Wishing all of the athletes the best of luck as they compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.   Below is an image from Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.  It's about 530 miles away from the site of the games.  This particular spot is called Moraine Lake, and is also referred to as the "Valley of the Ten Peaks".  It was taken at sunset, and you can actually see the last light of the day hitting the peak in the upper left.  Amazingly enough, the water really is that color.  Definitely one of the most photogenic lakes I've ever been to.  This was taken a few years ago with a Canon 10D, and a 4 stop grad ND filter.  Camera settings were: 17mm, f22, 1 sec, ISO 100, tripod mounted.

The light doesn't always cooperate, but why not make the best of it?  Shoot anyway, and you just may squeeze off a few nice frames.  Found these Brown Pelicans on the beach near the Suncoast Bird Sanctuary in Florida.  They are wild, but hang out near the sanctuary since they get an occasional free fish. 

Snapped a quick iPhone pic of this sign.  Perhaps they would all be covered in Canada?

 If you find yourself near Tampa, check this place out!  Their staff and volunteers are clearly "for the birds".  Follow this link for more info.

Here are a few more shots from our adventure in the mangroves.   Both were taken with the 70-200 f2.8.

 Little Blue Heron

Great Egret

I love New York, but Florida sure has its fair share of swagger.  Going from a frosty 25 degrees to shorts and a t-shirt was well worth the price of airfare alone.  In between visits with family I managed to squeeze in a sunrise bird shoot.  Just outside of Fort DeSoto State Park, Sue and I found these nesting Bald Eagles.  I used a 400mm lens mounted on a tripod.  Aperture was at f5.6, Shutter at 1/3200, ISO at 640. While New York has an incredible variety of avian life, Bald Eagle sightings are not too common.  Watching this male and female build their nest was one of the highlights from the trip. 

For the next few days I'll be in Cape May, New Jersey to photograph migratory birds, and raptors. I'm pretty psyched about the trip as autumn is one of the best times to visit this area. We'll be staying at a house on the water with a bunch of family. It should be a blast.

I'm still working on a multimedia presentation about the Ahmadinejad protest. In the meantime, here is some raw footage of me in the fray, shooting the rally. It was filmed by Alex Baker with my Flip. In case you missed it, some of the still images can be see here.

A few years back, Sue and I watched the sunset from "Glacier Point" in Yosemite National Park. At an elevation of 7,214 feet, you really get a birds eye view of the valley below and the peaks of the Sierra mountain range. A bear jam delayed us a bit, but thankfully we got to this spot just as the very last light of day was hitting the face of Half Dome. I worked quickly with a 2 stop grad ND filter, and a 17-40mm lens. Aperture was at f19, Shutter speed at 2 seconds, ISO 100. Within minutes of this exposure, the brilliant light was gone and we decided to wait for the stars to come out. While we rested there gazing into the huge California sky, I overheard a little girl quietly say to her father, "This place is magical." It reminded me of the great writer/explorer John Muir, who called Yosemite the "Incomparable Valley." Since then, we've visited many beautiful National Parks throughout North America, but the memories of Yosemite are some of our fondest.

The fog in the Great Smokies is so thick. It really added an interesting element to landscape photography. For the image above I used a Canon 40D with a Canon 17-40 lens. Aperture was around f16. I also used a 3 stop Neutral Density filter. As I wrote in my landscape article here, I think ND filters are a must have for landscape shooters.

Below, more Smoky images:

This is Silver Falls in the Tuckaleechee Caverns. It's located in a little place called "Townsend" just a few miles from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In order to show the silky water, I needed to use a slow shutter speed of 0"4. While tripods weren't allowed in the cave, I was able to rest the camera against some protective railing, and my face to create a makeshift tripod.

The hike to Abrams Falls was a moderately difficult 5 mile trip. The trail was very beautiful with some unexpected wildlife spottings. My wife and I saw deer, a water snake, and four Pleated Woodpeckers.

Abrams Falls

Much of the road through the park follows alongside a river. I found this waterfall without having to do any hiking at all. The flow was much heavier than usual as a result of a fierce thunderstorm the previous night.

Unnamed Roadside Falls

Laurel Falls was only a 2.5 mile round trip hike. The path is paved so it's very popular for families with kids. After another heavy thunderstorm passed through, the trail was mostly empty, and I was able to spend some time there before the hordes of people returned.

Laurel Falls

Laurel Falls

Here are some images of the Black Bears I saw over the course of 4 or 5 days in the park. The majority of them were seen in the early morning, but a few were out near sunset as well. Cades Cove seemed to have the greatest concentration of bears, but unfortunately also the heaviest traffic. At 6:15 in the morning though, the "Bear Jams" were not nearly as severe. The literature I read reported the Great Smokies bear population at over 1500. It was great to see so many healthy adult bears and cubs out in the wild. Check back tomorrow for "Waterfalls of the Great Smokies".