Behind the Tetons

The Teton Range, Alta, Wyoming

When I headed to Grand Teton National Park for a photo tour this past July, I arrived in Jackson, Wyoming, in mid-afternoon. I always try to fly out very early when I travel to make sure that if something goes awry, I have some time to make new arrangements. Even though I was tired from the travel, I hadn't been to Jackson in almost 10 years so I wanted to make sure that no time was wasted. 

When planning my trip, my fellow blogger, Rick Louie, suggested that I spend some time on the far less visited Idaho side of the Tetons. To get there, you head out of Jackson and travel over Teton Pass, and then head north toward the town of Driggs. Once downtown, turn east, and you come to Alta. The town is quite small (less than 400 residents), but the attraction is a very different look to the Tetons. While not quite as captivating as the national park, the landscape is still pretty compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed this drive, and fully expect to revisit it the next time I head to Jackson. Thanks for the tip Rick.

Kotor Reflections

Bay of Kotor, Kotor, Montenegro

When embarking on a cruise, first impressions of each stop can be deceiving. The areas where these ships dock are more than likely not the best ones. They are typically industrial areas on the outskirts of the port of call. So it came as a pleasant surprise when we docked in Kotor, Montenegro, on our Mediterranean cruise a few years ago.

While Kotor is technically a port on the Adriatic Sea, to get there requires entering a twisting and winding journey through the Bay of Kotor. The bay is actually 17 miles long, and, along the way, there aren't any industrial areas to be seen. In fact, the bay is surrounded by large towering mountains with scenic little towns. I guess that I shouldn't have been surprised, as the translation of Montenegro is Black Mountain and 60% of the country is made up of mountains. The scenery can't be beat, and it remains my favorite port of call.

The Spectacles

Arches National Park, Utah

The southwestern region of the US is home to the largest concentration of national parks, national monuments, state parks and scenic roads. The area known as the Grand Circle includes five states (Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada). Nowhere else in the country has the diversity and colors of the landscape. It seems like everyone who visits there has a favorite spot, and it is hard to argue with any choice. My two favorites are Arches National Park and Monument Valley.

The formations in Arches all have their own names. This one is comprised of two "windows", the North Window and the South Window. These openings in the formation are huge, as a person standing at the bottom of one would be a mere speck in the photo. Many visitors go to visit each window separately but unless you look at it from the side, they don't realize that the whole formation takes the form of eyeglasses, resulting in the name of "The Spectacles". 

Ghosts of the Past

Pennhurst Asylum,  Spring City, Pennsylvania

There is a type of photography generally described as "Urbex" (for Urban Exploration), where the subjects are abandoned buildings of all kinds. It is becoming a very popular genre of the hobby. While I don't go out of my way to shoot urbex, when I see a photo tour to abandoned places in the northeast, I usually try to attend. This past June, I visited the abandoned Pennhurst Asylum in Spring City, Pennsylvania. 

 The Asylum was built in 1908 and was designed "for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic". It closed it's doors in 1987 after being exposed for horrific conditions and tales of abusing patients, including those in wheelchairs. The visions of what may have happened there was clear in my mind when taking and editing this photo. I wonder if this wheelchair was involved in the atrocities, and what the purported ghosts that are rumored to still walk the floors of the asylum could tell me. 

 

I Love Bark

Moose-Wilson Road, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park is a terrific place for landscapes, which is why I love going there. I never go looking for wildlife ,but many others do. The rule of thumb when looking for wildlife is to look for them early in the morning and the hours approaching dusk. Another is to look for other cars that are pulled over at the side of the road for no apparent reason. That usually means that there has been a wildlife sighting.  

On my photo tour to the park in July, our tour leader, Jeff Clow, was driving back and forth on Moose-Wilson Road (a favorite area for spotting wildlife), scouting. Just when we were ready to give up, he spotted this beaver in the underbrush. We piled out, and before you know it, there were probably 10 cars there within 5 minutes (there must be some communication network that I am not aware of). Despite the crowd of people and photographers, the beaver was only interested in eating the bark off of tree branches to be used in building his dam. It was quite amazing to see how fast he could get the branch clean as a whistle.

