Greenland’s Welcoming Night Show

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

One of my life goals was to see the northern lights, or aurora borealis, in person.  When I began learning photography, that goal changed to include photographing them as well.  I learned a few tips from my friend and expert night photographer, Beth Ruggiero-York (Beth’s website), a couple weeks ago.  I was told that there would be a very slight chance that we might see the aurora in Greenland, but that it would require a combination of all the right factors occurring at the right time.  Mid-August is typically the beginning the viewing season for the aurora in northern climates since the sun begins to set early enough to give a dark sky at night.  Greenland is north enough in the northern hemisphere for this to apply, but we were in South Greenland which lessened our chances in comparison to some of the other popular areas such as Disko Bay (along the west coast but farther north) or northeastern Greenland.

We also needed a clear night and had heard reports that this summer had been one of the worst summers in recent history for rain, fog and storms.  We believed it as we had already lost two days of our Greenland trip due to flight cancellations from fog.  Our best chance would be when we were at camp that first night, many miles away from the nearest village or house.  When we arrived, however, we had just taken a zodiac for 2 hours through a rain storm and the skies were clouded up.  We headed to bed in our tent around 10:30pm, only to be awakened an hour later by Sanda, one of our fellow adventurers from Spain, screaming “Northern Lights” and “Get up! Hurry!”  I jumped from the top bunk, screaming at Troy to “Get Up” too!  I threw my camera gear together and headed out with Troy lighting the way with his phone to the overlook where we could see the water of the fjord.  One of my first shots was the scene below.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 5 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

From there, it just got better.  The lights changed constantly with slow swirling movements.  The blanket of green light above the water in the image above changed and became more concentrated.  I adjusted my composition to focus more on the intense greens along the left side of the water.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

We continued to watch the skies and saw a streak going high into the sky over the mountains to our right.  I quickly changed to a vertical orientation to capture the intensity of the streaks flowing high above our heads.  The Milky Way was up there as well but it was drowned out by the vibrant greens.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 5 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

The longer we watched the sky, the more we noticed the color of the light change and a purple/pink color showed up!  It appeared as if the lights were coming from a small group of clouds, spreading forever into the sky above us.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

As the light became more purple, I switched back to a vertical orientation to capture this new display of color.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

I constantly kept my eyes on the mountains to my left as well since they provided a great silhouette for a more simplistic shot, focusing on the colors of the light and the stars.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

As the night progressed, clouds began to increase in streaks above the mountain, creating a more dramatic look to the silhouetted mountaintops.  It became colder as well but photographing the aurora in 30-40 deg F temperature was a blessing compared to typical aurora photography in minus 40 deg F in Alaska in December.  I was definitely grateful!

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

Well past midnight, more clouds came in but the lights continued their ever-changing display.  This resulted in more texture in my images as the light filtered through the patches of clouds.

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 16 mm, f/2.8, 5 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

My final series of shots early that next morning included this green glow that lit up the valley.  I achieved my final goal of the night, capturing the aurora in the reflection of the water!

Image: Aurora over Qaleragdlit glacier, South Greenland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24 mm at 15 mm, f/2.8, 5 sec, ISO 6400, on tripod.

I could have left Greenland after this first night completely satisfied with the whole trip even though we had been in the country for less than 12 hours.  We didn’t realize how lucky we were to see the aurora that night and soon found out that it had not been visible in any of the towns or villages where we would soon be heading.  In fact, no other night on the rest of the trip was clear enough for viewing this spectacular sight.  We were that fortunate.

To see these images individually, please visit my gallery here: Amy’s Impressions

A marathon across Greenland’s fjords

When Troy first suggested an adventure trip to Greenland earlier this year, I didn’t need much convincing. Hiking, ice trekking and kayaking in the vast wilderness were right up my alley. Shortly after that, he told me the best part—a trip just opened up with all those activities plus a marathon! One of the many reasons I run races is that they give me a chance to explore an area, and in this case, see the countryside.  It would be my first attempt at an international marathon. 

When we lost two days of our Greenland trip due to the flight cancellations, we came up with every possible strategy to try to make up the lost time. One option was to forgo the marathon to spend the day visiting sights we had missed. Our guide Ester convinced us to run the marathon and promised us that she would try to make up as much as possible during the rest of the trip. We trusted her judgement and were not disappointed. 

The marathon started Saturday morning at 10 am with a short debriefing in many different languages at the schoolhouse of the small village of Qassiarsuk, South Greenland.  It was cloudy, cold and misty with sprinkling off and on. Troy and I were in the minority, surrounded by Greenlanders and Europeans from various countries including Spain, Germany, and Denmark. We were also told that we were the 3rd and 4th Americans to run in this race series since its inception 9 years ago!

