One Day in Oslo

I made a trip to the Lofoten Islands in Norway in February, with the goal of photographing the northern lights over the beautiful landscapes in the area. I decided to spend a full day in Oslo on the way there since I needed a layover anyway and had never seen the city. I arrived at the Oslo airport late in the evening and learned my first lesson: take the train to the city and not a cab. The train costs less than half as much and makes the trip in half the time. Lesson learned, I made it to my hotel, got a good night’s sleep, and had a filling breakfast before spending the day walking. My plan was to walk from the hotel to the Oslo cathedral, up Karl Johans Gate passed the Royal Palace to Vigeland Park, and then along the waterfront to the Akershus Fortress and the Opera House.

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2022 Favorites

2022 was a very different photographic year for me as I actually captured far more images than usual with the vast majority taken over a two week period in early July. While I usually plan several trips for landscape photography during a year, my 2022 plans were based around my twice-delayed African safari in Botswana. You can also see that in the blog posts that I shared this year – virtually all of them were from that tip.

That said, I was able to take some images I enjoyed in California and Montana and hope that you enjoy them as well. Images are presented below in the order I captured them. I’ll also note that this is NOT a list of my ten “best” images from the year. I focus on my favorites – chosen either because I believe the image is particularly strong or because of the memories I associate with it. Best of lists have no room for memories!

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Favorites from 2020

As 2020 comes to a close, it is time to select my favorite images from the year. Needless to say, it has been an interesting year. Like many other people, I had to cancel several planned trips and I got used to spending a lot more time at home. For the early part of the year, my photographic endeavors were limited to taking macro shots at home and some flower photos in my neighborhood. As the year went on, I managed some day (night?) trips to photograph the stars before making the decision to invest in some property in Montana. All of the photos shared below were captured within driving distance of my home bases in Northern California and Northwest Montana.

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Touring Israel

Jerusalem, Israel — Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Sandee and I did an 8 day tour in Israel at the beginning of December. We don’t normally do tours as we generally prefer the freedom to explore at our own pace – sometimes even taking days to just relax. In this case we knew we’d have a much better experience having a guide and we had several friends coming along with us, so we took the plunge.

Our’s was a “Bible Experience” tour led by Behold Israel and it was extremely well run. They managed all lodging, transportation and food and all were excellent. Especially the food. We had a full time guide, driver and bus and were joined though most of the tour by Amir Tsarfati who provides great information from both Jewish and Christian perspectives and gave bible lessons from the sites we visited.

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San Francisco Cityscapes for the New Year

San Francisco, California — San Francisco Bay Bridge, California

From Twin Peaks

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is generally slow at work, giving me a chance to do a little photography. This year my wife was out of town visiting her sister so I shot a couple of sunsets in the far away city of San Francisco. OK, maybe it isn’t that far away. I just don’t go there very often!Continue reading→