BLOG - Jim Babson Photography

My Favorite Portrait

I spent a couple of months visiting India in 1990 and although I usually don't take a lot of portraits, there were so many memorable faces everywhere I traveled it was hard not to take at least a few. This was particularly true in Rajasthan, the colorful northwestern desert region of the country which borders Pakistan. A few days after arriving in the holy city of Pushkar, I was having a drink in the courtyard of a hotel when I spotted a very tall and ...

Nevada's Fly Geyser

As you head east out of Reno, then north on Highway 447, it’s about a two hour drive before you arrive in the lonely town of Gerlach. Other than taking a quick side trip to visit Pyramid Lake, there’s not much of interest along the way to capture your attention. Gerlach is best known for is its proximity to the Black Rock Desert, the home of the annual Burning Man event. But its other claim to fame is the nearby Fly Geyser, one of the most unique geysers in the ...

Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls

Every year during a ten day period in mid-February, hundreds of photographers converge on Yosemite National Park with the goal of photographing an unusual natural phenomenon. They’re hoping to capture an image of Horsetail Falls, a photograph of which was made famous by the landscape photographer Galen Rowell in 1973. To get the shot requires a bit of luck as several elements have to come together. First there has to be a sufficient amount of snow on the ...

The Temples of Angkor Wat

A visit to Angkor Wat has been at the top of my list of places to visit for a long time and I recently had the opportunity to spend three days there. I’d never hired a photo guide before but given my limited time and the fact the various sites are pretty spread out (the Angkor archeological complex covers an area of one hundred and fifty square miles), I felt this would help make my time spent there more productive. After a good bit of research, I hired Chris Cusick, a ...

Exploring the Vermillion Cliffs and Photographing the Wave

The Vermillion Cliffs National Monument lies between the Grand Canyon and Utah border and contains the most bizarre landscape I've ever seen. Within the monument is an area called North Coyote Buttes, one of the most sought after locations for landscape photographers to visit. If you have a bucket list of places to see, definitely put the Vermillion Cliffs on it. North Coyote Buttes covers a relatively large area, but its main attraction is a section called the Wave, a picture of which is ...

Visiting Arizona's Upper & Lower Antelope Canyons

Arizona and Utah are home to the highest concentration of slot canyons in the world, and none are more famous than Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons. Located on Navajo land just a few miles outside of Page, Arizona, tourists from around the world flock to these sites as they travel around the Southwest. The canyons are formed when flash floods occur and over many thousands of years the runoff carves the soft Navajo sandstone into amazingly twisted passageways. During really heavy ...

The Rough Road to Tuweep's Classic Grand Canyon Views

Tuweep (or Toroweap) is located in a remote corner of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It's hard to reach and requires a high clearance 4WD vehicle to make the three hour drive down a sixty mile long gravel road, the last couple of miles of which took me forty-five minutes to cover. The National Park service estimates twenty-five percent of visitors get a flat tire on the way there or back which is pretty easy to believe, as there are some really rough stretches with sharp rocks to ...

Hiking to the Subway in Zion National Park

The hike to the Subway in Zion National Park is one I've wanted to do for a long time. It's very popular and to keep the number of visitors manageable the park service issues only eighty permits a day. When you stop by the visitors center to register, the ranger takes time to carefully explain why this is considered an extremely strenuous hike, has you sign a document acknowledging you are aware of all the risks you will be assuming and takes your emergency contact person’s ...

Canyonlands National Park’s Mystical False Kiva

Tucked away on the side of a cliff within the boundries of Canyonlands National Park lies False Kiva, one of the most spectacular and least visited Indian sites you are likely to see when traveling in the southwestern U.S. The name False Kiva is the result of uncertainty about its origin and whether it is an authentic kiva. It became a popular destination for photographers after the following image of it was published by Wally Pacholka a few years ago. Since it is considered an ...

My Two Favorite Landscape Photographers

Photo sharing websites like 1x, Flickr, and 500px are great forums for photographers to showcase their favorite images. Often I'll get an idea for a particular composition, technique or a place to visit by scrolling through the photos posted on these sites. And every once in a while a particular image is so exceptional I'm compelled to learn more about the photographer who created it. Over the years I've discovered many excellent landscape photographers on these sites, but Max Rive and ...