January 31 - More Ice Pictures

Here are a few more pictures I developed from the recent ice storm.

This picture is kind of interesting. Notice how the icicle forms a "hook". Initially, the icicle was vertical and gradually curved as the branch got lower. Eventually the weight became too great and the branch broke, which is why the majority of the icicle is horizontal. Only a little more ice formed right at the tip. We saw a lot of hook-shaped icicles during this storm.


An ice-covered cedar tree framed by ice-covered branches.


And a little bit of barbed wire covered in ice.

January 27 - Busiek State Forest

I made two trips to Busiek State Forest this morning - once when it was still too dark to see and another when it had grown lighter.

Ice is always fascinating to me, especially at a small scale. I enjoy the textures and the promise of green in this first picture even in what othwerwise would have been a dismal Ozarks day.



This second picture is abstract ice structure that is just starting to melt. These pictures represent only a small portion of Busiek State Forest - each convers an area about the size of a dime!

January 16 - Ice Storm

It was a cruel ice storm that ran through the area last weekend (which still has its grip on my house as well as many others). However, it was not without its beauty. Here's a few pictures from just North of Springfield where the ice was a little heavier (and damage greater).

January 12 - Dead Horse Point State Park

I've been going over old photographs from June of this year and found this undeveloped photo from Dead Horse Point State Park that deserved some attention.

January 7 - Additional Utah Pictures

Playing around with the beta of Photoshop CS3 has provided some good reason to develop a few more pictures from the recent trip to Moab. There will be some good tools in this release for photographers.

This first imageis from the Colorado River - Fisher towers and the La Sal Mountains are barely visible in the distance.



This image is near Navaho Arch in Arches National Park. The rock formations were really interesting here.

January 6 - Rework

I took this picture back in September, 2005. Taking this image was a memorable experience and it's still one of my favorite photos. As I learn more about Photoshop, I do go back and rework some of my favorite photos to see if I can make an image look closer to my memory of the occasion. I like this version better than my original post.

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December 28 - Wilson's Creek Battlefield

A vacation is a nice time to get out and see a little bit of nature - even if it's only to a not-so-wild place like Wilson's Creek National Battlefield. I'm always intrigued by colors in prairie grass and shrubs. I've accentuated these colors a little in order to emphasize the point.



After the sun came out, I headed home, but caught this tree with its roots growing over a small drainage area. I liked the way the dappled light illuminated parts of the moss.

December 17 - Springfield Lights

The goal was to go out and take pictures of Christmas lights with a few members of the camera club. But the evening soon turned out to be not as much about the lights as it was about night photography (due mainly to our inability to find really interesting Christmas lights).

This photo was from our first stop at small cul-de-sac of whose existence I was previously unaware. I was fascinated by the sky - it's always interesting at night- though the interesting clouds were rendered indistinct by the long exposure required to capture this subject.

December 2 - James River

It was a pretty cold morning a couple of Saturdays ago when I went down to the James River near my home. Temps had been in the single digits that morning, and frost and ice was everywhere, along with some snow left over from a couple of days earlier.

November 4 - Oklahoma City Memorial

Since we were going through Oklahoma City on the way home, we decided to stop along the way to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial. The memrial itself was beautifully conceived and constructed. A very nice place to visit if you're in the area.

November 2 - Arches National Park

On our last day in Arches, we dropped by Landscape Arch in the morning and Park Avenue in the afternoon and stayed there until dark. Finding some interesting sunrise light, we decided to shoot the sunset near the road.





Landscape arch (and the surrounding arches) were a lot of fun to see and I'll probably post a few pictures of those later on. Towards the end of the day, we were in an area called Park Avenue that has a lot of huge monuments.

November 1 - Colorado River, Fisher Towers

As we drove into Moab under sunset conditions, we saw several places to which we just had to return. The views of Fisher Towers and the La Sal Mountains were just spectacular. To recapture some of those beautiful moments on the drive down Hwy 128 was our goal.

After driving around for a while, we ended up at the Dewey Bridge, and nearby was a small area of grasses against a small cliff that seemed oddly cold (elsewhere, it was nearly 60 degrees). I didn't realize just how cold it was, though, until I looked down and saw that the dew was still frozen solid and was showing no sign of melting. I spent half an hour trying to get the camera just right for this shot.



One of the many views of the Colorado River.


Here are three different versions of a pretty popular shot that contains the Colorado River, the Fisher Towers, and the La Sal Mountains.




In this shot, we bushwhackedalong the river bank for a little ways to try and get a slightly different angle. We were only a few feet from the river, but I didn't include it in this shot.

November 1 - Mesa Arch

Mesa Arch - Canyonlands National Park
Mesa Arch is pretty well known, and we were there right as it was getting light enough to see - in fact, some used flashlights for the short walk into the arch. While it's more well known for the light that hits it after the sun is up a little further, I kind of enjoy photographing it when the sun is still behind the hills.







This is the more familiar "lit from beneath" picture. It was a windy and cold morning, and I think everyone welcomed the sun when it finally rose high enough to bring some warmth.

October 31 - Arches National Park

Courthouse Monuments
We started the day before dawn at the Courthouse Monuments - a collection of quite a few prominent sandstone... well, monuments. There had been a significant amount of rain the week before we arrived, and fortunately a few puddles remained.





Fiery Furnace
This was the hilight of the trip as far as some were concerned. Fiery Furnace is a pretty wild area full of vertical fins, huge boulders and sandy washes. Because of the delicate environment in this trail-free region, an orientation is required in order to enter.

Every corner we turned opened a new and fascinating world - each distinct from the previous. Whether or not I took any pictures, I had a great time scrambling through the rocks and tight places.

This sandstone is incredibly grippy (as long as it's not wet). In places we were walking on some very steep angles that you would have thought impossible (and would have been on other surfaces).







Balanced Rock
Out of the Fiery Furnace, we just had time to drive over to one of the Balanced Rock overlooks for the sunset. The La Sal Mountains are visible behind the red sandstone formations. It was a nice way to end the day.

October 30 - Delicate Arch

Delicate Arch is one of the most famous arches in the state of Utah - it's even on their license plate. There is a view of the arch you can get from the road, but the best view is if you hike up to see it. The trail up to see it is really quite fantastic - the arch is revealed only in the final feet of the trail.



The La Sal Mountains are clearly visible behind the arch, and were pretty spectacular since they had just recently received some fresh snow.


I was so concentrated on getting my tripod in just the right position for this "starburst" shot that I completely failed to notice the jet trail. I kind of like how it appears to be traveling directly into the sun.


Right before the sun dips down behind the distant mountains and leaves the arch in shadow, there are some really nice subtle colors to be seen.

October 30 - Window Arch

We arrived in Moab on Sunday at dusk. We drove through the small town of Cicso on the way to Moab and followed the Colorado River into town. It was a beautifuy trip and a great introduction to the area.

Monday, we got up early and hiked the short trail to Turet and Window Arches. If you scramble on the other side of the North Window and up the side of the rock a little bit, you get this nice view through the North Window of Turet Arch.



Here's a yucca plant on the way out.


Not too far away is Double Arch. I'll probably post another picture later, but this is one that was taken laying on the ground and looking up through one of the arches.

October 28 - Monument Rocks, Kansas

This is the first of a series of posts that I'll put up over the next few days (weeks?) to show some of the pictures I took on the camera club's supertrip to Moab. Monument Rocks was just a stop along the way on the first day of travel, but I had a great time watching the rocks as the sun started slipping down behind the horizon.