Sometimes you find a great photo you didn’t expect in a wonderful location. While visiting family in Pagosa Springs in 2015, I had an idea to take sunset photos on Piedra Road north of town. On one evening in particular, I raced out after the conclusion of a family event and arrived just in time to see the sun had already set. Despite the missed opportunity, I was able to capture a different kind of beauty – an ethereal blue hour shot.

Sometimes the best photos are the ones that you have to wait for. That was certainly the case when I took this shot at Blueberry Lake in Vermont. I had visited this spot before and liked it, but I had trouble finding the right composition for sunset. On this particular visit, I decided to wait and see what the sky would do once the sun had set.

On a stormy evening in Atlantic City, NC, a striking image emerged amidst the churning waves and brooding clouds. A long pier reaches out into the ocean, dividing the tempestuous sky and water below and creating sense of symmetry and calm that contrasts with the surrounding chaos.

I had a very productive photography trip to California in 2018 where one evening on the beach yielded three amazing photos. I posted two of these in the past – Sunset and Twilight – and now here’s the third: Waves. This photo was shot roughly 23 minutes later than Sunset and about 12 minutes earlier than Twilight. The light had not quite dimmed as much as it had for the later photo, so I was able to capture the waves in motion rather than as a long-exposure blur.

South Park, Colorado is real and it’s wonderful! No, it’s not the quirky two-dimensional town you see in the Comedy Central TV show. Instead it’s a high valley, covering 1,000 square miles of grassland, and situated between the Front Range and the Mosquito Range in central Colorado. It’s here that you can often find some of the most incredible contrasts between grassy planes, mountains, and Colorado’s spectacularly changing weather.