Welcome to my website.  I hope you will enjoy browsing through my travels as a photographer as much as I have enjoyed visiting these remarkable locations and having the opportunity to interpret, enjoy and photograph them.  I plan to use this part of the website to provide news and other information and to answer questions that come in about locations or photography.  For me, the process of sharing what I see and photograph is my primary motivation in creating the website. 

2011 was devoted primarily to African wildlife.  Africa is a feast for the senses.  We enjoyed intense sunrises and sunsets over the vast savannahs that provide a complex system of habitats for its denizens. We had the opportunity to observe and photograph playful and predatory lions, graceful antelopes, curious giraffes, cautious zebra, chattering baboons, majestic elephants, stoic cape buffalo, stealthy leopards and cheetahs and lumbering hippos and rhinos.  There is something extraordinary about a close-up encounter with a lion or a rhino in its native environment.    However, the colorful birds of Africa, a surprise on my first trip, remained fascinating to me.  SPirit Horse was featured in the 7th Annual Atherton Art Exhibit.  I also participated in 3 juried shows locally, with Mono Lake Sunrise, Powder Puff (snow leopard), and Narcissus (mountain lion) .  There are a few new landscapes from trips to Yellowstone in winter and to Monument Valley this last fall.  I hope you enjoy the new images.

2010 gave me an opportunity for more wildlife photography as well as landscape images.  I again visited the DDD Ranch and photographed animals in their full winder coats, including bobcats, lynx, mountain lions, wolves, snow leopards and a Siberian tiger.  The contrast of the animals in a snowy environment was fantastic.  I also took some time to photograph a herd of horses running through the snow.  The heat from the horses and the mist over the snow made for some dramatic images.  I also visited the Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada; the bird refuge in Bosque del Apache in New Mexico, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and White Sands National Monument.  I entered several juried competitions and was fortunate to have pieces selected.  Narcissus appeared in a Pacific Art League Show, and Smile appeared in a Filoli show.   

2009 was primarily a year of photographing wildlife.  I really enjoy my interactions with animals, and I hope that enthusiasm is conveyed through my pictures.  In June of 2009 I traveled to Montana to the DDD Game Ranch and was able to photograph baby bobcats, lynx and river otters, as well as adult mountain lions and wolves.  These images are in the wildlife gallery.  In September, my good friend and fellow photographer, Jeff Johnson, joined me on a 10-day tour of Alaska.  We started in Denali.  I was surprised and delighted to see the vibrancy of the fall color of the tundra.  We photographed mountain grizzly and moose during our travels throughout Denali National Park.  We also traveled to locations around Homer and Seward where we found grizzly fishing for salmon in Crescent Lake, lots of eagles and more moose.  We also visited the Independence gold mine and the Kennecott copper mine. This was a trip where planes, trains and automobiles were all part of our transportation.

2008 was another magical photographic year.  It would be hard to match the experience of last year’s polar bear experience, but 2008 provided different, but equally interesting opportunities.   The highlights of the year included a trip to Peru and the Galapagos Islands (see Around the World—Peru and the Galapagos Islands section) and a workshop in Death Valley (see National Parks—Death Valley section). You will find some pretty snowy egrets and a shot of sand cranes at sunrise under Wildlife, some spectacular fall color images under Park City and Its Environs, and some images of Bryce Canyon in winter under National Parks—Bryce and Zion.  I was fortunate to travel to Peru around the winter solstice, so was able to photograph the sunrise on the solstice at Machu Picchu and to see the amazing celebration called Inti Raymi, the Inca Festival of the Sun. 

I self-published three books, one called Tracks of the Polar Bear, which contains images from the trip to Churchill, Canada in 2007, another called Timeless Lands, which chronicles my trip to South America in 2008 and this year I published Alaska Through a Lens, which chronicles my trip to Alaska in 2009.  I am working on a portfolio book of my wildlife photography, which should be available on Blurb in early 2011.  The other books can be viewed at Blurb.com.  Just go to the website, go into the store and search under my name.    

In 2008 I had a successful show of my polar bear images, and two of my images were included in the Native California show at Filoli Gardens.  My Snowy Egret was selected to be included in a juried show at the Pacific Art League last summer and my North Canyon Reflection (see National Parks/Grand Canyon) was awarded second place in the Water and Reflections show, also at the Pacific Art League. 

In 2007, I decided to try something new with my photography and took a course in photopainting from Fay Sirkis at the Lepp Institute.  Using Corel Painter X, I learned basic techniques to turn some of my photographs into images that looked like either watercolor or oil paintings.  I have included a few of these under the Photo Paintings section.  I hope to add a couple to this category every year.  While it is difficult to see on the screen, the fur in my image of the gray wolves is painted in painstaking detail using a very thin brush and my Wacom tablet.  The  photopainting does not replace my love for the images that come out of the camera, but it allows me to experiment and look at things in a different perspective.  Corel Painter works great for me, since I have no talent for free-hand drawing. 
 
2006 was a great year for me. I entered a picture of elk in the National Elk Refuge in the Cowboys and Indians National Photo Contest in 2006.  I was honored to learn that it won the grand prize.  My photograph of the Goosenecks of the Colorado won second place in a juried show sponsored by the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto.  Friends, my photograph of gray wolves in Yellowstone was a finalist in the Cowboys and Indians contest in 2005.

You can click on a gallery to see thumbnail versions of the pictures.  Just click on a picture to see a larger size image.  To go back to the thumbnails, simply click on the gallery in which the pictures are located.  I generally have listed 2 sizes of pictures.  I can produce larger sized images.  I print images up to 16 x 20 myself, and use an outside lab for larger images. 

All images are signed and  numbered as limited editions.  At present, the images for sale on the website are unframed, but generally I provide a basic mat.  Sometimes it is more efficient to ship photographs in a tube, particularly when most people want to have mats that are coordinated with their décor, so please send me an e-mail (lcalof@earthlink.net) if you would prefer to receive a photograph that is not matted. 

In the section of the website dealing with my greeting cards, I have exhibited several specific cards. However, I make greeting cards from all of the images on the website.  Please e-mail me with any requests for cards for an image that is on the website, but not in the card section.   

This section was last updated in January 2011