Sunset and star trails on Velika planina

After a busy summer and hardly any time spent in the Slovenian mountains I hiked to Velika planina one Sunday afternoon after work. It was kind of late as I only made it to the chapel around 5.45, but the light was just getting warm. Almost all Sunday hikers had already left so I was pretty much alone.




Having photographed the ridge trail I climbed the chapel hill, waited for the sun to disappear behind the ridge and then wandered around a little, hoping for after sunset colors.








But then I saw amazing red misty light to the north, rising from the Kamniška Bistrica valley, so I practically ran to the other side of the plateau. Totally out of breath I made it to the top and caught the last 10 seconds of the sun before it set behind Mt. Krvavec.


I had a hunch the colors would only get better, so I found a nice cottage for the foreground, set up my tripod and waited.


I had my tripod, the moon was new, so it made sense to try and take some star trails shots. It was so dark I had huge problems composing and focusing. And fog was beginning to creep in from the valley.


It was the fog that made me give up. The lens was fogging up so badly I ended up with a bunch of useless shots. I did manage to get this:


And an ISO3200 shot of the Milky Way.

Sunset on Island Krk

I had just returned from the US, overwhelmed by the experience and the number of photos I took, and before I could catch my breath, I was off to Zermatt, Switzerland for 4 days to do some skiing and hiking, and then the Croatian beach for 3 days to just lie on the beach. :) Processing photos had to wait. But before I start with too many blog posts about America, I'll quickly show a few photos I took one evening at the beach. The wispy clouds in the afternoon were a good indication the sunset would be spectacular. And it didn't disappoint!


















And then it was all over.

America's national parks

As some of you probably know, I spent three weeks in August in the USA. Partly for work - meeting my employers and coworkers at the SmugMug retreat in Jackson Hole - and partly for pleasure, the whole trip was all about photography and visiting (mostly) national parks. Starting in San Francisco, I made my way to Yosemite and then across Nevada to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where I spent a week working and sightseeing Grant Teton and Yellowstone national parks. The last 9 days were a crazy landscape photography tour of Washington and Oregon states with my friend Ron. Check out his gorgeous photos! More about the crazy adventures with him - like getting up at ungodly hours for the sunrise every single day AND being rewarded with great light - in the next posts. :)

While I'm far from having my photos selected and post-processed, here are a few teasers:

Sunrise in the Grand Teton NP:


Rolling hils of the Palouse:


The Palouse:


Reflection of Mt. Rainier in Tipsoo Lake at sunrise:


Mt. Rainier and wild flowers:


Crazy sunset colors at Ruby Beach:


Be patient! Or check my galleries occasionally to see if there are any new uploads. ;)