Golden Rock

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

It has become obvious to me that I have developed quite an affinity to Badlands National Park. Ever since I visited the park in September, I find myself gravitating toward the South Dakota folder to pick photos to edit for the following week's blog. This "elite" status has often been reserved for my favorite places, namely Yosemite, Banff, Grand Teton and Arches. It is clear to me that they need to move over to make room for Badlands. The only regret that I have is that it took me so long to finally visit there.

While it is remote and can be harsh during parts of the year, once you get there the landscape is among the most diverse and accessible and is worth the trip. Where else can you walk out of your hotel room and within minutes get sunset shots like this one? I hope that you bear with me as I continue to post images from my new favorite location.

Exploring Venice

Venice, Italy

There is no better city to roam around in with no destination in mind than Venice, Italy. The history and age-old architecture is something to see. The city has such a romantic feel to it with all of it's canals and gondolas. What I really like is getting out from the main tourist areas to see what the real Venice is all about. There are gems found in almost every nook and cranny of the the city's back alleyways (canalways?). 

For the photographer, the city is found almost everywhere. The challenge in capturing some of these "backstreets" is balancing out the light and the shadows of the scenes. Cameras try to average out the light resulting in poor results (the human eye is much more effective in this). The advances in editing software like Lightroom (my editing program of choice) allow for easy fixing of the scene's highlights and shadows.  This image, for example, was quite dark in the shadows, which hid the details and darkened the reflections. With a quick adjustment of the shadow slider, the details and reflection just popped on out.

Columbia Gorge Gem

Horsetail Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

The Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland, Oregon, is a great location for waterfalls. There are 77 waterfalls on the Oregon side of the Columbia River alone, and you would need to spend a lot of time to visit them all. Many of them require hikes, some of which are medium to difficult ones. Fortunately, some of the waterfalls are easily accessible, and some require no hiking at all. For those who only have limited time, take a drive on the Historic Columbia River Highway. 

The highway allows the visitor to get to 8 waterfalls in a few hours. This is one of those waterfalls, namely Horsetail Falls. It requires no hiking and can be viewed without any obstructions for almost 180 degrees. This image shows the bottom half of the "horsetail" falling into it's small pond.    

Steam

Mud Volcano, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

This year, I was able to revisit a location that I first visited in 2005, namely Yellowstone National Park. On that first visit, I wasn't into photography, and the images from that trip were awful. When I started to get back into the hobby, I vowed to revisit some of the places and reshoot them. In some cases, I wanted to get the same composition as I did then but in better light. This is one of those compositions. It is of Mud Volcano, a thermal feature on the eastern side of the park. It has a nice boardwalk where you can get different vantage points to shoot from. I visited just after dawn when there was no one around, and had great morning light. I was hoping for and got some nice blue skies that I used as a nice color backdrop to make the steam stand out. All in all, a much better result that my first visit. On my next visit, I wonder if there is a way to deal with that bad sulfur smell of these thermal features.

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota

When we were selecting stops on our cross country drive, we decided to stay in Rapid City, South Dakota. This location was in the center of many of the attractions that we had targeted, namely Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park. Even though we had an interest in visiting the Crazy Horse Memorial, there wasn't time to fit it in.

There are times when fate intervenes. We had left Mount Rushmore and I must have missed my turn when heading for Custer State Park. Lo and behold, we were only 10 miles from the site of the memorial, so we headed there. It turned out to be quite the inspirational visit. 

On site is a wonderful museum with great displays and exhibits of the American Indian culture. If you visit there, don't miss the movie that tells the story of how the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski came to the project and the work he performed on it from 1947 through his death in 1982. Since that time, his family has continued his work. The family will not accept government funds because Korczak believed in individual initiative and private enterprise. The project is funded by admission fees and donations and it's completion date cannot be determined. 

 

Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota

The monument, when it is completed, will be about 10 times larger than Mount Rushmore. The statue to the left shows what the monument will look like when finished. As you can see, there is an awful lot to finish (if you look closely at the top photo, you can see the outline of the horse's head outlined in white. It was quite impressive to see in person and will be even more amazing when it is finished. I highly recommend spending time there if you visit the area. I am glad we ended up there.

