Lake Cachuma Early Morning

I'm pretty pleased with how this photo turned out. It almost looks like a tone-mapped HDR image, but it's not. I was able to uncover all these gold tones and the contrast in the clouds with Photoshop.

Here are other photos I took at Lake Cachuma.

La Quinta Resort Pool

La Quinta is a small desert town in Southern California about 20 miles from Palm Springs. The La Quinta Resort and Club features several PGA golf courses and a tennis club, a spa, and several restaurants. The thing I like most about it is that unlike so many other hotels and resorts, La Quinta has smaller and more private pools that are enclosed by groups of rooms. I think in total there is something like 50 pools and they are never crowded. This is the view across the pool that was closest to our room on our recent stay. Between the rooms in the background you can see a peep of the San Jacinto Mountains and the wonderfully blue and clear autumn sky.

Here's another photo I took at the La Quinta Resort of the San Jacinto Mountains soon after sunrise with the full moon setting behind the mountains.

Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/14
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100

San Jacinto Mountains from La Quinta with Moon

The La Qunita Resort is located in the low desert of the Cochealla Valley, California, about 20 miles south east of Palm Springs. The western side of the resort is framed by the San Jacinto mountains which are starkly bare. My stay there last week coincided with a full moon, and this photo was actually taken at around 7:20am not long after the sun had arisen and just before the moon set. The newly risen sun behind me cast a beautiful warm red glow over the mountains.

Canon EOS 20D
Canon 18-55mm lens at 33mm
1/80 secs at f/16
ISO 400

Olympic Range Silhouette

This is a photo of the Olympic Range facing west from Beckett Point on Discovery Bay, Washington State. The sun had not long gone down creating this silhouette of the range.

Canon EOS 20D
Canon 18-55mm lens at 55mm
1/40 secs at f/10
ISO 400

Virgin River Zion in Winter

Zion National Park Virgin River in Winter

Zion is one of the National Parks in Utah and one of my favorites to visit. It is a far more intimate experience than the Grand Canyon, and has a range of hikes that are easily accessible.

I took this photo on my first visit to Zion in February of 2006. I have since been back twice, in the spring and summer of 2006. Of course it was a different experience each time because of the different seasons. This first visit was in the winter. The slopes and peaks were covered in snow, and the trees were bare. This photo with the Virgin river in the foreground paints a bleak and wintery picture. It wasn't quite this bleak looking in reality - I actually have deliberately adjusted the image to give it this very wintery feel. The rock at Zion is in fact very red, and if you want to get some idea of what the original image looked like, here it is:

Even this doesn't really show you just how red the rock is as so much color is lost in converting the image file to jpeg and making it small for the web. Believe me, the rock is much redder than appears here.

Mitre Peak Milford Sound

Mitre Peak Milford Sound Fiordland National Park New Zealand

The most famous landmark at Milford Sound is the tallest peak known as "Mitre Peak", so named because its shape is reminiscent of a bishop's mitre or ceremonial hat. Mitre Peak has long been painted and photographed throughout New Zealand's European history. Mitre Peak is on the left side of this photo.

Canon EOS 20D
1/5000s at f/3.5
ISO200
18-55mm lens at 18mm
(c) John Corney 2007

Mitre Peak

Milford Sound Fiord New Zealand #2

Milford Sound Fiord New Zealand #2

When I took this photo on a recent trip to Milford Sound in New Zealand's Fiordland National Park, the mist had almost cleared. But just enough was hanging in the sky still when I took this photo to add some extra interest to the picture.

Canon EOS 20D
1/400s at f/13
ISO200
18-55mm lens at 51mm
(c) John Corney 2007

Milford Sound

Milford Sound Fiord New Zealand #1

Milford Sound Fiord, New Zealand #1

Milford Sound is the heart of Fiordland National Park and the most-visited of the fiords. Mistakenly named a "sound", Milford Sound is actually a fiord, meaning it was carved out by glacial action during the last ice age rather than by the action of rivers, which is the difference between a fiord and a sound.

After sailing out to the Tasman Sea and turning back in, the fog began to lift until the sky was completely clear by time we disembarked. Here the last of the fog is still lifting from the lake surface.

Canon EOS 20D
1/320s at f/13
ISO200
18-55mm lens at 54mm
(c) John Corney 2007

Milford Sound

Snowy Mountain Cloaked in Fog

Photo of snowy mountain wrapped in fog

Though late summer, Fiordland National Park is in the far south west corner of New Zealand's South Island, and with some very high elevations as well, it was not surprising to come across some mountain peaks with snow on them as I traveled the road to Milford Sound.

Early morning fog and snow cloaked this towering peak near the Homer Tunnel on the Road to Milford Sound.

Photo by John Corney,
Canon EOS 20D
f10/1000sec
ISO 200
18-55mm lens at 40mm
(c) John Corney 2007

Mountain Valley Fog on Road to Milford

Morning Fog In Mountain Valley

It was early morning that I set off for Milford Sound from Lake Te Anau. The morning fog was still lifting from the mountain valleys as seen in this photo taken on the road from Te Anau to Milford Sound in New Zealand.

Canon EOS 20D
f10/1000sec
ISO 200
18-55mm lens at 40mm
(c) John Corney 2007