2024 Southwest Trip - Days 5 & 6 - Death Valley

Gallery (25 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Days 5 & 6 - Death Valley

This gallery covers a few days in and around Death Valley. Driving through the Panamint Valley, we were struck by the immense carpet of yellow wildflowers in the valley. We then visited a variety of locations, including Badwater, the lowest point in the US at -282 feet below sea-level, Zabriskie Point and the Artists Palette, which takes one along large multi-coloured sandstone sections of the hills that one drives by. Sadly, the sky was a bit hazy to the west and only got worse as the evening progressed, so we did not stay for late evening/sunset light there. Lastly, we camped near the Inyo Mine ruins, and we spent some time at the ruins after dark with lovely clear skies, doing some night sky photography and light painting.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 3 - Alcatraz

Gallery (60 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Day 3 - Alcatraz

This gallery is still from day three, after our walk through the city and Chinatown, but during an evening tour of Alcatraz Island (managed by the US National Park Service), and inside the well kept ruins of the infamous maximum security federal prison known as "The Rock."

I absolutely love photographing old decaying buildings, and the old prison gave many wonderful opportunities for photos with colours, textures, dramatic light & shadow as well as impactful subject matter. I shot everything handheld and the in-body image-stabilization (IBIS) of the Fujifilm X-T5 I was using was indispensable in getting sharp photos with my wide-angle prime lenses without taking the ISO up to crazy high levels. The success of these photos was instrumental in finally giving me the nudge to upgrade my X-Pro2, which did not have IBIS, and buy the X-E5 which came out in 2025 and more or less has the same image quality, IBIS and performance of the X-T5, but in a far more compact rangefinder style body. I would not have been able to get photos with the dynamic range and needed depth-of-field had I been using the X-Pro2 handheld; I definitely would have needed a tripod, and tripods are not allowed on tours there...

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

Hawaii 2023 - Botanical Gardens

Gallery (50 images): Hawaii 2023 - Botanical Gardens

Somehow, I had thought that I'd already posted all of my 2023 Hawaii galleries, however I realized I had one more day to do, so...

On the second-to-last day of our Hawaii trip and honeymoon, we decided to visit the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens just north of Hilo. The variety of plant life in the lush jungle was amazing! We wandered around for several hours, marvelling at all the exotic plants and took lots of photos.

Finally, on the last day of our honeymoon, we went to an acclaimed and recommended tattoo artist in Hilo and Emily and I both got a matching Polynesian/Hawaiian sea turtle tattoo on opposite shoulders. Emily had numerous tattoos already, but it was my first. Why? Well on the first morning of our honeymoon in Kona, Emily and I went out to the rocky beach right in front of our room and saw a large sea turtle feeding in the water, close enough to touch. We watched it for maybe 10 minutes. It didn’t seem bothered by our proximity at all and we both were touched by the experience. In Hawaiian mythology, the sea turtle stands for good health, longevity, peace and tranquility, amongst other positive attributes, so we thought it a fitting symbol and a wonderful reminder of our wedding and Hawaiian honeymoon! We both felt that the tattoo artist did a wonderful job and it was interesting hearing him describe the various components of his design and their meaning...