Return to the Mountains


Unintended consequences (also called unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) can be defined as an outcome that is not the one intended by a purposeful action. Unintended consequences, for my photography, is when I am exploring one idea and I discover a whole new idea.

During my first early morning trip into the Shenandoah Mountains I wanted to photograph the sunrise and some fall colors. When I planned my arrival I thought I’d be sitting in my car for an hour waiting for the sun to come up. I arrived that morning and I saw the stars above me for the first time and I didn’t spend a single second in my car waiting for sunrise. I Jumped out of my car and began photographing the stars and learning a whole new form of photography (for me).

I’ve never tried to shoot the stars before from a location like this and once I started I knew I was going to run out of darkness (which was happening fast with sunrise quickly approaching) and that meant that I couldn’t do everything I wanted in just one trip. I proceeded to learn as much as possible on that first trip and I started thinking about a follow up trip. For this blog entry I’ll talk about my second early morning adventure into the Shenandoah Mountains and how I captured some of my favorite shots to date.

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My Morning in the Mountains


There are some things I love to photograph. But because I can get pretty busy my work it sometimes keeps me from going out to photograph the things I love to shoot. For example, I love shooting long exposure shots late at night and early in the morning. I also love to shoot sunrises and sunsets, especially in really cool scenic locations. I’m a pretty lucky person because where I live in Northern Virginia offers me some incredible opportunities to see and photograph everything from the capital city to some incredible National Parks.

After long months of working exclusively on client projects I found myself caught up and I had a little time for myself. I thought very seriously about taking a break from my camera and laptop computer. And then I remembered something my friend, Gene, recently told me. He said that I needed to start getting away from all of the flash shots and spending so much time in Photoshop. He said that I needed to go out with a camera and get back to basics. In other words, get back to what brought me into the world of photography in the first place.

This blog entry will talk about how I took Gene’s advice and I did something I haven’t done in a very long time.

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Disney World Memories (part 2)


This is the second of two blog posts where I’m sharing pictures from my 2011 trip to Disney World in Orlando, FL. In Part 1 I shared a few pictures from Epcot and from Disney’s Animal Kingdom. If you missed Part 1 you can check it out here. For this entry I’ll be sharing some images from Disney’s Hollywood Studios and from the Magic Kingdom.

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Disney World Memories (part 1)


My 2012 Disney World vacation is just a few days away now. By this time Saturday I’ll be on a plane with my wonderful girlfriend, Deb, and Orlando will be our destination. For seven days I’ll be seeing as much as possible and doing my best to relax at the happiest place on Earth.

This will be my fourth year visiting Disney World and it never seems to get old for me. Every year I bring home pictures and after years of photographing the big iconic touristy stuff I’m planning to capture more of the smaller details this year. But before I leave I thought I’d take a few minutes to share some pictures from last years trip. Looking at these pictures always brings a smile to my face.

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the Cape Lookout Lighthouse


On a recent vacation to the coast of North Carolina I had a chance to visit the Lighthouse at Cape Lookout (located on the Cape Lookout National Sea Shore). I’ve been sharing some pictures from my trip on my social media sites like Google+ and Facebook but I thought I’d compile some of my favorite shots from my trip into a single page along with a few facts and some history I learned while I was there.

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