Daylily
They get their name from the fact that each flower lasts only one day. I took these photos at the Boerner Botanical Garden in Milwaukee.
Calf Creek Falls
Calf Creek is a perennial clear stream that descends 126 feet into a pool. It’s located in Utahs Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. During the 6 mile hike you’ll pass two granaries, beaver dams, and a mighty pictograph on the wall opposite the canyon, to name but a few sites along the way.
Colorado river
Taken on a nice 1/2 day raft trip south of the Glen Canyon dam in Page Arizona.
Spring Firework
Took this, amongst others, in my mothers Wisconsin garden.
Bismarck
This is a Silver Bismarck Palm which of course in real life is colored a light green so it looks silvery compared to other palms. But with the help of a black & white camera it truly is now a Silver Bismarck Palm. I took this photo in Key West FL.
Foggy fishing
Wisconsin sunrise through a heavy layer of fog.
Florida sky
I took this about an hour after sunrise in Key West.
Rising star
Wisconsin sunrise over Pewaukee Lake.
Keys Sunset
Sunset sail in Key West.
Gunlock Reservoir Overflow
Fed by a record snowpack in the surrounding mountains, the waterfalls at the Gunlock Reservoir near St. George UT is flowing again and unleashing a torrent of water and visitors.
It’s the third time in the past five years the water from the reservoir has cascaded over the dam and spilled onto the cliffside rocks, creating the rare waterfalls that lure visitors from all over Utah and southern Nevada. Text credit: The Salt Lake Tribune
Joshua Trees in Gold Butte
Gold Butte National Monument is located northeast of Las Vegas and south of Mesquite. The monument protects nearly 300,000 acres of desert landscapes featuring a wide array of natural and cultural resources, including rock art, sandstone towers, and important wildlife habitat for species including the Mojave Desert tortoise, bighorn sheep, and mountain lion. The area also protects historic ranching and mining sites such as the ghost town of Gold Butte. Wikipedia
Foggy Sunrise
Wisconsin
Daylilies
Daylilies are popular, easy-to-grow, low-maintenance perennials that are tough, long-lived, and tolerant of neglect. They bloom profusely, though individual blooms only last a single day, and varieties number in the tens of thousands. Daylilies grow from fleshy roots, unlike true lilies that grow from bulbs. gardendesign.com
Old World Wisconsin
Old World Wisconsin is an open-air museum located near Eagle, Wisconsin. It depicts housing and the daily life of settlers in 19th-century Wisconsin, with separate areas representing the traditions of different ethnic groups who settled in the state. Costumed interpreters portray the occupations and chores of typical settlers of the time.Wikipedia
Patience
Sun rising through a low layer of fog creates some interesting light. This was taken on Pewaukee Lake in Wisconsin.
Key West Postcard
Great White Heron
Cayo Hueso
Key West (Spanish: Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it constitutes the City of Key West. Wikipedia
Key West Postcard
World renowned sunsets
Brian Head Peak
Brian Head Peak overlooks Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah. At 11,312 feet it has an alpine subarctic climate. With a mean annual snowfall of over 29 feet it is one of the snowiest inhabited (88 people) places in the United States.
Daylily
They get their name from the fact that each flower lasts only one day. I took these photos at the Boerner Botanical Garden in Milwaukee.
A Close-up
There was enough cloud, fog and Canadian fire smoke to create a natural filter allowing me to take this with a very powerful lens without my camera and eyeball melting. If you are seeing this on a larger device screen you'll even be able to clearly see a sunspot on the right side above trees. I take quite a few photos, especially sunrises and it amazes me that a photo can easily capture trees 5 miles away with a sunspot 93 million miles behind them. This is the kind of stuff that makes this an enjoyable hobby.
This dawn should last all day
Front row seat silently watching someone paint with spray cans on the other side of a huge pane of glass.
Sea Nettle
Those tentacles are a sure sting. A sea nettle hunts by traling those long tentacles, covered with stinging cells. When the tentacles touch tiny plankton, the stinging cells stick tight and paralyze prey. From there, the prey is moved to the frilly mouth-arms and finally to the mouth. I took this photo in the Monterey Aquarium and the text came off their website.
Wisconsin Sunrise
Taken over Pewaukee Lake towards Lake Michigan which is about 50 miles away.
