Hoover Dam @ Night and some Lake Mead drought

Day or night, I've never regretted a stop at the Hoover Dam. This place is a modern marvel of engineering and a grand human vision.

The star-burst pattern around the lights is an effect typical of many lenses at very high f-stop #'s (very small apertures).

Check out how much the water level has dropped in Lake Mead between the top picture taken in 2001 and the bottom one taken in 2009!

Union Station in the City of Fountains - Kansas City

Everything's up to date in Kansas City
They gone about as fer as they can go
They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' orta grow!

At least  that's what Will Parker said about Kansas City in the musical Oklahoma.f

While in Kansas City for a conference, I wandered over (e.g. hiked 8 miles that night) from my hotel on the far north side of town to as far south as the World War I museum.  Of course that included a stop by Union Station which was, for all intents and purposes, completely empty on that week night.  It was far too kind for the operators there to empty the place for me and my camera to enjoy.

Wikipedia says that the height of activity (approx 670,000 passengers) at Union Station occurred in 1945 at the end of World War II.  After that, it was a steady decline until closure in 1985.  It was almost demolished several times until a public/private partnership found means to save the station in 1996.

Here are a few of my favorite images of my private, self-guided tour of the place.

One of the more interesting things about this curvy, wide-angle image is the lighting. Under most circumstances you'd never see such balanced lighting inside a structure with many windows except maybe at noon.  In this case, the light on the left (east) wall was directly from the sun shining in the right (west) windows.  The light on the right (west) wall was reflecting off a large glass building outside and to the east of Union Station.  Confused yet?

Hey that's me.  Or two of me, actually.  All in a long, single exposure, too.

Lake Hefner Sunrise

Just some tomfoolery with the camera body and lens while the shutter is open.

Morro Rock and Morro Bay - Los Osos, CA

I already know I'm a sucker for el agua, but I love this place.  It's nice to have a customer located in the same town as Morro Bay.  I probably should visit them again soon and often.

Cuyahoga National Park and the Cuyahoga River

Not the most well-known national park but full of it's own beauty nonetheless.  Given it's proximity to Cleveland and Akron, it's quite a retreat from the industrial mecca surrounding.

Pigeon Forge River in Tennessee

75% Desaturated

This spot in the river is just off I40 north of Smoky Mountain National Park.  There was quite a climb down a steep ravine to get to water's level but it was worth it.

Eagle Falls & Old Pines @ Lake Tahoe

This enormous old pine trunk sits atop Eagle Falls.

Here's a very non-artistic but contextual look at the same tree. This picture is complete with the shadow of my head and that of a by-stander's.

During the spring thaw I would be under several feet of rushing water at this same spot. 

Here's a less colorful take on the same view.

The very top of Eagle Falls.

This is the kind of drive that sends my bride into an eye-closed tizzy.  The picture doesn't do justice to this ridge-drive with sheer drops on either side. It seems that me taking pictures while driving on said ridge doesn't help ease her any. 

Reflections of Disney's Dolphin Resort

When peace like a river...

...attendeth my way.

Smoky Mountain National Park

Tunnel abstract

Here is a slightly different look at a curved underground tunnel at night. The shutter speed was 1.3 seconds which makes it really hard to get straight lines at highway speeds.

It's kind of like the view from the millenium falcon just as it enters warp speed. Or something like that.

Oconaluftee River in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

If God were to need a break, he might sit on the edge of the bank here. ;-)

Kiamichi River in in Ouachita National Forest

It's not easy to find rivers in Oklahoma that run so clear but the Kiamichi is generally one such river.  These photos were taken just off a remote forest service road in the Ouachita National Forest near Talahina, OK.  There are only a handful of great campsites near this spot so I'd sure like to make my way back with the family some day when I have a chance to spend the night (or two).

Mingo Falls @ Great Smoky Mountain National Park

At approximately 120 feet high, Mingo Falls is one of the highest waterfalls in all of the southern Appalachians. It's located in Cherokee, NC, at the south boundary of Smoky Mountain National Park.

Views of the Venetian

With so many conferences in Las Vegas, I find that I end up there once or twice every year.  While this is a city sold as, marketed for, and built on hedonism, there are lots of redeeming parts as well.  I think there is only one hotel I haven't been through multiple times. For all the others, I still enjoy making a trip through them as opportunity affords.

While I have my own tradition of getting a caramel macchiato at d'Bucks and watching the Bellagio fountains, one of my top 3 fav hotels is the Venetian. I've never actually stayed overnight there, of course, since it's on the pricey side but I do love walking through it.  It has a river inside complete with gondola rides and singing gondoliers.  Plus, the ceilings are painted with fantastic murals representative of those found in palaces throughout Europe.

I don't do a lot of architecture photography but since I was at the hotel early one morning - after an all-nighter at the slots, ya' know :-), I took advantage of the sparse crowds.

The indoor shots were handheld at 1/15sec but still turned out reasonably sharp.

Entrance off the promenade

 The promenade facing Las Vegas Boulevard ('the strip')

 Hallway leading to registration desk

Edmond Liberty Fest puke-a-matic

How any human can spin like this and not be sick the rest of the evening is beyond me. Nontheless, spin they do. Again and again.

Take a long exposure picture at dusk adds and extra depth to the image if you can time it as such.  I originally was facing east and quickly realized I needed to change positions to take advantage of the failing light in the west.

12mm/f8
Exposure - 2 sec

Pigeon River at dusk in Smoky Mountain National Park

I climbed down a large embankment under a bridge while wearing slacks and slick sole dress shoes to snag this shot and several others.  This was a quick stop in between meetings in Charlotte, NC and Knoxville, TN.  Although Interstate 40 was just 100 yards away I couldn't hear the traffic over the sound of the river.  Most memorable was how monumentally crisp the air felt and how clean it smelled down in the river bottom.  Circumstances dictated that I couldn't stay long which is probably good since no one on the planet knew where I was and I really couldn't see much in the dark on my way back up the embankment.

4 sec @ f/10
12mm

Here is the debris-filled embankment I climbed through to get to the river.