Sunsets, Sunflowers and Cactus
After bailing on the storms, I saw a giant monolith of a mountain jutting from the land way east of Florence. I knew I couldn’t get there, so I tried to get as close as I could…so I took off down a dirt road named East Price. Well, I never got to the mountains as the sun just set too quickly, but it didn’t stop me from pulling the car over on a few occasions and lining up a couple of shots. A typical Arizona summer sunset right here, with debris clouds from the monsoons creating some spectacular lighting. The [...]
Two more sunsets from downtown Tempe
I posted a shot on Monday of the Hayden Flour Mill at sunset, which you can see here again in the above panoramic view of the town of Tempe, Arizona. The sky was cooperative that night and it made for a nice sunset from the slopes of A-Mountain. Click on the photo for a larger, more detailed view. The shot below is looking north-northwest towards the Tempe Town Lake, also from A-Mountain. I love how it was just dark enough to see the string of lights running across the Mill Avenue bridges, plus a few street lights here and there. [...]
Dusk over the Wasatch National Park (HDR)
This is an HDR photo of the Wasatch National Park at sunset. I had been sitting on the side of this mountain watching the sun go down, watching a little weather blow through Salt Lake City…and just waited to see how the sun would light up these mountains. The sky proved fairly awesome with the clouds and some color, but a couple of airplanes decided to cross overhead at the same time, which really gave it a cool look.
Sunset on the Four Peaks
My plan on Wednesday was to drive out and get some photos of the snow on the Four Peaks mountain range northeast of Phoenix. You can get a nice view by heading up the Beeline Highway and turning off on the appropriately named Four Peaks Road. I’ve always wanted to take a great picture of the Four Peaks covered in snow. It happens out here once a year if you’re lucky and the snow disappears quickly. On this day it was already stormy and rainy out. Jina told me it might be better to wait until Thursday for a clearer [...]
Chandler Park Sunset
The same park I took some other shots at in a previous blog post also provided some amazing sunsets the day before. The park is high, around three stories, so you get an amazing view. Some more cement pipes that have been turned into art. This is one that set up perfectly for a setting sun. I’ve gotten a lot of good feed back on this one. I call it “Ocotillo Sunset” because of the ocotillo cactus in the foreground. Got me an AC on Wunderground (Approver’s Choice)!
Sunset from November 4th
We had an insanely gorgeous sunset last Wednesday. In fact, while I was out taking pictures, a friend from work called to make sure I was out taking pictures! Even he knew I wouldn’t want to miss what was going on out there. Here are the best four below, the last one being an HDR photo from the park down the street. The skies look extra-creepy in it because of the HDR method, but it’s pretty cool.
My first HDR photo
Most of you are probably asking what HDR means. I actually asked myself that when writing this blog, because while I know what an HDR photo looks like, I always forget what it stands for: High Dynamic Range Imaging…or HDR (the “i” gets dropped) Read more here if you want to learn the details. The simple explanation is a merging of multiple images of one scene shot at different lighting levels. Some cameras can take many photos in a row and do something called “bracketing” where it will alternate between lightning levels. You then take those images and combine them [...]
Springfield rain and sunset photos
I spent an incredibly long time in the Springfield airport this past Friday. We finished up a bit early and so I arrived at the airport around noon for a 4:20 flight. That flight turned into 5:20 and then 6:30, meaning I would miss my connection to Phoenix in Memphis. I ended up having to book on Allegiant for a 9:35pm departure and arrival late Friday night. But sometimes there are blessings when you least expect them, and this was also the case Friday night. While booking my Allegiant ticket, I looked outside the small airport and noticed a glorious [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.