High Falls, Rocks and Water: Dealing with the conditions at hand and having back-up equipment!

I made this image of High Falls in Tettegouche State Park on a trip to the North Shore Region of Minnesota. I had hoped to photograph some spectacular fall colors, but as it turned out I was late by about a week as a large wind storm had brought down most of the leaves. I traveled to Minnesota primarily to attend the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America that was held in Minneapolis this year, so I wanted to take advantage of the travel and do some photography after the meeting. The North Shore region along Lake Superior north of Duluth is spectacular, and I headed first to Gooseberry Fall State Park where I previously had photographed a Summer solstice sunrise over Lake Superior. As I prepared for a sunrise from the rocky shore and was setting up my tripod low in front a pool I had hoped to get a nice reflection of color in, a moment of in-attention resulted in a bit of a disaster! As I turned to get my cable release from my pack, my tripod with my Nikon D700 and 14-24 lens tipped over and crashed into the shallow pool. Not a good feeling as I quickly pulled it out, but the damage was done. The result was a large scratch in the middle of the front element of the lens and a wet camera body. Not good,and I thought well there goes the trip!. Fortunately I had my D300 along as a backup, but my only other wide angle I had with me with was a 24mm TS-E that has a 36mm field of view on the D300. With this combination I would not be able to photograph the real wide angle shots with prominent elements large in the foreground I love to compose. Oh well, sometimes photographers have to just deal with the situations and conditions they are presented with. So traveled a bit farther north to Tettegouche SP, and ended up a having a great couple of days concentrating on images and compositions that worked with the equipment I had and did not lament the real wide angle compositions I could not make.
This image of High Falls (the highest waterfall in Minnesota) was made using the 24mm Tilt -Shift, which given the composition I extracted actually worked well. The moral of this story for all photographers is 1: pay attention to the stability of your tripod; 2, have a second camera body as a back-up; and 3 see and extract the compositions that can be made with the equipment you have!

High Falls in Tettegouche State park, Minnesota

September Print of the Month : Canyon Autumn, Zion NP

The print of the month for September 2011 will be Canyon Autumn, an image I made in Zion National Park.

I am looking forward to Fall Colors in Colorado and then on a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in October!

Enjoy!

June Print of the Month: Spring Aspen Grove

The June 2011 Print of the Month will be Spring Aspen Grove, an image I made in the Kebler Pass Aspen forest last Spring:

Dawn light filters into a Spring aspen grove, Colorado

May 2011 Print of the Month: Mothers Love

I am pleased to announce that the May 2011 Print of the Month will be Mothers Love, an adorable image of a mother prairie dog and two of her young ones photographed in Wichita Mountains NWR, Oklahoma!

Soft Light: Wonderful for the Intimate Landscape: New Tapestries of Grass

I spent last weekend photographing down on the Medano-Zapata Ranch looking for signs of Spring! As is often the case in Colorado, the weather was very variable and ranged from rain and snow to bright sunshine. Saturday afternoon I found myself wandering in one of the meadows near the Zapata lodge looking for intimate compositions of grass and sedges. The soft cloudy light was perfect and I captured a number of images that I am including in my on-going series of Tapestries of Grass Images.

If you are interested in photographing and exploring the Medano-Zapata Ranch I will be offering a Photography Workshop there this Summer on August 25-28. Please Contact Tess (tess@zranch.org) or 719-378-2356 (x 110) for more information and to register.

Print of the Month

To celebrate the coming of Spring I have decided to start a Print of the Month feature and offer a discount price on a matted signed print in two sizes, 11×14 and 16×20. Each month I will offer a new image selected from old and new releases. For the first image in honor of Spring I have selected my Spring Corn Lilies image , made last year near Kebler Pass in Colorado. Check it out and order here on my Print of the Month page

Corn Lilies grow in a mountain meadow in Colorado

Winter Colors,Textures and Patterns: Frosty Trees and Grass

This gallery contains 6 photos.

On a recent trip returning from Kansas I had a very  productive day photographing frosty grass and trees. The earth toned colors of the grasses combined with heavy frost and ice on the grass and bare tees made for some … Continue reading →

The Magic of Bosque del Apache: Sandhill Cranes

For my first Blog post of the new year, I want to share some images I made at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. For the last 4 years I have been making the Winter pilgrimage to this special place to photograph the amazing bird life that winters there, particularly the fabulous Sandhill Cranes. I spent 4.5 days there between Christmas and New Years and was lucky to have excellent conditions with lots of birds and wonderful light on several mornings. Photographing birds in flight is never easy, particularly when you are trying to get artistic compositions that do not have distracting elements.On this trip I managed to make a number of pleasing images that I am happy with. So to start out the new year here are the fabulous Sandhill Cranes of Bosque del Apache:

My top ten “best” images from 2010

As the year comes to a close it is always nice to to reflect on and review images I have made during the year. I was very blessed this  year with many photographic trips and opportunities, foremost being the amazing experience  I had in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Spurred on by Jim Goldstein’s call to photographers to  submit a ” top 10 best list” for a blog project, I have been scouring my files to narrow it down. Trust me this is not easy as I have added several hundred images to my worthy of printing category, and I seem to have an attachment to all of them.  So here is what I came up with in no particular order. Every one of them spoke to me. Some I have blogged about during the year and some are new ones you have not seen. I hope you enjoy them!

A Winter lenticular cloud forming over the Sangre de Cristo Range, CO

Corn Lillies grow in a mountain meadow in Colorado

Dawn light filters into a Spring aspen grove, Colorado

Caribou antlers on the tundra, ANWR

Peaks of the Brooks Range reflect in a tundra pond, ANWR

A bull Musk ox and a cloud of mosquitoes,ANWR

Midnight light at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, ANWR

Early morning light on Denali, “the high one” , Denali NP, AK

Flint, a wild stallion runs in the Pryor Mountains, MT

sedge meadows take on Fall colors along a stream flowing into Antero Reservoir, CO

Dawn glow on the horizon over the lake at Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area, KS

If you want to see more you can check my top 20 favorites on my Flickr site

Happy Birthday to ANWR

Today December 6, 2010  marks the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As I posted in an earlier blog entry my visit there this past  Summer  with  my friend Carl Donohue of Alaskan Alpine Treks had a profound effect on me. Bluntly stated, it needs to be preserved and remain untouched by oil and gas extraction.  It would be wonderful if President Obama would make ANWR a National Monument. It certainly deserves it.  It truly is a special place. I have  include a few more images, and  if you would like to see more  you can go to my ANWR Gallery on Photoshelter.