One of my favorite national parks is Mount Rainier in Washington. There is nothing better than getting up early to catch the sunrise light hitting the top of Mount Rainier in front of Reflection Lake covered in early morning fog. It is one of the great landscapes in this country. I was there in August 2019 which is peak visiting time as the crowds will attest. However, the park has plenty of places to find peaceful solitude.

Mount Rainier has a lot of wildlife. We usually get to see a Black Bear (no Grizzlies there!) each time we visit. There are lots of deer in the meadows, many are acclimated to the human visitors, marmots are numerous among the rocky cliffs and plenty of birds such as the young Stellar’s Jay below who was looking for a handout among the visitors. We even had the chance to see the rare Cascades fox at night, though my iphone photo was pretty grainy.

By far, the big attraction in summer are the multitude of wildflowers that spring up around the mountain. If you stay at Paradise Inn within the Park, you can easily step outside the door and be greeted by a very colorful display of flowers covering the landscape. Below is a photo taken just off the roadway.

We returned to Reflection Lake for another sunrise. It’s just about a perfect location for a photograph. I hope you get to visit this National Park and see it all with your own eyes.

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The Porsche Rennsport Reunion VI was held in September 2018 at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, CA. A four-day event full of historic and modern racing Porsches, past and present factory drivers, and thousands of Porsche fans. This was the second reunion I attended and I photographed hundreds of cars on display and out on the racetrack. It was an amazing event and I hope attend the next reunion when it’s held in 3 years or so.

Above is the front end of the very first Porsche, built in 1948. A mid-engined, two-seater, it has been restored and usually sits in the Porsche Museum in Germany, but made the trip to the U.S. for the Rennsport Reunion. It even took a few laps around the race course.

One of the thrills of being at the reunion was the opportunity to see and hear from Dr. Wolfgang Porsche (on the left), currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Porsche. He is the son of Ferry Porsche (who created that first Porsche car above) and the grandson of company founder, Ferdinand Porsche.

Fan events during the reunion included the autograph sessions with the drivers and engineers of the past, the folks who created and drove the cars that won thousands of races over the past 70 years. Above, automotive engineer, Hans Metzger, signs an autograph for me. He was responsible for designing many of the engines that powered Porsche race cars for decades.

One last photo below. I had the opportunity to drive on the Laguna Seca race track that features the famous “Corkscrew” which drops a total of 109 feet (about a 10 story building). I was only driving a rented Porsche Macan SUV but it was still exciting and a ton of fun. Someone was taking a photo of each car that passed through the corkscrew and sent me this pic of my drive.

Back in late September, I traveled to Iceland for our annual photo workshop. A country that I have visited each of the last five years. I cannot think of any other location that offers so much to the landscape photographer. The terrain ranges from mossy to barren, from black sand beach to glacier covered mountains. There are continuously alternating weather patterns, full sun to dramatic clouds, rain to snow and brilliant rainbows too numerous to count. Then, there are the waterfalls. If there is one feature that makes Iceland a must-see travel destination, it is the multitude of beautiful waterfalls. One of the more famous is Seljalandsfoss, pictured above. We were lucky as the setting sun broke through the cloud cover to light up the falls in a wonderful orange glow at sunset.

Another of the great waterfall areas is Kirkjufellsfoss, below. This was my first visit to this place and it did not disappoint.

About those rainbows, finding a rainbow is not a difficult task in Iceland. The constant cycle of rain and then sun during the day provides plenty of opportunities to photograph a rainbow, which in the image below, happened to be arching over the famous black church at Budir.

Our workshops to Iceland are scheduled in the fall when the landscape colors burst out. Below, the lava field waterfalls known as Hraunfossar, are surrounded by the spectacular fall color.

Another reason we schedule fall workshops here is to increase the opportunity to see the Northern Lights as the nights grow longer in the fall. We additionally schedule during the new moon to maximize the visual effect. During this trip, we contended with a number of cloud covered nights, but finally on the last night there, the skies were clear enough to see the fantastic natural light display. The lights seemed to burst out directly overhead to form lines and waving sheets of color. My advice to landscape photographers….get thee to Iceland!

Our JKPW workshop on Vancouver Island, British Columbia in late August was a wildlife focused thrill ride. We spent most of our time on the water, either searching for whales and black bears along the coastline or traveling to a First Nation area where grizzlies roam the streams and rivers in search of food for the coming winter. The grizzly above was one such hunter, looking for the salmon that gathered after spawning.

Black bears also were on the search for food along the island coastlines, turing over rocks for anything edible.

This area of Canada attracts a tremendous amount of wildlife, including a large population of eagles, sea lions, harbor seals, wolves, and shorebirds.

Whale sightings were numerous. We watched gray whales and pods of Orcas and encountered a curious humpback who spent a good 20 minutes taking several looks at us strange humans, coming incredibly close to our boats without every touching us. Pretty amazing for such huge creatures.

In the Strait of Georgia we followed a pod of Oracas as they glided by a landscape with Mt. Baker in the background.

My first visit to Badlands National Park in South Dakota was a real eye-opener. I had always pictured this park as a vast area of colorless, barren landscapes. What a wondrous surprise to discover beautiful vistas full of color and wildlife. The landscapes are quite breathtaking and the variety of wildlife rivals many other National Parks in the U.S.

Bison, bighorn sheep, fox, coyote, pronghorn, prairie dogs (lots!) and many species of birds live here. Watching families of bighorn sheep romp around the rocky hillsides can occupy an entire morning or afternoon and the hundreds of prairie dogs are endless entertainment.

But the true magic of this park, is the scenery with rocks that turn fire red at sunset and colorful mounds that have been created by thousands of years of erosion. For landscape photographers, Badlands is a must-see location, highly recommended.

In southern France, in the Camargue area, one of the oldest horse breeds in the world roams the wetlands and marshes. I’ve always wanted to photograph these horses galloping through the water, an iconic image of this location. I had my opportunity in May and what an incredible adventure it was. Photographing a group of running horses headed towards you is very exhilarating and being very close to them as they charge by, like in the image above, is a bit intimidating. Born with black and dark brown coats, they turn white as they reach adulthood.

These horses are strong as well as beautiful and capturing them in action was a joy.

This area of France offers other photographic opportunities including the nature park, parc ornithologique PONT de GAU, a preserve for a tremendous number and variety of birds. Hundreds of flamingos gather there and the park contains numerous rookeries for herons and egrets. The park is a bird photographers dream.

As a bonus during this trip, it happened to be the same week as an annual gypsy festival in the town of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer. Thousands of gypsy’s from around the world gather here to celebrate their patron saint and hold processions through the town.

A final session with the horses at sunset produced this image and a wonderful memory of this visit to France.