Terra Galleria Photography

Posts Tagged ‘forests’

Kīpahulu: one-square mile tropical paradise

Haleakalā National Park protects two areas of the island of Maui. The contrast between them always amazes me. The nearly freezing temperatures, barren lava soil, and sea of clouds of the 10,000-foot-high Haleakalā Crater couldn’t be more different from the paradisiacal tropical pools, jungle, and waterfalls found at the ocean’s edge at Kīpahulu. Despite its […]

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve wrap up

An eclectic wrap-up on New River Gorge National Park with more details about logistics (including a map with all locations in this series keyed), my timing, final impressions, the result of the image choice poll, and a bonus location. Logistics The closest major city is Charleston WV, 50 miles away, but I flew into Charlotte […]

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve: Five Unexpected Sights

When I planned my well-awaited trip to New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, I was expecting to photograph the landscapes of the New River Gorge and the most famous landmark in West Virginia, the New River Gorge Bridge. What I didn’t expect to find were so many historic structures that the place often felt […]

New River Gorge National Park: Five Classic Sights

The only thing new with New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is its status as our latest national park. The river is very old, and New River Gorge National River had long been known as an East Coast outdoors activities hub offering diverse activities including whitewater rafting with Class V rapids, excellent rock climbing, […]

Guide to Giant Sequoia National Monument: Northern Unit

Because it is wedged between areas of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the northern unit of Giant Sequoia National Monument, is more traveled than the southern unit. When driving highway 180 (Kings Canyon Scenic Byway) between Grant Grove and Cedar Grove, or the Generals Highway between Grant Grove and Sequoia National Park, many visitors […]

Guide to Giant Sequoia National Monument: Southern Unit

Giant sequoias grow only along a narrow band on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California and I clustered in about 65 to 75 groves, depending on how you count them. Three groves grow in Yosemite National Park. The vast majority of them are located within a 70 mile long stretch centered around […]

Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument: Maine’s Newly Preserved Backwoods

A decade ago, I inspected the Maine North Woods as it became the focus of Roxane Quimby’s quest for a new national park. As anticipated in my Maine North Woods travel report, opposition to this grand vision was widespread enough that Quimby changed her goals to a national monument instead, which does not require congressional […]

Utilizing Weather in Shenandoah

I have found the adage “Bad weather makes for good photographs” generally true. Cloudless days are not what I look forward to for daytime photography. There are two approaches to finding favorable weather conditions for landscape photography. You can go to a location based specifically on the weather forecast – the best is little-known Meteoblue […]

Firefly Variations

In this post, I revisit a firefly photograph in some detail, first comparing it to a similar image made with a different technique, then showing its components images to highlight firefly specifies within. Single exposure v. Digital composite I mentioned previously that there are two approaches to photograph fireflies together with the forest, a carefully […]

Synchronous Fireflies Beyond the Smokies

Great Smoky Mountains National Park was once thought to be the only place in North America where the synchronous fireflies (Photinus carolinus) can be seen. Fittingly for the most visited national park in America, the event has become very popular, as described in the previous article. During my East Coast trip this spring, I observed […]