South Of The Border
I recently went to Mexico, where I stayed with one of my photography mentors...Christian Heeb. Christian is a resident of Oregon, but has a winter home on Baja Peninsula. Before I went, he described it to me as "Tucson by the sea". I would say that is a pretty accurate description of the landscapes there. There were saguaro cactus next to the ocean to give it a stark contrast of the desert against the beach.
I stayed at his casita near the small town of La Ventana, about two hours north of Los Cabos.
Although frequented by Americans, the town of La Ventana has a different flavor than the louder and bigger resort cities like Cabo San Lucas. Instead of attracting the large throngs of tourists looking to party at resorts in Cabo, La Ventana attracts a sportier crowd. During the winter months, when winds from the north come down over the Gulf of California, La Ventana becomes one of the kitesurfing capitals of the world.
You will find many forms of cacti on the Baja Peninsula, but you can also find a hidden waterfall in an otherwise dry climate. A real oasis in the desert!
However, it was the beach scenes that I enjoyed the most.
Coming up later this month, I will be visiting beaches of a different sort. I will be going to the Pacific Northwest to visit Olympic National Park in Washington. Icy WondersLast week, I took advantage of the cold temperatures to photograph some waterfalls at Sweden Creek and Dug Hollow...both near Boxley, Arkansas. With temperatures that were recently in the lower teens, icicles were forming near these waterfalls.
I especially loved the close-up intimate scenes of the icicles and flowing water, like these.
The bluff overhangs was dripping with water with some ferns underneath. Once the water fell on these ferns, the water would then freeze into formations that would have the appearance of blown glass all over the fern. Some neat scenes!
Snow in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness
My background is in meteorology, so I follow the latest computer weather models rather closely. As I like to say, weather is the ultimate wildcard in landscape photography. On Friday night, I noticed an upward trend in accumulating snowfall potential in northern and western Arkansas, particularly to the south and east of my hometown of Fayetteville. So before daylight Saturday morning, I headed toward my cabin in Newton County. Sleet and snow fell for the first half of Saturday and when it ended Saturday afternoon I measured 1.8 inches of snow. Clouds began to clear late Saturday night, so I headed out on an early morning to Hawksbill Crag. With fresh snow on the ground and a full moon lighting up the ground, I didn't even need my headlamp on my hike. I arrived at the Crag at about 5:30am with temperatures in the lower teens. The moon was still out but getting low enough in the sky to create shadows on some the landscape.
The moon was shining on the mountains behind the Crag, but the Crag itself was in the shadow. In retrospect, perhaps I should have been there about an hour earlier when the Crag would have still been in the moonlight. However, I then would have had to wait even longer in the cold for the dawn light to arrive. After waiting about an hour in the cold, I finally caught this image.
I also hiked out to a small unnamed waterfall inside the Upper Buffalo Wilderness. This drainage is full of beech trees that still retain their leaves all winter and this added some color to the snowy landscape.
Snow is usually infrequent to the Ozarks, so I was glad to take advantage of this unique opportunity. We will see if this winter season still offers more scenes like this. Snow in Santa Fe
Over the week of New Years Day, I went to northern New Mexico. I arrived in Santa Fe with cold temperatures and snow already on the ground. Once again, on the night of New Years Eve, snow fell across much of New Mexico. While most people slept in on the morning of New Years Day, I headed out for a walk to the plaza area of downtown Santa Fe. With a fresh coating of snow on many surfaces, it made for some unique imagery. Below are a couple of pictures from the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and the Loretto Chapel.
The sun would soon come out but temperatures remained cold. For something a little different, I also headed to the Santa Fe National Cemetery. Burial in a national cemetery is open to all members of the armed forces who have met a minimum active duty service requirement and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable.
The High Road to Taos Scenic Byway takes the traveler through an authentic remnant of Old Spain that is still evident in the religion, architecture and history along the route between Santa Fe and Taos. This road travels through Chimayo, a community known for the beautiful El Santuario de Chimayo, and also the village of Las Trampas, home of the San Jose de Gracia Church. These Spanish pueblo mission churches were built in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Just outside of Taos is the San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Rancho de Taos. Another mission constructed in the late 1700s, it has been the subject of several paintings by Georgia O'Keefe and photographs by Ansel Adams.
I will be heading back to New Mexico in September, so look for some new photographs from Santa Fe, Taos and nearby Abiquiu (where Georgia O'Keffe lived) this fall. A Trip to Navajoland
Early in the fall, when I drove to Colorado and New Mexico, I also made the excursion to the Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations in northeast Arizona. In the town of Tuba City, I met up with Alain Briot, who once lived on the Navajo Indian Reservation for 7 years. The theme of this trip was to visit some little known areas of northeastern Arizona and not the well known, heavily photographed landmarks like Antelope Canyon and Monument Valley. With his knowledge of the area, I was able to see some spectacular places that not many get to see. In fact, we didn't see another photographer at each place we went to. There are some great overlooks of the colorful landscape!
During late September, I was there for the tail end of monsoon season and was fortunate to get thunderstorm there.
After one of the storms, I was also able to get a small segment of a rainbow in the distance just above the horizon. I had to pull out the 600mm lens to make this small piece of the rainbow seem big.
I was also there during the full moon cycle and was able to catch the moon just before it would set beneath these clay hills.
There are also some amazing hidden petroglyphs...among some of the best preserved that I have seen and really stand out well against the dark varnish.
While most of the Grand Canyon is on National Park Service land, there is a section in the eastern part of the Grand Canyon that is a part of the Navajo Nation. The drive to the Navajo side of the Grand Canyon does involve a good map, a GPS, a permit to drive on Navajo roads and a willingness to navigate the long and bumpy dirt roads to see the canyon from here. However, it is a peaceful setting that will likely be all to yourself when you do get there. Thankfully, plans for a proposed resort at where the Navajo land meets the Grand Canyon have been shut down for now. Hopefully, the serenity will remain for years to come here.
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