Today marks ten years to the day that I sent out my first photography blog post! On December 4, 2013 I created my (then) new website and sent out the first blog post from a trip I did to Joshua Tree National Park. I didn't have any grand aspirations. I wasn't looking to build an audience of thousands. I just wanted a better way of sending out occasional photographs to a handful of friends.
And over time, I used the monthly blog post as a way to force me to create more photographs locally, rather than only when I traveled to National Parks or other far away places. And for many years it worked... Each month, I would wander around nearby places and see things in a fresh way and create a meaningful photograph. I still did great trips to National Parks. But I also did more photographic work locally.
And then I retired. And somehow became even busier than when I was working! My photography has suffered a little... I don't devote nearly as much time to creating images as I did in the past. But, things ebb and flow and I'm sure I'll find a way soon to balance photography with all the other things we're doing.
The image above is from a recent trip to Glacier and Banff National Parks. It's also a complete lie and fake. No, not the color of the water. It truly was that magical shade of brilliant blue-green. But the peaceful and remote feeling you get looking at the image is a complete lie. For anyone who has ever been to Lake Louise in Banff NP, you know that I was surrounded by hundreds of tourists, babies in strollers, teens taking selfies for Tik Tok, a chinese choir group singing on the south shore... with a five star resort right behind me. It's a beautiful sight to see... but I prefer much quieter places!
Thanks for sticking around these last ten years. And to ten more!
We awoke to a perfectly sunny, clear autumn day outside Glacier National Park. This was the first day of our trip and I couldn't wait to get up into the mountains. I could see the majestic peaks rise up quickly in the distance and they got even more impressive as we drove toward the park. But I noticed something else too... some clouds in the middle of the peaks. Probably nothing to worry about.
But the persistent cloud shelf wouldn't leave... in fact it got larger. And as we drove up Going To The Sun Road I started to think the National Park Service had the wrong name for this road. Sure, they had a hundred years of experience in the park and this was my first day... but I was certain I knew better... this road should have been called Into The Clouds Road!
We gained altitude as we gained distance and it started to get brighter... and brighter. The layers of mountain peaks in all directions were revealing themselves as the clouds and fog thinned out. And as we continued gaining altitude, we emerged above the clouds. The tallest peaks stuck out of a bright white foggy floor... thousands of feet above sea level. It was time to make some photos!
Things started changing quickly. Even though we stopped moving, the landscape changed before our very eyes. Light rays shone though thinning fog... unseen pine trees suddenly became visible... and the foggy floor high above the valley started breaking up. I made many images, but this is the one I liked the best. You can see the remnants of the fog and clouds that had earlier obscured the landscape causing me to think I knew more about this park than the National Park Service. Fortunately, they knew better than me!
Sometimes you are simply at the right place at the right time. All the planning in the world is of no help. When weather changes as frequently as it does in Newfoundland, it is hard to conceive of an image in advance and then go try to make that image. Sometimes you need luck... and you need to be at the right place at the right time.
It was a little past eight o'clock after a long day of hiking. We were driving back to our cottage in Rocky Harbour when we saw the sky start to light up. And... we had just driven past a scenic overlook. What luck!! We made a u-turn and zipped back to the parking lot of the overlook. I worked quickly to get the camera and tripod set up since the light was changing fast. I made several attempts and liked the image above the best of all.
At first we had the place to ourselves, but slowly a few more cars had the same luck we did. They were at the right place at the right time too. They quietly joined us and we all watched the light show eventually fade into early evening.
This is the last of the Newfoundland images I will share on the blog. Please visit my Newfoundland Page to see more images (you'll see Puffins!). I hope you enjoyed this "trip" to Newfoundland as much as we did! We recently came back from a trip to Glacier NP and Banff... so I hope that is what you will find in the next blog post.
Twelve days and not a single clear morning for sunrise photography. Twelve days and very few clear evenings for sunset photography. The weather in Newfoundland was very changeable and rendered all advanced planning almost useless. On my photography trips, I meticulously plan sunrise and sunset photography locations. Everything else is secondary... eating, sleeping, even bathing! It all happens only if time permits and only after the sunrises and sunsets.
We met our match with the Newfoundland weather. But we adapted and it turned out to be great weather! We had some beautiful periods of sunny skies. We had fog. We had clouds and even a short period of rain one day. What we learned was that each day would start off with fog or clouds, turn sunny by late morning, then cloud up again toward sunset. And on very few evenings, we would be treated to about five or ten minutes of absolutely magical sunset light.
