Abelman Photography
Places Visited

Clear Lake1

Morning Light

Morning Light is taken from the Sossusvlei in the Sand Sea area of Namibia. The area that contains the dead skeleton trees is more specifically known as Dead Vlei. The area is so dry that the trees cannot properly decompose. This image is intended to convey the surreal nature of the area and highlight the harsh contrasts found there.

Evening Light

Winner: Booth Museum Exhibition 2020, First Place. Evening Light reflects the immense joy of capping off a wondrous photo safari in Namibia by experiencing the purest natural light during the "golden hour", just prior to sunset. Every vista and view were more magical than the last, but this particular grouping of trees especially captured my eye. Quick though, the golden hour isn't really an hour.

Torii Gates

Winner: Booth Museum Exhibition 2017, Second Place. Torii Gates displays the idealized serenity of walking through this iconic structure. The reality was quite different, having to wait patiently for the throngs of tourists to disperse as this was not a staged model shoot.

Washer Woman

This panorama of the medieval washhouse of Lavatolo is from the fishing village of Cefalu in Sicily. It was built during the Arab occupation (827-1090). Here the river still fills the tanks and pools smoothed by time. The image showing the sweep of the stairs aspires to capture the flow of the river so celebrated by the villagers.

Molokai Zen

Bluebells

St. John's Church is located in Ballachulish by Lock Leven. I was drawn to the gate surrounding the church's outer house and graveyard and in particular was interested in using the gate as a frame for my image.

Vestrahorn

Winner: Booth Museum Exhibition 2016, Member's Choice. Vestrahorn is a mountain range on the Ring Road in Iceland. This black and white was chosen to highlight the late afternoon lighting and texture of the mountains with dimensionality and scale provided by the foreground hills and the people shown at the water’s edge.

Casbah

Impressions Series Not truly a casbah, but really the Medina of Rabat, Morocco. The scene struck me as more of a Greek village than the old quarter in an Arab North African city. Inspired by Jeffrey Becom, I am always taken by the shape and color found in old world architecture. As I viewed this image it begged to be simplified so as to accentuate just those elements. Thus began my Impressions Series. (see Impressions on menu)

Castle Stalker

Castle Stalker is on Loch Linnhe on the way to Oban, Scotland. From this higher vantage point, you have a clear view of the mountains in the background. There is lots of history surrounding the castle as it changed hands from one clan to the other and back again. This image attempts to capture the beautiful coloring at dusk of both the sky and in the water’s reflection.

Mesa Verde

Winner: Booth Museum Exhibition 2015, Third Place. This image of Mesa Verde is an intimate portrait of one of the many structures that highlights the striations in the background and the dappled lights coming in from the exit.

Manarola

Manarola is one of the five villages known as Cinque Terra, south of the Italian Riviera. This image conveys the beauty of the village at dusk just when the village lights are being illuminated.

Sentinel

The Bisti Wilderness Area, also known as the Bisti Badlands, is a scenic and colorful expanse offering varied sandstone formations. Here I waited a long time beyond sunset for this cloud formation to be positioned as you see it. It made getting back to the car all the more interesting.

Double Ruin

This image was taken in Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Chinle, AZ which is within Navajo land. These ruins are both on the top and bottom cliffs.

Comrades Wallking

This dual toned image of the Ivan The Great Bell Tower at the Kremlin complex represents one of the first Moscow churches to be built in stone rather than wood.

Valetta Suite 1

I noticed a painting in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying in Valletta, Malta and naturally, I set out to find the location that had been depicted. This image is a reflection of that painting where I use various textures in the processing of the image to render the painterly view you see here.

Drifting Sands

Kolmanskop is an abandoned ghost town in the Namib Desert, Namibia. Where a once thriving diamond mine existed it is now overtaken by sand.

Rialto Morning

Early morning view of James Island from Rialto Beach on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.

Midnight Beach

This is an evening shot from Gay Head Beach on Martha's Vineyard. The water is smoothed out due to the long shutter speed needed to gather enough light for the image.

Evening Descends

This image reflects the immense joy of capping off a wondrous photo safari in Namibia by experiencing the purest natural light. In this image the light was edging toward complete darkness.

Taos Shadows

Taken in Taos NM in the afternoon, hence the long shadows.

Provence Courtyard

Taken at Saint Paul de Vence, Provence-Cote d'Azure, France. I was drawn to it by the dappled afternoon light.

Folly Ruin

This image was taken at Folly Beach SC. Unfortunately, the wooden peer is no longer there.

Moultrie Sunrise

This image was taken at Lake Moultrie SC at nautical sunrise.

Valetta

This early morning image of a typical Valetta, Malta apartment building highlights the famous Maltese Baroque architecture with the convergence of both European and Arab influences. Sit back, relax, and maybe have a smoke with our friend on the beautiful balcony.