One of my favorite parks on the Colorado Plateau is Hovenweep National Monument.

Hovenweep is a delight to photograph. Its remote location at the border between Utah and Colorado and its overshadowing neighboring park, Mesa Verde, make sure that this park receives only a trickle of visitors when compared to other places. It is very unlikely that you get much disturbance during your photo session and if you do, you can easily outwait everyone.

Dani finally analyzed my feelings correctly, after I stumbled through Mesa Verde with an average mood one day and suddenly lit up with delight when we visited Hovenweep the other day. Mesa Verda does not leave much to creativity. You hold your camera into the hole and that is that. Photos either look good or they do not, but your influence on the outcome is limited.

Hovenweep is different. You can have fun with compositions, go crazy with foregrounds and backgrounds, try weird twisted angles, and never tire of the limitless options that this small park offers.

Learn about the tools that I use to navigate to great locations!

I spent the past months hunting for places to photograph in California and then writing about it. California is famous for its photographic icons such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Yosemite or Death Valley but it has so much more to offer to photographers. Not many of you may know about the alien Tifoni formations of Salt Point State Park, the Sea Otters of Moss Landing or the gushing Whiskeytown Falls.

Read about the free or inexpensive tools I use to plot my way to these photo spots.

How far do you go for your photographs?

As travel photographers, we never have enough time at a location. We have to face the weather and make the best of any situation. The last time I went to Canyonlands National Park, I had to compromise between False Kiva and Aztec Butte. I chose False Kiva and I have not regretted it. False Kiva is one of my all-time favorite photographs. Even NASA linked this picture from APOD.

We shot many photos on our year-end trip. I have begun to upload the first batches of photos to my USA West Galleries.

I have added a new Gallery for Canyon de Chelly National Monument. This was a unique experience and one of the most beautiful parks I have ever seen, mixing unique Navajo archeological sites with wonderful landscapes and wildlife.

Another amazing place was the False Kiva (shown in the picture above) we found in Canyonlands National Park. This is another archeological wonder situated among one of the most beautiful landscapes.

Ever since my Peru Trip, I have enjoyed taking photos of ancient ruins in amazing settings. Seeking them is a great pleasure and adventure.

I will keep uploading more pictures during the next couple of weeks, mainly in my USA West Galleries.

With the help of Dani (of TripGalleries), I have written an article on Native American Sites in the Soutwest. Its a great resource if you are interested in finding out more and to see some of the things I will be uploading soon (among many other).

During the past years, I have been year-end traveling. This year, I am on a trip through the Southwestern States. After we bolted straight to Phoenix from the San Francisco Bay Area, suffering through a monstrous 30-mile traffic jam around L.A., we were somewhat disappointed by Phoenix. We explored sights in Southern Arizona, New Mexico and headed into El Paso – Texas, where we spent Christmas. If you can avoid this city, you will spare yourself a big industrial looking blob of no particular beauty.

After Christmas, we headed North into New Mexico and the White Sands National Monument. The park was a real treat for our strained souls. We had a good time there and I finally got to use my Jetboil cooker for some hot treats.

Albuquerque and Santa Fe were a nice diversion from mundane El Paso, although we didn’t find too much things to do, as many of the smaller parks were either closed (Puye Cliff Dwellings, El Rancho de Las Colindras) or less photogenic (old town). Pecos National Monument turned out quite nice (see picture). Santa Fe and Albuquerque are freezing with a temperature shock so far below freezing that our thin Californian blood circulates at Mach 3.

I am looking forward to heading into Bandelier NM tomorrow and then leaving New Mexico for Arizona and Utah again.

After attending a wedding yesterday and staying over night in San Francisco, we had a few hours at our leisure before we decided to drive home. I thought it was time to check out if I could do some street photography.

For a landscape photographer, street photos is a whole new ball game. Landscape and streets (urban landscapes) couldn't be more different. The streets are in a constant flux and beautiful shots come together and vanish in less then a second.

In this post I will summarize some of the experiences I had and give you some tips in case you want to try this yourself. But let me say one thing up front, I liked this a whole lot and I will do a lot more candid photography in the future.

Why does Street Photography fascinate people?

Unlike landscape photography, street photography gives us the possibility to share a fleeting moment of someone's live. The photographer freezes time and documents urban life, something we are more accustomed to. The photographs generally tell a story. The frame becomes a window that lets us experience that moment. The photography style is related to documentary photography and the photographer is forgiven mistakes (blurry, tilts, distracting elements) as we recognize the fast action, making it impossible for to adjust everything before taking the photo.

Challenges

The challenge with this photography style is to observe the action around you and act fast. You need to be completely aware of everything that is going on around you, as you are part of the scene. You are interacting with your subjects to some degree (the lesser the better, as we don't want them to be aware of the camera). Scenes come together in split seconds and disappear. You need your camera to be ready and react before the subject even realizes what is going on.

At the same time you need to be on a constant look for interesting action. Where is something happening? Who are the interesting people?

Simply firing away at people doesn't quite cut it (unless the people are very interesting subjects in themselves). Trying to tell a story with fast action shots is the real challenge (more on this in a later article).

The main obstacle to overcome was my shy nature. Getting up close with a SLR into someone's face and snapping a photograph takes some guts (my Canon 20D shutter makes a pretty loud noise). I used a wide to normal lens, that required me to get fairly close, but is far less intimidating in case I am recognized. I only had a few hours today, so I tried to jump right in. The more confident I grew, the less people noticed me and the easier it became. Surprisingly I was completely invisible to most people, despite my gear and my obvious interest in them. It was almost surreal what happened here.

Some people did recognize what I did, but I smiled at them or kept looking and photographing in the direction they came from. Not a single person got mad or even gave me a stinky look. Only one person turned away and some people asked if I could photograph them too (which I happily did, although I have no use for posed photographs).

To 95% of my subjects I was invisible. A part of the scenery or maybe just a minor annoyance.

Below are a few more shots, but to see the rest you will have to wait a week or two until I have thrown up the gallery.