I’ve been collecting some nature photos over the past few months, showing off the seasons.
If your walls are looking bare, these and other prints are available for purchase!
glorious mountain sunrise
that sunrise + hoar frost
hoar frosted branches
dusting of snow
northwest mossy
foresty goodness
ethereal cherries
tulips tulips
red + white
pretty pink
Filed under Personal
My husband and I have just moved from Brooklyn, New York to Portland, Oregon. I’m also pregnant with twins. Hopefully this explains why my blog has been so inactive all summer. 
(on our Brooklyn rooftop)
We decided on a cross-country road trip instead of flying, because we shipped our stuff and that took two weeks. Our journey took about a week and a half (with two lovely stops to visit family), taking us through 15 states as well as a handful of national parks. Here are a few of my favorite snapshots of our adventure!
cloudy Shenandoah
Buckeye Blitz ice cream cone in Ohio
Wind turbines in Illinois cornfields
Rolling Iowan cornfields
Big sky Wyoming
Grand Tetons!
Jenny Lake (Grand Tetons)
Grand Prismatic Spring (Yellowstone)
Idaho
Wind turbines along the Columbia River
Mt Hood and the Columbia River
This weekend my husband and I went on a quick trip up to the Berkshires. We’d never been up there, and the drive wasn’t too long, so off we went to explore.
Our first stop was the Bash Bish Falls area in Taconic State Park. We clambered over some rocks to a gorgeous vista of rolling forested hills. Fall colors were just starting to come out.
The falls were cute.
We stayed in Great Barrington the first evening, dinner, some local ice cream (I had Elvis ice cream–banana/honey/peanut butter!) and bowling.
The second day we went apple picking! Neither of us had done that before, so it was a fun new thing to do. And pretty too–here are so many apples on the apple trees! And look at that sky–it was a perfect morning.
We picked a peck, a combination of four different types: a few Fuji, a handful of Mutsu for pie or crisp, and some Blushing Golden.
My tall husband had to jump for some of the good ones.
And here are four of me picking apples!
We also drove up to the next town, Stockbridge, which was tiny and charming. Lots of businesses had these fall displays out and about.
Look at those leaves! And again, that sky!
These last two I grabbed from the passenger seat as we drove back south toward home. Not bad considering the moving-vehicle part!
Filed under Personal
Last week my husband and I traveled to the West Coast and spent a few days in Oregon. We started in Portland, and we took it easy. Met up with some friends, ate some donuts, wandered Powell’s, rented some bikes and pedaled around in the glorious sunshine. We visited the divine Rose Garden, where I couldn’t help but sniff like every single rose I saw. How delightful–rows and rows of roses!
We drove up to Mt Tabor for some views of the city (though maybe we were in the wrong spot, because everything was at least partially blocked by trees [though I'm not complaining; I love trees!]). I liked this tableau of a woman just kind of hanging out, with a cute bike.
And this stunning view of Mt Hood wasn’t too shabby. (See what I mean about the trees?)
After a couple days, we drove our rental car south and east, into the Cascades, to visit Crater Lake. Which looks like this and literally made my jaw drop.
Crater Lake is famous for its blue, which I didn’t believe until I saw it. It is some serious, serious blue. That blue next to evergreen green has to be one of the happiest nature color combinations out there! This is not enhanced in any way–look at those colors!
Here’s the Phantom Ship. It’s the oldest visible remnant of the mountain; it’s pre-volcanic stuff. It appears tiny in the huge lake, but apparently it’s sixteen stories tall!
Our rental car was shiny.
We were lucky enough to walk a new trail, opened this summer! It’s called Plaikni Falls, and it’s so adorable! It was a hot day (as they all were while we were in Oregon, 90+ degrees), and turning the final corner to the trail you actually felt the air cool down at least ten degrees. The surrounding forest isn’t terribly lush with undergrowth, but the cascading Sand Creek (fed by a spring, not the lake; no one knows where the lakewater seeps) supports abundant wildflowers, and it’s ridiculously picturesque. Unfortunately we were there too late in the afternoon to get direct sun, but that worked for my favor. Any brighter and it would have been tougher to get settings that worked for slowing down the water. (This is f/29, 1 second, ISO 125)
The light falling through the trees is always so beautiful, isn’t it?
I’d been looking forward to seeing and enjoying (…and photographing) some crystal clear night skies, devoid of light pollution. Maybe a bit of moon reflecting off the lake. Alas, it clouded over. Happily, it was a storm, with lightning! You know what that means! I set up my gorillapod at one of the turnouts, where we could see the flashes and the lake.
Soon the storms moved away and we were just seeing bright flashes, no bolts. So we drove along the Rim Drive until we had a better view. This was a glorious strike, though you’ll have to forgive the blown section.
