Decided to take advantage of time off this week and go out shooting on Monday. We started at a RR bridge over the Brazos River for sunrise, and then explored a few areas south of I-10 including Eagle Lake and Egypt. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
One of my priorities this year has to been to get out shooting on a more regular basis, rather than just when we travel. Photography is like anything else, to get better at it requires practice. There may not be any dramatic mountain or desert vistas surrounding Houston, but there are places to explore and photograph if you're willing to look. So I've been exploring some of the surrounding countryside with a few fellow photographers, usually as a day trip to several areas along a general route. One recent trip was to Chappell Hill in Washington county and Round Top in Fayette County. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
There have been several other day trips that I never got around to updating the blog about, but the galleries can be found under the Central Texas Daytrips section on my PBase site.
The Bisti Wilderness area has been an ongoing project for me, I've been there several times now. These images are from a trip this past October. Word is getting out about the wilderness area. While it was by no means crowded, the number of visitors I saw on this trip (mostly photographers) was up dramatically from past visits (on my first couple of visits I had the place to myself). To view the images, click here or on the image above.
Just now getting around to posting some images from a family get-together (and birthday party for my nephew Joshua) over the Labor Day weekend back in September. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
We made our annual camping trip to Garner State Park last weekend. Apparently all the kids stayed home to trick-or-treat, because the park was almost empty which was quite nice. Not much color though; I think we were a week or two early, but I also think it's not going to be a great year for autumn colors in that area. I have a feeling the cool weather came too late. But it was still an enjoyable visit - great weather, and the area along the Frio River is beautiful no matter what color the leaves are. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
These images are almost a year old, but I just now finally got around to working on them. Last November I went up to Longview and made arrangements to go out on the lake for both sunset and sunrise. I had hoped to catch some remnants of fall color, but when I got there it was obvious I was a couple of weeks late. I was also plagued with boring blue skies, and knew pretty much as I was shooting that the images out on the open part of the lake were going to be a bust. But trawling through the back-channels during the latest (and earliest) parts of the day, we did have some interesting light; and I hoped there would be something salvageable from the trip.
When I got home I shelved the Caddo images of favor of other more promising stuff, meaning to come back to them at some later date. But I never seemed to get around to it, and kept putting them off. Finally this week I decided to take a look. Without the fresh disappointment of not getting the images I originally hoped for, I found there were some possibly interesting images, even if they were different in style from what I first wanted. I still want to catch the peak colors there someday though... To view the images, click here or on the image above.
Time flies, it's been a full year since I've taken pictures of Cole and Noah. Scheduling and the weather finally cooperated and we were able to go over to the park for some pictures recently. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
This is the last of alpine scenery from our Eastern Sierra trip. These are from a handful of hikes we did in Viginia Lakes Basin, 20 Lakes Basin, and near Mammoth Lakes. 20 Lakes Basin in particular was fabulous, I could see spending a whole week exploring and photographing just in that area. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
It's nice when getting up at 4am actually pays off. After a week of getting up early only to be disappointed by cloudless skies at sunrise, I debated whether it was really worth the pre-sunrise trip to Mono Lake, since the photographic potential depends so much on having interesting skies and calm winds (for reflections). But I decided one more early morning wouldn't kill me, so I went and was treated to pretty much ideal conditions. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
We spent an afternoon at Bodie State Historic Park towards the end of our Eastern Sierra Nevada Trip. I didn't really know much about the place beforehand, except for the few pictures I'd seen on the web that all seemed to feature the same rusted out car. I didn't think the location would warrant spending any prime photographic hours (eg early/late); but we had some time to kill midday and decided to make the drive up. Even though the remaining ghost town represents a small portion of the town at its peak (a couple of fires wiped out many of the buildings), there was much more there to explore than I had expected. The few hours we spent there flew by, and I could definitely see spending more time there on a future visit.
In hindsight I wish I'd taken time to shoot some details and interiors (furnishings and other items are intact inside many of the buildings), but I got wrapped up in shooting the exteriors and the time slipped away from me. We got lucky with the weather. There were dark storm clouds just north/west of us; and while the rain stayed away, the clouds made for more interesting photography than I had any right to expect at that time of day. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
Still working on the images from our Eastern Sierra trip in July. While staying in Mammoth Lakes, we drove up to the high country in Yosemite National Park twice. The first time was to hike to Gaylor Lakes, and the second time we visited Olmstead Point and a few other stops along the Tioga Pass Road. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
While staying in Bishop, we visited the bristlecone pine groves in the White Mountains, which are the oldest living organisms on the planet (some over 4,000 years old). The upper Patriarch Grove is particularly impressive; I wish we'd had more time there, but we underestimated the drive time (count on at least 2hrs from Bishop). On the bright side, the storm that looked like it was headed straight for us during the drive up, broke up in time to make for some nice colors around sunset. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
Seems we didn't come back with very many pictures of 'us' this time, but here are a few. Heather actually took most of these, guess I need to take my share next time so you don't get stuck with a gallery of mostly pictures of me. :) To view the images, click here or on the image above.
I've started working on images from our trip to the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains in California earlier in July. The first set is from our time staying in the Bishop area. We got to do a couple of really nice hikes, I think Little Lakes Valley was quite possibly one of the most scenic hikes we've ever done. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
Here are a few images from my visit to New Mexico back in the spring. For some reason I never got around to posting them and kinda forgot about them until now. This is Aztec Ruins National Monument, which is a bit of misnomer since the ruins were actually built by the Anasazi just like most of the other ruins in the 4-corners area. We stopped by here to kill some time one rainy afternoon, when trudging back into the Bisti Wilderness wasn't really an option due to the weather. It turnedout to be a pretty interesting location. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
As previously mentioned here are some snapshots of Heather and I from our Oregon vacation. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
This is the last set of scenic images from our Oregon trip. The Columbia River Gorge was actually our first stop. This area has some of the most beautiful waterfalls we've ever seen. We spent 3 1/2 rainy days there and hiked several trails, including the Eagle Creek Trail which was spectacular (I'll post a few images from the trail along with some other snapshots later in the week). To view the images, click here or on the image above.
Here are the rest of the images from our stay on the coast, this time in black & white. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
The second half of our Oregon vacation was spent on the coast. We stayed in Lincoln City on the central coast for two days, then traveled a bit further north to Cannon Beach for the last two days. After mostly rainy weather for the previous several days, things started to clear up by the afternoon of our first full day on the coast, so the weather worked out to our adventage and was quite nice the rest of the week. To view the images, click here or on the image above.
