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Coming home from southern Utah (another way)

As we passed out of Moab going north, we got to the Colorado River and took a right – beautiful.

Then just outside of Price, we took another right and went up through Duchesne and then over to Hanna, up and over the stunning pass to Francis. I could spend a long time shooting in each one of these places. But my surly teenage copilot kept me moving with much grumbling and generally slouchy posturing. The more we pointed to home, the straighter he sat I noticed.

He’s a great kid – just doesn’t have the enthusiasm for road trips as his dad. That was clear.

Lake Powell

In my previous blog I talked about blasting through the Capital Reef neighborhood so I could get to Lake Powell while there was still light. Well here are the results of my DESD experiment. It was still 100 degrees (38 C) and I was the only person around. It was beautiful. Hope you can get a sense of it from these.

This is my first try at a panorama – three shots stitched together by hand in Photoshop.

Didn’t Even Slow Down

This is a new thing I’ve invented – that’s right – I’m the first person in the history of the world to shoot photos without slowing the car, without looking through the camera at all, just hanging the camera out the window and firing. Behold the DESD series of Torrey, Utah.

I generally spend all my time here, when headed to Monticello via Torrey, Lake Powell, and Blanding. So when I get to Lake Powell it’s too dark to shoot. I promised myself I wouldn’t stop in Torrey, or on the outskirts of Capital Reef, but I couldn’t resist trying as I moved on by.

So I’m happy to present, in barely edited form – DESD – The Series.

A Day Shooting with Michele

I met Michele online in a photography forum. Her style is about as opposite from my style as you could get – I’ve always found her work to have a certain fearlessness to it. She dropped by for a day on her road trip to California, and we had a great time with Dan, Haylee, and Elexa (this girl is crazy fun to be around for sure).

The road trip is also the fanciest Senior Photos shoot in the history of senior portraits for both Haylee and Elexa – so we shot a lot of portrait stuff too.

We were in Albion Basin for sunrise, the top of Butterfield Canyon about lunch time, and Saltair/Temple of the Birds by mid-afternoon. Whew! I’m tired again just typing about it.

Great fun. I love it when technology helps me make real connections with people. Seeing Michele in person was as natural and easy as our chats online have been. Loved seeing her shoot in her fearless way, and showing off this amazing place we live – if only for a day.

Elexa is fearless when modeling! Everyone laughed when she did this pose (above), but I love the results.

Dan and Michele. PDA’s in the meadow. Awwwww.

What could make Albion Basin even prettier – pretty girls of course!

I try my hardest, but the photos just don’t seem to do justice to the real thing. That slope is covered in yellow flowers, so amazing and so hard to capture!

The critters were everywhere up there. I didn’t see one on our Saturday scouting trip, but there were lots on Monday morning.

This is Haylee again, not one of the critters. In case you were wondering. She felt just terrible about falling down and tearing the knees out of her jeans like that, but I told her we’d shoot like that anyway and see if anyone noticed.

LHF

Love how the shadows brought the colors of the cliffs out. Boy this place is beautiful.

These last three are shot at “Temple of the Birds” with a SB900 off camera flash triggered through the iTTL. I heart Nikon and their iTTL technology.

There’s a big concrete building just north of I-80 with a burned out rail car next to it, and a dismantled waterslide. it’s covered with graffiti, and once someone painted “Temple of the Birds” on the wall. I’ve called it that ever since. Anybody know what this building used to be? And while we’re at it, why is there a dismantled waterslide just laying around being vandalized for about 15 years now?

Albion Basin Scout

I had friends coming in from Iowa, and they wanted to see something spectacular in the 24 hours they were in Utah. So LeeAnn and I went up to Albion Basin at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon to see if it was spectacular.

Spring arrives at 9,000 feet a little later than everywhere else. The wildflowers were spectacular. Here’s the shots from our Saturday evening shoot.

(Our date coincided with our 23rd anniversary. It seems like I’ve always been with her, but it seems like 23 years have just flown by, know what I mean? So it was a great date in a few respects.)

Going to Moab – Scenic Route

From where we were staying at our cabins there was a dirt road that went on up the mountain. We decided to follow it and it lead to Moab. It was hard to remember that we were in southern Utah, my mind kept wanting to picture myself in the Uintahs in Northern Utah. It was so green and amazing. Here’s a few snapshots I took as we found a new way to get to Moab.