In the case of the photograph above, we were on Cape Bonavista when the sunlight broke through a small gap in the evening clouds and lit up the coast with incredible golden light. I was literally running from spot to spot to get the right composition before the light faded. One hundred yards behind me and across the road, Marilyn and Rich were watching whales put on an amazing show... breaching, diving, blowing air and water and simply playing in front of an appreciative audience. The light faded quickly and my work was done, so I joined Marilyn and Rich and watched the whales enjoying their evening of fun off the coast.
I'll probably share one or two more photos from our trip. Newfoundland is not a place that many people know about. And hardly anyone has it in their top locations to visit. But it should be... it was simply beautiful. We will go back. For sure.
I've always been fascinated by extremes. If a place is described by a word ending in "est" it grabs my attention and almost begs me to see it! Tallest, driest, hottest, furthest, highest... these are some of the words that describe places that appeal to me.
While planning our trip to Newfoundland, I found out that it has a location that is the furthest east in North America. I had to see it. Cape Spear is a section of rocky coast on the eastern edge of Newfoundland. The sun's light touches this rocky coast before any other land in all of North America. And what a beautiful place!
We hiked for six miles along a thousand foot high barren headland along the coast... through small stands of stunted pines... over boardwalks through boggy marshy fields with granite outcroppings... alongside carnivorous pitcher plants... and more.
We saw humpback whales swimming in the waters below... breaching, feeding, and blowing air as they reached the surface of the water. We sat at North Head Point and just enjoyed the magnificent views and sounds all around us. Definitely one of my favorite hikes in all the places I have been. And we finished the day with five minutes of magical golden sunlight on the Cape Spear Lighthouse as the sun slipped out from under the clouds before dropping below the horizon.
We recently returned from a twelve day hiking and photography trip to Newfoundland. It was a fantastic trip through a rugged landscape, charming coastal villages, with warm and welcoming people. I'll have some more images to share as I review them to find the best.
This blog post is coming to you on the summer solstice... the beginning of summer and the longest day of the year. Unfortunately this also means the days will be getting shorter from now on! :(
Equally momentous is the fact that I was out in the landscape with my camera for the first time in a very long time. I spent a couple days on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay near the Blackwater area. I have been here several times and it is one of my favorite places to visit... flat, wide open, marshy areas with lots of wildlife... and hardly any people.
Those grand, wide open, flat marshy scenes require great light and interesting skies in order to make worthwhile images. And if you live in the northeast, you know we have had terrible hazy white skies almost all spring because of the wildfires in Canada. Hazy white skies are about the worst you can have if you are trying to make good photographs.
Luckily, the smoke does something else. It partially obscures the sun and gives a warm, orange glow to the land at sunrise. So, with a wake-up call at 4:45am, I went to my favorite place on Maple Dam Road and started looking. After some time, I found the right combination of color, sky, water, and trees. While the Jeep was parked on one half of the road, I set up the camera and tripod on the other half and created this image that I really like. It conveys how quiet the morning felt as the sun slowly rose through the smoke filled skies.
It felt good to be out there again. I have a couple more trips planned and some other nice images from Blackwater. So... there just might be some regular monthly blog posts coming again!
Why not? I had never been to a real live auction in my life. I’ve heard the stories and I had a good idea of what I thought it would be like, but I had never been to one. So when the sign went up on the property of a local farm saying the auction was next Wednesday at 9am, I thought… why not?
We arrived early and were surprised at the large parking lot in the field… with a separate area for trucks and trailers. We parked the Jeep among rows of huge pickup trucks and walked up the hill to where the machinery and farm equipment were on display. We immediately noticed the auctioneers in their black hats and coats and couldn’t wait for it to start. People greeted each other with warm recognition. Clearly we were the outsiders here… the only ones in sneakers and the only ones with a camera. Once the main auctioneer started with his sing-song melodic voice, the reality matched what I imagined auctions to be. It was a great way to spend a couple hours on a Wednesday morning.
Click on this link to see seven more images. And be sure to click on the button with some background audio while viewing the photos.
