Colorado-Crested Butte and Curecanti

Clouds, Curecanti Recreation Area, Co.

A few more photos of my summer trip to Colorado.

Wildflowers, Mt. Crested Butte, Co.

Gothic, Co.

Aspens, Gothic, Co.

Aspens, Mt. Crested Butte, Co.

D.

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Fall is finally here

Footprints and maple leaves, Millstream Gardens, near Fredericktown, MO

I spent a nice weekend motorcycling around the Ozarks in search of the first signs of fall. This photograph sums up the trip. Looking at this photo gives me a very strong urge to break out the backpack and sleeping bag and hit the trail (any trail) for a few days. It was a whirlwind trip through some favorite places to see how the color was progressing. I'll probably head back to some of these spots again in the next week or two as the chlorophyll continues to dissipate.

I visited Millstream Gardens, Pickle Spring, Johnson's Shut-ins and Elephant Rocks. The problem with trying to cram so many places into basically an evening and the following morning is that you can't get the best light for everything (or even decent light for anything in my case). I was treating this as a scouting run, so I'll give the area the time it deserves on my next trip.

Some nice places to visit for fall color in Missouri:

• Pickle Spring Natural Area (near Farmington)
  
• Millstream Gardens Conservation Area (near Fredericktown)
  
• Johnson's Shut-ins State Park (near Ironton)
  
• Hickory Canyon Natural Area (near Farmington)
• Maple Woods Natural Area (in Gladstone)
  
• Current River (near Eminence)
  
• Wildcat Glades Natural Area (near Joplin)
  

More to come in the following days.

Johnson's Shut-ins, Black River, Reynolds Co. MO

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Colorado-Sand Dunes Part II

My dad and I arrived to a setting sun at the sand dunes after crossing a vast plain of farmland on our motorcycles. We could see the dunes in the distance after descending from a mountain pass, but it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to reach our destination. They loomed large on the horizon yet were deceptively far away. Speeds topped 100mph at times as we raced along deserted farm roads, passing seemingly endless fields of beets, potatoes and barley.



Our haste was rewarded by a nice sunset over the dunes. It is something that was hard to capture in a camera. The way the sun warmed the rim of the dunes for just a moment before slipping into night was beautiful. As mesmerizing as watching the famed green flash over the Florida Keys.



The campground at the park was full, so we were regrettably forced to stay at a private campground called "The Oasis." It was anything but. The roads to this pit of hell were so rough that a small passenger car got stuck. Everyone with the option had their transfer cases firmly locked in 4x4. And my dad and I were on fully-loaded street bikes. We have no business being in a gravel parking lot, and here we were doing some fairly gnarly off-roading on these "roads." The view from the tent in the morning turned out to be worth all the cursing, wailing and gnashing of teeth from the previous night.



Mule deer graze along the road to the dunes. One large male bounded along with me keeping a steady 35mph before suddenly cutting to the right, crossing my lane, skittering on slick hooves over asphalt, and disappearing into the brush. It would have made a beautiful video, panning along with him if I hadn't been so startled by it all. That is why I am not a wildlife photographer.



The sun just peeked over Sangre de Cristo mountains, skimming the dunes in clear morning light. It lasted for all of ninety seconds before being obscured by clouds and the morning's photography was done. We had a nice breakfast at the foot of the dunes along the pretty Medano Creek and watched as kids rode down the hills on snow sleds.

D.


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Castor River Panorama

As the Castor River passes through rural southeast Missouri, it carves a series of very small canyons known as "shut-ins". The shut-ins near tiny Fredericktown is a nice place to photograph. Clear cold rushing water, polished granite and towering pine trees give a nature photographer a lot to work with. The shut-ins here have a very cozy feel. Things are on a large scale, but being in the small canyon gives a sense of intimacy. Rather than searching for a grand vista, you are looking at smaller compositions. Panoramas are not the first thing that may come to mind when thinking "small and intimate" however it can be a good technique for fitting more into the frame than your lens will allow.

The top photo was a stitch of 7 images, but it does not have the super-wide panorama feel. I wanted to use the perspective effect of a 50mm lens, but couldn't fit the whole scene in one frame. So I tried digitally stitching 7 vertical frames together to get both the lens perspective that I wanted as well as the broadness of the scene. I could have backed up several yards, but then I would have had to deal with distracting elements in the foreground and background. Panos do not always have to be the grand sweeping vista.





Here is the attempt at the grand sweeping vista. A 180-degree pano. It really distorts the heck out of the river (which runs straight in this section), but I wanted to play around with how much a 16mm lens would distort at the edges as it was panned across a landscape. In photographs without straight lines, it can be tough to detect the distortion. Throw in a road or river or downed log and it becomes pretty apparent.


