Photo of the Day at MyParkPhotos.com

My photo Crystal Cove Sunset #001 was selected as "Photo of the Day" at www.MyParkPhotos.com. MyParkPhotos.com is an online community for public lands enthusaists with over 3,500 members.

A link to the image on my site can be found here.

This photo was taken at Crystal Cove State Park in California. It is the result of a digital stitch of approximately 26 images with AutoPano Pro. It was also my primary piece on display at the Festival of Arts... printed at 30" x 50" in a 40" x 60" mat/frame.

360-Degree Panoramic: Marcel Vigneron Cooking Demonstration at the Festival of Arts

On Sunday August 24th I shot a 360-degree panoramic shot at the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach. Top Chef contestant Marcel Vigneron was conducting a cooking demonstration while the John Heussenstamm Blues Quartet was setting up on stage.

Place your cursor in the image and drag to the left or right to scroll.




TOP CHEF MARCEL VIGNERON WRAPS UP THE ART OF COOKING SERIES PRESENTED BY THE FESTIVAL OF ARTS IN LAGUNA BEACH

Sunday, August 24, 1-2pm

Laguna Beach, CA - Are you a fan of Bravo TV’s Top Chef? If so, this is your chance to see Season Two runner up Marcel Vigneron demonstrate his culinary talents in person. Marcel will wrap up The Art of Cooking Series at the Festival of Arts on Sunday, August 24 from 1-2pm. Marcel is a 28-year-old gastronomical genius who has studied and cooked all over the world. He prepares avant-guard cuisine, which is strongly influenced by his creativity and passion for delicious, high quality food. After the cooking demonstration, Marcel will greet fans and sign copies of the Top Chef The Cookbook, which will be available for purchase at the Festival of Arts gift shop. The cooking series is Free with Festival admission ($7).

Marcel was a fan favorite and runner-up on season two of Bravo’s TOP CHEF who was known for his crazy hairstyle. He describes his experience on the second season of Bravo's Top Chef as "a little bit bizarre, very interesting, and all in all, just a wonderful opportunity."

Top Chef The Cookbook features more than 100 recipes and tips from the Top Chef TV series Season 1 through Season 3. The book highlights information about Chef Marcel and some of the recipes he created while competing for Top Chef. It also includes interviews and funny commentary that will entertain you while you cook up one of these recipes.

Marcel commented in the Top Chef Cookbook, “Like any artist - and I consider myself a culinary artist - I go through phases and when I was on the show I just wanted to be as creative as possible: pile garnish on top of garnish on top of garnish. Since then I’ve been becoming more refined.”

Although Top Chef made him famous, Marcel is also known for his culinary knowledge and cooking skills all over the world. In New York he was the Sous Chef to Dwayne Lipuma at the Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici. He has taken his cooking skills internationally to Barcelona, Spain where he took classes at Bulli restaurant, rated 2007 top restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine.

Marcel attended the acclaimed Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in New York and took courses in various areas including Butchery and molecular gastronomy. After presenting a nine-course tasting menu, Marcel was hired on the spot to work at the Mansion in Las Vegas as a Master Chef to Joel Robuchon, the world-renowned chef who was named “Chef of the Century” by Gault Millau.

Festival of Arts Gala

Saturday 23 Aug 2008 was the Gala Benefit at the Festival of Arts.

The 10th Annual Pageant of the Masters Gala Benefit at the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts Returns for a Festive Celebration of "All the World's a Stage"

WHO & WHAT: The Festival of Arts - California's Premier Fine Art Exhibition presents the 10th Annual Pageant of the Masters Gala Benefit. This exclusive, highly anticipated, one-night event, will offer guests a private viewing of the Festival's fine art exhibition, music, dancing, silent auction, and a performance of this summer's extremely popular Pageant of the Masters, entitled "All the World's a Stage." The event is sold-out, attending will be approximately 2,600 guests. Neil Patrick Harris, Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated actor, will host the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters 10th Annual Gala benefit on August 23rd. He currently stars as Barney on the CBS comedy series HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, which has garnered him rave reviews. No stranger to theater and film, he has a long list of credits, including starring in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" at the Geffen Playhouse and many Broadway productions. Harris is well known for his teenage role as the adored title character in DOOGIE HOWSER, M.D. Additional guest celebrities scheduled to attend, include Adrianne Curry, Julie Bowen, football star Jim Everett, Kate Flannery, Christopher Knight, Joe Mantegna, Joseph Mascolo, comedian Mike McDonald, Charles Shaughnessy, Marcel Vigneron and many others. WHEN: Saturday, August 23 at 5:00 p.m. 4:45 pm - 5:45 pm Celebrity photo ops. Front entrance - red carpet. Celebrities and Pageant of the Masters Director Diane Challis Davy and Festival of Arts President Wayne Baglin will be available for interviews. WHERE: 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, CA

