Featured Photo: Beauty Is In the Eye of the Beholder — and Photographer

Ugly Is Beautiful:  Well, I don’t think the wall is ugly.  But that’s the whole point.  Finding beauty in decay, finding interest in things we often overlook.  One of the things I love about photography is that it has made me appreciate the world around me much more than before.

The following photo is of an abandoned building in West Virginia, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.  The paint was peeling off the walls, creating a fantastic texture.

A decaying doctor’s office at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia. Some of the doctors had special wings, where their wife and children would stay. Can you imagine being a kid, living and growing up at an insane asylum?

Anybody who reads me blog or looks at my Ken Lee Photography website knows that I love abandoned buildings.  They have stories to tell.  And fantastic photographic opportunities, with its texture, decay, and more.

Equipment:  Nikon D90, 18-200mm VR Nikkor lens

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Featured Photo – God Lives in the Details

Beautiful abstract colors.  Can you tell what this is?

Fantastic details are all around you.  But they can get lost, particularly when you are traveling, particularly at tourist sites, and particularly when you are freezing your you-know-what off.

This photo was taken at the El Tatio geysers in Northern Chile. There are 70 geysers at El Tatio, one of the highest fields of geysers in the world, containing about 25% of the world’s geysers.  Lots of hissing steam – early morning steam that condenses in the bitterly cold morning air. The steam plumes disappear as the air warms up. And at 4200m (about 13,800 ft), the air gets darn cold. -8ºC (17 F), to be exact.

But the ground near the geysers and bubbling pools of smelly arsenic are some interesting things. If you look closely, you can see some amazing textures and colors.   The details.

When I showed the above photo to my friends, some thought it was a satellite photo.  Some thought it was taken in an industrial setting.  And some did guess that it was some sort of hot pool or geyser.

El Tatio Geysers, Atacama Desert, Northern Chile

Equipment:  Nikon D90, Nikkor 50mm f1/4 prime lens for the bubbling detail shot, Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens for the geysers with a Tiffen circular polarizer.