. Noticed a few knuckle dents in my car's roof. No big deal. I didn't know yet that the freak storm cell had passed directly over the village, dropping hailstones larger than eggs that destroyed every roof in town, including mine. The storm also produced a tornado that was seen from town. It spun harmlessly away.

Photographed just north of Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2018 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

- E. M. Forster.

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I have been to Rt 395 and the towns that dot this beautiful highway many times over, and I still don’t understand how it took me this long to visit Lake Crowley. It's not a tiny lake, and from the photos I have seen online looks spectacular. I only found the lake because a couple of feet of ice blocked the access road to one of our favorite hot spring areas, and while trying to get back to the highway, we came across a pullout with a view of a frozen lake. The access road to Lake Crowley was closed, so we couldn’t get close to the lake, but thankfully the pullout had a decent view of the lake and some gorgeous mountains in the background. Since it was mid-day didn’t even bother taking my digital cameras and instead took out my Bronica. I had Kodak T-max 100 B7W film on, and it did an excellent job resolving this tough scene.