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.

During the Thanksgiving weekend we drove to Los Angeles. I just finished uploading a number of photographs and created a few new galleries in my Los Angeles section. The image above is from the Japanese Garden in the Huntington Library. It is just one of the magnificent places we discovered. The Getty Center was fascinating as well. The striking architecture of the Center, sitting on top of a mountain overlooking Downtown L.A. and Westood is a tourist magnet.

One our way home we took a small detour through Simi Valley, where we discovered the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Among the fascinating exhibits is the original Air Force One Plane of President Reagan. The library is definitely worth a visit should you ever get to this area.

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.

Every year a huge crowd of people gathers at the San Diego Convention Center to celebrate pop culture and movies in an exceptional spectacle called Comic-Con. Many attendees dress up in beautiful costumes, handcrafted in countless hours with an astonishing devotion and attention to detail.

For us photographers the colorful figures exert a strong pull to visit and photograph the event. Two years ago, I decided to fly to San Diego to see what the fuzz was all about and of course to take photographs.

How to photograph People at Comic-Con

I find that many photographers are troubled about taking the photograph of a stranger without asking for permission. Street photography is very different from landscape photography. We feel restricted through norms of society and our own inhibition.

A large gathering like Comic-Con with many like-minded photographers makes it very easy to overcome those fears. If you cannot pull the trigger here, street photography clearly is not your game. That is perfectly ok.

Oregon is California's rainy neighbor in the north. I like traveling to Oregon. The state is very diverse and full of color, even in summer when California is mostly brownish.

But Oregon has much more to offer than wet coastal regions. Eastern Oregon is also very dry, but the colorful John Day Fossil Beds and the very different landscape invite travelers seeking for the path less traveled.

The incredibly scenic views and deep rich colors Crater Lake National Park offfer a fascinating introduction into the seismic volcanic history of Oregon. Once you have aroused your curiousity for everything volcanic, check out Newberry National Volcanic Monument.

After a tour through the wonderful landscapes of southern and eastern Oregon, relax in Portland, Oregon most populous and lively cities. From here you can explore the Columbia River Gorge with its many waterfalls on a casual day trip.

I finally found the time to upload new pictures that were on my computer far too long. Enjoy!

Since I am in the process of uploading more images, I decided to add more content to my Los Angeles Galleries as well. L.A. is a giant narcissistic city ecosystem that didn't hold much of a lure for me, but it has it's beautiful sides too.

I usually visit L.A. on trips to the far south or on return trips from the far south. I took this photograph from Mulholland Drive on the way back from Anza Borrego. I usually prefer the serenity of the desert over the stress of big cities, but since stress only happens in our heads, we can chose to ignore it entirely, let it pass right through us. The less other people affect my well-being, the more attractive cities like L.A. become and the more I see, the more I want to see.

I think Los Angeles is a city that grows on you. It took me almost a decade, but slowly I am starting to appreciate what the city has to offer and simply ignore the shady neighborhoods, traffic jams and hectic and narcissistic population. Behind the shallow star cult, the boasting and the huge social differences that make up this city, there is beauty waiting. I will be back, but not during the heat of summer when everyone is just a bit nuttier than usual.

It has been a long time since we last drove to Death Valley National Park. The long drive and the huge park require a great investment in time, money and effort to visit. I took the chance the easter weekend gave me for another drive down. For the first time I got to practice Zen Photography. By slowing down and looking at every moment with fresh eyes, I was was able to completely unwind and relax while creating some nice images.

This photograph of wildflowers along the highway would normally have escaped me and considering that I was the only person who stopped at this place on a one of the busiest weekends of the year, I think it escaped most others too.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but this photograph turned out to be one of my favorite images of the entire trip. I love how the cloudscape mirrors the landscape and how the yellow and the blue complement each other.