I have to apologize for today’s blog post. I have a couple of rather lengthy posts in the works, but things have not panned out as planned, so they’re not quite ready yet. Instead, you get some thoughts I had after I’d sent Len an image in one of our photo swaps. I decided to look at a series of images made of essentially the same subject over a 35-minute period in Goblin Valley State park. I made other images in-between these, but I kept turning back to this subject because of the incredible light show it was providing.

Delving into some of my other photographs from West Yellowstone I came across some images from my point-and-shoot taken from one of our initial “scouting” trips and became captivated by them. In some ways, they were much better than many of the images I took earlier that day with my “real camera.” That’s as good a reason as any to develop them a bit further.

I did another one of those “pick a date and see what’s there” exercises and while I must admit I was greatly disappointed by what I found (sometimes the photographs aren’t nearly as great as the experience), I forced myself to go back and carefully look at the images. I’m glad I did.

I’ve returned to working on more of my images from last Fall’s trip. This time, I decided to select a folder that only had a date, unsure of what precisely lie within, to choose my images to develop and then post. I was surprised at what I found - material enough for two posts! One post I knew I would do the day I was photographing the images (the subject of the next post), but the other set (this post) came as a surprise.

Things don’t always pan out the way you hope. Especially when it comes to a creative endeavor. SPOILER ALERT: you’ll find no flashes of brilliance in this blog post. On the positive side, there are more photographs than the last one, and a lot fewer words! So come join us at one of the most incredible landscapes we’ve come across.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about photography lately as I work my way through last year’s fall trip images (hard to think that it’s been over a year). This is the first of two posts, if things work out, thinking about what is landscape photography and am I a “landscape photographer.”

Sometimes you have to work to find an image. Other images, well, they slap you across the face, screaming to be made. Kind of like Tommy Lee Jones (Agent K) in Men in Black, screaming to the giant cockroach “Eat me! EAT ME!!!!” Except in my case, it’s, “Shoot me, shoot me!!!” Today’s image is one of the latter.

Given the tension of the past few days, I decided to select a simple image that will hopefully bring some stillness to your lives, if even for only a few moments. As Charlie, Joe and probably a million other photographers have said, “What photographer can resist a good tree?” I know I can’t.

No, Ann and I haven’t managed to get out for a serious photo session in Portugal, but that doesn’t keep us from drawing on old themes for a blog post. This one comes from last Fall’s trip to Goblin Valley State Park in Utah, a place you really should visit if you’re ever out that way.

I guess I’m working my way backwards through last year’s fall trip. This time it’s a couple of images from pretty much the middle of nowhere. It’s the perfect example of why Ann and I love to overland and to photograph. While the iconic locations in the US are undeniably beautiful, so can be the vast expanses in-between. These images come from the latter. The advantages to these in-between areas is there are fewer people around to ruin your images!

During my mini-vacation from work to complete unpacking, I also took a bit of time to do some things for myself. As you might have guessed, that involved looking at and working on photographs. So here’s the first of what I hope are many to come of my return to photographs posts.