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.

I have so many fond memories of watching sunsets on the west coast, and I always try to catch them whenever I can. There’s something magical about seeing the sun drop down and then disappear below a wall of waves – giving a final valedictory glow to the continent before darkness. When I visited Carmel-by-the-Sea last month, I knew I wanted to catch that same experience with a photo from the beach.

In 2012, I was working for uTest on a new mobile testing product they had acquired from a development shop in Warsaw, Poland. In September of that year, I took a trip to Poland with Roy Solomon, who was uTest’s VP of Product and one of the cofounders. This was the first time I had been to Poland, and I my trip was an incredible mixture of working with good people, eating delicious food, and seeing a city that is a little off the beaten path for most Americans. On our last day, Roy suggested we do two things: go get some of the best coffee in the world and see Warsaw’s historic Old Town.