Monterey Aquarium

While in Monterey, a visit to the Monterey aquarium is a must. We spent most of a day there and took many nice photos. The first shot shows a simple but very clear shot of a colourful jellyfish... This is really where the quality of our new Canon 17-55 IS 2.8 EFS lens really stands out in the dark of this aquarium exibit.

If you like these, don't forget to check our Best of Monterey gallery online for more.

The second photograph shows Margaret in front of the "Outer Bay" exibit, which features a huge aquarium with fish as big as a human.

Santa Cruz with Andrew's mother

Given that Andrew's mother was over in the US, we took the opportunity to take a couple of days off and head down to Santa Cruz and Monterey. These shots were taken at Santa Cruz, about 40 minutes south-west from home, where we stopped for lunch. Santa Cruz is at the northern end of a large maritime park, hence all the wildlife in these photos.

June trip to Yosemite with Andrew's mum - day 2

Here are some more Yosemite photos... this time from day 2 of our June trip. As always, you can find more photos in our photo album.

This first photo is a classic view of Half-Dome from a bridge over the Merced River in the heart of Yosemite Valley. This is yet another long exposure.

This second photo is a nice close-up look at Half-Dome, which dominates Yosemite Valley.

The location is Tunnel View for our third and fourth shots... thi is the most famous view of Yosemite Valley, popularized by Ansel Adams in a photograph taken after a Winter Storm in the 1940s. This shot shows Margaret and Andrew.

Another shot, similar to the last, but this time featuring Andrew's mother at Tunnel View.

June trip to Yosemite with Andrew's mum - day 1

We had such a good time on our first trip to Yosemite... We decided to take another trip a month later while the rivers and waterfalls are still roaring.

Andrew's mother was over visiting at the time and this was a great opportunity to do some sightseeing while she was here. She seemed to have a good time, despite (or perhaps due to) the fact that we did not see any bears this trip.

This first shot is of some of the local wildlife we saw on the way to Vernal Falls. The hike up to Vernal Falls is significant, but well worthwhile. Perhaps next time we will continue on to Nevada Falls.

The second photo is of the river roaring along downstream of Vernal Falls

Thirdly we have a nice long exposure shot of Vernal Falls and the mist trail. This combines the flowing effect of the long exposure with a mist effect from the spray... You can see how the mist trail got its name.

Finally a shot of Yosemite Falls from the valley floor. These falls come in 5th in the list of the world's tallest waterfalls.

Overall that weekend we took well over 600 photographs. You can find another 70 of the best in our photo album