Cruising Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

What can you say about Glacier Bay National Park that probably hasn't been said before? The Alaskan Coast is one of the most scenic areas in the world and the park is, in my opinion, the best spot. Most people visiting the park can only view it from a cruise ship deck, as we did. Cruising is not the most ideal way to photograph landscapes as you can't control the time you get there and oftentimes you find yourself shooting in midday harsh sunlight. If you are lucky, you get there before dawn or late evening when you get the great golden hour light. That rarely happens. For this photo, I wasn't able to shoot the park at these ideal times but got better light than I expected. We arrived in late afternoon and had the sun behind me. This allowed for great color in the water and a clear view of the mountains.

Barcelona Drive By

Barcelona, Spain

I have been fortunate to be able to travel quite a lot over the past few years, and, over that time, I have taken thousands of images. One of the challenges of a photographer is taking the time to go through the images and decide which one is "edit" worthy. My unedited images number in the tens of thousands, most of which will never see (and shouldn't) the light of day.

There is also a tendency to look at your most recent photographs and ignore some fine older ones. For example, this year has been my busiest from a travel standpoint and I have begun to realize that I have been ignoring many of the images that I took over the past several years. 

This realization will result in a purposeful effort on my part to post some older images. This image, for example, was taken on a Hop On - Hop Off bus in Barcelona, Spain. I love taking these types of buses on the first day we visit a new location to get a lay of the land and figure out which ones we will visit over the rest of our stay. I don't remember which part of Barcelona this building was located in, but I really loved it's shape and the evening light on it. It can be a challenge capturing it on a moving bus and my recommendation is to shoot in burst mode. You may get 19 bad images but there is usually one (like this one) that works.

Harsh Landscape

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

I have posted a number of photos from my first visit to the Badlands last month. The more that I look at the photos, the more I realize how amazing and harsh the landscape is. What is even more amazing is that the initial formations in the park began over 60 million years ago during the early days of the formation of the Rocky Mountains. Streams carried rocks, dirt and other materials eastward. This buildup continued for about 40 million years, but it wasn't until a half-million years ago when erosion began to form the landscape that we see today. 

While my previous posts focused on some of the rugged rock formations, this photo illustrates how diverse Badlands is, with the effects of the constant erosion on full display. This section is part of the 100-mile Wall that forms the "spine" of the park. This particular composition looks southward, while the northward views are typically either large rock formations or flat plains. The more I think about the Badlands, the more it is becoming one of my favorite places in the US.

Ruh Roh

Prairie Dog Town, Theodore Roosevelt National Park - South Division, North Dakota

Yesterday, I posted an image from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. One of the features of the park are the several Prairie Dog Towns located in both the North and South Divisions. I have never seen a town such as this before. It is basically an open area that has tons of holes in it. When you pull into town, there are quite the number of prairie dogs scampering around. After getting out of the car, the prairie dogs run for cover making them really hard to photograph (at least for me). They are really, really fast. 

I finally was able to catch one in the South Division. All of the other prairie dogs had taken off and only this one remained. I don't know if he was deaf or not but he finally turned and looked at me as I pressed the shutter. I thought the favorite saying ("ruh roh") of Astro the Dog in the cartoon the Jetsons (okay, I am dating myself)  probably went through his head when he saw me. For you fans of Scooby Doo, Astro originated the saying. I know that it is true because I read it on the internet.

The Little Missouri

Oxbow Overlook, Little Missouri River, Theodore Roosevelt National Park - North Division, North Dakota

On our cross country drive from Oregon to Connecticut, we tried to visit as many National Parks and Monuments as we could along the way (thank God that we missed the closures that were forced by our idiots in Washington). When we hit Badlands in South Dakota, our initial plan was to continue to head east. Greg has a bucket list item to visit all 50 states and was championing for heading to North Dakota even though it was 6-8 hours out of the way. After doing some research, I discovered that there was a national park there that I had never heard of, namely Theodore Roosevelt National Park, located in the North Dakota Badlands.. That sealed the deal for me and off we went.

 Theodore Roosevelt National Park is made up of three main divisions: the South Division (right next to Madora), Elk Horn Ranch (about 35 miles north), and the North Division (about 80 miles north). We didn't have time to visit all three so we skipped Elk Horn as it had a lot of unpaved roads. 

