2024 in Review #3 - Color Nature Photos

January 24, 2025 Sarah Marino

I’m glad I waited until January to pull together my favorite photos since I took this on December 30, 2024 at Point Lobos State Park in California. The park does not open until 8:00 am this time of year—well after sunrise—so photographing it required working with the more direct light instead of letting the limited opening hours keep us from photographing the area at all.

This is my third of three “year in review” posts. If you have not read the first two, you can find the first one with my black and white photos here and the second one with my plant photos here. For this final post, I am sharing my favorite color nature photographs from 2024 along with some reflections on how my photographic process has continued to evolve over the last year.

With 2023 and 2024, my transition from “landscape photographer” to “nature photographer” feels complete. I do not consider these labels to be important but do find them helpful for explaining how the scope of my work has expanded in recent years. Although I still consider myself a beginner and do not have many photos to share so far, I am enjoying bird and wildlife photography more than I ever expected I would, especially since it stretches my technical skills, is a nice way to fill in downtime, and is a good entry point to learning more about a landscape and its ecosystems. As I have broadened my photography interests to include grand landscapes, intimate landscapes, smaller scenes, abstracts, portraits of plants, and now more wildlife photography, my general enjoyment of this craft continues to grow.

Zion National Park: Two Perspectives (Ebook Portfolio)

December 6, 2024 Sarah Marino

Note: This is the introductory essay to our newest free PDF ebook portfolio (one click download, no sign-up required). If you prefer, you can also see Sarah’s photos from the ebook in this online gallery.

Ron and I have created many collaborative photography projects in the past and we have carefully curated each one to avoid duplication. This ebook portfolio is different. In the pages that follow, you will see two portfolios of photographs, one from me and one from Ron, that we each created during our recent trip to Zion National Park in Utah. We separately edited, processed, and sequenced our individual collections without consulting one another, and are presenting them here as two distinct bodies of work that represent our individual connections with the landscape.

Making the Most of Autumn: Essential Lessons for Nature Photographers

September 27, 2023 Sarah Marino

Golden light on ice-covered terraces, with a cottonwood leaf on top. As direct light hit the cliffs above, the warm light reflected on the landscape below. Building your observation skills will hope you notice this kind of lighting situation when you are out in nature. Zion National Park. Canon R5, 472mm, f/16, 1/4 sec, ISO 100, 15 file focus stack.

Years ago, I saw this cynical comment on a website or forum related to nature and landscape photography: “The world does not need another aspen photo.” I’ll get to that sentiment later but before doing so, I’ll acknowledge that the same could be said about this blog post: “The world does not need another article about fall nature photography.” This morning, an email landed in my inbox with what I thought included some bad advice for photographing fall colors and that email started a journey into the Google rabbit hole of articles on this topic. After reading some of the articles at the top of my search results, I decided I had a bit more to add on the topic than is generally covered.

Nearly all of these “how to photograph fall colors” articles set photographers up for disappointment and encourage limited thinking by emphasizing the importance of getting your timing perfect for peak fall colors and seeking out the “best” weather, light, and locations. These ideas suggest that everything needs to align to create worthwhile photography conditions. My years of experience conversely show that conditions are rarely optimal so cultivating a different mindset and greater adaptability can both enhance the experience of being outside during autumn and result in a more interesting, personal, and diverse body of work.

Generally, our thinking and practices can limit our opportunities or expand them. I want to choose the practices and ideas, like the four lessons I share below, that expand my opportunities.

Ron's Recent Work and 2021 Favorites

December 11, 2021 Ron Coscorrosa

“Mountain of the Sunrise” - A colorful sunrise in Zion’s backcountry

Sarah and I have had a busy last few months. Since late August we’ve driven to Chicago and photographed the Chicago Botanic Gardens, drove home to briefly photograph fall in Colorado, drove east to photograph Acadia with a quick stop in Vermont, drove home and left two days later for Zion National Park where we spent three weeks in the trailer and a few nights in our tent. All of this while working (me as a full time software developer, and Sarah by teaching at many of the places we were visiting). By the end, actually well before the end, we were exhausted!

I would much rather have this level of intensity where I spend multiple weeks in a location rather than the weekend warrior style of being at a place for 3 days and not getting a chance to explore it deeply. There is probably a healthier balance out there - one that continues to remains elusive though almost certainly involves less driving.

All of that is a long winded way of saying I have a bunch of new photos from Colorado, Vermont, Acadia, and Zion (over 150, I know…), and because it’s the end of the year, a gallery of my 50-ish favorites from 2021, all linked below.

Autumn in Southwest Colorado

October 22, 2018 Ron Coscorrosa

Nothing gets a nature photographer as excited as the arrival of autumn. Sarah and I are very lucky to live in southwest Colorado, among the San Juan Mountains, one of the prime locations for fall colors in the US.

Despite the inevitable doomsday predictions that the colors would be bad or super early, the colors were fantastic and right on time (late September and early October), as they usually are every year. In addition to the color we had some interesting weather especially late in the season.

Here’s a small selection of my photos from the fall this year, for the full set, see my 2018 Colorado Autumn Gallery.