Category Archives: landscape

South Dakotasaur

South Dakota dino

Well… it was a pretty grey trip to the Black Hills. It was either raining or about to rain for four straight days. I still hold to my previous statement that the area is beautiful even in bad weather but, when you’re selling stock to travel publishers, most people like to see sunshine. Oh well. I did get some shots that I like that I’ll post here soon but I’m starting off with the dino sculpture that I ran across on Saturday while driving the length of South Dakota — just as the skies were beginning to break.

Wouldn’t you know it. Blue skies for the drive home.

Holland… Michigan, that is

Windmill in Holland, Michigan

Just back from a few days shooting in the Holland, Michigan area. What a beautiful place! The tulip festival was the previous week but the blooms were still holding up. Clouds would roll in and out but clear skies were always there when needed. This is Holland’s Windmill Island complete with an authentic Dutch windmill, moved here in the 1960s.

I’m heading into one of the busiest shooting seasons that I can remember and I probably won’t have another full day in the office until sometime in the latter half of June. Fun stuff ahead — I’ll post whenever possible.

Hitting the road (again)

kansas road

I’ve been slacking on my posting duties lately due to… well… my slacking. It’s been busy, too. Not going to complain about that.

So, tomorrow morning I’m off for a week of shooting in Michigan. Should be a blast. I’ll post if I can reform my slacking ways.

Oh, and an update on my Alamy goal for May 1st? Yeah. I didn’t meet it. What are ya gonna do. Still… I made progress and that’s something. Sales have been up, my click through rate has been around twice the Alamy average. Again… I’m not going to complain.

Nose to the grindstone. You do what you can do. And the client work always comes first.

Off to the lake!

Land of Enchantment

sandia peak

I’m back from New Mexico and once again wading through images. This was a great trip with a little of everything including snow that — while almost totally missing Albuquerque — managed to close highways to the north, east and south. This shot shows some of the remaining snow later in the day at the top of Sandia Peak on Albuquerque’s east side. Some of the warmth is coming from the setting sun and some from the oddly tinted glass of the tram windows.

Happy New Year!

Here it is, 2009. Where did the time go? 2008 was an amazing year for me, filled with plenty of travel — even though we swore we would cut back so that we could buy a new house. While we did buy a house, move, and sell the old one, we didn’t do a very good job of cutting back on the travel which made for a very busy, very hectic year. I even started traveling earlier than normal with a February trip to Banff:

Banff, Alberta, Canada

Hard to believe that was less than a year ago. That trip set a great tone for 2008. Truly an amazing destination. This year will begin with another amazing place and I’m starting 2009’s travel even earlier. The first week of February will find me in Egypt. The rest of the year is a mystery at this point but with a start like that I’m sure it will be a wild ride.

The past month has had me furiously processing the images from 2008. I normally don’t like to be more than one trip behind but I didn’t even come close this year. I’m now in shouting distance of being caught up and may be finished by the end of the weekend. I want to feed all of my stock outlets before I start the 2009 travel so I need to keep moving. The China trip has been fully processed and is already in the hands of one stock agency. Once I see what they accept, I’ll place the rest elsewhere. I’ll show more here over the next couple of weeks as well.

Enjoy the new year everyone! I hope it brings success, health and happiness to you all.

Winter

frozen pond

If anyone suffered retinal damage from the two previous, intensely-colorful posts, I’ll offer a couple of soothing, nearly-colorless images today. We’ve been getting some snow lately and yesterday morning there was also a light fog so I thought it might be a good time to get out and do some testing of the new equipment. The shot above was made with the full-frame Nikon D700 and the Nikkor 17-35 at 35mm. I’ll try not to keep saying this but it is soooo nice to have that lens back as it was intended. The cropped factor of the previous Nikon bodies reduced the 17mm end to the equivalent of a 25 — not nearly as fun and a real loss when it came to interior work.

trees in snow

This shot is from the D300 with the 24-120 kit lens that came with the 700. This will be my first lens with vibration reduction so it will be interesting to see how it fares. The image above was made at the long end of the zoom at 120mm, roughly equivalent to 180mm since it was on the cropped-sensor body. I’m looking forward to having a full-frame and cropped-sensor body as it really expands the range of the lenses I carry. I imagine I’ll keep a wide on the D700 most of the time and take advantage of the crop factor on the D300 to get that extra telephoto reach.

Election night

road

I’ve been off the grid for awhile so let’s catch up…

I spent Tuesday night (election night) in a great little log cabin in northwest Arkansas. This was my driveway. Yes, there was a TV. No there was not an antenna or cable — just a DVD player. Happily, there was a wifi network at the nearby lodge so I spent some time down there, watching returns and downloading email. One of the emails I received was an application for a visa for an upcoming trip to China.

Backing up a little further… I had received an invitation to a press trip in China on Friday and was asked to provide some information. I emailed that off and waited for the visa application to be sent to me. Sunday, I left for Arkansas but I took my passport along — just in case I needed to reference my passport number while I was away. Lucky I did, because I needed to send my passport to LA along with the application. I also needed to send a passport-style photo. A photo that I did not possess. This was Tuesday night. The package needed to be in LA on Thursday.

Thanks to a PR person I was traveling with, I was able to get directions off of his GPS to the nearest Post Office in Harrison, AR, where I could get a passport photo taken. I figured I could mail the package from there, too. I had already picked up an overnight envelope and postage when I was in Fayetteville earlier on Tuesday.

But wait… I also have to print out the application that I had received by email so that I could fill it out and include it in my package. Again the PR folks came to the rescue, arranging for me to gain access to the lodge’s office early the next morning to use their printer. Sweet.

The next morning I printed the document and excused myself from the press trip to make a run east, over to Harrison. It was fortunate that I had driven on this trip and not flown as I had my own car. Once at the Post Office, I had my photo taken and assembled the rest of the package. As the postal worker filled out his paperwork, he said, “Okay. This is guaranteed to arrive by 3:00 on Saturday.”

Saturday?

Turns out Harrison doesn’t have an airport so their “overnight” packages have to be driven to Little Rock. Time for plan B. Where’s the nearest Post Office that CAN deliver a package overnight? Fayetteville. The same Post Office where I had purchased the postage. Well west of my beginning point on Wednesday morning.

A call to my press group to let them know what was up and it was off to Fayetteville. I dropped off the package and headed back east to catch up with my tour. I finally arrived at Eureka Springs around 1:45, fifteen minutes before the next item on the itinerary and about 7 hours after leaving the cabin that morning. Whew!

And the trip to China? It begins next Saturday. Just seven days away now.

And I forgot to mention that I did manage to hear the election results on an AM oldies station in the cabin Wednesday morning. Obama’s win was announced right after they played a Carpenters’ song.