#along roadside

Taking Stock of Beautiful Places with Shiprock by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A setting looking to the southeast while taking in views across the northern New Mexico high desert with a distant view to the Shiprock formation. This is at a roadside pullout along U.S. Route 64. With this image, I zoomed in with the focal length to include more of the surrounding landscape to add to the setting in the image captured. I also liked having a leveled-on view with the horizon in keeping a balance between the earth-tones in the lower portion of the image with the blues of the skies above.

Before the Sun Rises Above a Sawgrass Prairie and a Layer of Mist on the Ground (Everglades National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: I captured this image early one morning along a roadside pull-off in Everglades National Park. The view extends to southeast across the sawgrass prairie and marsh. A friend and I were making an early morning drive from the Flamingo area to Shark Valley. We caught this part of Everglades before sunrise, as a fog had set in from the colder temperatures in southern Florida the night prior. I worked to meter the image to avoid blowing any highlights while preserving the shadows to pullout later in post-production. Wide-Angle, Panoramic Feel.

Traffic and Drivers Along US Route 95 in Nevada by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A roadside pullout looking to the south as cars passed by. What I wanted to capture with this image was to use the highway as a leading line and include some other Mojave Desert type relief with the ridges and peaks on both sides of the highway, and then off in the distance.

Welcome to Utah! Life Elevated! by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: I have always loved my travels to Utah and the national parks there over the many years, but this location along the border with Arizona with a Monument Valley backdrop has to be one of the most spacial...and a backdrop! The setting is looking to the northeast at a roadside pullout along U.S. Highway 163.

Guadalupe Mountains High in West Texas (Guadalupe Mountains National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While at the El Capitan Viewpoint with a view looking to the north and namesake peak with ridges going to the image right with Guadalupe Peak. This just outside the national park boundaries. My thought on composing this image was to take advantage of the mountainside leading up to the El Capitan peak but then also include some of the other ridges and nearby peaks to add interest and almost a backdrop, if you will, for the image. Later on I did some post-production work in DxO PhotoLab 6 and cropped a portion of the foreground as it was really just highway construction and also cropped a little bit of the upper portion with the skies, so that it would have more of a wider angle, panoramic feel.