Being based in Los Angeles is wonderful, since I’m a short drive away from a wide variety of terrain. Snow-capped mountains, isolated beaches and rolling hills – really an amazing variety!

I’ve been venturing out into the desert here and there over the past few months and wanted to share a few of my favorite desert landscape photos. As you can see from these photos, even the deserts can vary quite a bit from one another!

I was recently contacted by Kurt Daradics to photograph the first “Digital Family Reunion” at the Skirball Cultural Center. The event brought together the Southern California technology and business communities for the holidays. Attendees included industry leaders in education, media, entertainment, finance, publishing, venture funding, as well as software and web development.

Being relatively new to Southern California, I come across quite a few new experiences in my daily life. This weekend was definitely something I had never experienced before. On Saturday morning I awoke to what smelled like a smoldering campfire and my balcony was covered with a layer of ash.

The wildfires in Los Angeles were especially wild this weekend, as it turns out – sending out blankets of smoke over the mountains and through the valleys of LA County. I managed to venture out by car in the afternoon to follow the clouds of smoke and ash as the sun set.

From 7pm to 7am on Friday, July 19th, “Glow” was held at the Santa Monica Pier. When I heard about the contemporary art event I was intrigued enough to spend an hour in grid-lock traffic looking for an available parking space. A few locals that I spoke to said that they had never seen the streets so packed with cars and people.

I snapped a few photos while I was there until the wee hours of the morning, including the “bike valet” lot…