I liked this roadside chapel in Colorado because it had a bright red exterior that contrasted sharply with the skies and the land. The grey of the overcast landscape was broken by this little house of worship.

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I’ve been slacking off on posting photos but the summer vacation is no longer, back to the weekly updates!

While on my friend Colin’s sailboat underneath the Alex Fraser Bridge I spotted this awesome tugboat full of crushed cars. I’m sure they are headed towards a happy second life

I love this shot because it makes my head wrap around itself!

Randomly invited into a gallery during the Olympics, I found this amazing piece and worked with it for a few minutes taking about 40 or so shots before I could get the one I wanted.

Taken during the Olympics; this sunset was particularly beautiful! Much better than the rain that’s falling on Vancouver these days.

Fortunately, my visit back to Charlotte overlapped with the grand opening of the Bechler Museum of Modern Art. Charlotte’s architecture is largely bland and corporate, the same glass and steel that’s typical of un-imaginative “efficient” building designs. Now that the Bechler is open, I hope it becomes the face of the city. Housing some awesome pieces only bolsters its amazingness. Who knew there were so many modern art tapestries? Or that said tapestries were woven by Picasso?

Sure, its far from perfect as @thediscochicken will tell you. But this is the kind of challenging provocative space Uptown CLT needs desperately. The only awesome building in Blandcouver is the downtown library… the only structure that stands out from the countless towers copied and pasted from Hong Kong.

The Boathouse at Lake Louise in Banff National Park. I still have so many amazing photos to post from my road-trip from NC to BC. This is one example. I’m longing for the sun and blue skies of the Canadian Rockies after the incessant gray that hangs above the trees and building of Vancouver winters.

This is an old photo from 2008 but when I ran across it today nothing could stop me from posting it. I drove past this store on a regular basis when I lived in Brevard, NC but when @jegreen42 and @gill2003 were in town we had to stop and photograph it.  Nothing says North Carolina small town quite like a Sears appliance store and an Alcohol Beverage Control store in the same structure. Yes, North Carolina has regulated alcohol however unlike Canada we can buy wine and beer in grocery/convenience stores, just liquor must be purchased at ABC stores. This photo was featured on The Consumerist during several occasions, this being one of them.

[view the original on Flickr]

As one of the most iconic images of the United States, Mt. Rushmore was very different from my expectations. Everyone sees the typical view above (although not in HDR) but most people don’t see the entirety of the monument depicted below. Located in the gorgeous Black Hills of South Dakota, the monument is strange. I expected the carving to be on a massive rock that juts out of the flat earth, but in reality you have to drive up the mountains to reach it. These really are mountains, not the Rockies or the Appalachian but definitely mountains. The nearby town of Keystone is nothing more than the town that Rushmore built. My visit to Mt. Rushmore was definitely the most touristy thing I did the whole cross-country roadtrip. And that is saying something, I also went to the 18m (~60ft) Jolly Green Giant.

]]> http://jritchphotography.com/267/feed 0 http://jritchphotography.com/265 http://jritchphotography.com/265#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:16:04 +0000 jritch http://jritchphotography.com/?p=265 Chicago’s Millennium Park is an incredible place, after seeing it I now feel disappointed when I visit any other park in any other city… except for maybe Stanley Park in Vancouver. I really like the ghosts in this photo as the people walked through my shots.]]>

Chicago’s Millennium Park is an incredible place, after seeing it I now feel disappointed when I visit any other park in any other city… except for maybe Stanley Park in Vancouver. I really like the ghosts in this photo as the people walked through my shots.

Charleston, SC has tons of great architecture and the famous rainbow row is exemplary of the beautiful aura surrounding the city. In the mid-1700s these buildings were the center for commerce but now are restored and serving as homes.