Providing Signature California Stock Photos for
Corporate, Advertising, Editorial and General Stock Use

Golden State Images is a professional stock photography agency specializing in California natural history photography. From the finest of California's scenic locations to its spectacular marine wildlife, our digital library contains a diverse range of California specific material. From coastal scenics to cityscapes, mountains, valleys and deserts, to whales, dolphin and sharks, you will find it here.

Whether it's for corporate, advertising, editorial or general stock use, our goals are to provide professional service and the finest quality images available which capture the beauty and diversity which is California.

Search our image library or Browse by Subject Categories

The Photographer - Randy Morse "My passion in photography is striving to capture the critical instant in each opportunity. That unique moment when all the elements of an image come together."
(C) Brian Laird 2010 Sequoia National Park backpacking trip. In addition to being an avid wildlife and scenic photographer, Randy Morse is the IT Director for a Civil Engineering Company based in San Diego. He has been capturing images in California, both above and beneath the oceans surface for well over twenty-five years. Widely published in books, magazines and other media, his images have been recognized with numerous awards including being a past winner of Nikon's International Photographic Championships. In addition to stock material, we offer Assignment Photographic Services
Client List - examples include:
NBC Universal	Harcourt Publishing	Time Life
REI	Wells Fargo	Monterey Bay Aquarium
California Bank & Trust	Scripps Institution of Oceanography	University of San Diego
San Diego Natural History Museum	CNN	Westways Magazine
National Geographic	Outdoor Photographer Magazine	Mc Graw-Hill Publishing
Nature Conservancy	REMAX Real Estate	World Wildlife Fund
San Diego Symphony	National Park Service	BBC Wildlife Magazine
California Science Center	Outside Magazine	California Coastal Commision
Nature's Best Magazine

About the Images

The wildlife images represented on this site are of wild animals photographed in their natural enviornments.

No images have been digitally manipulated or altered in anyway, other than to adjust sharpness, brightness and contrast for appropriate display on a computer monitor. With few exceptions, all are displayed full frame as originally shot.

Deliverable file formats

With the exception of the Beyond California section, all wildlife and scenic images displayed on this site represent species and locations found in California. In some cases images of indigenous species are included which were photographed outside the borders of California.

See Order Info for complete details on placing requests, deliverable image files, resolutions, file formats, etc.

The evolution of GSI

August 2010 - A compact 14.2 megapixel Sony NEX-3 is purchased as the single camera used for a 9 day backpacking trip in the Western High Sierra.

May 2010 - A Nikon D700 becomes the go to backup for the D3.

March 2010 - GSI becomes Google Earth Enabled - The majority of our images have now been assigned world coordinates and their locations linked to Google Earth. From any display page, you can simply click the blue Google Earth icon beneath the image of interest. Then select the Open Button from the File Download popup window. The geographic location of the image will then be displayed as an overhead satellite view from within a Google Earth window. Installation of Google Earth is a prerequisite to using this feature.

NOTE: Geographic Location Accuracy
All coordinate location information provided on this website is intended for general reference purposes only. The provided coordinates DO NOT represent the exact location of where an image was taken or the exact location of the specific subject photographed. No geographic location or coordinate information provided on this website is to be used for any form of GPS waypoint navigation or any other navigational purposes.

October 2009 - Our Nikon D3 goes underwater in a Nexus housing, replacing the D200 system.

March 2009 - Converted all current site pages to Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) text formatting. Way back in 2000 when GSI first went online, embedded html text formatting was the standard and CSS was the new technology on the block. After a recent upgrade to our site development software, I had to face the facts. CSS is now not only the standard, its even becoming old school and embedded text formatting is well prehistoric.

January 2009 - News and Featured Photos Blog published as an RSS feed.

May 2008 - Completed code for Featured Photo Blog.

January 2008 - Nikon D3 replaces the D2X

August 2007 - Added a Nikon 200-400mm F4 AF-S VR to the kit.

September 2006 - Completed code for By Species Stock List

June 2006 - With the addition of a Nikon D200 and Nexus Underwater Housing our transition to a pure digital capture workflow has been completed. Likely my last role of 35mm transparency film was taken underwater on June 7, 2006 photographing Sea Stars in a tidepool north of Prince Rupert British Columbia. All future material whether on land or underwater will be captured using digital cameras exclusively.

April 2006 - Completed code for A - Z Stock List auto generated from our current image database.

December 2005 - GSI extensively reworked to be driven from an integrated image database, fully indexed and Searchable.

November 2005 - GSI moved to a new hosting provider, due to increased visitor traffic and server limitations.

April 2005 - After much research and effort, we completed our transition to a digital capture workflow. All future land based material will be produced using top of the line digital cameras, starting with a Nikon D2X 12.4mp camera. For more information on how we use the D2X see our Digital Workflow notes.

January 2005 - In January 2005 we started what proved to be a three month project to completely revamp and upgrade our site. Over three thousand transparencies were re-scanned using the latest in 35mm scanning technology. We instituted a new numbering system to better organize our digital library and replaced all online thumbnail images with larger re-samples of the new scans. Every image on GSI can now be clicked on to open an enlarged display of the selected image. Subject Category pages were expanded with additional material and many new category pages were added. GSI now contains over three thousand images, searchable online.

November 1999 - Our initial digital library was setup and GSI went online in November of 1999. About two hundred fifty images were included on the original website.