Joshua tree
For scale this branch and flower is about 30" wide, the tree had 11 flowers and was 20' tall making it between 500 and maybe 1,000 years old. I took the photo last week in the Joshua Tree Byway area which borders Nevada, Utah & Arizona.
About the tree: First, they are not a tree but a Yucca plant that happens to resemble the size and growth pattern of a tree. They grow a fairly limited range within the Mojave Desert of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. They only grow between elevations of 2,000 and 6,000 feet. They tend to grow from 15 to 40 feet tall, usually only adding 2 to 3 inches each year. It will take around half a century for a Joshua Tree to reach full size. Wikipedia
Standing in one place, shoot right then left
On this rare snow covered morning I quickly set up my camera on the edge of a wash. I turned right and shot up the wash towards the Red Mountain that borders Snow Canyon State Park then turned the camera left and took another down the wash towards the Beaver Dam mountains. I spent the previous 2-3 hours in the park taking other photos of snow covered red sandstone, sand dunes and black lava. I had to move fast because in Ivins Utah snow like this only falls every couple of years and is gone in as many hours.
Sky on fire
Another brilliant key West sunset.
It’s real
I am fortunate to be able to get so many beautiful sunrise photos. And if the water is smooth......ah....reflection bonus.
Hard to beat
Wind, surf, sunrise, beautiful clouds and a partial double rainbow all in one Key West morning.
Standing in one place, shoot right then left
On this rare snow covered morning I quickly set up my camera on the edge of a wash. I turned right and shot up the wash towards the Red Mountain that borders Snow Canyon State Park then turned the camera left and took another down the wash towards the Beaver Dam mountains. I spent the previous 2-3 hours in the park taking other photos of snow covered red sandstone, sand dunes and black lava. I had to move fast because in Ivins Utah snow like this only falls every couple of years and is gone in as many hours.
Orchid
Orchids are one of the two largest families of flowering plants. There are over 28,000 currently accepted species of orchids and horticulturists have produced more than 100,000 hybrids. The number of orchid species is nearly equal to the number of bony fishes, more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. (Wikipedia)
First Light
A rare snowfall in Snow Canyon (named after Utah pioneers Lorenzo and Erastus Snow) brought me up here before sunrise. The sun had just risen lighting up the top of this sandstone formation. By 11am there was no trace of snow here, except the higher elevation mountains.
Gambel’s Quail
Taking refuge under a shrub during the rare SW Utah snowfall.
Simple Sunset
Key West sunsets are wonderful and even the simple ones are nice if you throw in a couple palm trees.
Desert Color
Ivins Utah is on the outskirts of St George bordered by red sandstone mountains, a Paiute reservation and large tracts of BLM land. The elevation is is about 3500', almost anything can be grown with supplementary water, snow come 2x/year but rarely lasts past 10am. Air is dry, rarely gets below freezing, it gets hot in July and August without the extremes of nearby Arizona and Nevada. The soil is orange due to the sandstone mountains behind me. Spring color begins in February as the temperatures climb with the falling rain.
Glad I was home
And I did not do any color enhancment.
Lillies
From my mother's garden in Wisconsin
White Pocket
White Pocket is a National Monument in Utah and also an appropriate name for this photo. Like many National Monuments out her, there are no amenities such as water, toilets or camping sites and the roads require a capable vehicle.
What are you looking at?
Female Great Horned Owl in Utah. She was watching over her 2 babies which made it easy to find and photograph them in daylight.
Golden Dawn
Good Morning Key West
Slot canyon
A slot canyon is a long, narrow channel or drainageway with sheer rock walls that are typically eroded into either sandstone or other sedimentary rock. A slot canyon has depth-to-width ratios that typically exceed 10:1 over most of its length and can approach 100:1. Some slot canyons can measure less than 1 metre (3 ft) across at the top but drop more than 30 metres (100 ft) to the floor of the canyon. Wikipedia
This Navajo sandstone canyon is in Page Arizona. The ideal time to photograph is between 10 and 2 when the sun is overhead to light up the walls.
Fly Fishing
Ospreys search for fish by flying on steady wingbeats and bowed wings or circling high in the sky over relatively shallow water. They often hover briefly before diving, feet first, to grab a fish. You can often clearly see an Osprey's catch in its talons as the bird carries it back to a nest or perch. I took this at an old quarry now filled with fresh water on Big Pine Key FL.