Above, Mt. Peale. Somewhere in the 12,000 foot range. It’s an old volcano that has just refused to turn into any kind of soil that a tree can grow in, so it remains bald. Look at those cliffs. So amazing.

Below is Blue Lake. It used to be a much larger lake, and I was told by the owners of the land (who we rented the cabins from) that where I stood to take this photo used to be under water. There were a family of beaver that lived here. One year someone came in on ATVs and shot them all. The lake has dwindled ever since. I have a hard time understanding that mentality of driving places and wiping out all the animals you see.

Spring comes late at 10,000 feet. The wildflowers were everywhere. Low hanging fruit. (see the explanation for the last photo in my last blog posting).

This is a “bear dog” that has adopted our family. These are not quiet creatures. When they are on the scent of bear, they do a “Where the Red Fern Grows” impersonation and sound the alarm. The first two nights on the mountain we heard them all night long. The third day we started seeing these guys with an antenna on the mountain. Then we found their dogs for them. We had two of their lost dogs wander up to us during our stay there. You can see the huge radio transmitter the dogs wear.

Right at the edge of this lake was the remains of half a cow. The people fishing there (live in Moab and fish at blue lake a couple times a week, not a bad gig) told us that the bear hunters come in and drop half a cow, then pull back and wait for the bear to come in. Then they shoot it and leave the cow to stink the place up. Lovely.

I was saddened to hear this is how the kill bear, but then my daughter pointed out that’s basically what I had been doing to fish for the last couple of days. Darn kids putting things in perspective.j

Everyone standing is my family. From left to right, Alec (the observant one), Micah, Ian, Caleb (who has had a haircut since) and LeeAnn (the amazing girl that married me for some reason yet to be discovered!). Taylor is my niece, she loved the bear dog most. (The dog was a beautiful animal).

Below: View down into Moab from about 9,000 feet up on the west side of Mt. Peale.

Finishing the loop back to our cabin we stopped at Looking Glass Rock. Why is it a “rock” and not an “arch”? What does it have to do in order to reach the lofty title of “arch”? Do the other arches point at it and laugh at recess? These are all unanswered questions.

The Corral

Cattlemen are a big part of taking care of forest service land from what they tell me. First they pay a lot of money to have their stock on public lands, and second, they build the fences to keep them from wandering too far. When it comes to fences, these guys had built a pretty amazing structure. The cattle equivalent to the great wall.

One morning we were on our way down the mountain and the light was just beautiful, so I stopped at the gathering corrals and shot this series of photos.

I love this one below – it is more indicative of the light that I saw when I stopped to take these photos.

Photographically I’ll admit that flowers are the low hanging fruit. They are bright bits of color screaming for your visual attention with their flashy facades. What can I say? Occasionally I pick the low hanging fruit.

July 24 Monticello Utah

We celebrate Pioneer Day in Utah on July 24. I’ve always liked the atmosphere of Monticello on Pioneer Day. From the parade to the people packing into the small park to talk, laugh, and grab a navajo taco. This year was great too.

My Navajo Taco was made and served to me by a real Navajo!

Not for the faint of heart – this booth prepared their potatoes with a drill mounted to questionable wood. No, I didn’t eat any.

Deep fried twinkie. No, it is not good. I wanted to try the deep fried Snickers, but was out voted for the twinkie.

Grandpa wore a funny hat that mortified Grandma.

Caleb wore very long curly hair that mortified his parents. (Caleb is my youngest).

Very cool lady that cooked my “meat on a stick”.

And her granddaughter that took my money for the “meat on a stick”

I believe the very young girl holding him is his mom. She was getting rave reviews on her kids hair, I think the kid had received enough attention at this point for the day. He was not pleased to pose!

Hummingbirds

The lady that owns the cabins where we vacationed, had feeders up. The birds still aren’t easy to photograph, but I guess every photographer has to try at least once – you know?

The little buggers are so mean to each other. The brown ones come in and eventually settle down to a nice little hummingbird tea party, and along comes a gold one and fights with all of the brown ones, who are 50% chicken from my observation, and run away. The gold one then doesn’t eat, just hangs out to make life miserable for the brown ones.

I’m told the gold ones are the male and the brown ones female. I’m thinking there are probably times this hummingbird scenario might be a simple kind of mirror to reflect upon our own. But it’s late and I might not be thinking too clearly at all.

I’m not sure I’m digging the thumbnails – but you can tell me what you think. Leave a comment here or email or facebook or however you generally connect with me. LeeAnn, you can just whisper it in my ear.