I really enjoyed what we saw of this park. The scenery was a bit different than what we experienced in the Badlands of South Dakota. The landscape was not quite as harsh as its cousin to the south but beautiful nonetheless. This view is from Oxbow Overlook in the North Division, showing an oxbow bend in the muddy Little Missouri River. 

 

Ceiling Access

Lonaconing Silk Mill, Lonaconing, Maryland

Last week I posted an image from the Lonaconing Silk Mill in western Maryland. The trip was part of a workshop I attended that was run by Denise Ippolitto. For those of you who are not familiar with her work, she is an extremely creative and talented photographer and I highly recommend her workshops.

The silk mill is quite the large urbex type location with the only light streaming from windows. Being my first time at the mill, I wanted to get the lay of the land and, since Denise has shot there so much, she told me the best spots to shoot and sent me on my way.  Maybe a few hours later, I was in the basement and ran into Denise where she led me to the little room in this photo. We both shot the scene and talked about who would post it first since we were both embarking on pretty challenging travel schedules (the workshop was in early August). Unless I missed her post, I beat her. So here it is Denise. Now it is up to you to post your image. I am sure when I see it, I am going to wish that I posted your image instead of mine.

Autumn in New Hampshire

Cathedral Ledge, North Conway, New Hampshire

Autumn has finally reached Connecticut the last few days. I went out to some of my favorite places in the area last week, but the color was disappointing and I didn't shoot much. I hope to get out again this week. In the meantime, I went back in the archives and found this photo from a couple of years ago. The location is Cathedral Ledge in North Conway, New Hampshire. From this spot, you can see the Presidential Range (part of the White Mountains), whose peaks are named after American Presidents. The setting sun was lighting up this beautiful valley that was dotted with farms. Scenes like this are the reasons that tourists flock to New England in the fall.


 

 

Rugged Sunrise

Door Trail, Badlands National Park, South Dakota

One of the routines that many landscape photographers perform is to scout a location before they shoot it. There are times that this isn't possible and your only hope is that it works out. This was the case on the first sunrise shoot in Badlands. We had checked in to the hotel rather late in the day and weren't able to do any scouting. Doing some research on the web, I discovered that there was a half-mile trail that supposedly led to a sunrise location. I decided to give it a try since it was only a few miles from the hotel, and would make my getting up before dawn a little more manageable.

The location was the Deer Trail on the eastern side of the park. I was a little surprised that the trail was actually a half-mile boardwalk. I could see that location was going to be fantastic, but, in order to get the right compositions, a bit of climbing was necessary. I noticed only one other photographer at the location so I had the run of the area. 

The location turned out to be amazing as the rock formations were spread out almost 180 degrees. As the sun began to rise, they took on that great light and began to glow orange. So much for scouting (sometimes it is better to be lucky than good).

Lubrication

Lonaconing Silk Mill, Lonaconing, Maryland

Back in early August, I visited the Lonaconing Silk Mill in western Maryland on a workshop with Denise Ippolito. The silk mill closed in 1957 and was the last operating mill of its kind in the United States. The years have not been kind to the mill but much of the interior is unchanged from the day it closed it's doors. The owner of the mill is trying to raise funds to repair it and allows photographers access to shoot it. I found this shelf in the basement of the mill that had the lubrication that was used to keep the machinery running.

Hiking the Columbia Gorge

Bridal Veil Falls, Columbian Gorge, Oregon

The Historic Columbia River Highway is a 75-mile road that runs alongside the Columbia River in northern Oregon. Originating in Troutdale and terminating in The Dalles, the road is home to some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the west. Many of the waterfalls are easily accessible from the road, although a few require a short hike.

One of the waterfalls we visited was Bridal Veil Falls, which is accessed by a .6 mile downhill hike. After reaching and photographing the falls, I started to head back toward the parking lot. Right below the falls, there is a nice wooden bridge that you cross on the trail. As I was coming to the bridge, I noticed a very rough path that looked to follow the runoff from the falls. Being somewhat curious, I decided to go through the brush in the hopes of getting a shot of the wooden bridge. I tried quite a number of spots but I couldn't  get a clear shot. I finally happened upon this spot where I could walk on the rocks and be able to stand on a decent sized stone.