This spot overlooks a handful of naturally-occurring forest fires. There were signs everywhere telling people not to report them. We saw several rangers and they told us that they’d been started by lightning, and were being watched carefully. If the fires got too big, they would step in and manage them. But it’s still eerie to see smoke plumes and reddish glows moving slowly.
Here’s a similar view the next day. This blanket of trees as far as the eye can see…it makes me so happy I can’t even tell you. Sometimes I wish I could see the west in the time of the natives, when everything was covered in evergreen forests. Wow.
Later, I started raining in one section of sky while the sun still shone brightly in another. Can you see the falling drops here?
Our last stop was to the Castle Crest Wildflower Trail. Just look at the happy flowers, and all the green!
It was relaxing, and beautiful. I love nature, I love mountains, I love forests, I love water!
Filed under Personal
When the weather goes wild, my instinct is to grab a camera.
On Friday night, I resisted the urge for awhile and avoided looking outside.
But when I saw the flashes lighting up over the city, I couldn’t help it.
I brought my camera and tripod up to the roof, continuous-shot at the ready.
I squealed and grinned in delight every time a massive strike lit up the sky.
I was super excited when I captured some of them. (Most of the shots were of dark sky, of course.)
I was even more thrilled to see these off the camera–wow!
Filed under Personal
Are you a fast walker? I normally am. When walking with big groups of people, I can always be found way up front. I’m just not not a dawdler by nature.
Unless…there’s a camera in my hand and interesting things to be seen. Then you will never find me at all, because I will have lagged behind everyone taking photos.
Such was the case the other week when a bunch of us met up to see Rainbow City and the new section of the Highline! The light was about to fade, but still had that lovely golden tinge, so I took as much advantage as I could. Lovely!
Filed under Personal
Wasn’t Monday glorious? Beautiful and so warm, like early summer! But of course, Mother Nature was only tempting us. After two days of gray rain, today’s sun and perfect mid-sixties temps were just the thing to relax and be happy. For a bit this evening, I opened the window and sat back in my Poang, enjoying a book. As the light got deeper and closer to twilight, I decided to grab my 85mm and see what signs of spring I could find in my neighborhood.
I’ve been watching this magnolia tree on my street all week, and taking iphone pictures. This morning there was maybe one or two buds opening up; and tonight half the tree was starting to bloom!
A few streets over, this magnolia is already wilting.
I shall never tire of golden light through flowers.
A few weeks ago, the crocus were carpeting the flowerbeds along the Brooklyn Promenade. Now they’re drowning among the tulips.
There were so many people enjoying the setting sun along the Promenade–the light and the views are unbeatable.
I hope you had a wonderful spring day today too!
Filed under Personal
On Wednesday, after it had snowed those beautiful fat flakes all morning, I happened to be coming into Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry. I glimpsed the snow-covered branches of Battery Park and was immediately enchanted. So instead of going right to the subway, I took a nice long detour around the park, trying to capture the beauty of bare trees and white snow. 
You know I had to jump!
I love this scene, with a bright old-fashioned lamppost and the Statue of Liberty almost hidden in the fog.
It really called for some dramatic processing.
Filed under Personal
Last night/this morning was a full lunar eclipse. I had never seen one before. With such great luck of a)not having to work tomorrow and b)living on the top floor of an apartment building, I stayed up til 3.30am to go see and photograph the eclipse from our rooftop!
My longest lens is the 55-200mm f/4-5.6, and I shot at 4-5 seconds at f/11, and ISO 100. I got some of those numbers from an online article, but it only took me one shot to realize that their recommendation of 1/125 shutter speed made no sense–you need a longer exposure to capture the light, since it’s so faint. I also later went up in ISO to get more of the light. Strange recommendations! The toughest thing, though, was the focus. The camera was pointed up at a steep angle on the tripod, so it was awkward to get in there and try to manually focus (let alone doing the manual switches in the dark!). That same article pointed out the usefulness of live view and that you can zoom in the live view! That lens is pretty crappy, so the focus ring is small and not very exact. However, with the zoom view I got a pretty decent focus. Not nearly as sharp as I’d love, but it will definitely do!
It was mostly eclipsed when we got out there around 2.15.
The sliver of light got smaller and smaller until the moon was mostly red (I read that that’s due to how the light waves bend between here and the moon, so therefore the moon was not actually hidden and it turned coppery) and it seemed to glow off and on. The sliver didn’t quite disappear while I was up there (I went inside between 2.45 and 3), but I peeked later, like 3.15, and it was much fainter and stood out from the sky.
What a cool sight!
Filed under Personal
