Rialto beach on the Pacific coast is part of Olympic National Park. And after the girls had fun seeing Forks, the setting of the Twilight movies, we drove down to the beach. It was a gray day but not raining. I doubt anyone would want to go swimming here anyway as the water is cold.… Read More Gray Day on Rialto Beach
As you may have guessed from my previous post, I went to Mount Rainier National Park after hanging around in Seattle for a couple of days. I was on a trip with my three girls so I didn’t have any delusions about going out and spending all day hiking and taking beautiful photos. What photos… Read More Mount Rainier from the Road
A city skylines kind of demand a panoramic format as they are typically much longer than they are tall. And this is pretty straightforward in the daytime (and without water). But I wanted a city skyline after sunset and there was a lot of water in the foreground to make things more complicated; I’ll explain.… Read More The Skyline Night Pano
There is a big, somewhat challenging, day hike at Big Bend. It can range from 12 – 16 miles depending on how you do it. There is a lot of climbing up mountains, down through canyons, along creek beds, and up along the rim of the Chisos Mountains facing south toward Mexico. Unless you are… Read More “The Hike”
Winter is a great time to see birds on the Texas coast. There are many birds that spend the winter in the mild coastal weather as well as the many birds that live there year round. I have a desire to up my wildlife photography game and I recently bought a Nikon Z6III, which has… Read More Gone Birding, Part 1
On our last morning in the Svalbard fjords, we spent a lot of time looking at some massive glaciers. On this morning we were also getting some sunlight occasionally through the clouds lighting up the mountains. I took the following panorama from the deck of the ship with a long lens. I didn’t think much… Read More Ice Cave
In the Arctic there is a bird that looks like it face-planted in a clown’s make-up kit. People love to see this bird and when I was on my expedition there was quite the talk about whether or not we would find them. It turns out that on our rainy last afternoon we did finally… Read More A Puffin Piece
After icebergs we returned to the fjords in the north of Spitsbergen island. I woke up early, as usual, and went up on deck to see what there was to see. I could see land in the distance, but on the other side of the boat the sun was shining bright and there were seabirds… Read More A Return to the Fjords
After leaving Kvitoya, we sailed all “night” to find the sea ice and I woke up a little after 5:00AM and wandered up on deck to see if we had found the ice. We had indeed found lots of ice and there was even some sunlight making its way through the fog on the east… Read More 81° 43’ 29” North
The eastern most island in Svalbard is Kvitøya, or the White Island. There has never been a settlement there and the island is generally left to the polar bears and annoying tourists these days, but the island does play a key part in a notable historical event that began in the late 19th century in… Read More A Passage to Kvitøya, the White Island
Jason Frels 