“The Arboretum” Series

This was a beautiful, multicolored flower I had found while strolling about inside of Phipps Conservatory at Schenley Park, in Pittsburgh PA. Thanks to Heather over on Etsy (where I started my business) , I now know this is a "confetti lantana". It has become one of my favorite flowers, without a doubt! Seriously, go and visit Phipps; there's so much more there than just these pretty flowers!

This was another beautiful, multicolored flower I had found while strolling about inside of Phipps Conservatory at Schenley Park, in Pittsburgh PA. Thanks to Heather over on Etsy , I now know this is a "confetti lantana". It has become one of my favorite flowers, without a doubt! If you're ever in the area, take a trip down there. Don't do what I did, and wait 27 years to take a visit. :)

Touring the Oregon coast was truly an all out assault of beauty on every one of my senses, most of all the things that I could see there. Right along the side of Highway 101 was this small rest stop, where parts of the film The Goonies were shot. (Marking the location, funnily enough, was a spraypainted 'truffle shuffle' marking on a door) Right by the road, away from the ocean itself, was this collection of incredibly blue hydrangeas that I just had to snap a few shots of.

So, it was a beautiful day in central Ohio, and I was out visiting family. We were having fun, everyone running around the park or sat around the benches so that they might escape the bright, sweltering sun...and yet there I was, hunkered down on my stomach, camera pointed at this one tree for what felt like a solid half hour. Every shot, it felt, was a mistake. Was this one good? No, the aperture was too wide and the sky was washed out. Was this one good? Nope, too dark. How about this one? Gah, it's blurry! Photography is a test of patience, I swear. There was something about this singular tree though, as unassuming as it was on the surface...it just attracted me to it. I kept trying, kept shooting...and by the time I got home, I very quickly figured out what I wanted to do. What you see is the result!

Pennsylvania's mountainous regions hide many beautiful little secrets, such as this one I saw before me, as we explored the wooded countryside. Near the town of Ashland, PA, there is a miniscule but wonderful little place called Fountain Springs. Hugging the small town is a graveyard nearly as large as the town itself; hundreds of graves dating from long ago dotted the landscape, with one of Pennsylvania's many rolling mountainous hills looming in the background. The striking thing I noted as I passed by, however, were the large patches of daylillies growing all around the cemetery. They were beautiful, and begged a photograph or two. Thankfully, I was able to come away from there with this wonderful, selective color photo. An interesting fact, by the way? This photo was taken very close to the historic coal mining town of Centralia; where a coal fire has been burning out of control beneath the city since 1961, forcing its residents to evacuate, leaving the area itself a ghost town of trees and deteriorated roads, pockmarked by gas and fume vents. While I did get to travel to Centralia itself, it's amazing how little there really was to take photographs of there; the town is little more now than barren roads criss-crossing through overgrown fields and brush.

Another of the photographs taken during my little sojourn through a quiet, empty Pittsburgh shut down by the pandemic of 2020. This is another of those beautiful, pink trees I'd happened across while making my way down the Riverwalk, taking in the sights and for once in nearly a month, getting some real fresh air. It never fails to delight, seeing the various sights the city has to offer and knowing there's so much more I've yet to take in. So here you are, another one of those many sights!

Living in Pennsylvania, it's only natural that I live close to a lush deciduous forest; the kind that changes colors during the fall. One morning I decided to get up, grab my camera, and take a little hike back into the woods, to see what I could find; the result is here before you, a warm palette set against the cool sunlight of a mid-autumn day. It's just a shame the colors don't last very long! You're lucky to get maybe two weeks of prime time, before the leaves fall from their branches, and the forests are left bare and brown.

One sunny afternoon in March of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, I decided to social distance myself downtown for some lonely photographs of our fair city in its locked-down state...and came across these beautiful cherry blossoms dotting the Riverwalk, by the stadiums. I'd never seen them in full bloom before, since the city is a decently far drive for me and it's really difficult to pin down exactly when these beauties flower. It was a pleasant, fresh surprise to see and a welcome reminder that even in the hardest of times, there are beautiful things to give us all reason to smile.

Bushkill Falls, located within the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, is not just about the falls themselves, but also the large creek that runs through the whole area, Bushkill Creek. This is a scene along the tranquil creek, drained of all color except the deep, earthy red that seemed to radiate from so many of the trees in the area. The result is...actually somewhat haunting, and yet utterly peaceful at the same time.

A cliche thing to call a photograph, isn't it? Tranquility. And yet, that's about the only feeling I get when I look at this photograph, and remember how relieved and relaxed I felt after the great deal of walking I had just done in an effort to find such a beautiful place. We traveled up and down the spit of land that Presque Isle inescapably is, on foot, following a path through the woods that meandered by the sight you find here. I was struck by how still the waters were, how blue the sky is, and how the sunlight behind me cast a brilliant glow on the autumn foliage across the marshes; it all came together in a perfect moment, captured by my camera.

My photograph, "Wooden Warmth" is one of the more popular photographs that I've offered here at Nulion Photography, but it of course wasn't the only photo I'd taken there! While visiting those gorgeous woods along the slopes of Mt. Hood, in Oregon, after taking the shot that would become "Wooden Warmth", I aimed my camera skyward. What I saw was this; the day's final sunlight as it filtered through the treetops, trunks casting stark shadows against the leafy canopy. As I recall, that was my last photograph for the day; not five minutes later, the sun had dipped far enough beneath the horizon that the warm, golden color seen here had faded into memory.

My photograph, "Wooden Warmth" is one of the more popular photographs that I've offered here at Nulion Photography, but it of course wasn't the only photo I'd taken there! While visiting those gorgeous woods along the slopes of Mt. Hood, in Oregon, after taking the shot that would become "Wooden Warmth", I aimed my camera skyward. What I saw was this; the day's final sunlight as it filtered through the treetops, trunks casting stark shadows against the leafy canopy. As I recall, that was my last photograph for the day; not five minutes later, the sun had dipped far enough beneath the horizon that the warm, golden color seen here had faded into memory. Skip forward several years, and I still had yet to find a way to make this photograph shine.

In southern Oregon, there was an enormous mountain of a volcano, Mount Mazama. However, thousands of years ago, this 12,000 foot tall stratovolcano collapsed in on itself in what must have been a chaotic maelstrom of nature's fury. What we are left with, however...is this. The deepest lake in the United States, at nearly 2,000 feet, with a lone island situated in the middle of what is truly the BLUEST water I have ever seen in my life. I have not doctored this photo, I have not edited it, I haven't even boosted the color vibrance of the photograph; it is ACTUALLY this blue. The reason for it is the sheer depth and purity of the water; these two factors ensure that all colors of light but blue are absorbed by the lake. The result is an incredible, surreal vista of cerulean and volcanic rock, thick with trees and growth all around the caldera. And right out there, that lone island I mentioned? That is "Wizard Island", which itself is a cinder cone volcano, sat WITHIN another volcano. Isn't nature a wonderful thing?

Walking through the woods near Mt. Hood, in Oregon, we made our way to the Zig Zag falls along a nice little nature trail. The whole forest was beautiful, so different from the forests you'd find in Pennsylvania, and everything had a warmer, softer, mossier feel to it. Then, on the way out of the woods, I noticed the sunlight filtering through the trees and how it gave the woods such a warm look...and I knew I had to capture it on my camera. This here is the result, after combining the images together into a single, beautiful HDR!