For regular followers of my newsletter, you will obviously see this is very different from the photographs I normally create and share with you. As you know, my pickleball addiction has caused me to spend much less time creating new landscape images. But it has done something else as well. It has provided a break and allowed me to experiment with other kinds of photography. And this has brought back some of the excitement in making images again. Who knows if this is a real change in direction or just a temporary experiment. Either way, its been fun!
"Just another sunset"... that was the reaction I got from a friend when I previewed this image. Now I know he was joking, but it really got me thinking. Are we that jaded with images showing special moments in nature that we don't even appreciate them anymore? Jaded means "lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something". Do we not get excited at a spectacular sunset image simply because we have seen so many highly saturated, over-processed sunset photos on Instagram, or Facebook, or the Internet? How about the real thing? Are we so flooded with photos that we don't even slow down the car when we see the real sunset?
I hope not! Each special moment is unique, and worth noticing. We can afford a few minutes to stop the car, or stop what we are doing, and witness the beauty in something as everyday as the sunset.
We were on the gulf coast of Florida visiting close friends when I created this image. Not only did we stop the car, but our friends purposefully made dinner reservations for thirty minutes after sunset so we would have time to stand on the beach and watch the sun sink below the horizon. And for the second day in a row, we were on the dividing line with clear skies to the north and clouds to the south... giving us this beautiful mix of clouds and sunlight and color that simply could not be seen anywhere else. At least fifty other people took the time to stand on the beach with us and watch the colorful ending to a beautiful winter day down south.
Thanks for bearing with me as I share just anther sunset photo. Maybe next month I'll get back to a more meaningful image! :)
Happy New Year Everyone!
Here is something a little different from my normal photographs. I've often noticed how street lights illuminate the bare trees of winter. The light source seems to change the physical shape of the trees by revealing some branches while others remain obscured by the dark of night. As you drive by in a car, the shapes change as your perspective changes.
I decided to make a few images to see if this might become a small project. I was pleasantly surprised by the first image I created a few nights ago. It looks mysterious and almost as if it's from a different world. I like how the trees just seem to fade away into nothing as you move further from the light. What is hidden in the dark world beyond?
The trees in the light seem to provide a line of defense against unknown forces. What are they protecting? Why are these trees so important that they are illuminated? Many questions, but no answers. (As a side note, I posted this image in a fine art photography group on Facebook. It received a very positive response and gained the "Editor's Applause" award for the week! There were many comments... most unique is that from a distance, the image looks like two animals engaged in a fight.)
Stay tuned. It may turn into an interesting small project. Or it simply may be one nice picture taken one warm winter evening. Either way... I'm using my cameras again!
That’s a curious title… isn’t this a picture of three trees? At first glance it is. And in our fast paced world, that is all most people will give this picture and even the real scene. A quick glance… “Oh, that’s nice”… and then move on. But when you slow down and let the picture sink in a little, you notice the larger gap between two of the trees. And once you see it, you cannot “un-see it”. It very clearly changes to a picture of two trees and one tree.
I had a little help in noticing this because I made several images of this scene over the course of several days. I was certain that I wanted a very clear sky with no clouds. I waited until we had two days of clear weather and went out at sunset on the first day to ensure a clear sky for the background. And, initially I thought I was making an image of three trees in an open field. And the first images were in fact three trees… with evenly spaced gaps between them. But on the last day, I changed my tripod location just a little, and the gap on the right opened up. And the picture, and story, completely changed.
I’ve often thought bare winter trees take on human shapes and emotions when you look at them long enough and let your imagination wander. With a little creativity, you might see two parent trees wishing their child tree well as she leaves to go who knows where. It’s a bittersweet scene… the parent trees are proud as they wave to their child. But she already has her back turned and is striding quickly into her future.
Yes, it’s just an imaginative story. But that story never gets created or told if I didn’t spend time shivering in a field at sunset on a cold winter day and move my tripod ten feet to the left.
It’s good to be back out in the field with my camera, with an excuse to notice the little things. I hope you are having a great holiday season and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Remember me? I used to go out hiking, spending quiet time in nature, capturing what I felt with my camera. I would then share these images with friends in a monthly blog post along with a sometimes humorous anecdote. Alas, that was before I succumbed to a pickleball addiction. I haven't sent out a new image in several months - only the second time I've missed a monthly post in nine years! And, to show how harmful this addiction is, it has spread to my wife too! Now we are both battling it! Maybe as the cold weather approaches it will ease up and I will get the chance to once again go out into nature and create some meaningful images. Fingers crossed.
