Panoramas

Here it is. I've been dancing around it for years, all the while attempting to get just the *right* picture of this, the very best baseball stadium in the world, and to do it justice. This is one of the very best places to spend a day; there is simply nothing like parking in your seat, cradling a huge bucket of crabfries and cheese (I know these crab seasoning-dusted fries are a Philadelphian invention, but holy crap they are simply delightful), a soft drink, and just watching the Pirates do what they do best. This baseball stadium, PNC Park, has simply unparalleled views of the city, and there really isn't a bad seat in the entire place. Now, let's all think of hot summer days spent cheering the Pirates on, hot dogs and caramel popcorn, and wondering which of the pierogies will win the race! (If you're from the 'Burgh, you know exactly what I mean!)

Some time ago, during the 2020 lockdowns, it seemed that everywhere I visited had turned into a strange ghost town version of itself...and that includes this expansive view of the city of Pittsburgh, which at the time had a drab, melancholy feel to it despite how sunny it really was that day. So...over the past several years, I have come and gone from this photograph, trying my best to turn it from a near-empty cityscape, into something truly alive and colorful. To that end, I'd taken inspiration from the works of Japanese creators such as Hayao Miyazaki in reimagining the city not as it was, but as I imagined it; a vibrant and colorful wonderland of possibility, bright and flanked by hand-painted sakura blossoms beneath the most cerulean of skies, dappled by the warm rays of a springtime sun. I hope I managed to do the image in my mind justice!

On our sojourn through a frozen Pittsburgh, we passed by a spot beneath one of the three yellow bridges, where on warmer days one might find kayaks slipping into the waters of the Allegheny River. On that day however, the sloped concrete platform that would have let kayakers easily access the river was coated with snow, and bled seamlessly into the ice to the point where it was difficult to tell where one began, and the other ended. My brother made his way down this slippery slope, to the very edge of the river, and looked out upon the scene.

This here is Crater Lake itself, or rather the edge of the caldera that forms the "bowl" the lake sits inside of. To the left side of this photo, you can see Wizard Island, which is the star of another of my Oregon photographs. Crater Lake itself was formed out of the remains of an ancient volcano, Mt. Mazama. Imagine an entire mountain, simply collapsing inward onto itself; over time the resulting pit flooded with water, creating the deepest lake in the United States. Wizard Island is itself a growing volcano, rising from out of the ashes of Mt. Mazama; it will eventually become massive in its own right, sometime in the distant future. For now though, I can safely say this must truly be one of the more beautiful places on this Earth, and you can see why! The lake is so pristine, so pure and cerulean in color (because of its depth and purity), and the caldera itself feels so incredibly vast...It makes a guy feel downright tiny. But still, I was happy that I went there, I was very happy I was able to see such an amazing sight. I'll restate the obvious here; Oregon is one amazing, beautiful state!

I've been a lot of places by now, and I've seen a lot of things while in pursuit of a great photograph. I'm always learning, always honing and sharpening my skills. Some scenes you really have to work with, get the angle on, and eke out the beauty using uncommon perspective to find the real potential of a place...but other scenes, like this one taken on the shores of Presque Isle, are just obvious. You come upon it, inhale the fresh air, and just *know* that you've found something special. Well, I found it. Presque Isle is absolutely loaded with these kinds of scenes; beauty around every literal corner, and I can't wait to go back.

Every single morning during my trip this year to the Outer Banks, I was up at the crack of dawn in anticipation of the sunrise. I'd set my camera out on the deck every night so the humidity wouldn't cause my lenses to fog up, I'd set my alarm, and before anybody else would be awake I'd be out there and on the beach, watching the sun creep up above the horizon. This particular morning, I decided to go further, and traveled to the time-worn Avalon Pier, further south along the shore than where I'd been staying...and it absolutely paid off!

We drove around the frozen city, trying to find an ideal place to sidle up to the ice-smothered Allegheny River, and get us some great-looking photographs...and that's when we found this little roundabout dead end, next to PNC Park, with an overlook of the city and a No Parking sign nearby. We decided to sneak out of the car, and try to take a picture, while leaning up against the metal railing; it was cold enough that even my dry hands were freezing onto the metal. But then, we saw a security guard approach us. We had expected him to try and shoo us away from the No Parking area, but were pleasantly surprised when even he pulled a cell phone out, and joined us in taking a photograph of this beautiful, ice-choked view of our frozen city, wreathed in fiery-looking steam and clouds.

Clouds can flow like water, and on this morning I saw it with my own eyes, as cloud cover replaced the Monongahela River in its entirety. I'd never quite seen anything like it before, and this is coming from a guy who'd seen this very same river solidified into ice. What a magical morning! It's sights like this that make me all too happy to, on occasion, be a morning person.

