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Gates Pass Panos Near Tucson Arizona

For months, I've been meaning to post these wonderful cactus shots from Gate Pass, west of Tucson AZ. Life conspired against me and here we are three months later going through my photo processing backlog.

This first shot was a serendipitous fluke (is that redundant). I had finished taking my photos from a perch high-up on the hillside. I had worked my way back down the rocky incline thinking that I had captured my best shots of the day. As I approached the parking lot, I saw a dozen photographers of all skills, shapes, ages, and sizes. I scoffed at their parking-lot-served photography. "Use your feet to get the best view from up above..." I thought to myself. "Lemmings." But as I sauntered past the overlook shelter I took a casual glance over my shoulder. The sun was setting directly between the two hills, perfectly silhouetting the Saguaro cacti. "Oh Snap!!" I thought--really that is what I thought. So I joined the paparazzi and shot another 150 images to make dozens of panoramic images with the sun inching down the horizon. Clicking away, I was getting really strange looks from all others who were content to shoot single-frame images. Lemmings! They should shoot panoramic.

This second shot is from the hillside above. It is composed of three rows of fifteen images. It prints 32"x80" at 300 DPI. I hesitate to even show it online because its virtue lies in the fine details. In print, the viewer can count each and every little cactus and rock. One person suggested that I send it away to have a huge puzzle made--a puzzle for masochists maybe.

Bear Rocks, Big Sky

Everyone's seen Bear Rocks (if you haven't, go, right now.), but when you get a beautiful morning with blue sky and streaky clouds and you are at Bear rocks, you feel lucky. Sunday morning. Achy legs. How about a ride. Bear Rocks is a guilty pleasure because you can drive all the way up to it. I took my mother there. I imagine lots of people have taken their mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, anyone up there. Do it again--they repaired the road and it is a like a highway up there. You don't need to be a backcountry hiker to get there, and you don't need to be a super-naturalist to appreciate the simple beauty of the great, wide vista of the West Virginia Highlands.

Woodland Photographer on Flatrock Run

Much of the lower half of the Flatrock Run trail follows a beautiful little creek that babbles and cascades down the steep and very dark mountainside. On this day, the creek roared down the north face of the mountainside. The recent rains were swelling the streams and shading the woodland mountainside with a dense green canopy. Our Saturday hike was dark and damp with an abundance of Woodland Nettles whose mildly annoying sting even pierced the legs of our pants. Do not hike this trail in shorts.

I fear that I may be making this trail sound foreboding and inhospitable. It is, so stay away! The trio of foxes we caught fighting over a meal will be happy if you don't hike here. This trail is noisy because of that roaring creek I mentioned. The Stinging Woodland Nettles will make your legs swell-up like balloons. The rocks are dangerous and slippery. You could break a leg. Stay away. You have been warned.

On this day, we didn't go all the way to the top, but we were content to spend over an hour clambering over rocks making photographs of Flatrock Run. The mosaic above is composed of two rows of seven images, shot on a specialized tripod, each of them was a 13 second exposure at f/8. Of course, the ten-stop ND filter I was using extended the exposure to get blurred patterns in the water. This mosaic was my first attempt to use my new filter-gadget. All my subsequent attempts failed. I don't know what this says about spontaneity and woodland photography, but I was content to get more than one gratifying shot from my day, so I won't complain.

When people ask me what sort of photographer I am, I generally tell them I am a landscape photographer or nature photographer. Occasionally I tell people that I am hiker photographer, but on this day, I decided that I am a woodland photographer. Photography in the deep woodland mountains of West Virginia takes a different approach. There aren't many wide vistas to be had. In the deep woodlands, the landscape starts at the tips of your toes and extends dozens of feet in front of you. This second panoramic of Flatrock Run was composed of five images creating a vista that easily exceeds four feet across. Can I really call that a panoramic? Meh...

Green Season in the Highlands

The highlands are green. In the wooded wilderness, the blue-greens haven't yet overwhelmed the yellow-green underbrush. The sun still penetrates deeply to the bright, carpeted forest floor.

Very, very green!! When is Saint Patrick's Day? The farms are preparing to plant vegetables, and the pastures are...really...really...green.

