B-Sides
This is a new category for my site where I add random images that may be sub standard but still hold interest. It’s a work in progress because I take a lot of sub standard image! Scroll down the page:
Angel Arch in the Needles area of Canyonlands National Park.
Thors Hammer at sunrise from Bryce Canyon National Park, a bit of a weak image. I was stood shooting this on a steep slope, I had hoped for a sunburst but I lost my footing moments after this shot and slid downwards on the snow. I was unhurt but by the time I retraced my position I was too late to get the best shot.
Needs opening
Horseshoe Bend Arizona, I’d like to think I’d moved on from shooting icons, but I add this to my B-Sides gallery because I felt I’d at least managed to come up with a novel way to shoot something that is visited by hundreds of tourists a day.
Trango Tower and Cathedral Peak, Karakorums Pakistan. Galen Rowell once remarked that it was extremely difficult to shoot these mountains without making them look insignificant. I had only limited time to capture an image and can agree with Galen hence they feature here on the B-Sides.
A sunbeam in Antelope Canyon, again a horrendously over-shot image.
If I shot more nature images I’d create a separate page and this animal certainly deserves better than to be demoted to the B-Sides gallery. The Patagonian Huemul is extremely rare and so to capture it out in the open at close range in the fall was a special moment.
Laguna de los Tres, Los Glaciers National Park Argentina on Christmas Day.
This was a spectacular sunrise but there was too little water flow to really impress me.
The Great Gallery with a star rotation, I find this a bit tacky now.
Druid Arch in the Needles area of Canyonlands National Park.
A somewhat talentless point and shoot image at Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side.
Roof on Fire is now way overshot.
A series of windmills taken at night in the Netherlands, the swan actually stayed still for a full 20 seconds.
Cerro Torre during the fall.
Morning fog Los Glaciers National Park.
The all too easy shot of the Treasury from Petra.
Crystal Mill Colorado during the fall.
I had a perfectly lined up group of flowers for the foreground but when a squall came through they were all thrown to hell and back. I captured the bolt of lightning as it hit Bear Hat Mt in Glacier National Park.
Having previously had success here I decided to try my luck again. I won’t name this location because it’s illegal and dangerous to access.
A panorama from Los Glaciers National Park Argentina.
Anther pano, this time from the summit of Cerro Madsen in Los Glaciers National Park Argentina.
Ice on the rocks created some interest for this image again this one is from Los Glaciers National Park.
Unfortunately it snowed during the night so the beautiful fall colors in the foreground were hidden. I also gave myself too little headroom above the mountain. This cold snap made the leaves die and so when the snow melted a few days later it was clear that I would not get a good shot that year.
An amazing sky but the foreground was lacking interest. This was a 20 second exposure.
Same shot as above taken a few minutes later but with a faster exposure and longer focal length.
Havasu Falls, this was shot on Christmas Day 2011 a few years after the devastating flash flood. This used to be two spouts of water, I felt the rock in the upper middle of the falls spoiled the image.
Cerro Torre at sunrise, the small waterfall was nice but the shot really needed some clouds and the rock on the right tends to spoil the balance of the shot.
I wasn’t carrying my Nikon 14-24mm and my Tamron 24-70 made the edges look soft in this image, also fall color wasn’t at its best due to an earlier snow fall.
An unusual petroglyph found in Utah.
White Sands New Mexico, a run in with an irate policeman made me leave the following day which spoiled my memories of this location.
From Torres del Paine.
Weird natural feature out in the desert.
Incredible patterns on the sandstone.
Another from the same location as the one above. The image was shot at about 250mm using the Canon 100-400mm lens. The rock is no longer in the same condition, apparently the left most area has toppled. Some clouds would have been nice.
Canyon de Chelle, a nice enough shot but I’d have preferred to be lower.
Spring flowers in Los Glaciers National Park Argentina.
Poodle Rock out on the Colorado Plateau.
A killer sky over Cerro Humeul in Los Glaciers National Park.
