Five miles south of Cannon Beach is Hug Point State Park where you will find a seasonal waterfall and several sea caves. At the end of a large parking area is a trailhead and a short walk to the beach. At the edge of the sand, look to the right and you’ll see this cave, a hundred yards to the north. Arrive late in the afternoon to catch the best light. To get this effect, my back was against the back wall of the cave and I used a 10 mm wide-angle lens with no filter. I made five raw exposures bracketed in one-stop increments to capture the lighting range, from the dark walls to the highlights in the rain clouds. The tide was coming in and the walk around the point to the waterfall was not possible. You do not want to get stranded by an incoming tide here.The 15-foot cascade dries up in the summer. Hug Point is a good reason to make this trip in mid-winter.

One of the best displays of aspen color in Nevada can be found in Great Basin National Park, Nevada’s only National Park is located very close to the Utah Border in the Snake Range. In the center of this park is Wheeler Peak, I try to arrive during the last week of September when all the aspens that grow above 7,000 feet are at the peak of their autumn color. The best aspen groves are near the end of the road. In the woods I found many very tall groves needing a vertical format. Along the park road are long rows of aspen that fill a horizontal frame. Aspens have relatively short lives of about 100 years. Fires and diseases can damage the trunks. Carving your initials into an aspen opens it to future problems.

At the west end of Cody, Wyoming, Highway 291 leaves the North Fork Highway and heads southwest. For a few miles, the road skirts the suburbs of Cody as it climbs up from the river valley. The South Fork Road climbs slowly to a point fifteen miles south of Cody where horses graze meadows rolling down to the river. On the cold winter day I arrived, a small herd of horses was grazing below a backdrop of snowdrifts and a dramatic sky.

Late in the afternoon, along the road from Moose Junction to Wilson, on the west side of Jackson Hole in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, long shadows of aspens are cast across snow drifts by the low angle of the winter sun. After several days of photographing the grand vistas and wide-angle landscapes through the park, I was looking for some smaller details to photograph. To avoid lens flare when shooting directly into the sun, my camera was positioned in the shade of one of the tree trunks. After several hours of tramping around in snow shoes, this pristine winter wilderness was completely chewed up. I had to move on to find another back road.

One of the most interesting spots for photographers driving the spectacular, winding coastal highway of northern California is also one of the least-known. This beach is not marked on most maps. There are no signs along the road pointing out the trailhead. Unless you arrive at low tide, you would never know what lies just beneath the surf rolling onto this beach. To best photograph Bowling Ball Beach, arrive during a minus tide. You will want the sun setting on the western horizon and will need a late afternoon low tide. There are some very low tides during summer months but only in the early morning. Find the lowest tides that occur during late afternoon. You can find tide table charts on the Internet to help you plan your trip to Bowling Ball Beach.

One of the most photographed bridges on the Big Sur Coast, the Bixby Creek Bridge was constructed in 1932, filling a challenging gap in the completion of Highway One through the Big Sur area. Before this bridge was built, all traffic had to drive a long, winding, and steep road that heads inland to cross Bixby Creek in a narrow, mountainous redwood forest and then returns down to the coast at Andrew Molera State Park, a twelve-mile detour on the Old Coast Road. Pull off the pavement at the northwest corner of the bridge and fill your viewfinder with the long, curved concrete bridge and distant cliffs dropping into the Pacific. The bridge is 260-feet high, 40 feet higher than the Golden Gate Bridge. You may need to shoot several over-lapping vertical images to be merged into a seamless panoramic composition later.

At the north end of the bridge crossed by Highway 97 is the Maryhill Fruit Stand. It’s colorful and easy to spot but all the bridge traffic makes it tricky to pull into and out of the parking lot. The Maryhill Fruit Stand sells local fruits and veggies. In late July, the peaches, watermelons, and nectarines were at their peak. I filled a bag with Rainier cherries that look like plums but have a flavor new to me. Peaches were sold by the box or individually. I picked a small, seedless watermelon and a bottle of apple cider. After making a purchase, I asked permission to photograph the fruit stand and the art work covering it. The young man at the counter said that most customers photograph the fruit stand but few people ask permission.

Bracken, poison oak, and wild blackberry were growing like a hedgerow along Mesa Road, from Bolinas to Palomarin. This back road leads to the southern coastline of Point Reyes National Seashore and the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. The last time I was out there, it was still the only full-time ornithological research station in the United States. Few visitors ever venture out to the Palomarin area, although locals know the trails and walk their dogs on the beaches. Many wildflowers line the trails through March and April. Blue and purple Douglas iris are plentiful. Paintbrush, lupine, and poppies grow everywhere. Summer days are often cold and foggy. Weather along this coast is best through September, October, and early November.

Twenty miles north of Hyder, Alaska, on the Canadian side of the border, the Salmon Glacier has cut a deep “S” curve through the mountains. This is the fifth largest glacier in Canada, a tiny remnant of the icefields that covered most of British Columbia and Alaska about 14,000 years ago. Photographers photographing the bears catching salmon along Fish Creek should take a half—day break and head north on the road beyond Fish Creek. Although the Salmon Glacier Road is unpaved and rough in spots, you can drive to the base of the Berendon Glacier at the far end of the road, 25 miles, without a 4x4 vehicle. Gold and copper were discovered here in 1910. Pick a clear day for this trip, when the clouds roll in, you can’t see the glacier from the road. Six miles north of Fish Creek, the road climbs up and out of the Salmon River Valley. A half—mile north of the Summit Viewpoint, you’ll see this old miner’s cabin.

Back in the 1960s I was photographing California landscapes in the foothills of the coastal range on the western edge of Stanford University. This afternoon image is one of my favorite Hasselblad shots. I sold many large–30x40 inch framed prints. I recently scanned this fifty—year—old negative for this Instagram portfolio. Details that I recorded included exposure information, the lenses, films, and filters I used. All the locations are described with trail information and suggestions about the best seasons for California landscape photography. Included are mostly images of low rolling hills covered with spreading oaks casting long shadows and old fences covered with ferns and wild blackberry vines in the hills between Stanford University and the Point Reyes National Seashore.