WHAT ELSE: The evening proceeds will benefit the Festival of Arts Building Fund. Expected to raise over $200,000. The Festival is a non-profit organization that produces The Festival of Arts - California's Premier Fine Art Exhibition and The Pageant of the Masters-Where Art Comes to Life. 

Neil Patrick Harris scheduled to Host the Event.

New Photos Added: Fiordland National Park

New photos have been added from the Routeburn Track and Fjordland National Park in New Zealand.

To view the images, click here or on the thumbnail.

About the Routeburn Track:

The Routeburn Track traverses wild and scenic mountain country between the Hollyford and Dart Valleys at the base of New Zealand's Southern Alps. Since the 1880's the Routeburn Track has proved to be one of the most accessible and popular journeys into New Zealand's forests and mountains.

The hike began through dense beech forests along a well-graded trail that winds above the tree line at Key Summit. This is the only part of the track which passes through lower altitude Silver Beech forest. The rainfall in this area averages over 5000mm a year and this supports a rich variety of mosses, ferns and lichens which carpet the forest floor and decorate the trees. The wispy Goblin Moss which hangs from the trees gives the forest an eerie look. After descending Key Summit, I climbed steadily upwards through Silver Beech forest to the magnificent Earland Falls before descending to the emerald waters of of Lake MacKenzie... then all the way back to the divide in one day, about 22 miles in total.

About the Fiordland National Park:

Fiordland National Park (established in 1952) is a vast, remote wilderness and the heart of Te Wāhipounamu - South West New Zealand World Heritage Area in New Zealand's South Island.

Southwest New Zealand is one of the great wilderness areas of the Southern Hemisphere. It is an area where snow-capped mountains, rivers of ice, deep lakes, unbroken forests and tussock grasslands produce a landscape of exceptional beauty. Some of the best examples of animals and plants, which were once found on the ancient super-continent of Gondwana, still exist here.

New Photos Added: Westland National Park (New Zealand)

Photos from Westland National Park and Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand have been added to the site.

Please click here or on the image to view the photos.

About Westland National Park:

Westland Tai Poutini National Park (established 1960) extends from the highest peaks of Kā Tiritiri o te Moana/Southern Alps to the remote beaches of the wild West Coast. It is an area of magnificent primeval vistas; snow-capped mountains, glaciers, forests, tussock grasslands, coast, lakes, rivers and wetlands.

This world-class scenic landscape has been recognised as such with World Heritage status. It is part of the Te Wāhipounamu South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area, along with Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park to the east, and Fiordland and Mt Aspiring National Parks further south.
Location

Westland Tai Poutini National Park (127,541 hectares) is situated about half way down the South Island on its West Coast.

About Franz Josef Glacier:

The Franz Josef (Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere in Māori) is a 12 km long glacier located in Westland National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Together with the Fox Glacier 20 km to the south, it is unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to less than 300 metres above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rainforest. It is also one of only three glaciers to come so close to a coastline.

New Photos Added: Wall Street Mill

New photos have been added to the site from Joshua Tree National Park.

These are infrared photos from along the Wall Street Mill trail near the Wonderland of Rocks in Joshua Tree National Park.

To view the photos, click here, or on the image to the left.








Wall Street Mill in Joshua Tree National Park is an old ore processing mill included in National Register of Historic Sites.

Wall Street Mill in Joshua Tree National Park is one of the best preserved in the western US. Artifacts of human activity in this area, abandoned over 60 years ago, all wonderfully preserved by hot, dry and peaceful desert environment. Rusty old trucks beneath oak trees slowly sink into the desert sand, with shreds of the tires still on, doors torn off, and their engines exposed.

The Wall Street Mill was once owned by a famous local Joshua Tree character Bill Keys who bought it in 1930. The mill was used for "custom milling" meaning that local miners would bring their ore to this mill to be processed.

The 2-Stamp mill on the site was first built around 1891 and was moved to this site from Pinyon Well in 1933.

The mill was last operated briefly by Bill Keys in 1966.

