Alan Spitzer Photography

For me, it is always a pleasure to visit California for photography. The state is one of the most geophysically variable in the country, and whatever your preferences, there is always much to photograph. This year’s trip was unfortunately shortened by a visit to the hospital for a problem not of my making. I was lucky that the problem could be readily remedied thanks to the skill of the medical and nursing staff at Monterey Peninsula Community Hospital. So my photographic yield was cut a bit short, but all worked out well ultimately for me, and there should be many more trips ahead in the future.

It was a somewhat disappointing year in Maine, with a very muted Fall color change thanks to a drought year. With a landscape that was less dramatic than usual, I turned to the marvelous sea stones of Seawall, Maine, to fill in the landscape.

Another trip to Utah, and more wonders for my eyes to embrace and hopefully, capture successfully with my camera. Although I have now traveled to Utah at least 30 times since my first visit in 1981, it still fascinates and excites me as much as it did on my first trip there. The landscape is virtually endless, and each visit seems to provide new, even more exciting vistas for me. This last trip confirmed those feelings once again.

I had not been in Death Valley since 2020, just prior to the onset of Covid in this country. Since then, Death Valley has had its share of difficult weather, with some severe storms that damaged roadways, as well as a number of the famous landmarks in this park. I did not know what to expect upon my return, but was pleased to see that Mother Nature had taken care of much of the park, and restored many of the damaged areas. Death Valley, in spite of its ominous name, remains a beautiful national park, with much to see and do. These photos represent only a small part of the grandeur that exists here.

Fall in Maine remains one of my favorite photographic journeys each year. One can debate endlessly about whether the colors of one October surpass those of the previous year, but Maine is always stunning in any Fall. Although I often revisit previous haunts in my travels, the same scenes always look different and photograph somewhat differently each year. If I could only go to a single place to photograph, I think October in Bar Harbor would probably be my choice.

The extraordinary beauty of America's largest state seems endless. While I had visited Alaska twice before, it was during the infancy of digital photography and my images from travels around the state at that time do not measure up to current standards. This trip was limited by access, as I was on a cruise ship and photographed from the deck and my room balcony. Nonetheless, there are several images that I find very pleasing and hope you enjoy them.

Like many national parks these days, Banff suffers from its success as one of the most beautiful areas in the Canadian Rockies. Summers now mean tourists galore, making a unique, private experience with nature that much more difficult. Some of the classic Banff locales, such as Morraine Lake and Lake Louise, are increasingly inaccessible as steps have had to be taken to limit tourists at these sites. Nevertheless, Banff remains a wonderful place to visit, both in Summer and in Winter, and continues to be one of the most beautiful and special places on earth.

I had not visited this area for a few years, and, in the past, spent most of my time in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is our first national park (and the world's first, as well) and is an incredible collection of amazing vistas and phenomena. This time, I spent more of my time in Grand Teton National Park, and, thanks to a stormy couple of days, there was much to see and dramatically photograph. The area where Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho come together is simply beautiful and well worth visiting more than once. I can't image what the first people to occupy this area must have thought about the incredible landscape they were seeing.

I first visited Moab in 1982, when it was a fairly deserted and abandoned uranium mining town. Arches National Park was entirely empty and Canyonlands had no paved roads. Times have changed and these parks are now heavily visited. They remain astonishingly beautiful, however, as I try to convey in my images.

The Central California Coast, with its magnificent cliffs and pounding surf, is unquestionably one of the most beautiful landscapes in the country. The drive along California Route 1, from Monterey to Big Sur, easily qualifies as one of the top five road trips in the country.

A recent trip to the West Coast began in Oregon, but soon moved to Redwood National Park. For some time, I had been attracted to the interplay between the towering, massive redwoods and the delicate beauty of the rhododendrons. Also, redwoods may live for hundreds of years, while the flowers of the rhododendron exists for less than a month’s time. Fate, however, for several years only provided me with rhododendron bushes well past the flowering stage. This year, however, I timed it right and a new story emerged.