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Colorado-Great Sand Dunes

I had the chance to escape it all for a week of motorcycling in Colorado with my dad this summer. We made a loop from Colorado Springs to Fairplay, Gunnison, Montrose, Telluride, Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes, and back to Colorado Springs. Riding was definitely the focus of the trip while making photos was a distant second. We just wanted to have a good time riding the mountain roads, enjoying good food and each others company. Of course, we couldn't leave the cameras packed up forever. This is one of my favorite shots from the Dunes. We camped nearby and awoke as the first rays were beginning to lighten the sky. Packing up camp quickly, we hopped on our motorcycles and zipped down the road just as the sun raked across the dunes providing a stark contrast between the bright sand and deep shadows. The light only lasted a few moments until a cloud shifted and the rays were gone. The moment was over as quickly as it began. Why black and white? The photo looked OK in color, but taking away that distraction helped present the photo in a different dimension and brought out the lines and curves of the sand to the forefront. We spent more time photographing, but nothing really captured the feeling and sense of place as this first photo of the day.


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Ozark Sunrise

I stayed out all night making photographs and slept under the stars. Didn't even need a sleeping bag it was so pleasant. I woke as the first rays of steel gray predawn light pushed away the stars in the clear indigo sky. Slipping on my boots, I grabbed by camera bag which had been used as a pillow. Quickly hiking down the trail, I made my way to a wildfire watchtower and looked in the direction of the Current River, hidden nestled in the misty hills. The edge of the sun broke the horizon and I listened to pines sway gently beneath me.


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Rainy Days in Eminence

Blue Spring Natural Area

The forecast called for nothing but thunderstorms. A little rain has never bothered me and I actually enjoy photographing in a light shower. The colors of the leaves really pop, the forest becomes quiet and peaceful, and the creeks begin to really flow. But there can always be too much of a good thing... The plan was to meet up with a friend and fellow photographer, Matthew Taylor, for a couple days of photographing around the Eminence area. The photo list included Blue Spring, Alley Spring, Rocky Falls, Klepzig Mill and the Current River with a little lunch break fly fishing thrown in for good measure.

Blue Spring Natural Area, shown in the photo above, is a very beautiful little spot to walk around and photograph. The spring pond is very blue, some say the bluest in Missouri owing to the mineral content. The spring pond is 310 feet deep! A sign on the trail states that the Statue of Liberty's flame would still be 5 feet under water if submerged into the spring hole.

A different view of the spring pond. It really is that blue!

Next up was Alley Spring, home of the famous red mill house. I didn't even take a photo of the mill; it's been done so many times in so many different ways and to great effect. The spring pond is very pretty, though. We saw a muskrat swimming back and forth in the reflection of the famous red mill for 10 minutes, but of course we didn't have our long lenses. I trudged back to the car to get the 100-400mm and 500mm canon lenses, and only then did the muskrat decide he had had enough of us.

Alley Spring

The rain let up just long enough for me to sample some of the smallmouth bass fishing on the Jacks Fork River. A nice way to spend the lunch hour in between thunderstorms.

The next day I planned on visiting Rocky Falls. No luck. There was a wedding going on (in a torrential downpour), so I decided to head to another nearby favorite place: Klepzig Mill. Of course the road is barricaded and closed due to high water caused by said torrential downpour. I thought for a few minutes about just hiking the couple miles to the mill. As I was mulling over the options, a group of four backpackers started wading gingerly across the road toward us. They said that the rocky gorge at Klepzig was totally under water. [Commence pulling out hair.]

Plan C. Check out the views from the rocky heights of Peck Ranch, then swing back by the waterfall after the wedding dispersed. Unfortunately, I never made it to those rocky heights.

I've crossed this stream many many times without any problems. It only took a little water splashing up in the wrong place at the wrong time to kill my beloved Jeep. That's one way to end a photography trip, just not the way I had in mind. But what really gets me is that I never even had a chance to take a photo that day! Aarrggghhh!

All told, it was a decent weekend. Too much rain, but what can you do? Lots of photos, beautiful vistas, and good conversation. Here's hoping for better luck next time!

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Stars on Stegall Mountain

Hiking on the Ozark Trail in Missouri is one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend, and Stegall Mountain is one of my favorite spots on the trail. Stegall Mountain is on the Current River section of the OT in Shannon County, MO. This area is very rugged by Missouri standards, with lots of rolling hills, bluffs, spring rivers and cool valleys. I have hiked many, but not all, of the portions of the OT and this spot is a classic. The "summit" consists of a big granite glade with wildflowers, lizards, and abundant pine trees. The view is very pretty looking off towards the undulating hills of Peck Ranch. I have wanted to photograph the stars from this hilltop for quite some time. I took advantage of the new moon and clear skies this week to make my photograph. It was a pleasant night of stargazing, listening to coyotes call, and occasionally changing my camera battery for the 3-hour series of exposures. I watched the sun set and then started making my five-minute exposures as soon as I could just barely see the first stars start to appear. Canon EOS 1DsMK2, 16-35 lens, f/5.6, ISO 400, 35 five-minute exposures stacked in photoshop.



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Winter Weather

I took advantage of the snowfall in southern Missouri to grab my camera and hit the road for a couple of days. I went from Jefferson City to the southwest corner of Missouri and worked my way across the state heading east photographing the whole way. Snow-covered bison at Prairie State Park, fly fishing at Capps Creek, pine covered hills in the Ozarks. It was great. Amazing how a bland landscape can come alive in the snow. This is just a sampling from the trip. More winter photos to come in a few days. I took this at Klepzig Mill, which is a little gorge on the Current River section of the Ozark Trail. Great place to stop and cool your feet (in the summertime!), picnic, and camp.



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