FAVORITE MOMENTS OF 2015

I've had the good fortune to participate in some epic photographic adventures in 2015. Here's a quick slideshow of some of my favorite moments of the past year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Mount Hood

Mount Hood on a January Dawn.

Twilight on the Ledge

San Diego Sunset Cliffs just after sunset. Waves coming over the rocks look like mist in long exposure.

Last Light

At the cliffs of San Diego

Tampa Bay Dawn

Ultra-hi-res Pano Merger

Death Valley Dunes

Ultra-Hi-Res Pano

Dawn at the Crater Rim

An ultra-hi-resolution, 270-degree panoramic merger of the crater rim at first light.

Entering the Blue Mosque

A couple enters the Blue Mosque in Isanbul at sunset.

Greek Umbrella Art

Stacey just after we learned of our pregnancy.

Our Windmill in Mykonos, Greece

One of my favorite places I've stayed.

Stromboli Smokes At Sunset

Volcanic smoke rises from Stromboli's crater as the sun sets over the sea.

Stromboli Erupts at Bluehour

Stromboli throws lava bombs and fire into the night sky above the sea below just after sunset.

The Amalfi Coast of Italy

Amalfi Dawn

Dawn rises over Atrani on the Amalfi Coast of Italy as chairs await beachgoers.

Notre Dame Sunset

The sun sets as a star beside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France.

Mont Saint Michelle Blue Hour (Ultra-Hi-Rez-Pano)

French Island Monastary refelcts in tidepool after sunset with blue clouds.

Paris Bastille Day

Milky Way and Smoke

Last summer's fires covered the Northwest in intense smoke.

A Special Blue

Steve canoes on the cobalt Waldo Lake.

Desert Trucks

Ultra-hi-res Pano Merger for a client in the Alvord.

Patagonian Sky

Torres del Paine, Chile

Glacier Grey

There’s nothing like seeing a massive glacier calving close up.

Stars over Lago Torre

Argentina

Dawn over Cerro Torre

Argentina

Fitz Roy Falls

I climbed up to these falls below Fitz Roy early one morning and was completely blown away. I'm used to scenic waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest, but this?

Patagonia Horse

How lucky is this horse?

Breakfast at Dawn

Andy at the crater rim of Mount St. Helens

PANORAMIC MERGER IN DEPTH: TORRES DEL PAINE, CHILE

View in HD: The depth and enlargeability of an ultra-hi-rez panoramic-merger.

Panoramic Mergers. I stumbled across the technique a decade ago when I was wishing for a wider angle lens for my medium format film camera.

On an amazingly calm Patagonian morning last month this scene could have been easily captured with a single frame with my Nikon D810, but by instead making a panoramic-merger from 8 images I created this highly-enlargeable, 80-megapixel image. Have I mentioned that I love this stuff?

Check out this gallery of select panoramic mergers. You can view this image full screen there.

Patagonia Time-lapse: Cerro Torre While We Slept...

We had an amazing star show as we slept at Lago Torre in Argentina. Even more rare -- calm water in these wind ravaged mountains. It was a rare opportunity and I left both my Nikons (D810 and D750) running as we tucked into our tent that night. Watching this video makes me long to get back there.

HOME BASE: PORTLAND LAST NIGHT

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30-frame Ultra-Hi-Rez Pano 35mm at F16 for 4 seconds per frame at ISO 64 (Click to Enlarge)

Cabin fever! The sun was out, it felt like spring in Portland and I was stuck working on my computer. Eventually overwhelmed -- I headed to the river for sunset. 

Despite a heavier cloud-cover than I'd hoped for, I really liked the way the subtle color in the western sky worked with the Seahawks colors on the Morrison St. Bridge to the north. The water was pretty choppy so I slowed my shutter to 4 seconds to smooth it out and help with the reflections. Yep, that's right... 4-seconds times 30 frames. With long exposure noise reduction turned on that means it took over 4 minutes to expose this image.

Following my current workflow: I did RAW edits in Adobe's Lightroom 5, assembled the panoramic in Photoshop CC and performed my finishing edits in onOne's Perfect Photo Suite 9.

-Hudson

SEATTLE SUNRISE: A LONG LENS PANORAMIC-MERGER

13-frames 80mm f8 for 8 seconds each at ISO 100 (Click to go fullscreen)

On this cold morning I wanted to convey how amazingly Seattle is nestled between the water and the mountains. A long lens is the best way to compress space and pull things optically closer together in the frame, but how do you capture a wide scene with a big lens? PANORAMIC MERGER is the answer... I used my 70-20mm and Really Right Stuff Panoramic adaptor to get just what I wanted. 

Seattle is such a fun city. The city itself the Sound, the Cascades, the islands, Olympic National Park. It's the jumping off point for so many of my favorite remembered adventures. If you haven't been here, put it on the list.

Oh yeah, they've got a decent football team too... ;-)

An Important Trip to a Special Place

As Stacey and I get ready to board a plane headed west this morning, my thoughts are turning back to 2013. Last year was a rough one not only for my family, but for a number of my close friends' families as well. It was a year that contained a lot of loss in my circle. Last fall, after the passing of my grandfather that summer, we lost a truly inspirational and incredible woman, my Nana Georgia Henry.

Nana lived, loved, laughed and left the world a better place for having walked it. Even in her final hours she showed strength, grace and an innate sense of what was most important. She loved a good adventure and understood my wanderlust like few others that I've known. Her favorite place on earth was the North Shore of Kauai, and since I first stepped foot there nearly 20 years ago, I have shared her deep respect and love for the power of that place.

Today we are honored to join family from as far away as Perth, Australia who are boarding planes bound for Kauai to bring her ashes home. Every trip to Hanalei is special, but this one feels doubly so...

-Hudson

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Georgia Henry (with my grandfather Gil on the left).