When we took off, we started down the main dirt road of the village. Runners were dressed in various colors that seemed to match the colorful homes and buildings of the town. 

We began climbing a mountain within the first mile of the race. As we continued running over mountains and down valleys, we headed to the next fjord to the west 6 miles away.  I was able to run the flats and downhills but the steepness of the inclines slowed me down to a fast hike. 

Some of the downslopes required me to hike as well but the views of the valleys were amazing and distracted from the physical challenge of the climbs. 

Much of the countryside was scattered with white and black sheep grazing on the tundra. We heard the “baa” of the sheep all throughout the race. Some crossed our paths and looked up for a moment before scurrying off. 

After climbing one of the hills, a kind Greenlandic lady runner offered to take my picture as I marveled at the scenery. I became known by the other runners during the race due to my frequent stops to capture photos of the scenery. 

As I came up to each aid station, I tried speaking to the volunteers. I found out that each station was manned by volunteers from the neighboring village of Qaqortoq, the largest town in south Greenland. Some could speak a couple words of English but many could not. At one aid station, I tried expressing my appreciation of the beauty of the land to an elderly Greenlandic lady. She understood my gestures and smile and returned one as well. She took several photos of me with her phone and allowed me to take one of her and her husband. On my return through her aid station, I experienced one of my most memorable moments of the race—a big, long hug from this beautiful woman. 

For the second half of the race, we ran 7 miles alongside the bay of the fjord before turning around to head back to Qassiarsuk. The icebergs floating in the water provided great distraction from the numerous long climbs.

After each set of mountains, we descended to sea level and enjoyed the rocky shoreline. Streams from waterfalls and glacial melt entered into the sea in each of the valleys. 

 

I passed through two small villages made up of a handful of houses during the second half of the marathon. As I approached the second village, I came across a valley of wildflowers where every color of the rainbow was represented. It was stunning!

As I began the last 9 miles of the marathon to return to the start line, a fog descended on the fjord and mountains. It added texture to the scene as it hung over the mountains while I ran through the valleys. 

It became more difficult in the last few miles as I climbed to the top of the mountains into the fog and rain. Those conditions and the cold didn’t stop me from pausing every kilometer or so to snap a photo. Lakes were plentiful throughout the mountains and the fog created an ominous atmosphere. 

I could have run for hours more through this land, but I was very grateful to see the finish line.  My Strava app calculated almost 5000 ft of elevation gain over the 27 miles with only 265 photo stops!

The race was worth every minute and I highly recommend it to all my fellow runners.

Greenland-A beauty beyond words

It’s truly hard to express what we saw in Greenland. Even my photos don’t do it justice. So many thoughts swirl in my head when I begin to describe this amazing country.

I’ll begin with our struggles to get over to Greenland. We were quite anxious after being stuck in Reykjavik for 2 days due to flight cancellations. While that would normally be a great place to be stranded, we didn’t get notified of the flight being cancelled until the afternoon each day.  This occurred after spending hours at the domestic airport each morning as the flight status changed hourly due to fog.  Luckily, the airline put us up in a hotel and fed us so we spent a couple hours in the late afternoons walking around Reykjavík. We longed to get to Greenland.   We finally arrived Thursday afternoon, flying over the waters of a fjord, crying out happily as we spotted one iceberg after another. Little did we know that in a couple hours, we would be boarding this zodiac to be whisked out to our camp. 

After landing in Greenland, we had to wait a couple hours as the adventure company arranged transportation and shuffled tours around. We had missed two full days of our tour and others had the same predicament. Ramon, the owner, came to transport us 70-80 km by zodiac through the fjords, weaving through icebergs. We marveled at the colors as some icebergs were white, others blue and others black, depending on the age and activity of the iceberg. 

It had been raining all day and it was no different on the 2-hour ride. My camera gear stayed packed away tightly in dry bags but I jeopardized my phone and hands for a few iPhone shots. It was very cold flying through the water in the zodiac, and luckily, the company gave us parkas to wear. As you can see with Troy in the photo below, we were very bundled up. 

We arrived at camp next to a glacier and proceeded to meet our guide and the rest of our group who had flown over via Denmark 2 days prior. We got settled into fixed dome tents late at night and had a nice pasta dinner cooked by our two guides Ester and Jorge. Since Tasermiut is a Spanish company, all of our guides came from Spain and spoke a lot of Spanish in our presence. It was fun practicing with them and interpreting occasionally for the group.  The camp was beautiful situated on the beach of the fjord. 

