My work travel sometimes take me to the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, but in the past I had never brought along my camera. My previous trips were always in the winter (or whatever passes for winter in LA), which meant shorter days and less opportunity to get out and watch the sunset. But on my recent trip in late-April, I knew I would finally have a chance to see the beach on a wonderfully sunny late afternoon.

Last November we took a scuba diving trip to the Maldives. While we spent most of the trip on a liveaboard boat, we did spend a little bit of time visiting a couple of the Maldives’ wonderful islands. One of those islands was Dhangethi, which is a popular stopover for liveaboards carrying divers and other tourists. Unlike many islands in the Maldives, Dhangethi is not a resort but rather is a home for the locals, and while it still has the usual souvenir shops found anywhere tourists go, it also has little streets with real homes and real people.

This is one of my favorite photos from recent years because it really captures the beauty of the Milky Way from a remarkable location. My cousin (the very talented Allison Otto) and I had been scoping out good weekends to take Milky Way photos from somewhere in the Colorado Rockies, but our schedules never quite aligned to make it happen. So when my wife suggested a trip to Aspen on one of those weekends, I already knew it would be a good opportunity to see the stars from nearby Independence Pass. While Aspen is certainly beautiful, Independence Pass is a marvel and one of the most spectacular passes in Colorado.

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.

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.