A sun halo shot whilst exploring the Colorado Plateau.
I was searching for a good composition and this is one of the earlier shots but I still quite like it.
I tried many a time to photograph these horses but nothing really worked.
I used an ND10 filter to let me shoot for about 30 seconds. I tend to feel this was too long and the sky lacks detail.
It seems I always get great skies the day I leave Torres del Paine. This shot was taken at Puerto Natales two hours after leaving the park.
Cerro Fitz Roy, the sky just didn’t balance nicely for this image.
An early attempt at shooting the tree that was close to my cabin in Patagonia.
A feature in a slot canyon that has since crumbled.
A very unusual rock formation. I just happened upon this when using the ‘find points of interest’ feature on my GPS. Considering its location it was amazing that it was logged on the GPS.
Fitz Roy from Cerro Madsen. Yet another sunrise attempt without clouds! It’s nicer in winter because the left side of the image has no snow in summer and looks out of balance.
Cerro Fitz Roy from an off trail location.
Cerro Fitz Roy from an off trail location.
A bizarre rock formation in the Nevada desert.
Storm over White Pocket in Arizona.
Storm over Studhorse Point in Arizona.
A unique feature in a remote slot canyon.
The King of Wings is an extremely fragile wing rock from the Badlands of New Mexico. The ‘wing’ sits upon a soft sandstone plinth. There are three ways this wing will collapse, either its weight will bring it down, or the plinth will collapse, or it’s more likely some idiot will swing off it.
Some pretty sandstone I found out in the desert.
I shot this when I was pretty new to photography, it’s one of those images that you see in a book or online and you decide to go out and shoot it thinking that if you shoot it slightly differently from everyone else it will be a unique image. Certainly it’s a bit different with some snow but there’s not much artistic talent placing your tripod in the same place dozens of others have placed theirs.
Michael Fatali popularized this area calling it ‘ The Boneyard ‘.
There was very little snow during my two winters in El Chalten. This stretch of the river was promising but all too frequently by sunrise the clouds would all disappear. This shot was taken under moonlight about an hour and a half before sunrise.
One of the few advancing glaciers.
Fitz Roy from La Paradon de los Condores.
Mossbrae Falls California.
Fitz Roy from Arroyo del Salto during autumn.
Chorillo del Salto in high flood during the autumn.
The Pehoe Hotel under moonlight in Torres del Paine Chile.
A little breeze picked up whilst I was shooting a reflection of Fitz Roy, the result was quite nice.
K2 is the worlds second highest mountain and is much harder to climb than Everest. In 2016 despite 112 summit attempts nobody made it to the top. Whereas over 600! stood on the summit of Everest.
By keeping the camera low to the ground I was able to create some interest from this small pool
A star rotation from North Coyote Buttes
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find unique places to shoot in the States but sometimes it’s fun to go and shoot iconic images as well.
This granary found deep within the Colorado Plateau has an unusual pictograph showing two longhorn sheep. They were created using wet sand which incredibly still holds firm to this day.
Another granary from the American Southwest with a crumbling, but none the less impressive pictograph.
An old image from Los Glaciers National Park, the fall colors were spectacular that year.
A black and white from Los Glaciers National Park, this only works when the river is really high, which is rather infrequent on the east side of the Andes
This is a shot that I managed to find on the spur of the moment, I’d never been to this headland before and so I had to run around frantically trying to find some interesting foreground. The most obvious choice was to go low around the waterline unfortunately, this would have given a poor perspective for the iceberg. I felt this crack in the rock gave a nice leading line, the edges of the crack were smooth causing the light to really emphasize the line. The clouds were exposed for 30 seconds, which created a softer balance for the sky.
The sun rises at the kind of angle that should offer impressive light on this mountain, unfortunately it was very hard to capture when there was snow on the ground because invariably there would be low clouds to the east.
Storm clouds move quickly over the desert
Shimshal Valley Pakistan
Leila Peak Pakistan
Haldi Brakk Pakistan