Ann & Dan’s Excellent Adventures
On Photography
“Photography, itself, became for me a new landscape.” Paul Caponigro
On this day of giving thanks, I want to give thanks to photography. Naturally I am ever thankful for Ann, my family, friends, the wonderful world I live in and my great fortune to have the life I am able to live. But this week my mind has been on how thankful I am for what photography has given to me over the years and continues to give.
Phase 2 - Of Goblins, Hurricanes and Devils, Part 1
Our morning photographing the aspens of the Pando Forest had been superb. It was time to start the second phase of our trip, which would take us to the more desert-like environs to places we’ve been to before, places we haven’t, and new routes in-between. In our planning, this was the part of the trip where we were supposed to stay in one general location for at least a couple of nights at a time so that we could explore an area deeper before moving on. Well, that was the concept at least! The best-laid plans of mice and men . . . .
More November Adventure - Four Images and One I Regret Not Making
On the third day of our November adventure, I thought about something that struck me during our fall trip (like, whenever someone would walk up next to our tripods and press the shutter of their DSLR, which was in sports rapid fire mode so they would fire off 20 or so images within a couple of seconds and then just walk away). Compared to a lot of photographers, I don’t make a lot of images when I go out. That doesn’t mean I don’t make a lot of exposures (I habitually take at least 3 frames of each image that I want to photograph - a habit from my film days when a film holder could have a light leak or a negative could get scratched when being processed). And, of course, if I’m photographing moving water I make a lot of exposures just to get the timing and texture of the water right. But in the end, I often don’t make that many different images in a day, even if I’ve been out photographing for several hours. Sunday I made 4 images, though I should have made 5 and even made a test image for that last one. I’m going to show you all of them!
Interlude - Phoenix Buttress
Well, things have gotten so hectic lately that Ann and I are on another photo trip long before I’ve finished the 2018 Grand Fall Adventure posts. I promise I’ll get back to them, but given I’m sitting in a time-share with the photographs I’ve taken from this morning on my laptop, I figured it would be better to share a blog post with you now than to hold off and keep things in sequence. So here are some images I took Saturday morning of Phoenix Buttress at Smith Rocks State Park.
Phase 1 - Of gorges, aspens, canyons and snot. Part 2
It was dark the next morning when we got up and, given that we’d camped at an even higher 9,500 feet elevation, very cold. After donning our long johns and brewing a pot of coffee to help warm us up, we made the short drive over to where we’d hoped to photograph in the morning. Clouds had started rolling in, so we had a mix of cloud cover and starry skies waiting for us as we set up for our first photographs of the morning. Even then, we had to wait around a bit as the sun approached the horizon before we could make our first images of the day.
Printing the Image - 2018.10.28 Aspens
Ann and I are still recovering from our 2018 Grand Fall Adventure. And while I managed to make time to watch El Classico (Barcelona won 5-1 - even without Leo Messi!), the weekend was a full one as Ann and I worked through our post-trip recovery checklist to get everything ready for our next adventure - whenever that winds up being. So after the camera cleanings, and Beast’s bath, and a quick visit to visit mummy, the only thing that was left was to run a couple of prints through the printer and hope that having a 5-week break hadn’t clogged our printer head. Fortunately, it didn’t.
Phase 1 - Of gorges, aspens, canyons and snot. Part 1
Our first day of the trip was, in a single word, uneventful. Which is what you want when you pretty much have a full day of driving to do. We were on vacation and decided that warranted a side trip on day one to Cinders Cafe in Klamath Falls - a detour of about an hour, plus eating time. Later that day, Yelp let us down for dinner, but my pre-trip scouting for a dispersed camp site was successful and we nabbed a lovely spot on BLM land in Water Canyon just south of Winnemucca, Nevada for our first night’s campsite. Willie Nelson definitely has it right, it was great to be back on the road again.
We're Back!
After a full month on the road, we’ve finally made it back! It was a strange feeling to drive over the Willamette Pass and head towards home given that “home” had been Beast for the previous thirty days. I liken it to my first trips back from Iraq, where everything seemed both familiar and alien at the same time. We got back on Saturday afternoon and by Sunday both Ann and I asked each other, “Can we just take off and get back on the road?”
Ann and Dan's Grand Fall Adventure - Beast!
Ann and I hit the road this morning on our 2018 Grand Fall Adventure, but we’d be remiss to not blog about Beast as the adventure begins. She’s our traveling companion (along with Jack) and then some. Without her, we wouldn’t be going anywhere. Well, at least not in the style to which we’ve become accustomed. And since we haven’t really done a good walk around/through of Beast, it’s about time we do just that. Face it, Beast is going to be our off-road mobile home for the next month. That and the fact that Ann and I never pass up an opportunity to show her off!
Join Us On Our Adventure!
As is too often the case, the weekend before our trip found us as busy as ever. I wound up having to work, at least part of the day, while getting things ready for our trip. While I was busy working on a LUBA brief, Ann was doing her magic to figure out not ONE, but TWO ways for you to follow us during our journey - without me even having to blog about it during the trip! Read on to see how to join Beast, Jack, Ann and me on our 2018 Grand Fall Adventure!
32 Minutes
A few weeks ago I was going through some older images from our trip to Bryce Canyon back in 2015. As I looked at the images I realized that several of them made a nice example of what happens to light on the edges of the day - in this case sunset - and why Ann and I try to photograph during those periods. It’s also a lesson on why patience and waiting can be so valuable with photography. So here’s how much the light can change in 32 minutes!
Ann and Dan's Grand Fall Adventure - Gear Edition
If you haven’t explored our website and found the “Gotta Get the Gear” video - STOP - you should head over to the MORE on the top menu bar and go to the OUR GEAR dropdown menu link and watch the Portlandia - Get the Gear video (linked page - so you don’t even have to navigate there). It explains everything. Well, pretty much everything about the next two posts. Now that you’ve done that, let’s talk about the camera gear and back-up solutions Ann and I will be using this trip.
Dodging a bullet!
WARNING! If you’re the type of person who gets queasy looking at injured body parts, you should seriously consider not continuing and, instead, wait for the next blog post. Really, you should. Now, if you’re the kind of person who is likely to say, “Heck, that’s nothing, I was hoping to see a compound fracture with the bone sticking out of the skin!” then you might as well read on. You’ve been warned.
Ann and Dan's Grand Fall Adventure - Where in the hell are we going?
As we mentioned quite a while back, our strategy this year has been to take a series of long-weekend trips throughout the year so we could save up for one, month-long, grand adventure in the Fall. Well, Fall is coming and it’s time to start spilling the beans about what is going to be our adventure for the months of September and October. What better way to start than by discussing where in the world we’ve decided to go - subject to change of course!
2018 August Adventure - Family Time
Our August adventure was somewhat different than our others this year, it was more about family than about photography. And though there was still some of that, it was still an adventure and well worth documenting.
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