T.L. Mair Fine Art Photography

Wall Street Subway Station Last year my son and I took a trip to New York , hoping to see the fall colors. We waited until the end of October since that is when we read the fall colors came on, turns out last year was a late year for fall colors, plus we got there right in the middle of a hurricane. We never had to stay indoors, but we got rained on every day, and the sun never shined, cloudy, and overcast when it wasn't raining. and the light was way to flat for good photography. We took the subway everywhere we went, then walked to the various locations we wanted to see. The subway system is very efficient in New York , almost as good as the system in Washington DC . The only complaint I had about the subway is in Queens , where we stayed someone had made the elevator to one of the stops their private restroom. Even though the weather was bad, the light was bad, and the elevator restroom experience was bad, I loved New York , it was a trip I wouldn't...

Calm Waters On the last day of our Washington trip, my wife and I stayed at a hotel in Seattle so we could be near the airport for our flight home, we decided to take a drive along the Alki  Avenue to Alki beach, the avenue, runs along the south side of Elliott bay, from this highway you can get a decent view of the Seattle skyline. Once we got to the beach, and found a place to park the car, we got out and started to walk, and check out the beach, and surrounding territory. It is a nice beach, with cement steps that lead to the bay, I would imagine so people can go wading, or perhaps swimming, there was neither of those things going on because it was a little cold, we had gotten to Washington in the middle of a drought, but with the exception of a couple of days it rained the entire week that we were there. The wind was blowing, and the water was a little choppy, I set up the camera, and waited for the light to start changing, as I was waiting a local came by and tal...

Timp First Light Mount Timpanogos, considered by many to be the "jewel of the Wasatch" looms large over the cities of Alpine, and Highland on the Wasatch front, and the beautiful Heber valley on the Wasatch back. Part of the Wasatch mountain range of the Rockies as they run through Utah,  Mount Timpanogos raises to a height of 11,752 feet, it has several peeks, North Timpanogos, South Timpanogos, Forgotten peak, and Razorback Ridge, it is truly a majestic mountain, it even sports it's own glacier, the only one in Utah! Timpanogos has several hiking trails, and can be accessed from several different locations in Utah, along the Alpine loop, if you are ever in the area in the summer months you owe it to yourself to take a drive along the Alpine loop, you can either access the loop from Provo canyon just above Sundance ski area, or from the American fork side of the mountain. I have taken several photographs of  "Timp" but this is my favorite, t...

Three of a Kind - American White Pelican Three American White Pelicans (Pelicanus erythrorhynchos) drift silently by on a secluded pond in the river bottoms near Midway, Utah . I watch and followed a large pod of these beautiful birds for several days as they took up residence in the valley for the spring. Finally I was able to catch a colony of them on this secluded pond, I thought it was interesting that they had landed on a pond that was not very deep, and as far as I know, contains no fish, but here they were, thinking they were hidden from the world. I watch them for several minutes, then decided I had to get closer to them to get a decent shot. As I crawled, in full camo, through the muck of the surrounding swamp, trying to keep my camera gear from getting wet, and muddy, I noticed that a small group of them had separated from the main colony and were drifting lazily on the far side of this small pond. As I got closer the colony began to break up and these ...

Safe Harbor After returning to our little home from San Juan Island , and a well deserved nights rest we booked a place on the ferry from Whidbey island to Port Townsend on the Olympic peninsula. From Port Townsend we traveled inland to Port Angeles , when we got there it was raining off and on, and the sky was heavily overcast. After spending some time at the coast there whishing the skies would clear just a little to add some color to the dark gray clouds. After watching the antics of a little raccoon that was begging food from the others parked there, then looking at a couple of little shops we left Port Angeles, and headed into the Olympic national park, the route we took went up the hill to Hurricane ridge, but that is a story for another day. After our trip up the mountain it was time to head back to Port Townsend and the ferry back to Whidbey island . As we pulled into Port Townsend we took a wrong turn which took us down the main road into the city, happily we...

The Pillars of the Earth In our smallish town of Midway Utah we have a "not so" local celebration over the labor day weekend called Midway Swiss Days. During Swiss Days we get over one hundred thousand visitors. You can buy just about anything at Swiss days, they have food booths, fine art painting booths, craft booths, Photography booths, one person even sells appointments for his portrait studio, it is amazing what can be bought at Swiss days. I have a boot at Swiss Days where I sell my fine art photography, one of the images I had in the booth this year to act as a "draw" to get people to come to my boot was "The Pillars of the Earth" shown here. I answered literally thousands of questions about this image, I know I answered that many because I gave away that many business cards, and everyone who came into the booth asked the same question: "Where is that?"! I thought since it had been asked so many times it might make a great...

Evening at Friday Harbor One of the things we did during our stay on Whidbey island is take a ferry from Anacortes to San Juan Island . We booked reservations on the ferry, we had been told if we wanted to actually make it to San Juan we should get reservations because it is a very popular destination, they were correct, glad we made the reservations, which was quite easy, you just go to their web site, and it guides you through the process. We had made our reservations for late morning, and the return trip for the last run of the day, 10:00 PM. We were still on Utah time, so that made getting there easy, the ride from Anacortes to Friday Harbor takes about one hour, but the ride home, come to find out, takes over two because the last run hits all of the San Juan islands, letting people off for the night, and picking people up for the return to Anacortes. So we never made it back to Anacortes until midnight Washington time, then the hour drive back to Coupeville, we got ...