We got settled that night and took in the surroundings. We had mountains all around us, a glacier in front of us, blue-green water of the fjord and no civilization for miles and miles. Our only transportation was that zodiac which had left shortly after dropping us off. 

It was still unbelievable that we were actually in Greenland. Our eyes could not absorb fast enough. Our minds spun as we saw one beautiful and unique sight after another. Each place that we saw was worth the trip, struggle, and expense alone. Five days of that from morning to night gave us such happiness that a place on this earth existed and we were lucky enough to see it. I still haven’t processed what we saw and it might be months and many hours processing photos before I truly believe that I was there.  

I spend tonight in Reykjavik and leave Troy in Iceland tomorrow as I begin my trip back to the US. I will fly back to Orlando and spend the night in an airport hotel before heading to Long Island, NY to join Artie for a return to shorebird photography for five days. As soon as I return back to Florida, I’ll begin processing my camera photos and will post them along with stories of our adventure. 

Iceland Complete, Now Greenland

Troy and I had a whirlwind trip in Iceland. We are now at Reykjavík Domestic Airport awaiting our flight to Greenland! We are in extreme sleep deprivation after visiting some amazing sites. I apologize in advance if this is not well written or doesn’t make sense.  All of these photos were taken with my iPhone.

My flight arrived late into Iceland Saturday morning and I didn’t really sleep on the overnight flight.  Troy was waiting and we headed to Thingvellir National Park first for a quick visit.

We were dead tired and headed to our guesthouse for a short 2-3 hour nap. That recharged me a lot and we took off to go visit Geysir and Gullfoss until midnight.

The above image is a view of Gullfoss around 11pm. I have some videos of Geysir that I’ll post later when I get back to the US.  We made it back to the guesthouse for another 3 hour nap and left around 4:30am to head to Haifoss, a beautiful area with two waterfalls in a very remote location. We were supposed to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle for the road but we made it in a tiny Hyundai sedan. It was well worth the effort!

 

I had found another special place nearby that required even more off roading that turned out to be a little paradise.  It felt as though we were entering a magical kingdom of waterfalls and springs.

You can see Troy in red on the trails looking up at me.  We drove down south after that and headed to Dyrholaey to see some puffins flying off in the distance and a large boulder in the ocean.

The views were spectacular and the amount of green looking back inland was astounding.

We also went down by the black sand beach as a storm approached and drenched us.

We then checked into our next guesthouse in Hella, ate and set off for another waterfall, Skogafoss, for the night shoot.  We started at the bottom and then climbed the stairs to the top.

We then walked up the river feeding this waterfall and found another smaller falls that were just as spectacular.

Again we made it back at midnight for a quick 3 hour nap and went back out to Seljalandsfoss for a morning shoot.  This waterfall allowed us to take pictures from behind it to display its amazing beauty.

Yes, I got soaking wet but it made the rain drizzle seem like nothing.  😁  Mother Nature is great for changing my perspective.  Exhausted, we headed back to pack up and drive to the airport where we now await our next adventure.  Iceland is definitely a special place that I plan to visit again.  Each waterfall has its own personality and beauty, and I would have loved to spend more time at each and see more of the country.  This was definitely a good taste of what the island has to offer.  I’m sorry for the brevity and dump of photos, but I hope you understand.  I’ll write more soon…Bye!

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures to Iceland and Greenland

Today I leave the hot, humid weather of Florida for cooler climates once again.  For this adventure, I will be traveling with a good friend and fellow Marathon Maniac, Troy, for 11 days to Iceland and Greenland.  We will meet in Reykjavik, Iceland Sunday morning, August 12, 2018 after a couple flights tonight.

Our plan is to get our rental car Sunday morning and set off for Thingvellir National Park.  We will explore it for a bit among many other tourists and then head to our guesthouse for an afternoon nap.  Troy is kindly obliging me in making this a photography journey so we will head out at night to explore the geysers and waterfalls when all other sane people are sleeping.  We will head south on Monday and spend that night photographing more waterfalls and the black sand beaches along the southern coast.  There might even be a puffin or two if we are lucky.  :-).

On Tuesday, we begin our real adventure as we head to the domestic airport to fly over to Greenland! We will join up with others as part of an 8-day tour with Tasermiut South Greenland Expeditions.

We start our journey in Narsarsuaq and will board an RIB boat to travel through the Tunulliarfik Fjord to the viking village, Qassiarsuk.  We get the rest of the day to explore the village and stay overnight in a hostel.

