Anoush in flowers, Burgess Corners, Michigan.

I usually do portraits with a DSLR, but every once in a while I do a portrait with my iPhone just to see how it does. In this case, my phone did a pretty good job. We stopped at Burgess Corners Michigan because there is a 1920s era grocery store and gas station on the corner. (I will post gas station photos later.) After taking some photos at the gas station we decided to take advantage of the flowers on the other side of the highway.

Anoush Anou, Manistique River.

This is the latest in the “green towel” series. This towel lives in my car for whenever I am doing water portraits.  It is also in my car for the times I need to dry off after I have to wade out into water to get the photo angle I want, or to dry off my tripod legs. There are more green towel photos here.

McGulpin Rock and the Mackinac Bridge, October 4, 2006.

I stumbled (not literally) across McGulpin Rock in 2006 quite by accident. I was wandering the Lake Michigan shoreline and there it was. I did not know at the time that it is historically famous. Five years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, French explorers found McGulpin Rock in 1615.

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Sun with large sunspots.

The large sunspot conglomeration at the bottom of the sun is the cause of the auroral explosion here on earth. An immense storm 17 times the size of our planet is going on in that sunspot area and a blast of plasma ejected by the storm headed toward earth. When the plasma hit the earth’s magnetosphere is set off the Northern and Southern Lights around the globe. If you have a solar filter for your camera lens you can go out and take pictures of the sunspots. I took this photo this afternoon using a white light solar filter made by Thousand Oaks Optical.

Northern Lights, Home Lake, Lamoni Iowa.

The Northern Lights were spectacular last night in south central Iowa. The above image was my first click of the shutter. I was at Home Lake near Lamoni Iowa. When I arrived shortly after 10 pm, there were already a half dozen cars at the lake with people looking at the Northern Lights and many of them were taking pictures with every from smart phones and tablets to tripod mounted cameras. Tonight is predicted to be another great night. If you want to take pictures and need some advice, see the first link below. The other links are helpful too. Click any image in this article to see a larger version.

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Bryce Canyon at Sunrise

I was on my way from Colorado to California and decided to drive across southern Utah. I had never been to the National Parks in Utah and wanted to see them. They are spectacular.  If you love landscape photography and haven’t been to southern Utah, put a trip there high on your priority list.  These photos were taken April 25, 2011.

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John Muir

Today is John Muir’s birthday! He was born April 21, 1838. He had a profound influence on how Americans viewed our wild lands and his influence led to the establishment of many of our National Parks and other protected lands. He was nicknamed “The Father of our National Parks”. Tomorrow, April 22, is also Earth Day, so I am combining the two in this article.

Here are photos from some of my favorite national and state parks along with quotes from John Muir.

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Soleece

Before I process an image, I zoom in and check the eyes to make sure they are in focus. If they aren’t, it is not a usable image and I pick a different one.

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