After spending some time in Utah at Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, just one week later I found myself in Grand Teton National Park spending time shooting one of nature's most beautiful scenes.  In this shot, I set up at Schwabacher's Landing, little spot off a gravel road just inside the main highway that cuts along the outer edge of the park.  The sun was pretty well up at this point but the light was just good enough before the harsh noon light moved in to get this reflection shot of Grand Teton.  In total I spent six days on my trip but three of them were hampered by clouds and a fire that had blocked the south entrance to Yellowstone, preventing me from entering the park and unleashing a smoky haze over the mountains.  But, I did have three good days and I was pretty happy to land this photograph of one of the most amazing places on earth.

They say good things come to those who wait, and I'm one of the most impatient people around.  I walked the 2-mile hike up to the iconic Delicate Arch in Arches National Park in eastern Utah and much to my chagrin was greeted mainly by overcast skies and the sun quickly dropping in the sky, although at the time it couldn't be seen.  I got a quite a few shots with the gray background but just as I was about to call it a day when the clouds broke up in the west and the sky cleared, letting sunlight through and setting the arch aglow with golden light.  I couldn't believe my luck and quickly unpacked to take advantage of a few glorious minutes.  The shot above, "Golden Arch" is one of the rewards for waiting just a couple of minutes longer and I'm so happy that I did.  This place has been photographed a billion times and from any angle imaginable, but I'm pretty happy with this photograph and think it stands tall in a sea of Delicate Arch images.

Every once in a while when I capture an image it beckons to be in black and white.  I can't really explain it, but after working this photo up in color it just wasn't doing a lot for me so I let it be for a while.  One night I woke up around 3 a.m. and my first thought was this needs to be in black and white.  So the next day I got up and worked on it and it turned out exactly as I had pictured it in my head when I was laying in bed.  There was a small rainbow in the left hand side of the photograph that basically disappeared when I worked it up, so I decided to keep it in color and it added a very nice touch of hope to the picture that is kind of wistful overall.  This was captured just southeast of Dodge City, Kansas.

Drylands is a photo that takes you into the past, where toughness and grit were required for survival. The whimsical skies serve as wistful memories while the old homestead lays protected from the harsh winds of the plains by surrounding trees, which were surely planted as a windbreak and to keep from being exposed to the harsh elements of the southern plains.  Taken in southern Kansas, only the rumbles of thunder kept me company as I captured this beautiful moment.

Oklahoma sunsets are legendary and they are especially beautiful after storms move through when the land is soaked and the air is full of the smell of rain.  This particular shot was taken near Turpin, Oklahoma towards the end of the day as the sun was casting a golden glow on the land.  The road leads inward towards a lone clump of trees that seems to have been surrounded by a small pond of water from the heavy rains, and a barbed wire fence splits the scene and stretches into the horizon.

Some sunsets are just better than others.  Especially when you have a full sky full of mammatus and golden light.  In this shot from southwest Oklahoma storms had passed and I was on my way back home but was greeted by an incredible sky.  So I found a place to pull over and composed the shot with a fence and the spring Oklahoma landscape.  You never know what you are going to see when you go out chasing, but there's a pretty good chance you are going to see nature doing its thing in the most spectacular fashion.

After thunderstorms had moved through near Haskell, Texas a rainbow appeared as it usually does whenever the misty aftermath takes the place of powerful thunderstorms.  What was pretty cool about this picture is the golden light that was cast over the harvested wheat and the appearance of a small sunflower kind of poking his head up into the photo.  I named the photo "The Promise" as an ode to rainbow's part in the old testament after the great flood and the warm light that promised a peaceful end to a stormy day.

The weather can be so strange and entertaining.  In this photograph a storm is barreling to the east at the edge of dusk and appears to have a strange fluorescent glow emitting from its core.  It's pretty common to have colors within a thunderstorm but this one is probably a bit more neon than normal. This shot is taken looking north so you have the evening sun behind the storm with softer light than you would find during a clear day, and the rain particles are catching the light and casting a tinge of purple hue which completes the look.  This shot was captured near Walters, Oklahoma earlier this spring.

In late May 2015 a storm had rooted itself just north of Canadian, Texas and stayed in one place for the better part of four hours.  I wanted to get away from the crowd a bit on the main highway east of town so I moved into town and was going to head to the south to get a better view.  Just as I got into town I was passing over the current day bridge and noticed an old bridge off to the north and it was something that I just had to capture.  I walked along the side of the road to get a better angle and was told by the local firefighter I needed to move because of the traffic and the situation with the storm. Just before I moved out I captured this image with all the greenery below with the storm in the background.  What a day.

Summer storms moved in during the late evening hours on August 7th bringing a beautiful display of lightning.  I captured a few in the distance then moved closer to see if I could land some good strikes and I think I caught a few good ones.  The storm moved super slow, I think it may have been moving a good 5 mph if that.  It didn't have a lot of rain with it so it made for great conditions to capture a few shots.

This shot is of three separate bolts, but two of them were one right after the other in the matter of milliseconds and the image basically looks like one mega bolt came down.  If you look close at the ground you can see the separation which isn't much.  The cloud structure was insane.

In this shot a single bolt came down in the sweeping rain and it was a sight to see.  Other than being a bit on the warm side the show was spectacular.  Quite a nice surprise in the depths of summer.