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The year is almost over and it’s time to look back at my work for 2013. From a pure statistical perspective, 2013 has been my most productive year ever. Probably due to the fact that I have traveled the most (76 days of travel and 7 countries). All the images presented here are available for licensing or as fine art prints.

Aurora borealis or Northern lights (for us in the northern hemisphere) is caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow. The northern lights can range from a simple green faint flow over the horizon to a bright “curtain” of lights dancing above you (and bright enough to cast a shadow like full moon). I did not realize until recently that this is a bucket list item for many people, so in this post I’m going to share my experience chasing aurora. First to see the aurora, you need to have a clear, dark night. It implies being far away from civilization to avoid any light pollution. The dark night is a bit tricky since...

The full moon this month was going to rise right above Alcatraz and then set above the south tower of the Golden Gate bridge. It meant waking up before 5am to catch the moon setting and then later that day going back to San Francisco to photograph the moon rising above Alcatraz around sunset time. The moon is exactly aligned with the top of the tower only for a very quick instant. I did my best to “guestimate” where I should be (which means a bit of running with a 400mm lens, a heavy tripod and camera). While I was doing my “guestimation”, clouds were blocking the moon on and off. At the last minute, literally, the clouds opened up, I took three shots and the moon was gone for ever behind clouds. Here are two of those shots: That same...

Last weekend I joined Frederic Larson’s meetup in Napa to photograph hot air balloons. The balloons are flying almost daily over Napa but on a nice weekend, you can have as many as 10 balloons in the air at the same time. Meetups are a great way to do things you would not otherwise think of doing. My favorite quote from Frederic is: “If you don’t change something, how could you expect different results”. My interpretation is: if you always wake up at the same time, you will always end up with the same photographs. Change you wake up time and see something different. So for this meetup, we woke up at 4:30am, in order to be in Youtville by 6:45am. From there, we carpooled to the launching spot where a fair number of balloons where already...

The 34th America’s cup was the longest on record both in racing days, and the number of races, with the Oracle Team USA staging an improbable come-from-behind victory, winning eight races in a row to defend the Cup with nine points to New Zealand’s eight. Now that I had the time to look back at those images that includes the America’s Cup world series in August 2012, the Louis Vuitton Cup (won by Emirates Team New Zealand) and the 34th America’s cup itself. Here my favorites: 1 2 ... 4 ► All the images presented here are available for licensing or as fine art...

We have a winner! After 19 races, 15 days of racing, Oracle Team USA successfully defended the America’s cup. A week ago, nobody excepted that. Jimmy Spithill was the only one giving Oracle much chances. I have personally been in multiples meetings planning for the ceremony where Team New Zealand was excepted to win that day. Today was a winner take-all race. Team New Zealand took a great start but we have learned yesterday that Oracle’s boat is now faster in the upwind leg. Oracle kept it close until Mark 2, and then made its move and passed Dean Barker’s boat. After that they sailed to victory. An interesting bit we learned during the press conference, Oracle broke an actuator on its wing right before the start and they glue it back right...