My Must-See List of National Parks

For Earth Day 2011, I decided to post a list of the national parks around the U.S. that I hope to visit someday for photographing nature. I also shared this on my Tumblr page.

1. Denali



2. Glacier Bay



3. Grand Canyon



4. Saguaro



5. Channel Islands



6. Joshua Tree



7. Redwood



8. Sequoia



9. Yosemite



10. Mesa Verde



11. Everglades



12. Hawaii Volcanoes



13. Yellowstone



14. Acadia



15. Isle Royale



16. Congaree



17. Badlands



18. Arches



19. Bryce Canyon



20. Shenandoah



21. Olympic



22. Grand Teton

Travel for the Near Future

I thought I'd share a few places that I hope to visit in the near future to do some photography and video work. I guess they could be called special interest travel, as they all represent different interests that I have, or that others have who like these places for the same reasons. Those interests include architecture, literary sites, maritime and city scenes and various areas of history.

• New Hope, PA / Lambertville, NJ


• Cape May, NJ


• Florida's Space Coast


• Gettysburg, PA


• Indiana


• Hartford, CT


• Boston / Salem / Cape Cod, MA


• Sleepy Hollow, NY


• Charlottesville, VA


• Washington, D.C.


• Baltimore, MD


• Ireland

I went back to New York City for the first time in years, so keep an eye out for my post about it. Above is one of many photos I took there on Saturday, March 19.

What places do you hope to visit in the next few months or in the next year or so?

An Adventure at Ricketts Glen

Years ago, I went to Ricketts Glen State Park and within recent days I found out that a snowshoe / hiking trip there was being planned through my college. I was thinking about going on the trip, because I never tried to snowshoe before. The opportunity seemed to jump out at me, even though I'm not really one who likes Winter and snow. I just wanted to try something different because I haven't in a while. The trip takes place this weekend, on Feb. 20, and would be a great photo opportunity. Ricketts Glen State Park has a lot of beautiful waterfalls, and I remember seeing some of them during my past visit there. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me at the time. The person in charge of putting together the event emailed me about a change in the trip's location because of difficult conditions. Even though I would have liked to visit Ricketts Glen again, a new location altogether for the trip would mean a place I haven't been to before. So that is an equally positive aspect in my opinion because I like getting to see places that are new to me. It turned out that I can't make the trip this time around. However, it's something to think about for a future excursion. I probably wouldn't have thought of trying a snowshoe trip if it wasn't for hearing about this activity through campus recreation. So I definitely give credit to my college, Cabrini, for the inspiration to try this outdoor adventure later on down the road. I have a new "bucket list" item...go on a snowshoe adventure!

Florida-Bound...Hopefully

After a Winter season like this, not too many northerners could resist a trip to a sunny destination like Florida. What's more exciting is when it is someone's first time visiting, and that's just the case with me going to Florida. Of course, no official plans have been put together yet. However, I should have enough money to go this year and I'm hoping to go there for only a short stay in June.


It would be great to do some photography and video somewhere I'd be visiting for the first time, too. The experience should give me plenty of things to write about as well. I'll post updates about any Florida travel plans later on.

New Years Fireworks Footage

While ringing in 2011, I was taking a lot of photos and video of the fireworks display at Harrah's Casino in Delaware County.

Below is one of many photos I took of the fireworks, as I went between photo and video mode on my camera.

I usually upload many photos of various events and trips onto my Facebook page. However, this time I am going to do something different. I'm going to put my fireworks footage together into one slideshow and upload it onto my Youtube Channel.

First, I have to write down the order of the photos and videos file names I'm going to use. It'll make it easier to skip over the ones I don't want to include in the slideshow. After that, I'll be able to insert my photo and video picks into a movie maker software.

I feel inspired to learn as much as I can about video, both production and editing. Last Spring, I took a video production class and learned a lot. There are other levels of video classes that I also plan to take. As I learn new things, I want to create projects outside of classes and add the title of "videographer" to my resume. I'd like to take that to the level of creating documentaries someday.

Photo Crafty

While shopping for a few more gifts this past weekend, I found a book that combined photography and crafts. It had a lot of creative ideas about putting together various ways of displaying photos. One example had a photo in the corner of a large frame, accented by a number of details...strips of lace, ribbon, charms and descriptive words relevant to the photo. The book also included lists of the material needed to complete whatever photo and craft project that could come to mind. Inspired by the content of the book, I decided to buy it and come up with some project ideas of my own.


Over the past few months, I had been thinking about trying my hand at scrapbooking. I thought about doing this for one or two projects here and there, combining my photography. The photo and craft book seems to be a way to slowly go into scrapbooking, rather than creating entire scrapbooks. I don't know how regular scrapbooking can be as a hobby for me, since it takes a lot of time. However, I want to try to create a scrapbook sometime. I have a lot of favorite themes to choose from as the main focus.


So along with going out on short trips and documenting them with photography, I'm going to venture into these photo projects. I'll start by putting ideas down on paper, then get to work on small projects with my photos. I'd like to create something that reflects particular trips that I take, adding related embellishments to a project. That's a start for now.

Bridge Conditions at Delco Area Train Station

I was on an assignment for my college campus news, taking photos at a train station on Nov. 19 for a Septa story. The assigment was to take photos of the Septa trains, people boarding and getting off of the train.




While waiting for the train, I was taking photos of other subjects and the bridge going over the tracks was of particular interest. I noticed that the bridge had piles of bricks used as added support going across under both lanes. It brought to mind the infrastructure problem across America, with many bridges and roads needing serious repair.


Here is a link to one photo I took of the bridge: http://bit.ly/ihlvYh. The link will take you directly to my photo in the http://www.allaroundphilly.com news site's user photo gallery.


I've been told that this particular bridge in on a list for some major work, although I don't know when that will happen. I haven't been on a Septa train in a long time, so I'm not usually down by the bridge. It shocked me to see just how bad the bridge looks when viewed from the train station parking lot.