Vancouver’s English Bay is a beautiful area, I took this one from Jericho Beach looking towards downtown

This weekend in Western North Carolina I found an old abandoned car in the township of Balsam. Someone likely saved up for this vehicle and for whatever reason, it has been left abandoned for a while because now grass has surrounded it. A story that will be left untold for those that spot the automobile among the weeds.

I’ll break from my photo posting tradition a little bit by including myself in a shot. However, the only way you can gain an idea of the scale and the contrast of the brutal landscape around the South Dakotan badlands is in relation to a person amongst their craggy peaks.

I hiked only about a mile through the landscape and despite chugging water most of the way (as signs everywhere tell you to) I still experienced deep heat exhaustion and a headache the rest of the day. The area radiates heat from all around and will drain you quickly!

Because of the Horizon Deepwater oil gusher, the Louisiana marshes will never be the same again. I still remember my time there and hope I can return someday to a restored habitat although I highly doubt we’ll ever find a way to replace the delicate balance of this marine ecosystem. The above silhouette of a fisherman is off Pecan Island in the southwest part of the state, one of the areas that will be hit by the oil slick.

The Black Hills of South Dakota are an interesting formation, it reminds me of a prehistoric landscape, half expecting to see brontosauri wandering around. I took this one from Harney Peak.

The otherworldly textures of Yellowstone National Park are truly something to behold

During the Vancouver 2010 Olympics the weather could not have been more beautiful (unless you were up on Cypress Mountain). This panorama was taken from English Bay with my back to Granville Island and. One of the great things about living in Vancouver is that even on an exhausting day, I can look up at the mountain skyline and receive exhilaration at the view. I know that wherever I live in the future, I’ll probably end up missing mountains in my life daily.

For the full 6545 x 1249 version check it out on Flickr.

The last few weeks have been full of Vancouver 2010 crazyness but now that things are starting to settle back down I can return to a regular weekly posting schedule. I spotted these jellyfish at the Vancouver Aquarium when @jfeltis and @jennkane were visiting. Jane promised us that we were going to see orcas but it turns out that those orcas were actually

at Yellowstone Canyon, the lighting the backdrop and everything else was perfect for capturing this moment. Thanks to @serdmanczyk for being a great subject here!

This one was my first experiment with exposure blending. HDR can give some great results from complex lighting, but what about when no light exists? Exposure blending allows you to use limited light to give a better picture of the scene. All those little streaks you see are the stars moving through the sky. You can also see a shooting star there in the middle!