Lofoten Norway is beautiful. However, like most special locations, Instagram has covered it. Head to toe in every kind of weather, light, time of year, etc. etc. Oh, I took the same photographs. From the same points, in the same kind of weather, in the same kind of light. But as I wandered around the little island, I became disillusioned with the stunning beauty before me, so I started to look a bit deeper. The challenge became finding a picture that doesn’t have a million ju

Hotels give me the Hee Bee Gee Bee’s. Ive stayed in every size, shape, and form of them across the world and so far, there are only a handful that I would willingly return to. A small handful. And as I traveled across Norway, I found my skin crawling as we moved in and out of the tourist trail houses to go and see the next great waterfall. That is, until we moved into the Hotel Oye. The Hotel Oye is in the town of Oye which is made up entirely of the Hotel Oye. You can litera

I hate waterfalls. I didn’t used to hate waterfalls, but now that I spent two weeks in Norway…I hate them. It’s not the waterfall’s fault; it’s not even Norway’s fault. It’s completely my fault. I have been privileged to see some amazing waterfalls in amazing places in amazing light and yet I don’t feel I have one good photograph that brings the overwhelming sense of calm that a waterfall gives you. Norway gave me literally thousands of opportunities to find that sense of cal

I usually only come up here once a year to see the fireworks. But the rare July rain promised great clouds and so I figured I’d try to get a good vantage point for the sunrise. So, there I was at 5:30am set up to get some good light on Rubicon peak overlooking McKinney bay and bust. The storm had stalled in the east preventing any good light to fall on the west and there I was packing it in. It’s a good thing my camera bag was behind me as I prepared for defeat because, right

The reason I have so few bear pictures is because scared bears in trees do not make good bear pictures. I did not train Scout to tree bears, it’s pure instinct. He hates them. This morning, however, was different. It was a real old western gunfight. They stared each other down daring to charge first. I think Yogi said, “Not today pal.” To which Scout replied, “You come any closer, and up the tree you are going.” In the end, I think they both agreed to let me take a photograph

I photograph a lot of trees. That makes me sort of a tree connoisseur. So, when asked, “John, what is your favorite tree?” I usually have to answer in parts because no, one tree has it all. For example: The best forest tree? The giant redwood. The best fall color tree? Easy, any maple. The best abstract tree? California oaks. The best desert tree? Ever been to Joshua Tree National Park? Best leaf? Ginko. And so on. But none of those are my favorite tree. My favorite tree to p

It’s Christmas time so I guess we’ll go with the ghosts of Christmas past. I drove by this grassy knoll, and I have to admit that the first thing that caught my eye was the electric green of the grass. But as I played Frogger crossing the road, I noticed the gnarled oak trunks, and they reminded me of spirits rising from the grave. The Scooby Doo fog helped too. Did they speak to me? I can’t honestly say I heard anything there, but when I got home and took a look at the scr

The sign said, “Private Road. No Trespassing.” It seemed strange to me as I walked by completely ignoring it. Was trespassing really a problem along an old country road? I likened the sign to many that I had seen in the past, attributed to hillbillies believing that the land they owned belonged to them. Still, I moved with haste as I’ve also had summits with real hillbillies with real shotguns. It’s a common picture, but not commonly found. And in fact, I have driven past thi

If you have followed me at all the past few years, you would concur that my photography has been about fog. Trees in fog. Meadows in fog. Mountains in fog. Dogs in fog. Etc. etc. I think it gives my pictures a calming feel that technicolor skies and dramatic wide angle shots just don’t do. I mean, they are nice and certainly get more “likes” on social media, but you don’t see people hanging those pictures on walls in their homes. So, you would think that I’d be happier than a

Would you buy your own park, build 51 miles of roads to tour it complete with 16 unique hand carved stone bridges, and then donate it to the National Park Service so that it could be enjoyed by everyone in the world? I couldn’t possibly fathom having that kind of wealth nor the mental illness that it would require to attain it. So, no. My winning lottery ticket dreams are more like hiring a crack team of special forces operatives to hunt down those computer hacker nerds and s