Super Moon over the Sandia Mountains.

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We waited until after 5 PM so we could drive in. From 8 AM until 5 PM, cars are not allowed. If you want to get in during those times you have to take a bus.

We traveled up through Ouray, Carbondale, and Redstone in the Colorado Rockies. I think we were fortunate to hit the aspens just about at their peak. Got snowed out of our ATV trip above Marble, CO, as there was too much snow over 11,000 feet.

Picturesque House Above Silverton, CO


Maroon Bells near Aspen, CO

Balloons participate in a "Splash and Dash" in the Rio Grande during the Albuquerque Intl. Balloon Fiesta. It is the biggest balloon event in the world, with over 600 balloons. It is also the most photographed event in the world. In Albuquerque from October 1-9. Come on over!

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I did it both ways. Day 1 I did the Natural Entrance (bat cave entrance) tour, walking down all 75 stories then taking the elevator out. Day 2, I took the elevator down into the "Big Room". IMHO, the Big Room was so much better than the other loop. It was not a strenuous trek at all since it was all downhill.

Carlsbad Caverns proved to be a photogenic natural wonder, with some major challenges and inherent limitations in the photography arena.

Quite honestly, I encountered almost impossible lighting situations in large parts of the cavern. There is no natural light, of course. Different lighting systems are used throughout the cavern, with widely varying color temperatures. Even so, it is DARK down there. Matters are complicated by the use of mixed lighting systems on many of the larger and more interesting, iconic formations. Some bulbs placed close to iconic structures caused blown-out highlights, while the surrounding areas were bathed in darkness. Flash photography is utterly useless because the light is lost in its deep, ultra black vastness. Any photos of the caverns you might have seen before with kryptonite greens and azure blues were taken before existing theatrical lights were replaced by 90 miles of LED lighting in 2011. No more garish lighting and unnatural coloring. The structures appear as what they are:“ rocks and minerals in shades of brown, tan, gray, rust, white, and sulfur.

Any two-dimensional photograph is transcended by the sensory experience of actually being inside the caves. It is a wonderland of shapes popping up around every bend. Besides stalagmites and stalactites, there are structures called soda straws, draperies, hair and beards, chandeliers, balloons, popcorn, columns, and cave pearls that give the caves an other-worldly quality.

Another wonder of the caverns is the creatures that dwell there : over 400,000 Mexican free-tail bats, which fly out of the caverns each evening at sundown from May through October in search of food. They spiral up out of the depths, then fly to the southeast. A ranger conducts a short talk each evening in the amphitheater at the cave entrance just before the bat flight. Cameras are not allowed during the bat flight, nor are any other electronics. The danger is that the bats may become disoriented by the waves emitted, since they find their way around by means of internal echolocation. I received permission from a park ranger to set up a tripod and camera with a long telephoto lens quite a way away on a hill next to the parking lot adjacent to the bat flight area. So I was able to capture the spectacle at sundown without flash before it was totally dark.

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Full strength, right out of the bottle.

Capitol Reef is one of the areas on the registry of the Intl. Dark Places. There is no ambient light from city lights to infect photos. The night skies are incredible!

This Photo shows Chimney Rock silhouetted against the night sky with Milky Way.

Pure glycerine is very inexpensive and can be bought at any CVS store. It is used mostly as a skin softener, and is usually in the hand lotion aisle. Walgreens probably carries it too. One 6-oz. bottle will last a very long time. I think I paid $2.39 for a 6-oz. bottle at CVS. I don't know whether there is more than one type of glycerine. If it says "pure glycerine" on the bottle, it's the real deal, and is as concentrated as you are going to find, as far as I know. As for your last question, I have used it on cut flowers/stems that I was going to discard afterwards. So I don't know if it will damage growing plants. It is not caustic in any way.

Never thought of using Karo syrup. That might be better still!

Thanks, bkelly. I WISH there had been an instruction book! I had to learn the hard way -- through trial and error. What made it harder still is that I don't have a studio, clamps, or any expensive lighting systems. You would laugh if you saw my jerry-rigged setup using a piece of glass sitting on top of tall plastic water glasses. The light is just ambient light in an indoors room. One thing that makes a shot like this possible, IMHO, is a macro lens. I used a Nikkor 105mm.

The answer to Bill de is YES! Pure glycerine is inexpensive and readily available at just about any drug store.

I have started playing around with water drop reflection photography. The first one I ever did took 3 hours to set up. What an exercise in frustration! The droplets kept falling off. Then after refining my technique and learning a thing or two, it has become much easier and faster.

I took this photo at the VLA (Very Large Array) west of Socorro, New Mexico, about 9:00 PM. Since the Array is out in the middle of nowhere and it was a moonless night, it was very easy to get the Milky Way in the background.

The VLA consists of 27 radio satellite dishes, each measuring 82 ft. in diameter and weighing 230 tons. They catch cosmic radio waves that are billions of times fainter than man-made radio waves. They move on railroad tracks, and are moved and reconfigured several times per year.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
(Psalm 19:1)

Nikon D 810
ISO 2000
20 secs.
f/2.8
14-24 wide angle lens set at 24 mm

Thanks so much. You're exactly right that city lights will kill a Milky Way photo. So will the moon. Has to be on a night that there is no moon, and that information is readily available online. Also, I use Stellarium, a free download program, to tell me exactly where in the sky the Milky Way will appear on any particular date and time.