In late October, Marilyn and I took a break from pickleball and went to Sedona with friends. This was a repeat visit to red rock country and it was a very enjoyable week - beautiful weather, great hiking, nice meals, and we attended the annual Plein Air Painting festival. We even did a couple side trips.
One excursion was a trip to Page Arizona to visit the slot canyons... Antelope Canyon to be exact. These slot canyons are incredible things to see. They are areas of Navajo sandstone eroded by flash floods and wind into twisted, multi-colored shapes. As the sun passes overhead, the light changes and the eroded canyons change constantly. Marilyn and I had been there seventeen years ago with our daughters. And while the canyons remained the same, the time certainly brought changes. It seems the crowds of people who discovered our National Parks and outdoor areas during Covid are still visiting these places... I wish they'd go back to their sofas and TV's so we can enjoy the outdoors with a little less crowds! :)
It feels good to share a new image with you all. Hopefully more good images to come as I get back out into the land with my camera.
One more image from our National Park trip in May. I haven't been out photographing much because I have a severe Pickleball addiction problem. They say the first step in solving the problem is admitting you have one. Maybe I do... maybe I don't. Is eight times a week for three hours each session a problem? Depends who you ask! Whether it's a problem or not, it does take up a lot of my time leaving little time left for photography. But I'm sure I'll get back out there with the camera sometime soon.
If you have followed this blog for awhile, you'll know I have a weakness for certain recurring themes... lone trees, rocks, desert canyon landscapes, etc. It's no surprise then that I couldn't pass up this image of a lone tree, in a desert canyon, surrounded by rocks! This image was made in Bryce Canyon at the end of a sunrise morning photo walk. It is such a beautiful place to be when the sun rises. I'd go back any time!
I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Maybe next time I'll have a new local image to share... if I make progress on my Pickleball problem!
This is another image from the trip we took with friends in May to the National Parks out west. We arrived at our Yosemite NP lodging in late afternoon. After unpacking and sitting around talking, I saw there was still a lot of light left and cloud banks were forming and breaking up. We were only twenty minutes from Tunnel View so I decided to drive over to the Valley. My friend Bill wanted to come along. I did give him fair warning… I told him if the light was great, there’d be no rushing to get back for dinner! He reluctantly agreed.
We drove the twenty minutes on winding mountain roads through snow squalls and sunlight. It was unusually cold and with the altitude, the conditions were right for snow. No amount of snow on the steep, winding mountain roads was going to stop me from seeing what the valley looked like in these conditions.
We arrived to magnificent late evening light, partially blocked by constantly changing clouds and snow squalls. First you could see all the way up the Valley, then that view closed and El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls would magically appear. It changed every ten minutes. I knew instantly that my friend Bill had no chance of getting back for dinner! I finally settled on a composition where you could see the granite face of El Cap and Bridalveil Falls, with snow squalls opening just enough to show the golden light on Half Dome far up the valley. It really was the right place at the right time.
After pulling myself away from the fading light, it was time to head back home. I drove a bit fast for Bill, who kept telling me he didn’t mind getting home ten minutes later! But we needed to get back before dark, since the location of our VRBO was not easy to find. We finally made it and we arrived at our darkened house. How could they all be asleep at 8:30? They weren’t… we found the power was out to the entire neighborhood! Bill did manage to eat a Subway hoagie and then we called it a night!
Three years ago a group of our closest friends suggested we all go on a two week National Park hiking trip out west. Never one to turn down a chance to visit the National Parks, I said as fast as I could... "We're in!". And so began a lot of planning, and then a two year delay due to the pandemic. But, finally the day of departure arrived and the trip was on!
We spent the first two weeks of May in the deserts of Utah and California and finished in the high mountains. In total, we saw Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, Zion, Death Valley, Sequoia, and Yosemite. We shivered in 30 degree temperatures while watching the sun come over the canyon rim and light up the orange and white hoodoos of Bryce. We hiked two thousand feet up to the top of the West Rim of Zion. We arrived to 109 degree heat in Death Valley followed by a day in the 40's in the high altitude of Sequoia! We doubled back on a pleasant hike around a meadow because a mother bear was guarding her cub too close to the trail. And we put our hands on the Dawn Wall of El Capitan and even climbed part of the famous wall of granite (ok, we only climbed five feet, but we still got off the ground on El Cap!).