Winner of Orange County UnScene Photography Tour and 944 Magazine Seven-City Tour Stop

Additional information regarding the Orange County UnScene Tour event can be found here or on the image to the left.

New Photos Added: Tongariro Crossing

New photos have been added from a trip to Tongariro National Park in the Central North Island of New Zealand.

The Tongariro Crossing has been listed by National Geographic as on the the Top 10 "One Day Walks" in the world.

To view the images, click here or on the image to the left.


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Tongariro Crossing
The spectacular geothermal setting is the backdrop for the Tongariro Crossing,
a ten-and-a-half-mile (17 kilometers), point-to-point hike billed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) as the country's "best one-day walk."

The upswing is due in part to the park's recent star turn as Mordor, the dark realm in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In addition to Mount Tongariro, the crossing skirts Mount Ngauruhoe, the almost perfectly symmetrical, 7,513-foot-tall (2,2890-meter-tall) cone that served as Mordor's Mount Doom on-screen. Either of these peaks can be bagged in a day, but the park's biggest draw for hikers (or what Kiwis call "trampers") is the chance to traverse a boggling range of ecosystems in only eight hours—from hills purple with heather to dense rain forest, through arid badlands to steam-wreathed volcano summits—the sort of diversity that usually requires multiple days in the backcountry, and sometimes multiple countries.

Hold on to Your Hat
The route is challenging, even harrowing at times, but the rewards are ample. "You go out on an alpine crossing and a see a spectacular volcanic landscape, without carrying an overnight pack," says Johnson. "But," he cautions, "come prepared for the weather." Frosts are fairly common, and winds assail the peaks year-round. The force of these gusts can be surprising. "Today alone, in the gully down below, we picked up 42 baseball caps, a slew of pack covers, all manner of clothing, and a few small children," Johnson says, deadpan.

The crossing's windswept ridgeline trail ascends 6,188 feet (1,886 meters) to the summit of Mount Tongariro's Red Crater, which last erupted in 1926. The cone is stained brick red from oxidized iron. Fumaroles ringed with yellow crystals belch out reeking vapors. A slip-slide down dark gray scoria slopes brings you to the shores of the Emerald Lakes, three crater pools gleaming in an alpine gravel field.

According to local mythology, Ngatoroirangi, a Maori shaman, embarked on a winter ascent of Mount Tongariro. Freezing and close to death, he prayed for warmth, and a torrent of flames burst up from the ground. Ngatoroirangi survived, and the land still bears the scars of his rescue. In 1897 a preservation-minded Maori chief ceded the sacred peaks to the government. Ten years later the area became New Zealand's first, and the world's fourth, national park. Tongariro now draws almost a million visitors annually, more than the renowned South Island national parks of Fiordland, Aoraki/Mount Cook, and Abel Tasman, combined.

A recreational hub for skiers and ice climbers in winter and for trampers and
rock climbers in summer, this is the country's most closely monitored seismic terrain. Its trio of active craters forms the southern edge of the Pacific Ring of Fire—a string of volcanoes stretching as far north as Alaska. Tongariro's most volatile cone looms over the southern part of the park: 9,177-foot (2,797-meter) Mount Ruapehu, the North Island's highest peak. In 1995 ash and acidic water erupted from Ruapehu and blanketed the surrounding slopes, home to the North Island's only ski areas, Whakapapa and Turoa. Both remained closed for two years.

The cones are currently dozing. But the chance that they might rouse themselves at any moment is what makes the Tongariro Crossing such an adrenaline-charged hike.

Pink mud, green grass
Descending from the barren heights, I navigate rocky switchbacks and stop for a breather at Ketetahi Hut—one of four spartan but comfortable cabins available to more ambitious trekkers on the multiday Tongariro Northern Circuit. On the hut's deck, trampers from home and abroad mingle with the conviviality of partners in a shared quest.

New Photos Added: Kauai Surf

I've added a series of images from a trip to Hawaii in 2007 to my site. The images were taken at sunrise on the island of Kauai.

The images can be found here or by clicking on the image to the left.

Voted UnScene Orange County Winner!

More details to follow later... but I'm looking forward to Vegas!

"UnScene OC took place July 30th and Christian Kiely won. He will be going on to Vegas in the spring to compete against six other artists."

Photos from the UnScene Orange County / 944 Magazine event

Photos from the UnScene Orange County / 944 Magazine event have been posted here.

Photographic credit to: Devon Dick