Logging Lake Backpacking
I spent 4 days backpacking in Glacier National Park in early August, along with 2 high school classmates and one of their sons. This was my first backpacking trip in Glacier and I thought I’d share some of what I experienced along with (as usual) a few photographs. Our planned route totaled about 26 miles over 4 days, visiting 3 campsites along Logging Lake and Grace Lake in the North Fork area of the park. Logging Lake is one of the least crowded areas in the park and also one of the easier hikes with no extended climbing. Both were good reasons to choose this itinerary!
Continue readingScouting in Grand Teton
I took the “long way” in July when I drove to my home in Montana so I could drive through Grand Teton and Yellowstone. I’ve been to Grand Teton a few times but never had a chance to photograph the mountains at sunrise – either because the weather was bad or because I wasn’t there first thing in the morning. On this trip I managed to get a campground reservation in the park which made it easy both to scout the area on the evening I arrived and get to my preferred location early the next day. I was also treated to some visitors while photographing the scene.
Continue readingFly Geyser and Bonus Stars
I recently made a day trip from the Bay Area to Gerlach, Nevada which is famous for hosting Burning Man each year but is also the home of Fly Geyser. I had wanted to photograph in this area for a while, but it was on private property and permission to access was difficult or impossible to obtain. The property was eventually purchased by the Burning Man Project and tours are now available through the Friends of Black Rock High Rock. At this time, tours are offered on Saturday mornings and evenings and I booked an evening tour in the hopes of getting some good late afternoon light.
Continue readingSouthwest Winter
I had been planning a trip to the area around Moab, Utah with my friend Alejandro Velarde for a while. I had been there several years ago on a very short visit and was looking forward to spending more time exploring this beautiful area. Our main goals were to get a good shot of Mesa Arch (above) and to get some images of Monument Valley in winter conditions. Our friend, Marcell Puzsar was able to join as well and we made the trip in early February, with 5 days and 4 nights to photograph. For those looking for a good time to visit these often crowded locations, this was a good one. Temperatures hovered around freezing and even popular locations like Delicate Arch and Mesa Arch only had a few other people around at sunrise and sunset.
Continue reading2022 Favorites
2022 was a very different photographic year for me as I actually captured far more images than usual with the vast majority taken over a two week period in early July. While I usually plan several trips for landscape photography during a year, my 2022 plans were based around my twice-delayed African safari in Botswana. You can also see that in the blog posts that I shared this year – virtually all of them were from that tip.
That said, I was able to take some images I enjoyed in California and Montana and hope that you enjoy them as well. Images are presented below in the order I captured them. I’ll also note that this is NOT a list of my ten “best” images from the year. I focus on my favorites – chosen either because I believe the image is particularly strong or because of the memories I associate with it. Best of lists have no room for memories!
Continue readingWildlife of Botswana Video
I did manage to shoot some video from my safari in Botswana and pulled it into a short movie. Please check it out!
For anyone that is curious, I captured video with the same camera (Canon EOS R5) as I used for my still photos. I have it set up to record in 4K, although I tend to edit down to 1080p in processing. I process each individual clip in Photoshop, which allows me to make similar color and contrast adjustments that I would make in a photograph. I then brought the clips into Corel VideoStudio to assemble, add titles and add music.