This is Zabriskie Point, the first stop inside Death Valley. The dark rock is volcanic over top of the light rock which was formed from a lake bed. The sharp contrast between the two layers makes for some cool scenery and some fantastic pictures.

This picture was taken as we were getting close to the entrance to Death Valley. You can start to see the dark rock with lighter rock mixed in, which was even more extreme in the park.

This formation caught my eye because it seemed different from everything else around it. The black color and the rock layers that are vertically oriented make it seem out of place and interesting.

This picture is also just outside of Las Vegas. Again I liked the distinct layers of rock and liked how the dark and lighter layers contrasted with each other.

I just got back from a family vacation with my family where we visited 3 national parks and San Francisco. I took over 900 pictures and will be posting them (don't worry, not all of them) over the course of the summer. It was a great opportunity to capture some truly spectacular scenery. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them. This first one is of some mountains just outside of Las Vegas. I love looking at the layers of rock so easy to see in the desert mountains and wonder what geologic processes made them. If I had grown up out west, I may have ended up a geologist instead of a biologist.

This is an attempt to get some stormy weather on film (without the lightning).

A reflected picture of a boat from the pond by our house.

I shot this dragonfly on continuous focus mode on my camera while it was flying around the edge of a pond near my house. I took a bunch of pictures and a surprising number of them were in focus. This was the best though.