David Wall was Monday night’s (8th August) guest speaker.  David who runs a stock photography business (http://www.davidwallphoto.com), recently returned from a family trip to the U.S.  He rented a RV campervan and embarked on a 22 day road trip, leaving from Los Angeles travelling up to the Grand Canyon, through Colorado and around to San Francisco.  He showed us some spectacular landscape photographs of various geological places of significance such as the Grand Canyon, slot canyons such as the Antelope Canyon, the Rattlesnake Canyon Arches, hoodoos (tall, thin spires of rock),  and the Yosemite National Park.  He also showed some photographs of the ancient ancestral ruins at the World Heritage site of Mesa Verde National Park.

He also visited Las Vegas which was a complete contrast to his preceding days of travelling through rich cultural and geological areas.  Nevertheless, he found it a very interesting place to photograph the opulence and grandiosity of the city.  After Las Vegas, he moved on to Yosemite National Park and then a further three hour drive to San Francisco, before heading back along the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles.  He also took some helicopter rides around the city to take some aerial shots of Alcatraz, the airport, various highways, the Golden Gate bridge and some colourful palattes of salt ponds.

During the planning stages of these trips, David does some research using Google Earth to explore the areas he intends to visit and also view the photos others have taken in these areas.   David’s photographs certainly made us feel in awe of the diversity in landscapes from another part of the world.  If you missed the talk, you can see many of David’s photographs of his trip on his website.