This week, Amy provided a real thought-provoking challenge. As I searched through my library, I decided to look for images that connected me with something I learned either about the location of the photo or about the processing of the photo itself that taught me a new skill. She writes, “We are looking forward to seeing your travel stories and images, whether to a faraway place or on a local day trip. We also hope you’ll share what you’ve learned along the way.” You can read Amy’s challenge post for yourself here.

My opening image brought me a new world of black-and-white to my photography. A visit to Tombstone, the historic town in eastern Arizona took me back to those wild west days and the location of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It seemed fitting that at least one of my images should reflect the photography of the time. I selected an image of the town newspaper building and learned to use the Nik Silver Efex program to create what I considered to be a type of photograph that might have been created then. It was my first experience with Silver Efex, and I learned that I could transform any photograph to add drama and provide an entirely different visual experience to my photographs.

One of my long-term goals was to transit the Panama Canal to see the results of all those years of work in bisecting the Americas. From the deck of the Norwegian Pearl, I could see clearly the operation of the gates and locks as they were used to transit Pearl’s sister ship, the Norwegian Sun. Transiting together, with a live narration on the ship’s public address system, we learned a lot about the mechanics of the transit as well as some interesting trivia about the canal and anecdotes about its construction.

On our journey south to Arizona in 2013, we visited Bryce Canyon. We arrived the night before our scheduled day in the park, our drive through Utah was mostly in the rain. When we awoke early to finish our last trip in the dark to meet the sunrise in the park, we discovered over a foot of snow covered the car in the hotel parking lot.

I learned the need to remain flexible as the park opened only two viewpoints and we were told not to expect the park to open all roads fully until the next day. From that, I learned that we should not hard schedule around a trip. We were unable to finish our tour of Bryce due to a prior commitment and we have yet to get back there to see the rest of the park. On the positive side, the snow-covered views added an unexpected beauty to the photos we took that morning. This image is one of my favorites, a photo of Paria View. It happens to be one of the few locations that provide sunset images in the park. Of course, we were there in the morning, so the sun was off to our left rear as you can see by the image.

At the Bosque Del Apache near Socorro, New Mexico, thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes stopover on their way to and from their winter homes. This photo was captured in January, and we learned that is not the best time to visit the wildlife refuge if you want to capture the migration.

On our travels, we learn some geography in our quest to get interesting images. This image is one of my favorites from the trip with a beautiful sky and mountains in the background. In writing my posts, I end up learning details about the places we visit like the Chupadera Mountains that lie to the west of the Bosque.

Any visit to Seattle needs to include a stop at the Public Market and for cruises to Alaska that depart from there, a stop at the fishmongers in the market is always enjoyable. They put on a show of throwing the fish back and forth as they put them on display or remove one for a buyer. Here, at the Pike Place Fish Market, someone is getting a fish ready for wrapping to take home.

Near the Turtle Mountains in Northern North Dakota, only a few miles from Canada, this display of concrete and stone stands on the prairie. It is in a park known as Mystical Horizons. The brainchild of a pilot and aerospace engineer from Bottineau, North Dakota, Jack Olson envisioned a 21st-century version of Stonehenge. This and other astronomic attractions can be viewed any time of the year, and the park is only crowded during the solstices and equinoxes when the solar calendar demonstrates its magic.

I don’t do a lot of night photography, but there are times when I need to learn more about shooting at night and creating interesting images. The last two images reflect two different learning experiences. Near Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, at the town of Whites City, New Mexico in 2014, the Pueblo Motel was dimly lit by the lights of a nearby parking lot. It was too bright to see the weakest stars on that clear night, but I thought the old buildings would make a neat foreground for a star-filled sky. After much experimentation with exposure settings, I found several images that displayed thousands of stars.

I learned that those longer exposures would lead to tiny star trails that can be seen in the brighter stars, but all in all, I liked how the warm lights of the parking lot created an almost sepia tone to the image. If you click on the image above, you can see it at my Flickr site. The black background of the site page will allow you to see many more stars than can be seen in the image that WordPress frames in white here.

Once you are on the Flickr site, click on the expansion arrows at the upper right of the page and then put your browser into Full-Screen mode (F11 on Firefox) to view the image with an entirely black background.

On October 8, 2014, a total lunar eclipse was visible in our area. Our travel to the site of this image capture was quite short. We traveled from Fargo to a country road in northern Minnesota where we could view a dark night sky. One of the things I learned about images of the moon as I captured about 50 photos of the eclipse is that the moon is too bright for a large lens opening or a long shutter speed. This image was quite dark with the moon in the shadow of the earth yet it was captured at f/6.3 and 0.8 seconds exposure with a 3200 ISO.

One other thing I learned is that even though the moon is over 186,000 miles from earth, setting the camera focus at the “infinity” stop isn’t necessarily the best place to focus. I couldn’t see it on the camera’s view screen, but displayed in Adobe Lightroom, I could see that every single image was just slightly out of focus. I learned in subsequent lessons to try hard to focus on the moon, not just set the lens at the infinity stop.

To get the best views of these images, stop by my Flickr site to view the album of images here. From that album page, you can click on any image, then use the “<” or “>” on the left and right of the image to scroll through the album.

Travel gives one the opportunity to learn much about the people and places visited, but the journey can also expand one’s knowledge of the tools used to capture those images. Thanks to Amy for challenging me to share images featuring some of the things I learned in my travels.

John Steiner