Sometimes you want something in your photos, but you have a hard time finding it exactly. For me, I wanted to capture the essence of Stockholm but I had a hard time finding the right place to see it. Stockholm is an amazing city, with a breathtaking combination of modern Scandinavian architecture mixed with classic European castles and buildings. But Stockholm’s most notable feature is also its most striking – the entire city sits on an archipelago of 14 islands next to the sea.

I’ve already posted twice about my sunset visit to Mountain Valley Farm in Waitsfield, Vermont and how much I loved this incredible location. The first post was about finding a great scene in amazing light, while the second post went into detail about choosing the best photo of the barn cupola at sunset. Here now is my third (and final) photo from that evening – a close in view of the barn and two of its occupants. This photo was a combination of luck and finding the right composition, but it took a little time to get a good result.

I previously posted my photo of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel from my trip to Paris last May, and I loved the combination of the arc and the crazy sunset behind it. After an earlier rainstorm, the clearing clouds provided a gorgeous canvas for a sunset of bright colors. I had already taken several photos of the arc as a whole (my previous post), and I was looking for another photo that made good use of the light and color in the sky.

Whenever I visit my family in Colorado, I always look forward to taking night photos. On the same trip where I took my Snowball Road photo in 2011, I also took a drive down nearby Piedra Road to see if I could find any good shots. I discovered this wonderful little barn on that road (it’s almost a shed), and it’s been a go-to source of photos for me for many trips since.

Here’s an old one from all the way back in August, 2008. Gwen and I took a trip to New Brunswick, Canada to see the Bay of Fundy and camp on Grand Manan Island. The island itself is a sort of geographic oddity – it’s part of Canada but situated closer to the coast of Maine than New Brunswick. The island itself feels remote – it takes a lengthy ferry ride to visit, and there are not a lot of people once you get there. On the other hand, the beauty of the sea crashing against the island cliffs makes the experience entirely worthwhile.