More photos from a hike along an Indian forest trail in the fall of 2023.
This wraps up my hike and photography along this forest trail. Upon arriving back at my vehicle, I drove on along the forest roadway, looking for more fall scenes to photograph.
More later,
Ken
More photos from an Indiana fall forest.
To be continued,
Ken
I continued walking along an Indiana forest hiking trail, stopping frequently to photograph the fall foliage and woodland scenes.
To be continued,
Ken
Today I drove down backroads heading generally in the direction of a state forest and a wilderness area. Along the way I stopped at a stream and shot a few images of the stream and wooded area around it.
Shortly after getting onto a roadway in a state forest, I parked in a pull out to have a look around. I did not plan to stay long, but wanted to see what this area had to offer in the nearby woods.
Even though it was late October, it was a warm day and mosquitos were buzzing around as I walked down an old forest roadway. Usually, mosquitos are not a problem here at this time of the year, so I had not brought insect repellant and frequent swatting and waving off mosquitoes was a distraction.
As I wandered along the faint roadway, it eventually turned into an official hiking trail. I walked quite a way along this trail. As I got deeper into the woods the mosquitoes became less of a problem, making stopping to shoot photos more pleasant.
To be continued,
Ken
After my sunrise shoot, I hiked a short distance along the north side of Ogle Lake in Brown County State Park, Indiana getting a few fall images.
That’s it for this morning’s shoot. Until next time,
Ken
On our hike back to the parking lot, we took an obvious route towards a large feature that we had hiked past on our way in. This route went alongside the rock outcrop from which the Fire Wave is formed.
That large rock feature towards which this outcrop points, is our destination for joining up with the official trail back to the parking lot.
Early morning shadow and light seem to be divided by the meeting of two different rock formations. The meeting of these two different rock deposits forms a low area, where sand accumulates and desert vegetation takes root.
I noted many small pebbles accumulated in the ridges of this rock outcrop. Initially, I thought maybe tourist were tossing these into the grooves, but now I think it is a natural accumulation. Maybe strong winds blow the pebbles along the rock face until the pebbles drop into a place that is somewhat protected from the wind.
That’s all for this hike and early morning shoot,
Ken
One of the better known and most popular geological features in Valley of Fire is The Fire Wave. The beginning of the hike to this feature is well marked and apparent, but the trail soon becomes not so apparent. We found a couple of others on the trail in the early morning of our visit , at least one of whom had been there previously, and he was confused about the trail, too.
We headed in opposite directions, wandered around for awhile, found a marker telling us we missed the trail, doubled back and eventually found our way to the Fire Wave.
The two we had separated from earlier had also found their way and another photographer had arrived before any of us. Those three were occupying the best vantage point for shooting the Fire Wave in the AM, so I shot from other directions, until those arriving first vacated their spots.
The shadow of one photographer and his tripod can be seen in the lower center of this first image.
While waiting for the other photographers to finish their shooting, I wandered around to the east side of the feature to see what it looked like from there, making a couple of images.
After the other photographers were satisfied with their shots, I moved into a better spot for shooting this feature. The Fire Wave is best shot at sunset, rather than sunrise, but then one has to deal with a crowd of folks, since most ordinary visitors do not get out at sunrise.
To be continued,
Ken
After a morning shoot, my son and I decided to take a short hike in another part of the park, before. the crowds of tourists began to get out and about.
It is not surprising that this area is a popular one in which to film portions of western movies. The image above is of the remains of one of those movie sets.
A portion of our early morning hike went through a slot type canyon. The many footprints in the sand indicates the number of people that have recently hiked this way.
That’s all for now.
Ken
More hiking and scouting photos in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
This simple photo was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page (April 13, 2023) and as of this writing has garnered 6801 views and 237 faves.
The rock layers upon which these couples are walking is the feature that forms the well know “Fire Wave” feature in this park.
Stay tuned for even more Valley of Fire and desert photography,
Ken
More scouting and exploration photos in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
Nature is messy and cluttered. Photographers don’t like clutter, even if it is a part of nature. I cropped this photo to remove some of the natural clutter, mostly on the bottom left. There remains some clutter on the bottom left and what about that unkempt looking bush and roots on the pond border? Is it really necessary to clean up a natural scene, to make a more pleasing photo? It depends upon one’s vies of the world and one’s idea of photography and purpose of the photo. Sometimes one may want to show the clutter, sometimes not. Sometimes clutter can’t be avoided.
The way my eyes look in the morning.
More desert scenes to come,
Ken
