subtledream | photography by jonathan h. lee

A vertical panorama stitched from 11 horizontal/landscape photographs taken on the same night at the Rae Lakes in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park on a cold, cold October evening. This was my very first attempt at creating a composite panorama image of the Milky Way, and I hope to improve upon the formula in the future. With a view like this, I had to ditch the tent and slept under this blanket of stars that evening, despite the below-freezing temperatures! Well worth it. This is one of my favorites at the moment. Taken in Altos de Campana National Park in Panama, it is a composite of 3 images, and they were taken on a late afternoon on top of a ridge where my friend and I had stumbled off the beaten path – and what a view we were treated to! The warm afternoon sun burst through the low-lying clouds to fill the adjacent ridge, and soon after, the lush valley below. I think this image really captures the dramatic opening of the sky that I remember so vividly. After 4 days of trekking, my friends and I reached the Rae Lakes that the backpacking loop we were venturing on is named after. They are a series of glacial and snow melt-fed lakes, high in the Sierra Nevada in Sequoia and Kings National Park. I would bet that the water temperature rarely gets above 40F/4.4C even in the daytime. Nonetheless, we went in a for a swim of a lifetime! Taken at a remote beach called Playa Guanico on the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, known to the locals and few surfers for its good breaks. Instead of simply admiring from the board (which still would made been an unforgettable memory), I decided to head to shore to capture this stunning view! The ultra-flat beach and low-tide really helped in getting this full composition of earth & sky. I completed the evening with a freshly caught seafood platter at the local joint for just $5 - life couldn't get much better than that! Early autumn morning in Mount Laguna, San Diego, California. The Small Laguna Lake has dried up, for now at least. The wet winter season will bring rain and snow to refill this seasonal natural lake. A lone Torrey Pine stands in the State Reserve as the orange sun colors the horizon and sets into in a thin pancake of light on Christmas day. The Torrey Pine, Pinus torreyana, is the rarest pine species in the United States, an endangered species growing only in San Diego County and on one of the Channel Islands, endemic to the coastal sage and chaparral ecoregion in California. These mini waterfalls are lined up in parallel with the direction of general flow of the river, something which I find fascinating. I used an infrared filter to get the lovely inverted-looking effect. The exposed bedrock reaffirmed my guess that the surroundings are all volcanic, and that really added a new level of rawness and beauty wherever I looked. The breathing crater at Poás Volcano. It has erupted 39 times since 1828. The cyan-colored lake is located at a height of 2,300m in a crater approximately 1.7km wide and 290–300m deep It is one of the world's most acidic lakes. The acidity varies after rain and changes in volcanic activity, sometimes reaching a pH of almost 0; consequently, it supports little or no aquatic life. The bottom of this lake is covered with a layer of liquid sulphur. Acid gases create acid rain and acid fog, causing damage to surrounding ecosystems and often irritation of eyes and lungs (info from Wiki). At well over 8,000 ft / 2,400 m, even a mid-October evening can dip down to just several degrees above freezing. Our campfire provided much-welcomed warmth and painted a soft orange glow on the surrounding giant Sequoia tree grove as the Milky Way rotated above us on that cloudless evening. The moon came out to play! The primary dormant crater of the Poás Volcano, an active stratovolcano in central Costa Rica. El Valle de Antón, Panama And to ponder upon the fact that there is always a sunset unfolding every passing minute on this beautiful planet... This was taken on top of the highest volcano in Panama - "Volcan Baru" - during sunset. But really, this was taken in Joshua Tree National Park in California. The high desert in mid-Winter is certainly not the most hospitable environment for any warm-blooded organism, but I was not about to allow that to deter my photographing opportunity. The moon had risen just a couple hours prior, and the cloudy skies finally cleared away by around 10pm to light up the bizarrely beautiful landscape below. The long exposure helped blur the slow-moving clouds, while the nearly-full moon was more than an adequate source of natural lighting. View from the outhouse! ;) The 135mm is one heck of a lens... A little HDR fun on a beautiful sun-setting afternoon. The extra-low tide gave away to some interesting waves action where the surf & turf meet. Along the West Rim Trail in Zion National Park, Utah. A scene that I will never forget! To attempt to describe how beautiful this was in words would essentially be futile in my verbal capabilities. But hopefully to add an extra speck of appreciation - this was thoroughly enjoyed by my own eyes at Bird Rock, San Diego, California. Yesterday, a winter storm had just gone through the region, leaving patches of dramatic clouds sailing past the sky. Coincidentally, the tide was low enough that late afternoon, exposing the bedrock just off the coast. I had always longed to capture a scene like this, especially having seen so many talented photographers here on 500px capture similar scenes; what a treat this first time was! This will undoubtedly be the first of many to come. When you spend the night on top of the highest volcano of a country, no matter how difficult it is, you wake the heck up before sunrise to indulge yourself to some of the best eye candy the world has to offer. And that's precisely what I did. At Volcan Baru, in western Panama, witnessing a scene that is simply unforgettable.
Jonathan H. Lee on 500px