2021 Calendar ImagesNow is the time to order get those 2021 wall calendars and my photography has been featured in 3 different state calendars. This image of Pinnacle Mountain was taken from January 2016, which was the last time central Arkansas saw a big snow. This was on a morning just after it had snowed about 8 inches.
That picture is featured on the January page of the Arkansas Wild & Scenic 2021 wall calendar from Brown Trout Publishing. It can be ordered here. Another winter picture of mine is featured on the February page of the Missouri Wild & Scenic 2021 wall calendar that can be ordered here. It was -4 degrees on this January morning at Grand Falls near Joplin, Missouri.
I am also featured on the April page of 2021 Oklahoma Wall Calendar from Smith-Southwestern. This image was from the grounds of the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa.
Mount Rainier: America's Mountain
It's been a pretty busy couple of months for me and my wife. This fall, we completed a move together from our former home in Fayetteville to our new home in Rogers. I have also been working on a new project, which I will reveal to you in 2021. Anyway, I'm finally getting around to working on my photos from my two trips to Mount Rainier earlier this year. A longer visit back in August and a brief visit again in October. Early August is typically the peak of wildflower season here. My favorite hike was a destination on the Wonderland Trail known as "Indian Henry's Hunting Ground" where there were many flowers in bloom.
On this same 6-mile one way hike was The appropriately named Mirror Lake. Despite walking back to the car in the dark, it was worth being there during the early evening to see the beautiful reflections and flowers there.
I was also able to get some nice reflections with a thin layer of morning fog at Bench Lake.
At over 14,000 feet, Mount Rainier is one of the highest mountains in the lower 48. From base to summit, it is also the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. To me, Mount Rainier is the most impressive and beautiful mountain in the lower 48. A couple of times, I have found myself even startled when I first see the glaciated summit. It is still potentially an active volcano that will likely reawaken in the future. Eyewitnesses in Seattle last reported eruptive activity in 1894, but it has been quiet since. Some of you can remember when nearby Mount St. Helen's had a violent eruption in 1980. I'm glad that I made my visit shortly before all the Pacific Northwest fires that would occur later in August and September. Skies were clear for the majority of the time but I also had some occasional atmospherics such as fog and some light haze.
On my second trip to the Pacific Northwest this year, I briefly visited Mount Rainier, but this time after an early snow in October.
I have more pictures to go through from Oregon and Washington. On the next blog, I will be writing about the rainforest and waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest. Loose in the Palouse
Welcome to September! The weather is getting cooler across middle part of the nation this week and we are transitioning from summer to fall. That also means harvest season. On my recent trip to Washington, I visited a farming region in southeast Washington known as "The Palouse". Centered around towns like Colfax and Pullman, Whitman County is the number one wheat producing county in the United States.
The Palouse is characterized by gentle rolling hills covered with wheat fields. The hills were formed over tens of thousands of years from wind blown dust and silt, called "loess", from dry regions to the southwest. The best vantage point to see these hills is from the summit of Steptoe Butte. They look like giant sand dunes because they were formed in much the same way.
With an ultra zoom lens from atop Steptoe Butte, the patterns of these rolling hills are especially fun to compose in the low light just after sunrise and just before sunset. The isolated cottonwood trees can also be fun subjects in the vast wheat fields.
The landscape here is much like western Kansas...but with bigger hills! There are a few old barns and abandoned homes as well.
North Cascades National Park
I typically spend some time each summer in one of my favorite states, Colorado. However, for this year, I decided to do something different and instead spend time in the state of Washington. I spent 5 days backpacking with Wildland Trekking across North Cascades National Park, just south of the Canadian border. We backpacked for 35 miles from Ross Lake to over Whatcom Pass and over Hannegan Pass. North Cascades is a lesser visited park. There are no lodges and only one road going through the park. With limited facilities, it is primarily a hiking and backpacking park. Even in peak season, you can still get a decent amount of solitude here with just a little effort. Although I didn't take a lot of pictures, I thought would briefly share some of my favorite pictures while visiting.
One of the highlights on this trip was crossing the Chilliwack River on a "cable car". Here is a video clip:
While in Washington, I also visited Mount Rainer National Park as well as the region known as "The Palouse". I will share some of those pictures in a future blog entry. Comet NEOWISE
On Monday night, I decided to photograph Comet NEOWISE. The comet was first discovered on March 28 and spotted by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer; that's how the comet earned the name “NEOWISE". It is the 3rd comet that I recall seeing in my lifetime. Growing up, I remember Halley's Comet back in 1986 and Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. To the naked eye, those comets seemed brighter and more visible than this one. Even after getting away from city lights, Comet NEOWISE was only barely visible to my naked eye. However, it is one of the first comets of the digital photography era and these more faint comets show up much better in today's high ISO digital cameras. This image was a 8 second exposure at ISO 3200. After doing some research on where to find the comet, I wanted to find a location where I can could easily incorporate the landscape with the comet...not just point my camera at only the sky. This involved determining a relatively dark place away from towns with an wide open view to the northwest. I concluded with Horseshoe Lake northwest of Clarksville in the Ozark National Forest. The foreground of the lake and the Boston Mountains complimented the comet. About 40 miles away (as the crow flies) northwest of here is the city of Fayetteville. With my camera facing northwest, it appears that the city lights from the main cities of Northwest Arkansas illuminated the cirrus clouds beneath the comet. You can see the comet for a little while longer below the Big Dipper in the northwest sky after sunset. It is best seen with binoculars. However, after July 23, it will get a little dimmer each day as the comet moves away from Earth. |