These images are from my trip to Antarctica in February of 2023. This was a trip twice postponed because of Covid concerns in 2021 and 2022, but we succeeded in getting there this year. As usual, Antarctica was incredibly beautiful, though the ice seemed less plentiful and dramatic this time around. The images are not titled because of the relative lack of location in Antarctica and the somewhat abstract nature of ice images. But I hope that you enjoy seeing them.

The colors of the leaves that Fall were especially striking and the vibrance of colors was one of the best that I have ever seen. Photos taken in October 2022

The incredible International Peace Park consists of Glacier National Park in the United States and Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada. Both are extraordinarily beautiful and breath-taking, well worth a visit. No matter how many days we spend there, it never seems to be enough. These are photos from August-September 2022

These images represent photographs from my second trip to Africa in September 2021.

In February 2019, I had the pleasure of journeying to the southernmost part of the world for a visit to Antarctica. It was totally unique, a place of ice fields and icebergs, penguins and whales. Each day brought new vistas and new photographic challenges. Being on a moving vessel, with the icebergs moving rapidly as well, required fast framing of a a scene and quick selection of camera settings. The results that I achieved speak for themselves, but Antarctica left an indelible impression that will remain with me forever.

A journey to the Arctic regions of the world was once an almost impossible voyage. With modern conveyances, however, access to this remote part of the globe has become much easier, revealing the extraordinary beauty there, seemingly around every corner.

My grandfather had a great passion for flowers and plants that he passed on to my mother and ultimately to me. There are few more enjoyable days than the ones I spend in either botanical gardens or the wild, photographing nature's most beautiful creations. The unique nature of flowers and plants will always be with me.

Travel to our neighbor to the North has always been an incredibly pleasurable experience. The Canadian Rockies sometimes seem to eclipse their counterparts in the United States in terms of majesty and beauty, though it is certainly a close call. Vancouver and Victoria are extraordinary, as are the Eastern Provinces, with the Atlantic Maritime Provinces possessing a special character all their own. Canada is simply one beautiful country.

The American Southwest is a land of profound beauty and rugged geology. Repeated trips to this region have only heightened my appreciation of the uniqueness of the landscape and its endless mysteries. 

The Florida landscape is unique compared to many other areas of the country. Unlike the West with its towering mountains and dense forests, Florida is flat, surrounded by water, with a botanical environment all its own. Florida plants and flowers are immediately recognizable compared to those from other regions of the country. While different, however, the landscape here has a beauty all its own and the more time that one spends in the landscape, the more remarkable it seems. Within this landscape, incredible wildlife also abound that are both strange and unique.

Few places on this earth are as dramatic and as unbelievable as the Grand Canyon. One could photograph endlessly here and never find the same image twice.

The Northeastern United States is an area of the country that is often underappreciated when compared to the extraordinary beauty of the West. Nevertheless, in the Fall especially, the Northeast has an amazing, captivating glow that is unique and unforgettable.

New Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries on the planet, and my wife and I had long wanted to travel there. Finally, in the Fall of 2018, we got it all together and had a marvelous time. I hope we get back there again one day to see some of the things that we could not get to on this trip.

Many areas of large urban centers are covered with art work that many people find troubling. Much of the art, however, that decorates the walls of certain areas of cities is beautiful and reflects the artist's passion to create work that goes well beyond the concrete and brick. This work is often extraordinary and contained within it are smaller masterpieces that have their own unique appeal. Extracting these areas from the larger work often reveals additional insights into the work that the original artist may not have recognized.

Because of their abstract content, none of these photos are titled and are identified only by their colors or imagery. This page reveals only a small fraction of the images that have been produced to date, which now number in the thousands.

The Western States in this country represent the promised land, an area so rich in beauty that it often takes your breath away. I love to travel to this part of the country as it is an area of endless gorgeous images.

This category of photographs represent some of the pictures that I am fond of, which don't fit easily into one of the other categories of images. Some of my wildlife photos can be found here.