Wednesday morning we head out onto the water again and travel southwest to the Qaleraliq camp, making a short stop in Narsaq, the 3rd most populated town in South Greenland.  We spend the next 3 nights in tents at Qaleraliq camp on a sandy beach among icebergs and glaciers.  I’ve been told that there will be no electricity or light pollution in this area so if we have clear skies, I hope to be out photographing the night sky.   During the day at this camp, we will hike up a mountain to Tasersuatsiaq lake to view the inland glacier, Indlandis; ice trek in crampons on one of the oldest masses of ice on the planet; explore icebergs in RIB boats; and pick wild mushrooms and blueberries!!!!

Saturday morning, August 18, we will head back to Qassiarsuk to run the Leif Ericsson marathon through the countryside–my first international marathon!  Please send all your extra energy my way that day as I’ll be very sleep-deprived by this point! I have no time goals for this one and just hope to finish.  Luckily, we get to pass out in a hostel that night.

The next two days we will hike to several farms in Iceberg’s Bay, explore some viking ruins, visit some icebergs and lakes among the tundra, hike into Flower Valley and kayak in Iceberg Bay, navigating our way through the icebergs.

We say good-bye to Greenland on Tuesday, August 21, after a visit to a museum or a short hike to view more of the glacial scenery in Narsarsuaq. Troy and I fly out in the evening and arrive in Iceland close to midnight.  It will be a quick sleep in a guesthouse before I leave Troy in Iceland (he gets to stay a few more days) and fly back to Orlando Wednesday morning.

I plan on lugging most of my camera gear with me, sacrificing clothes for this journey since there are strict weight limits for the domestic flight from Iceland to Greenland.  I will not have any ability to process any images taken on the camera, and many days I will not have service or electricity to post anything.  When possible, I might be able to throw up a couple iPhone photos to show what we are experiencing.  I’m incredibly excited and can’t wait to share it all with you when I return!

Take care,

Amy

 

Gannets Galore

Image: Northern Gannets about to dive, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 98 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 800, hand-held.

We finished off our European trip in July by heading up to Dunbar, Scotland for two last photography outings with some Northern Gannets.  Bass Rock, an island off the eastern coast of Scotland in the outer Firth of Forth (an estuary), is home to over 150,000 gannets, the largest colony in the world.  We had to take an hour-long boat ride on choppy water to get out to the rock.

The trip was initially cancelled the first day due to high winds that created waves not suitable for the boat or its passengers.  We waited a half hour and Captain Gordon said that the wind was changing in our favor.  Fifteen minutes layer, our excitement soared as we set off on choppy water.  It was a very bumpy ride as we rode out 2 miles to the rock, requiring us to sit or hold onto something to avoid falling.  We did a partial tour around the perimeter of the rock by boat but never landed. We saw the remnants of a castle and an intact lighthouse on one side of the rock surrounded by tens of thousands of nesting gannets.

Image: Bass Rock, Scotland. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 24 mm, f/8, 1/1250 sec, ISO 500, hand-held.

As we got closer, we could see the gannets taking off and swirling around the island high overhead.  We were amazed by the sight as well as in awe of the realization that every white dot on the surface of this rock was a bird.

Image: Northern Gannets swarming Bass Rock, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 86 mm, f/4.5, 1/2500 sec, ISO 640, hand-held.

As we got closer, we spotted a fog horn further engulfed by nesting gannets.

Image: Northern Gannets on Bass Rock, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 70 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 800, hand-held.

To appreciate the grandeur of this scene, I took a short video of the flocks swarming the island.  I apologize for the unsteadiness of the video, but it was impossible to keep a steady hand as I was being thrown around the boat.

After a short tour, we began chumming, the process of throwing dead fish into the sea to feed the birds.  Gannets came from everywhere to enjoy the feast.  Captain Gordon’s mate, Eric, threw one dead fish after another into the sea as gannets and a variety of gulls dove and fought for a meal.

Image: Northern Gannets swimming near Bass Rock, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 102 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 640, hand-held.

It was hard to capture the chaos in a photo of what happened over the two hours.  I tried to capture some images of the birds flying over the rock.  In this image, because of the cloudy skies and the inability to see the beautiful coloration of the birds due to the far distance of them, I converted it to black and white.

Image: Northern Gannets on Bass Rock, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 70 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 800, hand-held.

For other shots, I tried to capture patterns in the birds’ flight as they flew into the wind while following us and watching where the fish landed.

Image: Northern Gannets flying, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 44 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 800, hand-held.