By midsummer, the greens will be bluer, or maybe grayer. Right now, the green is very, very yellow. The diffused overcast light from last weekend further reinforced the yellowish green of the verdant pastureland. Interestingly, when you to use Photoshop to make your greens look...well...greener, don't touch the green sliders, touch the yellow sliders. In these shots, nature had already turned yellow up to eleven. I had to use Photoshop to tone-down the yellows because no one would believe that the green was so yellow, and well...just, very, very green.

Don't Miss the Forest for the Vista in Sedona

If you looked at the tourism literature or the websites about the Sedona area, you would think that all the beauty is tied up in vistas out on the horizon. In these images, the foreground presented unusual beauty and a contrast to the distant mesas and mountaintops. Adding drama to the images were the burned, black trees. One hiker we chatted with near the picture below thought he recalled the fires swept through in 2006. That made sense. The forests didn't smell like a barbecue, but in places they looked like one. While many trees were destroyed, it was amazing how many trees survived without a sign or with merely singed bark.

This image was taken near the north vista during our gale-force-wind hike on Wilson Mountain. You can see burned trees mingling with healthy on the right side of the panoramic. I bracketed this image but ended up only using one exposure to make the panoramic. I like how the interest is all focused close-in. The distant mesa is a dramatic presence that provides context and scale for the viewer, but the mood of this image is in the trees, rocks, clouds and the hoodoo below.

Hiking Sedona

It's been a few weeks since we returned from our week-long hiking adventure in Arizona. Getting back into the swing of work and life tends to suck all the photography post-processing time out of my schedule.

This first image is one of my favorites from the trip. Kara is sitting on the top of a rock they call the Carousel at Schnebly Hill Vista. She is looking out towards the slickrock flats that they call the Cowpies. (They must have hired a marketing agency to name their vistas.) As I have worked the panoramic images from the trip, I have found myself particularly attracted to the black and white versions. The skies and pink rocks make for dramatic duotone scenes.

On our big-hike day, we made a twelve mile excursion to the mesa of Wilson Mountain at just over 7,000 feet. The winds were gale-force. Really, in this photo looking south towards Sedona, there was a 50 MPH wind blasting in our faces. We spent less than five minutes at the north vista because the wind was throwing so much dust in our eyes. Another hiking group had their lunch blown off the cliff and down the mountain. That was enough for them.

Look closely at this panoramic and you can see where we started our hike, 3,000 feet below, near the bridge at the center of the image. The section is enlarged below.

Tucson Spring

Last weekend we returned from a nine-day adventure to Arizona. The first half of the trip was spent hiking the mountains and mesas of Sedona. During the second half, we headed south to visit a friend in Tucson. Saguaro cactus dotted the land at every turn. Backlit Saguaro at sunset lit-up the spines creating a dramatic halo effect. I found that this image worked best with a very stylized duotone look--reminds me of old western movies. Stay tuned for more photos and stories of our adventures.

Bald Eagles Close to Home

I always tell new photographers to make their craft an everyday activity. You won't improve if you reserve photography for vacations and holidays. Gaining proficiency with your equipment and talent for composition with the available light and limits of the landscape requires practice. So it is important to find photographic inspiration on your home turf.

Following my own advice, after six weeks of exploration and observation, I captured a handful of worthwhile Bald Eagle pictures. After our "epic" six-inch snowstorm this week, it dawned on me that afternoon light reflecting off fresh snow would provide some great conditions. I bailed on work thirty-minutes early and arrived at the nest as the magic hour was beginning. My snow-reflector idea worked. These photos captured feather detail unlike any other that I have taken.

The first photo shows an archetypal Bald Eagle pose. I successfully imitated a thousand other photographers who came before me. This second photo is more rewarding for me, even if it is less technically perfect. The Eagle is spied between branches, framed by complex intersecting lines. The sky is more washed-out. The image is generally colder and yet, more real and, inexplicably, more artistic.