Snow Melt
This stream is at about 9,000-10,000 feet near Duck Creek UT which is between Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument.
The power of Irma
September 2017 Hurricane Irma made landfall in an area 20-50 miles north of Key West as a Category 4 with 140mph winds with recorded gusts of 180 on Big Pine Key. About a month after the storm passed I visited this area on Long Beach Road. This home received the 5' water surge plus wave tops relentlessly pushing until it broke through the house. Everything in the home was swept into the mangroves behind me.
Mirror
Based on the light sometimes I have to leave the shutter open to capture more light. This one took 6 seconds which had the added benefit of smoothing out the already flat lake.
Zinnias
Hurricane Irma
September 2017 Hurricane Irma made landfall in an area 20-50 miles north of Key West as a Category 4 with 140mph winds with recorded gusts of 180 on Big Pine Key. About a month after the storm passed I visited this area on Long Beach Road. I walked the entire road and beach and the silence amplified the destruction.
Bird of Paradise
Desert Bird of Paradise. Can grow as tall as 13 feet as a shrub or trimmed to a tree shape.
Near Zion
Outside of Zion National Park this serves as a background for the abandoned town of Grafton. At the base, and reason for the towns settlement is the Virgin river which carved the landscape here and created Zion Park a few miles away.
Mesquite
Rugged road through some Joshua trees with Mesquite Nevada way off in the distance. Not quite sure if I'm standing in Arizona or Utah because all three states are at this location, pretty close together. Beautiful spot to be for sunset due to the light and silence.
Colorado River
Over my right shoulder around a bend is the Glen Canyon dam holding back Lake Powell. This is downstream from the dam with the river about 750 feet below me. You may be able to make out a boat about 1/2 way into the photo to give you an idea of scale.
Cosmos
Boerner Botanical Gardens
California State Route 1
State Route 1 is a major north–south state highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of the U.S. state of California. At 656 miles, it is the longest state route in California, and the second-longest in the US after Montana Highway 200. Wikipedia
Hibiscus
Hibiscus is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. The genus is quite large, comprising several hundred species that are native to warm temperate, subtropical and tropical regions throughout the world. Member species are renowned for their large, showy flowers. Wikipedia
This was taken in my mothers Wisconsin garden.
Morning Sun
Walking through a farmers market bunches of cut flowers can make for a concentrated frame of color and shape.
Hurricane Irma
September 2017 Hurricane Irma made landfall in an area 20-50 miles north of Key West as a Category 4 with 140mph winds with recorded gusts of 180 on Big Pine Key. About a month after the storm passed I visited this area on Long Beach Road. Hard to grasp the force of the storm. Most homes along the street looked similar to this one.
1880s
South Dakota
In the back row
I love taking sunset photos in Key West. Sometimes I think I have enough but I'm always proven wrong because every sunset is a little different from all the others. For this one I'm sitting on a beach on a plastic lawn chair, camera with a big lens mounted on a tripod between my legs. I just Googled something like best sunset locations and Key West seemed to be on everyones top 10 list. Every evening there are 10-30 boats carrying their paid customers out for a front row view while I'm sitting in the back row hoping they will partially block my view.
Maraschino
Pewaukee Lake WI
Fall Aspens
Up around 10,000 feet near Cedar Breaks National Monument.
Please
To my right there were a couple fishermen cleaning their catch. Now and then they'd throw some scraps to these guys.
Water Power
In a 50' deep slot canyon in Kanab Utah. The very smooth sandstone walls, clean sand floor and 12" log trapped 20 some feet in the air is why they advise staying out of narrow canyons when there is rain anywhere within 100 miles.
Pacific Coast CA
PacState Route 1 is a scenic highway that runs along most of the Pacific coastline of the U.S. At 656 miles (1,056 km), it is the longest state route in California. Wikipedia
Copper Colored Sunrise
Pewaukee Lake WI which is about 50 miles West of Milwaukee and 50 miles East of Madison.
Big sky Utah
I took this in the general area of Bryce Canyon National Park. The 120 mile route from Bryce to Capital Reef National Park is a beautiful trip with ever-changing scenery.