It was a fantastic trip... a bit tiring, but everyone got to see an incredible variety of landscapes in a short amount of time.
I arose for six sunrises during the trip... great times to take out my camera and explore these landscapes in the beautiful light of early morning. One such sunrise was the sand dunes of Death Valley. I had done this before, ten years ago, and insisted that the group get up with me and experience it. That meant a 4:50am departure and some walking up and over the swells of loose sand... all before the sun came up. But it was worth it and the image above captured that calm, quiet feeling of being there as the sun crested the mountains and lit up the sand.
Look for a couple more of my favorite images coming over the next month or two. And consider planning your own visit to some of these great parks - they are simply amazing to experience!
Spring is my absolute favorite season of all. After being forced to live and eat indoors for what seems like an eternity during the winter, Spring holds the promise of endless days living outside, eating outside, sitting outside... just being outside!
I tend to notice the Spring long before most people. In February, you can already see the swelling buds on hardwood trees... even while the twenty degree air whips by in twenty mile an hour gusts! In March, from a distance, you can see the faint pastel colors tinging the treetops. And in April, seemingly all at once, the trees take on a myriad of colors. The most obvious of colors are the flowering blooms of the magnolia, cherry, pear, and plum trees. Everyone sees those.
But there is an amazing array of colors on non-flowering trees too! When the buds burst open with the beginnings of what will soon become leaves, they do so in a rainbow of colors... many shades of yellows and greens, and of course the striking reds that will catch your attention from a mile away! Like in the image above.
As I send this post out, most of those colorful bursts have turned into fresh young leaves of varying shades of yellow and green. A sure sign that you will find me eating, sitting, and just plain living, where I belong... outside!
Whenever weather conditions are special but won't last long, I make my way to the Unami Creek for some photography and solitude. It's only a fifteen minute drive from my home, but it feels like it is in a different world. The suburban Philadelphia sprawl is replaced with mountainous terrain, trees, large boulders, water, and almost no inhabitants. It truly is a small escape from the normal world.
It's also a bit of a frustrating photographic subject for me. I really enjoy hiking along the creek's edge, and I have made countless images there. But whenever I get back home and review my images, the excitement fades away. And I am staring at bland, average images that just don't capture the feeling of the place. I have been photographing the Unami Creek for eight years now, and I only have about ten images that I truly like, out of the hundreds of images I have made there. I'll keep trying, but for some reason it's a tough challenge for me.
On this foggy morning however, I was able to create an image that captured the true feeling of the Unami Creek. The fog was held in place by the trees giving a faded blue color to the background. And over my shoulder, the sun was just breaking through and lighting up the creek's edge in a special way. There's a lot going on in this image, yet it seems to work. And you can look at it for a long time and keep finding new things to see. I hope this image gives you a sense of the feeling of this small, calm refuge from the busy world.
We hadn’t had an ice storm in years, so I excitedly peaked through the blinds when I woke up... only to be disappointed. Instead of ice covered trees gleaming in early morning light, I saw another dreary day. Sure, the trees were covered in ice… but it was just so dark and dreary.
I decided to go out with the camera anyway, and made my way to a local woodland. As I was unloading my cameras, I started to get excited. The light was getting better with each minute and I began walking faster. I needed to make a great photo before the ice melted. The pressure was on... there were only three days left in February and I needed to create an image worthy of a blog post. If I didn’t make a good picture today, I would be forced to dig into the archives for this month’s post - which I have rarely done in eight years!
This is exactly the WRONG approach to make good pictures. I was moving around very fast, feeling the pressure, and just not really seeing anything. It was all so chaotic… ice covered branches, grasses, and shrubs. So I decided to slow down and eliminate the need to make an image. If I saw something worthy, great! If I didn’t, then so be it. And as I slowed down, images started to come to me. They weren’t all great, but some were good and I became more receptive to the landscape around me... I saw more clearly.
I arrived at a nice open area in the woodland. The ice covered branches and shrubs looked like winter’s lace adorning the trees, and the grasses on the hillside added some nice color. I was pretty sure this would be the image of the day. After patiently setting up and carefully composing, I made several images. And then I made some more as the sun came out and lit up the scene.