To give you a better idea of this scene, I took a couple videos of the chumming.  In this first video, you can see gannets diving into the water for fish and gulls trying to land on the water to grab the fish.   Again, I apologize for the unsteady footage.

Because of the uniqueness of the way the gannets folded their wings to create a torpedo shape as they dove in the water, I took a slow motion video of these birds in action.

At times, I was able to isolate a few birds and capture them as the flew overhead.

Image: Northern Gannets flying, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 70 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 640, hand-held.

I also tried to get images of them that demonstrated their behavior before they made a dive.  In the photo below, the middle bird is just beginning to go for a fish in the water while the others look on.

Image: Northern Gannets flying, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 70 mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 640, hand-held.

When they went into full landing mode as opposed to diving like a torpedo, they appeared like the bottom bird in the image below.  You can also see that the gannet above it was ready to go after the fish as well, possibly in a torpedo dive.

Image: Northern Gannets about to land, Scotland. Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 mm at 70 mm, f/4.5, 1/5000 sec, ISO 400, hand-held.

For all of the images, I kept the shutter speed above 1/1600 and used a lower f-stop since I had a lens that allowed me to go lower to open the aperture for more light.  Because the gannets were so close to the boat, I did not need my long telephoto lens (200-500 mm).  I adjusted the ISO according to the amount of light and for correct exposure (between 400-800).

As I continue to sort and process images, I will display some photos of single birds and the torpedo dive process.  I hope to post these before I leave Saturday if all goes well.

 

 

Bedford’s, Beale Street and More

Image: Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 44 mm, f/2.8, 1/10 sec, ISO 100, on tripod.

We had a break from the heat and humidity of central Florida for the past 4 days and took a short trip to Memphis, Tennessee for a photo expo put on by Bedford Camera and Video.  The theme was Shoot Rock N’ Roll and was hosted in the recently-built Guest House at Graceland, a large 450 room resort hotel with a couple restaurants, ballrooms and theaters. It was a great setting for hosting various professional photographers including Patrick Murphy-Racey, Lindsey Adler, Lucas Gilman, Elia Locardi, and of course, Arthur Morris.

Image: Arthur Morris speaking at Bedford’s Shoot Rock N’ Roll Photo Expo, Memphis, Tennessee. iPhone 7 Plus, hand-held.

Topics covered all types of photography including landscape, wildlife, travel, adventure, wedding and stylized portraiture. It was very informative as well as inspiring.  After the first day of the expo, a few of us headed out to Beale Street in the evening to check out the scene. When we arrived, the sun was still setting and the streets were relatively quiet.

Image: Beale Street at sunset, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 36 mm, f/22, 1/60 sec, ISO 800, on tripod.

The town prepared for the evening with some cops out on the streets ready to keep the area calm for Friday night’s activity and fun.  They relaxed against their cars and chatted among themselves and with tourists until the sun went down.

Image: Cops on Beale Street at sunset, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 56 mm, f/16, 1/60 sec, ISO 3200, hand-held.

After a nice dinner and sunset, we enjoyed some night photography, trying to capture the neon lights and bustle of activity.  Beale Street was closed to vehicles, allowing us to walk down the middle of the street to take in the scene and listen to various styles of blues music coming from the bars and clubs.

Image: Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 55 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 1000, on tripod.

At times, I focused on some of the more unique neon signs that reflected colors onto the buildings and enhanced the ambiance.

Image: Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 62 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 1250, on tripod.

Bedfords also brought out a couple models to pose in the street and had a light shining on them to highlight their features.  I took a couple quick shots as one of them moved into various poses.  At one point, a drunk man came up and put his arm around this woman and she kindly went along with it before returning to her poses.

Image: Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 58 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 1000, hand-held.

My settings for these images varied greatly because the light changed greatly over the evening.  At times, I used a small aperture (f/16 or f/22) to have a greater depth of field while the sun was out so I could get subjects near and far in focus.  This aperture also allowed me to capture the sunburst.  When nighttime came, I went with a larger aperture (f/2.8) so that more light hit the camera sensor and allowed me to keep the ISO relatively low to minimize introducing noise into the image.  When I shot hand-held, I kept the shutter speed above 1/60 second since my images tend to lose sharpness when the speed is slower than that.  I also brought out the tripod for some of the images for slower shutter speeds and to take crisp, sharp images.

Image: Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 mm at 32 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 1250, on tripod.

I have one more week in Florida to prepare for my upcoming adventure to Iceland and Greenland starting August 11!  Stay tuned for another post or two wrapping up my England/Scotland adventure from July and then we switch to landscape photography with waterfalls, icebergs, Viking villages and more!