America the Beautiful: My Favorite Photo from Every U.S. State I’ve Visited (Plus the District of Columbia)

I took this photo at sunrise from The View Hotel when I was taking a tour of the American Southwest in 2017.  During my tour of Monument Valley from an experienced Navajo guide, I learned so much about the history of this beautiful place.  I also learned about the impoverished conditions that so many members of the Navajo Nation live in.  Most of them don’t even have running water.  I consider myself a proud American, but that does not mean I am blind to our nation’s  faults, both past and present.  Given the complicated and painful history of the Native American tribes, it does not sit well with me to see the kinds of conditions that so many Native Americans live in today (not to say that it would otherwise sit well with me, though…).  In light of that, for the next week (through July 10), I will donate 100% of my profits from print sales for this particular photo to the Navajo Water Project (which, by the way, gets a score of 100 on Charity Navigator), a charity dedicated to bring running water to members of the Navajo Nation.  Click here to order a print of the photo.

 

California was definitely a state I had trouble with because I have taken so many photos there, but I kept coming back to this photo I took at Mono Lake.  The sky was so mesmerizing that day, the whole scene looked like something out of the planet Mars!  Click here to order a print of this photo.

 

I took this photo of Cliff Palace with my 150-600mm lens from Balcony House.  Learning about the Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde was fascinating.  Too bad at the beginning of the tour, I missed a step at the bottom of a metal staircase and fell and sprained my ankle!  I still continued on the tour, and it was totally worth it.

 

Growing up I took a few vacations to Mystic and I remember how exciting it was to watch the bridge go up to let a boat through.  A few years ago, I returned as an adult, and this photo was a highlight from the trip.

 

We’re taking it way back for this one.  In 2007, I volunteered at the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.  Although I had been to the city many times before, it was the one and only time I was there during cherry blossom season.  I took the above photo with a cheap Kodak EasyShare, and recently gave it a fresh edit in Photoshop.  It’s actually a two-shot panorama.

 

Florida:  Walt Disney World, 2019

I’ve taken thousands and thousands of photos at Walt Disney World, but I am quite fond of this one I took of the Happily Ever After fireworks from the Transportation and Ticket Center.  The ambiance there is terrible (the music is piped in but everybody talks over it), but the view of the fireworks is incredible.  Due to the terrible ambiance, there aren’t any crowds to deal with, so it’s ideal for photographers with tripods.  This spot had been on my bucket list for years and I finally crossed it off in 2019.  I like how you can see both the Main Street Station and Cinderella Castle in addition to the fireworks.

 

 

A stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in Idaho Falls on the way to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks afforded me the opportunity to take this photo of the LDS Temple across the Snake River at sunrise.

 

 

Ok, so I’ve never actually visited Illinois, but I’ve flown in and out of Chicago more times than I can count.  I took this photo from the plane in 2014 en route to California.  Click here to order a print of this photo.

 

 

In the fall of 2018, my school sent a colleague and I to a national teacher conference in New Orleans.  Not only did we get to network with other educators, but we got to do some sightseeing while we were there too!  This photo of Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral is probably my favorite from the trip.

 

 

I really only spent one afternoon in Maryland, when I took a day trip to Baltimore from Washington, D.C.  At that time, I wasn’t a professional yet, so all I have to remember the day are some low resolution shots taken with a $100 camera.  Luckily, with some heavy-handed Photoshop editing (including everyone’s favorite, the tilt-shift effect), I was able to produce an edit of this photo of the harbor that I’m happy with.

 

 

I have been visiting Cape Cod quite literally since I was in diapers and I’ve taken easily tens of thousands of photos in the state of Massachusetts, but when I finally got the chance to photograph a fox when visiting family back in May, this topped them all.  Click here to order a print of this photo.

 

 

 

I captured this image of Swiftcurrent Lake at dusk from the deck of the beautiful Many Glacier Hotel.  Click here to order a print of this photo.

 

 

Nevada’s another state I haven’t spent a lot of time in, but during a trip to California in 2014, I did have the opportunity to visit Sand Harbor on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.  Click here to order a print of this photo.

 

 

Despite living in Upstate New York my entire life and only a few hours’ drive from New Jersey, I’ve never actually visited the state, only passed through it.  This photo of fall foliage on Route 17 in the borough of Ho-Ho-Kus, captured from a chartered bus en route to New York City, is the most interesting photo I have of New Jersey.

 

 

New Mexico is yet another state I can just barely even claim I’ve ever been to.  When visiting the American Southwest, I really wanted to visit the Four Corners Monument because it’s such a cool concept:  it’s where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico all meet.  The only thing is, the surveyors miscalculated where the exact spot where they all meet is located, so the marker is actually entirely in New Mexico.  Oh, well.  It makes for a fun photo op!

 

 

Sure, I’ve been to the Big Apple and taken thousands of photos there, and I’ve really been all over Upstate New York having grown up here, but my favorite photo taken in this state is one that I took in my hometown of Saratoga Springs.  On a beautiful fall morning when foliage was just about at peak, a couple of friends and I went to the Oklahoma Training Track to capture some photos.  This photo I took of a horse and exercise rider at a distance, ended up being one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken.  Last summer, I was honored to have this photo displayed in the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame for their 2nd annual Photo Finish juried exhibition.

 

 

I photographed this schoolhouse in Japanese Hollow, Oregon on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.  I love old abandoned buildings, especially in rural areas.  I love to imagine what it was like to attend school in that one room schoolhouse.

 

 

I would say most of my favorite photos have been taken outdoors, but after touring the mansions of Newport, how could I not pick an interior photo for Rhode Island?  I love how ornate the gothic room at Marble House was, and I used my fisheye to captured as much of it as I could in one shot.

 

 

I’ve photographed a lot of beautiful vistas in Utah, but this photo brings back memories of the peaceful sunrise I witnessed partway down the Navajo Loop Trail in Bryce Canyon one morning in April 2017.  Thor’s Hammer can be seen in the photo.  Click here to order a print of this photo.

 

On a day trip to Bennington, I followed this cat around the Old First Church Cemetery, where he wandered over to Robert Frost’s grave.  He was more than happy to pose for a few photos, but this one was my favorite.

 

 

A dramatic sky enhances this photo I took of the famous Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, at Arlington Cemetery back in 2006.

 

 

While I was staying at the Alderbrook near Union, WA, I photographed this seal bobbing up for air in the Hood Canal.  Click here to order a print of this photo.  See a cropped version below.

 

 

It had been on my bucket list for years to photograph the T.A. Moulton Barn and the rest of Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park.  I guess my timing was good, because went back a week later to photograph it, and there was a huge banner hanging off it commemorating its 100th anniversary.

 

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