Most of my traveling is for photo shoots. Most of it. But every once in a while, I need to get away just to get away. You know, like everybody else. Oh, I'll still bring the camera gear, just in case. But sometimes I need a break from the photo shoots. This past weekend was such a trip.

And red, and white, and black, and blue, and all kinds of colors! Of course I'm talking about one of Oregon's Seven Wonders, the Painted Hills of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument!

Without a doubt, one of the most photogenic areas in the Pacific Northwest is the Columbia River Gorge, and that's saying something! No, not that Columbia Gorge - the other one! The one without the amphitheater. I'm talking about all that drop-dead gorgeous scenery along the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington.

No, we're not going to talk about umbras and penumbras. There are plenty of good resources about eclipses out there. Nope, we're going to talk about standing out on a frozen lake in -20°C temperatures to get the composite image featured in this post.

Just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, as unlikely as it might seem at first, it really does exist after all! I'm talking about the aurora borealis. The Northern Lights. Those funny green (usually) lights that show up around the north magnetic pole. Don't know about the aurora australis down south - haven't seen those, yet. They may be a myth. I'll have to check on that some other time. But here in the north, they're real!

Yes, taxes. That's the one thing I dislike about this time of year. Beautiful flowers are coming out everywhere, the weather is getting nice, and dang-it all if we don't have to get all mired up in taxes when we should be out hiking or something.

For the first time this year I actually had to open a window in my office to cool it down while I worked. April is finally here, and in Washington State that means it's tulip time! I hear there is a little country in Europe that also gets excited about tulips, but the real celebration is here in Skagit County!

Well, Spring has officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, and the weather here in Western Washington, just to show that it can sometimes behave itself, was sunny and warm, with highs that topped out in the 70s in some areas. Yeah, that won't last. It will start raining again tomorrow and won't stop until July 5th.

Lighthouses are cool! Admit it. Every time you see a lighthouse, you're drawn to it. Whether you want to climb to the top to see the view or if anybody's up there, or to learn its history and hear its stories, or just to photograph it, you can't help yourself. There's something magical about a lighthouse.

Death Valley. Sounds enticing, doesn't it? Do I have to die if I go there or can I just see all the dead stuff that's already there and leave quickly? Maybe head over to Vegas. I hear it's nearby.

Everybody likes waterfalls! Hikers make a destination of them, tourists flock to them with camera phones ready, and daredevils go over them in barrels or rafts. And photographers, we always try to get a unique view of that famous iconic location that's been photographed millions of times before, which of course is almost impossible to do. But we try anyway.

In the world of photography, as well as just about anything in life that's worth doing, sometimes you have to go the extra mile to get the job done. And if that extra mile happens to be in dead of night on a lonely trail, well, that's just the price we sometimes have to pay to fulfill our passion!

Well, it has some ice, too. In fact it has lots of ice, much of it in the form of glaciers on top of some rather active volcanoes. But it also has plenty of rivers and lakes and waterfalls and sandy beaches. And, of course, being an island it has lots of coastline, as you might expect. Because of its many fjords, though, it has a lot more coast than you would think.

While preparing for my recent photo trip to Iceland, I studied various travel guides as well as a detailed, foldout map the country, and one item that kept popping up was the little churches that seem to be sprinkled all over the country. I kept coming across photos of these cute little white churches with red roofs, the guide books mentioned them in just about every town, and the map even showed the location of every single church. So I knew I had to visit some of these for myself and see what they were all about.

Blonds, brunettes, and red heads, bangs, bobs and you name it, these pretty babes are all about the hair! Of course I'm talking about Icelandic Horses. And don't call them ponies around a Viking if you know what's good for you!

Thirty miles to the south of Seattle in the city of Tacoma, right outside the Museum of Glass, there is a 500-foot-long pedestrian overpass that crosses I-705 and some railroad tracks. This curious footbridge connects the Museum of Glass to the rest of the Tacoma Museum District, the University of Washington Tacoma, and a few hundred Starbucks locations. But in addition to its function as a footbridge, it is a bit of a museum itself, for it is known as the Chihuly Bridge of Glass.

Everybody loves reflections! What is it about reflections that gets people so excited? Of all the types of nature photography out there, it seems like reflections get the biggest reaction.

In the nearly infinite bucket list of places I want to visit and photograph, the desert Southwest has always ranked high on my list. I mean, how can you beat a place that has beautiful red rock formations, sand dunes, slot canyons, exotic desert plants, flash floods, poisonous snakes, deadly scorpions, and big hairy scary tarantulas? This is a place that has it all! So when my friend Jeremy invited me to join him on a trip he was organizing last Spring, I jumped at the chance!

One of my favorite types of photography that I don't do enough of is abstracts. Webster defines an abstract of the art variety as "expressing ideas and emotions by using elements such as colors and lines without attempting to create a realistic picture". I define it as "if it's in focus and you still can't tell what it is, it's an abstract".

Fall is in the air! Can you feel it? I know, I know, summers are short enough in Seattle, so why get excited about the beginnings of another dreary, cloudy, rainy, nine month long winter, right? Well, it just so happens that autumn is, to many photographers anyway, the most photogenic of the seasons. The bugs are gone, the heat and temperature inversions have moved on, and what's left is fresh, clean air and, depending on where you are, some pretty amazing colors!