Snowy Owl in a Rut

We arrived at Assateague Island at about 8:30 in the morning and had found one of the resident Snowy Owls by 8:45. No sooner did I get out of the Jeep and start to setup my tripod did the little critter fly off and sit in a rut—directly in the path of vehicles that drive down the beach. I sat on the edge of a dune and watched the little owl for a minute when a couple of hunters came driving up the beach. They stopped a couple of yards in front of little Snowy-the -Owl, then drove around the guy. The owl didn't even flinch. I quietly walked within 50 yards of the little guy and he spooked, but a pickup truck can drive within 10 yards and he is motionless. So, we went back to the Jeep and drove up to sit 15 yards away and took several portraits of the little Owl. He seemed to like the camouflage and shelter provided by the eight-inch deep ruts left by trucks. I hope he pays attention to traffic.

In all the places that we sat and watched the owl, when he finally chose to fly, he always flew away from us, not towards us. What, do we smell bad—we are human, maybe we do. At several points we sat and watched the owl stay in one spot for over an hour. This little flight is the best one I got. There were others, but they were always a variation on some theme of owl butt.

In my last entry about the Snowy Owl at Assateague, I joked about snapping pictures of the owl coughing-up a pellet. Well, he actually did cough-up a pellet for us. It was gross and kind of funny—you know that look cats get before they puke, well add wings and that just about describes it. I won't punish Trailpixie.net readers with the animated GIF of the event, nor will I subject them to the macro photograph of the turd-like amalgam of fur, bones, and a discernible rodent tail, ick!

As always, I had to take some panoramic images. This one gives you a sense of the Snowy Owl's size and appearance in the habitat. Actually, I think finding a Snowy Owl at Assateague is probably a lot easier than finding them in the snowy north-country because his white feathers contrast against the tan sand.

The full sized print of this scene is 18" x 50". I like environmental portraits like this one. Last year I did another one of a Barred Owl in Northern Virginia. Unfortunately, online they don't show too well, because the little critter in the image seems kind of small, but up on my wall they are much larger and easier to see. (You can always click on my images to see them larger.) You may be curious about why the owl in this panoramic appears so much smaller than the one in the 'panoramics' from last December. Well, those weren't panoramic images; they were panoramic crops of a single frame. In print, the owl will be the same size, but online the recent image looks smaller because I chose to show a wider view comprised of about eight images.

* I apologize for the careless use of the masculine pronoun when referring to the owl. Unfortunately, the owl hasn't allowed me to verify its gender.

Sand, Water, and Sky at Assateague Island

I'll start at the end of our story; as we drove off Assateague Island on Saturday, we enjoyed a few fleeting moments of crimson sunset looking south over Sinepuxent Bay. I made this three-image panoramic by shooting handheld out the window of my jeep. I shot the portrait images as wide as my attached lens would allow—24mm—so that I could capture Venus hovering above. This scene lasted for less than a minute. After capturing these frames, I considered getting out and setting-up my tripod (in the middle of the road), but by the time the thought had formed, the sky had darkened and the water was black.

Our trip to Assateague Island was to find the snowy owl that we photographed last December. We found the little critter and he posed for several hundred photos—more later this week. But, unlike our last trip, I vowed to not ignore the landscape for the bird. I made at least a dozen panoramic images, including these two. This second panoramic is also handheld, looking south down the beach and east out over the ocean. It probably covers about 110 degrees. This 'first draft' panoramic will need to be reprocessed because of some minor scalloping on the ocean horizon, but I really like the brightness of the sky and tire-ruts running south down the beach. This image gives you a good idea of the landscape of the island.

Wintertime is ideal for visiting the island. It was quiet. The ocean was beautiful. The sky was perfect blue without even a hint of haze. It was also 35 degrees with a blustery 30 MPH wind coming in from the west (yes west). It is kind of funny that without any cues about the weather conditions, you could almost pass this image off as taken in spring or summer. Assateague Island isn't a particularly hospitable place in summer—biting horseflies, mosquitos, etc...—but winter can be perfect. If only we had gone on Sunday when the temperatures were in the upper 50's. Ah, but perhaps all the other conditions wouldn't have cooperated for such wonderful photos.

2008 Panorama: Highland Visions

Both these shots were taken in the waning hours of daylight, so it is fitting that these are the last of my Panoramic 2008 review.

This first image was taken after nine pm at the wildlife viewing area at Canaan Valley State Park. We had finished our day of hiking Roaring Plains. In my memory of the year's great photos, this nightscape was eclipsed by The Rewards of Sleeping Late. It's a shame that the flashy image prevented me from seeing the subtle one. Looking back at the two images from that summer day, I imagine that over the long-run this "Nightscape Spruce" will be regarded as the better art.

