There’s not too much to tie these images together other than that they were all shot on the same day in Wichita, Kansas. Started off the morning with a little wildlife outing, managed to find myself in the awesome Donut Whole and finished things off seeing the flames lit at the Keeper of the Plains. There was much more in between, but it was really kind of a typical day in the life of a travel photographer. Never time to get bored.
The Wichita Art Museum and Botanica are neighbors, sitting across Museum Boulevard from Old Cowtown Museum (see the previous post) along the Arkansas River in Wichita, Kansas. These were two more stops on my first morning visiting Wichita last week and both were a feast for the eyes.
I hadn’t seen Botanica’s new Chinese Garden of Friendship yet, so that was a nice surprise. The Wichita Art Museum is undergoing construction as well, although it is limited to creating new outdoor spaces. The interior galleries can be still be visited as usual.
Last week I attended a meeting of the Central States Chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers. That’s not unusual for me — I attend a fair amount of SATW functions — but this time things were a bit different because we were meeting in my home state of Kansas. It was a lot of fun hanging out in places I have known since I was a kid with a bunch of people that I’m normally with in much more exotic locations like Fiji, Thailand, Iceland, Egypt, etc.
One stop during the tours that were a part of this gathering was the Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita. I’ve tread the wooden sidewalks here many, many times but it was different this time, seeing the familiar with others who had not seen it before.
I’ll follow this post up with more featuring other stops that our group made in Wichita and up through the Kansas Flint Hills to Manhattan, ending with a stunning final night at the Symphony in the Flint Hills near Strong City.
Lots keeping me busy these days — most of which is either not-very-interesting visually, or I’m not able to share until publication. Busy, nonetheless. And occasionally distracted enough by the “song” of these little buggers that only come by once every 17 years to get out and try and make a picture of one.
I do my best to keep on top of all of my stock photography sales, but every agency reports a little differently. I recently received a quarterly report from one agency covering the period of November 2014 through January 2015. As I entered the images into my tracking report, I noticed a larger number than usual were shot in Germany. That same day, I spotted two sales of Germany images on my Alamy account — which I can check online daily.
You never know how much to read into these reports, but I do like to look for trends of which country’s images seem to be most in demand at any given time. These past few months have been the best for my Germany images by far. I look forward to seeing if the trend continues.
The images I’m featuring here are not necessarily the ones that were on this report, but it seemed like a good excuse to dig back into my files from Germany and share a few favorites. Above are two from Leipzig, and here are some teacups on display in the Grassi Museum — also in Leipzig:
And a couple from beautiful Dresden:
One more series from last month’s shoot in Phoenix, Arizona. Here are a few hiking/biking shots. Special thanks to good folks at Arizona Outback Adventures and Visit Phoenix for pulling everything together and being such great travel companions. You all are the best!
I recently had the chance to photograph two of America’s favorite pastimes: Baseball and Lucha Libre wrestling. Well, maybe that second one is only in certain parts of America, but it should be embraced nationwide. I love it.
First, a little spring training…
And now, for comparison, let’s take a look at the Lucha Libre action at the Glendale Park and Swap on Phoenix’s West Side. Nothing against baseball, but you tell me which looks like a more exciting way to spend an evening…
I consider myself to be fairly well-traveled — especially within the United States — but, even so, there are a few top-tier destinations that have eluded me for no good reason. The Grand Canyon has been one of those until last month. It had become almost embarrassing to admit that I had never seen it but now I can put those days behind me.
Statistics show that the average visitor spends very little time in the park — like as little as an hour, with maybe only a few minutes at an actual overlook. While I didn’t spend a huge amount of time there either, I did beat the average and actually got to see the canyon from the air, from the perspective a trail, and I photographed both a sunset and sunrise from the rim. Not bad for a first visit, but I’d happily return for much, much more. I feel I barely scratched the surface, and that is probably an overstatement.
Sunset:
Sunrise:
I’ve been woefully neglect in my posting here on the ol’ blog, but it’s not for lack of shooting. I’ve accumulated plenty of images over the last few weeks that will provide all kinds of fodder for the blog, I just need to kick myself back into the habit of posting. Sorry! There really is more on the way — and soon. Until then, here’s a colorful bike I saw at the uber-cool Graduate Hotel in Tempe, AZ a couple of weeks ago. Am I the only one it reminds of Mondrian?
I took advantage of a warm(ish) day yesterday to scout around northeastern Kansas and make some photos with Doug Stremel. The “breeze” picked up as the day wore on and our 55-degree day ended up closer to freezing with a wind that could knock you down in an instant. At least we got some images — and were finally able to revisit a remote church we stumbled across on an earlier trip back in April of 2011.
