Next Level Workshop instructors Darrell Moll and Rod Brown freely admit that landscape photography is a nice escape from the business of running their regular studios. “If the truth be known,” says Darrell, “we would prefer to do nothing else but take pictures of the great American landscape and share our images and knowledge with others, but that may still be a few years down the road.” “There is no place I’d rather be in mid-April than in the Smoky …

Co-Authored by: Neil Silverman For anyone visiting Death Valley National Park, one of the intriguing attractions is the Racetrack Playa. This is an area in an ancient dry-lake bed where mysteriously moving rocks make tracks in the mud surface of the lakebed. Endless studies have been made, attempting to determine what force is actually moving the rocks. Getting out to the Racetrack is no easy matter — as in 27 miles of tough ‘washboard’ driving on primitive dirt road. We …

Although most of my stock shooting trips are planned well in advance, this time I discovered that I had an unexpected open week on my schedule that would begin in less than 36 hours. Just enough time to plan my journey. Joined by my friend and fellow photographer, C.W. McGowen, we set out to capture various coastal and inland locations spanning a wide area of Northern California and Oregon. These were locations that were on my ‘bucket list,’ and weather …

The wonderful thing about life is that we never know! We create this crazy illusion that we control our lives, yet when I think about it, I realize how little is planned and how much is serendipity. In my quest to see and photograph in all the National Parks, I find myself still twenty-one parks short. Out of the fifty-eight locations that carry the N.P. designation, I’ve now visited thirty-seven. The Hawaiian Islands is about the last place I expected …

After a couple of days in Dublin we rented a car and drove to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Our plan was to head straight to the scenic northern coast of the island and then swing back through the Republic of Ireland following its western edge as we made our way back to Dublin and our plane back to the States. In the early afternoon we arrived in the beautiful little town of Ballycastle which was …

Each of the workshops, lasted five days with a two-day private excursion with two friends tagged onto the end. Needless to say, it was a long steady pace with very little sleep. I left California on October 25 with my co-instructor Scott Schilling. We took an early morning flight from San Jose, California to Las Vegas, Nevada, and then drove another 8 hours to Moab, Utah — which would be home base for my Arches/Canyonlands Workshop. I like to time …

I recently returned from leading a four-day photography workshop in Rocky Mountain National Park. One of my favorite spots to photograph is Hallett Peak at sunrise, with an alpine lake in the foreground. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get calm conditions and amazing scenery reflected in the lake. However, the slightest wind can create havoc with reflections, and the day we made the trip we had 10-15 MPH gusts with no relief in sight. What do I do in a …