This panoramic was taken last Fall at Dobbins Slashings—just north of Dolly Sods. It was dreadfully humid as we hiked up to the top of the Cabin Mountain range. The sky was thick summer gray. We dragged ourselves around Dobbins Slashings. The photos were not coming easily. We saw a bear rumble past us on the trail. I missed it. The sunset was barely visible through the haze. Before beginning our dark trek down the mountain, I used a telephoto lens to make this panoramic view of a copse of spruce.

When I returned to my studio and worked the images from that day, I was despondent. None of the shots appealed to me. The light was poor. Images were muddy. This shot was the only one with potential. I worked this image in Photoshop like a lump of clay. To call it processed would be a gross understatement. I finally converted it to black & white, using a bizarre balance of tone mapping, and put the image away until I rediscovered it last week. Dark, bleary, and desolate may be great words to describe this image and possibly even the mood in the Autumn of 2008. I have never been one to attempt to convey zeitgeist in my landscape photography—I'll leave that to the photojournalists—but this image comes pretty close.

2008 Panorama: West Virginia Waterfalls

Any day you hike the Highlands of West Virginia, at some point, you find yourself trudging over roots, rocks and boulders and then suddenly you stop—distracted from your revelry—turn your head left, then right. You sniff the brightly-dampened air. You are in a trance as you calculate the direction towards the sound of cascading water. Your steps become light as you become a bloodhound searching with sound and smell for the waterfall cascade. You turn sharply off the edge of the trail and descend steeply—a controlled slide—down the hillside. Branches slap your face. Leaves an dirt are driven up the back of your shirt. At the bottom—you are within sight of the waterfall—you slip-slide your way across moss-covered rocks to your glorious destination. Serenity overcomes you. Time and place become immutable, the moment eternal.

Sometimes as you dash to the base of the waterfall, you misjudge the slipperiness of the rocks, and you fall. Your brain is momentarily incapacitated. You are embarrassed by your foolish rush to the waterfall. That happened below this first panoramic. It is along the east bank of Red Creek in Dolly Sods. We spent an hour photographing this pretty little spot.

Pendleton Falls is one of those cascades that never ends. It tumbles its way down into Blackwater Canyon over dozens of smaller falls. The challenge of photographing it is to avoid photographing it all in one shot. This precious little corner of the falls was barely flowing during the dry summer of 2008.

Douglas Falls is a cool spot. You can easily walk or hike to it along the rail-trail. In the winter, the view is better because the trees aren't obscuring it. The boulders in the creek are a vibrant orange while the water has a Caribbean blue-green look to it. I'm not sure why this little creek is immune to the normal red-brown tannins that normally color the streams of the Highlands. My guess is that upstream the creek is treated with lime. This is frequently done so that creeks can better support fish and by extension fishermen.

Trailpixie Pride on Inauguration Day

2008 Panorama: Highland Creeks

In the West Virginia Highlands you really can't get far from a great creek. You know the kind where you can probably rock-hop across with ease, but occasionally, you dunk a boot into the water—ah, the joys of getting your feet wet. This first creek panoramic was taken along Seneca Creek. I can't quite explain what I like about this rather ordinary view, except to say that I keep getting drawn back into the image. It is funny how an image can initially seem ordinary, but after living with it, I grow to appreciate it more.

Otter Creek is one of those spots that I just can't visit often enough. As with any wilderness, Otter Creek is more magical the further you stray from a road. This shot was taken at the intersection of Moore Run and Otter Creek. I have never seen it as low as it was last October. When the water is higher, the swimming at this spot is fantastic, and the distance is just far enough to keep it from getting crowded.

On this hike, we happened upon an affectionate couple sprawled out on the smooth, sunny rocks. After disentangling herself from her partner, the young woman got to chatting. She explained that she had lost her watch, so she had no idea what time it was. I admired her good fortune and told her it was three o'clock. She was shocked. She had figured that it was only ten or eleven in the morning. What a great way to spend a day in the wilderness.

