In August of 2009, just before my sophomore year of college, my family took a trip down to Arizona. There we stayed in Sedona for a few nights, before shifting to Scottsdale for the remaining nights of the vacation. Along the way we saw Sedona’s beautiful inner canyon of red rocks, and the Grand Canyon’s vastness.

There was a view everywhere – even out our hotel window. The image of the rock formations to the left of this passage is the view out of our hotel window at night. This trip spawned a plethora of panoramas – all of the panoramas are at the bottom of the gallery below. Have a look at them! Each one offers a different, but equally spectacular, view of Arizona’s beautiful environment.

There’s nothing like star gazing in Sedona. Just to take more photos like these, I’d go again. But to see the Big Dipper one more time, I’d fly back down tomorrow. You don’t get these kinds of wonderful nights, living in New Jersey. It would be nice, though.

When I was hired to create Soup Shoppe’s website, I decided I’d do an extra favor not included in the original invoice. Lacking photos of their own, I knew the owners of Soup Shoppe would be disappointed to receive a site about their food but without photos of said food. That, and a restaurant’s website without food photography is just plain silly.

So, one bright and hot summer morning, I ran into the little restaurant, camera gear in hand(s), and began shooting. At the end of it all, I had taken a set of photos that the Soup Shoppe website now incorporates as a start to its eventually vast repertoire of foods and food photos.

As for me, I found this to be a great learning experience with macro photography – I’d just received my new MICRO-NIKKOR 105mm macro lens that I had been dreaming about for two years, and needless to say that it took me some time to get adjusted to the style of shooting that real macro photography requires. I’m happy with my first foray into that style, and I hope I have more opportunities to improve in the future.

I traveled with family to New York City during July 4th weekend not just to see the fireworks, but to celebrate the life of my father, who passed away from this Earth on July 4th, 2006. I watch the fireworks, now, both to celebrate my freedom as an American citizen and to honor my father. 2009 was a special treat, because I had never before seen the fireworks in New York City. As this was to be the first year Macy’s would launch them over the Hudson River, it was especially imperative that 2009 was to be the year I finally saw them. Armed with my trusty Nikon D80, I watched one of the most brilliant fireworks shows I’ve ever seen.My father would have been 54 this year. I hope these photos show how much I miss him.