But, you know what happens when the sun hits ice on trees? It melts… all at once! And so eight hours of freezing rain from the night before started to melt very quickly. And I was caught in the wintertime equivalent of a tropical rain storm. I was soaked, my equipment was soaked, my shoes were soaked, and it was cold. But what a memorable ending to a morning wandering around in an ice covered woodland.
“Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought... about that which everybody sees.” (Schopenhauer)
It's amazing how nice 34 degrees can feel when it's sunny and there is no wind... especially after several days with highs in the low twenties! It was one of those calm winter mornings where you feel the warmth of the sun on your face and the air is tolerably cold. There was absolutely no wind... it was just completely still and quiet. Soft sunlight filtered through a thin layer of white clouds and there was some leftover snow from the small storm two weeks ago.
It was more quiet than usual along the Unami Creek. The bridge was out at the far end of the road, and on this end the sign said "road closed". But the sign didn't completely block the road... and I have a Jeep... so I decided to see how closed it was. It turns out only the bridge was closed and I got access to all my usual spots along the creek.
I was immediately drawn to the glowing golden light on the partially frozen creek. I loved how the reflections of the trees on the ice created lines of color, mixing with the soft blue of the sky. The arching lines of a bare winter thorn bush seemed to echo the lines of the tree reflections and I liked how all of the lines moved throughout the picture frame.
There are beautiful quiet scenes full of color and shape and light even in the middle of winter. It's out there and we see it every day. We just need to slow down and take notice.
I got my first real camera in high school and took photos for many years. After taking a break during my early work career, I re-engaged with photography more than twenty years ago. I created my photography website and this monthly Photo Blog eight years ago in December 2013 and I've published an image and story at least once each month since then, and sometimes more. This is the 118th blog post I've created and I enjoy it even more now, than when I started.
If you have been doing something for this long, it would make sense to ask yourself why you do it. And so this is why I photograph the landscape...
I have had a passion for the outdoors my entire life. I feel different when I am outside… surrounded by trees, water, and rocks… or standing alone in a high mountain meadow… or enjoying the solitude of the desert. The act of photographing… looking closely and "seeing"… deepens my experience and my interaction with the landscape. Taking a camera into the landscape allows me to experience it more fully, which in turn, allows me to create better images. The experience and the images are forever linked.
I share my images with friends and family to perhaps influence them to spend more time in the landscape and to slow down, explore, and look closely. It is critical that we preserve as much of our wild spaces as we can - whether in national parks or nearby places.
As Edward Abbey said... “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
The image above is the last one that I'll send out from my Capitol Reef trip in October... time to move on! But it really was an incredible trip, a beautiful place to visit, and a place I will return to for sure.
I completed the gallery page for Capitol Reef and you can find all the images and the stories that tie them together at this link. I have also included some "behind the scenes" images for you to enjoy. Take a look, and consider adding this park to your travel plans at some point in the future. But don't tell too many people... this one is a hidden gem and I'd like to return some day without fighting crowds of people at every turnout in the road!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!
We spent the day exploring a dirt and sand 4WD road called Henry Mountains Road - named for the Henry Mountains that are ever-present on the horizon. It is probably the most scenic road I have ever been on. Around every bend, over every crest of the desert floor - was a view more impressive than the last. We stopped the Jeep so often that it would take several days to fully explore this incredible road in the desert.
As the light was ending, we started the long drive back to our hotel in Torrey UT, just outside Capitol Reef. We guided the Jeep up the final steep incline and saw this beautifully lit scene in front of us. The sun was sinking fast and the clouds were moving even faster. I didn't think there would be enough time to set up the big camera, so I took an iPhone picture. The clouds were arranged in a perfect arc over the glowing golden butte in the distance.
After the quick phone snapshot, I raced to get out the real camera and tripod. I ran into the field, careful to cause no damage to the fragile plant life. I made several exposures but cursed my bad luck because the perfect arc of clouds had moved off to the left of the butte and lost their "perfect-ness". But, over time, I began to enjoy this version for its own unique qualities and the memory of that special light at the end of the day.
I titled this image... "Just Another Day’s End". While the final minutes of light were beautiful and seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime event to me, I was struck with the feeling that this is just a routine ending to yet another day here in the desert. This butte glows in the late golden light with a tapestry of clouds in the sky every day... for a million days before I got there... and for a million more after I left.