2008 Panorama: New River Gorge Bridge

Our vacation this year consisted of a week at the cabin in Canaan Valley. We had a great time hiking, paddling, and touring around. We took a rainy-day excursion to Morgantown—we had never seen WVU. We also took a day trip down to New River Gorge. We didn't really set aside enough time to do any serious hiking, but we toured around the area and saw some of the highlights. This panoramic of the New River Gorge Bridge was taken from the overlook at the visitors center. I shot the six-image panoramic handheld and aligned the top of the bridge with the top of the images, resulting in an interesting, if exaggerated, angled view.

2008 Panorama: Pennsylvania Wilds

So to carry on my review of our 2008 adventures and photography, in July, we took a short (1200 mile) 4-day driving tour around North-central Pennsylvania—The PA Wilds as they call it . We got the idea to go and see the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous. The "Rendezvous" had demonstrations, competitions, and vendors all focusing around traditional archery—using the same longbows and recurves that may have been used 300 or a thousand years ago. The cross-section of humanity at the Rendezvous ranged from pickup truck-driving lifetime NRA members through Mennonites, across medieval reenactors (think renfest) and ending at dreadlock-wearing back-to-nature hippies. We shot bows. I stung my wrist a few times. I took no photos. We had fun.

This first panoramic (above) was taken at Fort Leonard Harrison State Park along a beautifully steep little trail down into the Pine Creek canyon. They call this place "The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania." It is a very pretty park, but if you are going to visit, don't let that get into your head to much; it will only disappoint you.

On the way back, we drove around the Pennsylvania Elk Country Scenic Drive. This little woodland scene unfolded to us after we marsh-mucked across a highland wetland area. I like how the humid air gives a glowing effect to the light behind the trees. On our drive, we saw a dozen, or so, elk—mostly in people's front yards. The cutest scene was an elk leaning over a fence into a goat's pen with the goat on its hind legs trying to sniff at the elk's nose.

One of our stops took us to the Kinzua Bridge. This 2,000 foot long 300 foot high iron bridge was built in 1882 and was, at the time, the highest bridge in the world. In 2003, an F1 tornado came through and knocked half of it down. The remains of the bridge lay like matchsticks in the bottom of the valley. I was rather dubious about visiting the site of a recently half-destroyed bridge, but I have to say that the historical information and the engineering detail that they provide about the bridge made the visit very interesting.

2008 Panorama: Potomac River and C&O Canal

The Potomac River provides a narrow ribbon of wilderness through the Washington, DC metro area. From bouldering the Billy Goat Trail to bicycling the C&O Canal, we spent a lot of time around the Potomac River. The first panoramic was taken just north of Harpers Ferry while we were bicycling the canal. Two summers ago, we began our effort to bicycle the entire canal—albeit in segments. Between paddling, bicycling, and hiking the highlands, we aren't finishing fast, but we have completed from Georgetown to just past Shepherdstown. It has amazed me how many different natural environments exist along the canal. Some of the wildest landscape, believe it or not, is between Carderock and Great Falls Maryland. This segment is where the Billy Goat Trail runs between the canal and the river.

The Billy Goat Trail is undoubtedly the most hiking fun you can have within five miles of the DC line. Hiking along rocky bluffs that drop straight down in the river never fails to amuse me. And then there are the other hikers: several years ago we were standing along the trail watching a deer eating algae out of a narrow marsh nestled between two hills. We were standing still enjoying the sloppy, green algae hanging out the sides of the deer's mouth when a clutch of spandex-clad power-walkers comes yammering their way down the trail. One of the women was heard to say, "The thing I love about my yoga practice is that it helps me to live in the moment and it makes me so self-aware." This, she said, as she spandex-bounced her way right past the beautiful deer—spooking the doe to splash noisily down the marshy draw.

The panorama above was shot hand-held with a digicam. I am still amazed at the kinds of shots you can get with a modest little pocket camera. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving and it was cold. Nevertheless, the Billy Goat Trail was still, in places, a traffic jam. Avoid this trail after 10:00 am, year-round.

This final panoramic was taken from Maryland Heights, looking upstream. You can see the C&O canal in the lower right corner and the old Hilltop Hotel on the bluff on the left. The full-sized print is 60" wide and about 15" tall. I can only imagine that this image reads like a map of currents for many paddlers and anglers. On the upper-right side of the river, you can see the islands that are lit-up in the first panoramic in this posting.

