Minele on flickr has posted a spectacular pond reflection image, shot with a Powershot S90.

This was shot in February in Utah on the trip to Capitol Reef. I am standing in 10 feet of snow with a border behind me in an open meadow. We are at about 8-9,000 feet altitude, The area between the mountains is almost desert.

My flickr contact Tony Reynes has captured an amazing landscape in Utah.

Southwest Massachusetts. Loren and Dave coming up behind me on southwest side of Alander Mountain. Hiking in the Taconic Range is less popular than on the Appalachian trail, just five miles east but that’s a plus: fewer people on the trails.

On the left side of this image you can see the ravine we’ve just come up to get here. It’s a steep climb, not for casual hikers. We’ll be going down the same ravine on the far side later in the day after hiking down to Brace Mountain forming a loop on the South Taconic trail.

The best map of the area can be bought from the New York, New Jersey Trails Conference: South Taconic Trails. It covers both the Taconic Trails as well as the Appalachian Trail from Salisbury to Jug end.

The bump on the right skyline is Brace Mountain which is in New York and is one of the most popular parasailing spots on the east coast. The middle bump is Mt. Frissell which on its far side has the highest point in Connecticut on it.

Our hike makes a loop down to Brace on the left side of this frame and back up to the ravine on the right edge of the frame up he middle of this frame. Aside from the steep climb to get here and the steep descent down the ravine it’s a relatively mild 10+ mile hike with great views here and on Brace.

New York. Looking west into the Hudson River Valley and in the distance, the Catskill Mountains. Note the vegetation has been cut down on the left side of this frame; this is where parasail flyers take off.

Note: it was extremely windy and cold here and we didn’t stay long. We were here on another hike last week and it was 90 degree F. Spring is an odd season…

The three mountains are Mt. Frissell on the left, Round Top in the middle, and Bear Mountain (Connecticut, not New York) on the right. Last week we hiked up and around Bear, over Round Top, over Frissell and ended up here; then we reversed it and went back. That was one mother hike with lots of up and down. About killed us in 90 degree heat. I hope to repeat that hike on a cooler day because it was a great one.

Looking back at Alander Mountain, just beyond Dave’s head. Dave is looking (and shooting) east toward Mt. Frissel, Round Top, and Bear Mountain. Loren (closer to me) is looking west toward the Hudson Valley and the Catskills.

Our return hike will take us on a straight line between Loren and Dave up to the base of Alander on the South Taconic Trail, then west down the ravine and back to the car.

South Kent, Bull’s Bridge, Connecticut. On our way to a hike in New York Dave and I stopped along the Housatonic which was still and highly reflective.

West Cornwall, Connecticut. Hiking along the Appalachian Trail with the Housatonic River behind me. This field and these hills are coming to life so fast they seem to have changed colors in just a few days. Of course with the march toward summer comes the march of insects in New England. I guess it’s worth it but when they’re buzzing in your ears you think fondly of winter.

Both of these images were taken with a Canon G11 “pocket” camera.

Ferns of all types are opening so fast now they’re only in this embryonic "fiddlehead" state for a few days.

This is an excellent piece on how Lucas got some amazing images.

It took me a while to nail down the correct exposure. I did a custom white balance off of the lightly clouded sky above the volcano to get the color that you see in this frame. Below is a handful of images that were not quite right, to say the least, but in the end I managed to capture something that was as close as possible to what I was seeing.

Spectacular bridge, spectacular images.

Click the image above to start a slide show of the various image in this set. The slide show application has various tools including a button at bottom right to zoom to full screen. Let go of your mouse or trackpad and the slideshow will run automatically to the end or until you stop it.

Catskill Mountains, New York. Dave and I did a 5 mile (r/t) snowshoe hike up Slide Mountain, the highest "peak" in the Catskills. This image was taken a mile in at the first trail intersection. You may think a 5 mile hike isn’t much but gaining 1700′ on snowshoes is, in a word, breathtaking. It was a great hike with fantastic views.

Note: This hike was done in early February.

The Big Picture has a great collection of dog sledding images from various parts of the world.

Pyramid Lake (at Night), a 2004 photo by Richard Misrach is one of the included desktop photos on the iPad and it was used during the iPad introduction event. It’s a spectacular image and no doubt Apple went through many to get to this one. Congratulations Richard.

According to the photographer, this is the first time he has licensed an image for commercial use in his 40-year career–a deal he agreed to because he’s a fan of the company. ‘What’s funny is that for years I actually used the photo as my own screensaver,” Misrach says. “So I guess they know what they’re doing.”