When I reminisce about some of the amazing things I've seen in my lifetime, my mind often drifts back to this place...to US Route 101, the highway that winds its way along the Oregon coast, stretching from Washington to Baja California...and it is truly one of the greatest road trips I've ever had in my life. This photo right here encapsulates that journey; an absolute spectacle of steep cliffs and ocean majesty found by simply rounding an innocent-looking corner. This is the Neahkahnie lookout point, hanging along the edge of the identically-named mountain, and overlooking the small town of Neahkahnie Beach. Now, I'm normally a man with a strong fear of heights...and the sheer cliffs I was standing mere feet from should have instilled me with terror, yet it just didn't Who could be terrified, with a sight this incredible laid out before them? If you want to get a sense of the scale on offer here, look to the left of the image; there is a small red car there on the road....and not a guardrail in sight.

It's difficult to explain the feeling I get from this photograph. When I look at it, I see tendrils emanating from the void...but that of course isn't at all what it is. Is this a photograph taken from within that inscrutable, infinitesimally thin line that separates our reality from another? Could it be the call to approach the unknown? Or, could it be that the photographer was simply messing around and decided to join two photographs of a pier together, horizontally? I'll let you decide!

This is the Andy Warhol bridge, bleeding far more color than its traditional golden yellow! I've decided that I really wanted to do something interesting with color for this one, and projected a rainbow filter over the entirety of the bridge, with the rest being in a high-contrast black and white. What can I say, though? I'm proud of this city, of its people, of its culture and this is just one way of celebrating it. So here's to you Pittsburgh, be proud! (This is the 'color bleed' version of the photograph, in which the rainbow colors bleed out from the bridge itself. There is another version, where the rainbow colors are confined to only the bridge)

This is totality. For two brief minutes, after having spent years of planning, and hours huddled beneath a $4 beach umbrella in the blazing South Carolina sun, the skies finally went dark at 2:39 pm, and I was able to behold the utter majesty of a total solar eclipse. It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most amazing thing I have ever seen. What you see here is a close-up view of the sun's corona, a 15,000,000 F superheated blanket of magnetized plasma that trails into space in long, curved trails; this is the sun's 'atmosphere', and it can only be seen during a total solar eclipse. Also visible on the righthand side of the sun is a prominence, an enormous loop of superheated plasma arcing from the surface of the sun that could envelop the entirety of our planet Earth; these are also only visible during a total solar eclipse. This may very well have been the most challenging thing I have attempted shooting a photograph of, from the travel and planning required to the expenses paid in acquiring equipment, but it was without a doubt worth it. This is a composite photograph showing the various stages of the total solar eclipse; it represents about two hours of time from the first photograph (on the left) to the last photograph (on the right), and is the product of nearly a thousand photographs taken while sitting in the hot Carolina sun.

My mother owns a nice little dog grooming shop out in Forest Hills and has been serving the Forest Hills area dutifully for over 40 years now; Pup Pup and Away is a staple of the area, and is one of the mainstays on Ardmore Blvd. Now, I have been to the shop countless times in my life, whether to help out with cleaning the shop or simply to check up on the people working there, or to pick mom up, or what have you. Almost every time I go there, along the way, there is this absolutely stunning old Studebaker sitting parked along the street whenever the weather's nice. I've no idea who owns it, but they certainly have some great taste! I decided one day that I just had to try and capture this beauty of an automobile for posterity, and that's precisely what I did.

One day, the sky fell on Pittsburgh; clouds that should have drifted lazily about in the skies above instead found themselves flowing along the path of the Monongahela, rendering the city a scene from out of a dream. The winds were chilly and bit at my knuckles as I took the photos, but who could put their camera down while taking in such a sight?

Pittsburgh's Phipps Conservatory, a beautiful multi-winged greenhouse founded in 1893 by steel magnate Henry Phipps, is one of the jewels of the city; a gorgeous tour-de-force of plant life from all around the world, housed inside its old, weathered, temperature-controlled glass walls. Every year, the conservatory goes through many different changes, each cultivated to represent a different part of the world. When I had taken the tour in the fall of 2015, the conservatory had been reworked to represent a Japanese zen garden during autumn; a beautiful sight represented here by these delicate paper umbrellas, hung overhead down a long, glass hallway. Outside, a dreary mist filled the October skies...but that just added to the allure and mystique of the sight, unusual as it was.

This is the Andy Warhol bridge, depicted in selective color. This photograph was taken during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, when the city was on lockdown and there was virtually no traffic. Don't worry, I practiced social distancing and didn't come near a soul while taking this! Still, it was haunting to see the city so...empty. Absolutely strange to be able to stand right on the center line of this bridge and not worry about cars or traffic...and to simply focus on the sights. It was wonderful to get some fresh air, on top of that! (This is the standard, non-bleeding version of the photograph, in which the gold color stays confined within the bridge itself. There is another version, where the golden color bleeds out from the bridge and into the sky)