2008 Panorama: Sugarloaf Sky

I like to stay busy. There is always somewhere to go, something to do, someone to see. I like it that way. When the dark-days of winter come and my work keeps me from the bright skies of adventure, I sit in my studio and review old photos. It is these times that I appreciate the luxury of my past year of adventure. Today I reviewed all my panoramas from 2008. There are too many to post, but I made a collection that should have made the front page of Trailpixie.net. Over the next few days, I will post more than a dozen images that stitched together in time, represent my personal panorama of 2008.

This day had a deep, blue sky, crispness in the air with perfect, puffy, white clouds. We set-out for a short hike that turned into a six mile excursion. We were hungry at the end because we didn't bring any snacks, but the day was glorious and our lungs were filled with the cool winter winds.

This image was made in January at Sugarloaf Mountain near Frederick, Maryland. It may not look much like a panorama, but is comprised of thirteen images taken looking straight towards the sky. The low-angled sunlight of winter made this 360 degree panoramic possible. It was an experiment that went well.

Cute Enough to Make Your Head Spin

Go skiing or go to the beach? Skiing or the beach? Skiing or the beach? We chose the beach. After a week of debating the probability of good snow conditions versus the probability of finding one of the only Snowy Owls to grace the state of Maryland with its presence, we chose the Snowy Owl at the beach. We were pretty happy about the choice,

We arrived at the Assateague Island National Seashore Ranger Station at about 8:00. Quickly picked-up our Over Sand Vehicle Pass, microwaved some tea, payed the park fees, and quizzed the rangers about the presence of our snowy owl. We were relieved and excited to discover that Little Snowy had been seen on Friday when a naturalist was doing a survey of birds.

The five of us crammed into my little jeep and started down the beach. For about fifteen minutes, every bleached-out piece of driftwood or misplaced garbage bag sent us into conniptions--binoculars hurriedly scanning the horizon. We were desperate not to miss the little critter. It didn't take us too long though. After about 15 minutes driving down the beach, we spotted the little Snowy Owl near Kilometer 22.

We spent about three hours on the cool, windy beach snapping photos of the little Snowy Owl. In each of his perches, the drill was the same. Move forward to a position 50 yards away--well short of what would spook the owl to fly off. Take pictures. Owl yawns--click, click, click, click, click, click.... Owl opens eyes--click, click, click, click, click, click.... Owl preens foot--click, click, click, click, click, click.... Owl poops--click, click, click, click, click, click.... Then we would look at one another shrug our shoulders, lift our tripods and shuffle forward ten steps, like a Marine Corps precision drill-team. We would quickly reset our tripods--hoping that the owl wouldn't do something spectacular like regurgitating a pellet--and then restart the procedure. The little guy flew four or five times. In flight, the owl was quiet like downy snowflakes raining silent death on unsuspecting rodents.

Bald Eagles in Abundance

It's a familiar refrain: "Why are we getting up at 4:45 am on a Saturday?" Results should speak for themselves. Conowingo Dam was abuzz with innumerable bald eagles on this cool November morning. Several of the more experienced visitors put the number at over a hundred bald eagles. It boggles my imagination. I recall growing up around the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River where bald eagles were present but sightings were fairly rare. More recently, if I go out on a paddling excursion, I would be pretty excited to see more than two or three bald eagles. Conowingo Dam in December is unbelievable.

During most of our three-hour visit to the dam, the eagles kept their distance. They would get active about every forty-five minutes when one poor eagle would get a bit peckish and grab an unsuspecting fishy from the water. But then, that poor eagle would get no peace to go and eat its meal. No, no, no! At least three other eagles would chase the hungry one and try to steal its meal. The chase would end when the hungry eagle would drop the fish in the water and none of them would get to eat. I was pretty lucky to catch one of these little in-air altercations.

I was happy for the camaraderie and advice of skilled birder-photographers Martin, Sarah, Eric, and Art as well as many dozens of other birdwatchers. I have never seen so many monoculars, binoculars, and big lenses. Oh the lenses! They were huge! My modest 100-400 was no match for the 600mm lenses and the $X0,000 lenses that seemed to be in abundance. I felt so inadequate.