I recently had the most disastrous trip of my life. The reason for the trip was a complete bust. Worse than a bust. But at least I did manage to capture an extraordinary set of images that really illustrates why I love to fly.

American Airlines (and TAM) at JFK Airport in New York City

JFK Airport in the foreground, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan receding into background

Sunset on the Hudson River at a Dutch Angle over New Amsterdam

LA LA Land, metaphorically; Los Angeles.

LA LA Land, actuality; in Tokyo. My seat mate was watching it. Normally the reflections in the windows drive me nuts, but Emma Stone isn't quite normal, so I decided to make the best of the situation.

Those Qantas A380s at Los Angeles are some of my favorite rides.

The shining Denver airport in the sunset

Watching a plane land while waiting for takeoff at Denver

Sunset from the air over the Denver Rockies, taken with iPhone 7+ with Lightroom's HDR function

The Great Ocean Road's Twelve Apostles needs no introduction. My buddy Fineas (an Australian, pilot, and photographer) and I visited a week or two ago. We were blessed with a terrific sunset. In contrast, the sunrise wasn't much to write home about; but that's likely structural, given the way the Twelve Apostles are oriented--the sunrise was at about 4-5 o'clock over my right shoulder. It was cloudy enough, I don't know for sure, however.

Did you know that there are only eight apostles left? (The other four were "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" and collapsed.) Wikipedia writes: "The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park, by the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. Their proximity to one another has made the site a popular tourist attraction. Currently there are eight apostles left, the ninth one of the stacks collapsed dramatically in July 2005."

If you walk further down the boardwalk, you can get a view of more of the apostles, but in my opinion, this is the best composition there is.

Fineas photographing Twelve Apostles sunset

The Beauty of Flight :: New York, LA, Tokyo, Denver

Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road :: Victoria, Australia