Water lilies
Water lilies, are beloved for their colorful and exotic-looking blooms, but they are more than just pretty plants. They also contribute to pond health. By covering the water surface, they shade the water and keep it cooler, which helps control algae that thrives in heat. Water lilies also shelter fish from birds of prey and filter out excess nutrients to further inhibit algae growth. When temperatures warm up in summer, water lilies' showy flowers open in the morning and close at night.
Leucospermum
Saw it at a farmers market in So California. The guy had buckets of the most exotic cut flowers I've ever seen.
Quiet Color
It requires clouds for a memorable sunrise or sunset but some sunrises need very little to emphasize the changing color bands as it makes its way closer to the horizon.
Black-eyed susan
One Season Ends
Boating season ends but the light show continues.
Fragrant water-lily
Took this at a botanical garden in Milwaukee. It was an overcast day making the water look almost black which is a nice background for the lily to show off its color. Its found in permanent slow moving waters throughout North America where it ranges from Central America to northern Canada as well as Brazil.
Soft Sunrise
The light and reflection were very unusual.
Reservoir Sunset
Gunlock Utah
Argentine cactus
Argentine cactus blooms throughout the day and night with spectacularly large 8" flowers. While the blooms only last 36-48 hours, they are splendid enough to attract eager pollinators during the night, which include bats and moths.
Double lake sunrise
Interesting clouds can form 50+ miles away over Lake Michigan due to warm air over colder water.These clouds catch the first light of the dawn like a theatre screen, and reflect this light to the ground which is again reflected in the calm 10 miles of inland lake water I'm photographing over here in Wisconsin.
Egret
The largest of the white-colored wading birds in Florida, the great egret is frequently seen in wetlands areas and along waterways.
White Hibiscus
Soft red and white in the shadows.
Orchids
Walking around experimenting with my black & white camera I took this photo of deep blue almost purple orchids growing in deep shade.
Key West Sunset
Hard not to post these beautiful scenes.
Sunset Key Sunset
Indian shot
Canna indica is commonly known as Indian shot. Canna indica has been a food crop cultivated by indigenous peoples of the Americas for thousands of years. Wikipedia
I took this photo at the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Milwaukee.
Joshua Tree
It is native to the arid Southwestern United States, specifically California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. Based on growth estimates this 8 foot tree is 150-200 years old. If it survives the rigors of the desert, it can live for hundreds of years; some specimens survive a thousand years.
Springtime
Southwest Utah
Another Day
Another beautiful sunset sail in Key West FL
Dazzling Sunrise
Wisconsin Best
Two Pots of Gold
Pine Mountain Utah
Monsoon Season Begins
The desert just woke up … The air smelt of creosote, and the distinctive olive-green bush with oily leaves was filled with bright yellow flowers. Wildflowers and a barrel cactus, withered and dry a few days ago, were blooming… dragonflies and birds filled the air, lizards, quail and roadrunners scuttled on the ground, a jackrabbit hopping across the trail, and a cardinal, with its bright red plumage flying by. Sunset brings bats, the sounds of frogs and the howl of coyotes. The desert awakes…
Silent Color
Sunrise over my favorite Lake in Pewaukee Wisconsin
Pine Mountain Utah
Shallow Water
Walking on the reef at low tide. The depth here is just a few inches which reveals water plants.
Fog Frame
This sunrise is nicely framed with fog.
Garden Fireworks
Took this in my mother's garden.
B&W Sunrise
On a boat one morning in Key West. Sun was rising behind these palm trees offering nice contrast. I had my black & white camera and the water was smooth so I took a couple photos. As it is usually the brilliant colors that make a beautiful sunrise this looked so different when I peered through the cameras colorless viewfinder. Anyway, it is different.
Outstanding sunrise
What a beautiful beginning
Doubler
Ivins Utah
Great Blue Heron
The white form of the Great Blue Heron, known as the "great white heron," is found nearly exclusively in shallow marine waters along the coast of very southern Florida, the Yucatan Peninsula, and in the Caribbean. They hunt both day and night and can live over 20 years.
Hibiscus
Squall
This one sent a strong message to the boaters that day.
Aspen Grove
Beautiful bright hike amongst white bark trees.
Pretty Bird
Bird of Paradise on a walk in Pacific Grove CA