Katmai Bears
I recently returned from a trip to Alaska, where my main goal was to photograph the Alaskan brown bears during the annual salmon run in Katmai National Park. First, to get this out of the way, grizzly bears are a sub-species of brown bears. The bears in Katmai are considered brown bears and not grizzlies. Per the park’s website the difference is somewhat arbitrary, but grizzlies don’t have access to coastal food sources (like salmon) and tend to be smaller.
Continue readingOne Day – Waving at Horseshoes
This is the second of my series of posts covering images taken within a single 24-hour period. In addition to the photos, I will include some of the travel, planning, and technical aspects of these trips. The first entry in the series covered a day around Banff, Canada on a winter day.
Today’s entry covers the morning of February 2, 2019 through sunrise the next morning. Trust me though, I am strictly adhering to my 24 hour rule for these posts. I made plans to visit the area along the Utah/Arizona border in early February with a friend. Our primary goals were to visit “The Wave” in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument as well as Horseshoe Bend near Page, Arizona.
Continue readingJordan and Egypt
Once Sandee and I committed to join a tour group in Israel, we knew we’d have to take advantage of having made the long flight and see some of the other amazing locations in the area. Petra was high on our list, both because it is relatively easy to get to from Israel and because it is such a unique and famous place. If you’ve seen “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” then you have seen Petra. As I started researching tours, I found a reputable company that offered a four day tour of Jordan and Egypt that included Petra, Wadi Rum, and Cairo. How could we resist?
Touring Israel
Sandee and I did an 8 day tour in Israel at the beginning of December. We don’t normally do tours as we generally prefer the freedom to explore at our own pace – sometimes even taking days to just relax. In this case we knew we’d have a much better experience having a guide and we had several friends coming along with us, so we took the plunge.
Our’s was a “Bible Experience” tour led by Behold Israel and it was extremely well run. They managed all lodging, transportation and food and all were excellent. Especially the food. We had a full time guide, driver and bus and were joined though most of the tour by Amir Tsarfati who provides great information from both Jewish and Christian perspectives and gave bible lessons from the sites we visited.
Continue readingSan Francisco Cityscapes for the New Year
From Twin Peaks
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is generally slow at work, giving me a chance to do a little photography. This year my wife was out of town visiting her sister so I shot a couple of sunsets in the far away city of San Francisco. OK, maybe it isn’t that far away. I just don’t go there very often!Continue reading
Favorites from 2018
I was very much blessed this year with the opportunity to visit some amazing places, including two “trips of a lifetime” with my wife. I had the chance to spend time in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt along with making a few day trips to Yosemite (my local national park).
This left me with an overabundance of images to choose from for my annual list of favorites. I wanted to include images from a variety of the places I visited, so some photographs I really like have been left on the cutting room floor. Such is life. So here are my choices, presented in the order they were taken.
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