iPhone Photography – Page 6 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma – Quanah Parker Lake and Little Baldy Scouting Photography

With a final destination of Badlands National Park, South Dakota, I needed stops in route to break up the long road trip. I searched the maps of the states I would travel through to get to the Badlands for possibilities. The first place that I noted in Oklahoma was the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, which is only a few hours drive from my home base. I searched online for information about the refuge and looked for photos taken in the refuge. The results of that research convinced me that I should spend a couple of nights in the refuge RV campground.

Prior to this visit, I had no idea that such a place was so close by and that there were actually old granite mountains in the southwestern part of Oklahoma. Since I was traveling just after the busy summer season, there were plenty of RV sites from which to choose. After consulting the online campground map, I chose a site that looked like it was conveniently located near the restroom facility and near hiking trails from the campground.

It turned out that my campsite was just across a campground road from the campground hosts. I stopped by to chat with the hosts, let them know that I had arrived, get updates on the campground rules and conditions and get their advice on locations for sunset and sunrise photography.

I find that most non-photographers have completely different concepts about sunset/sunrise photography than do photographers. Still it is good to get local knowledge, especially for first visits to a location. After checking out the locations on the refuge map of the hosts’ suggestions, I decided that I should check out the area around the campground first and scout the suggested areas the following day.

I walked around the campground to get my bearings, find the trails originating in the campground and check out those trails. The refuge map is sketchy. Others that I encountered during my exploration of the large refuge area, expressed the same frustration with the refuge map.

There were pretty wildflowers growing in the campground area.

After some effort and hiking much farther around the campground, than should have been necessary, I found the trail that I wanted to explore. The trailhead was visible from my campsite, but the trailhead was not marked! There were also branches along the trail, some branches clearly traveled trails, some branches not so clearly used and it was not even clear that those branches were actually trails and there were no markings along the trails.

It was not an area that one could get lost in, during daylight at least, so I did not mind exploring and I eventually found my way to my chosen destination.

One branch of the trail went around nearby Quanah Parker Lake. After hiking portions of that trail, I could see no good views for sunset photography, so I chose a branch that went away from the lake. That branch took me through woods to the other side of the lake, which looked more promising for photography.

Quanah Parker Lake, iPhone Scouting Photo

There were plentiful Prickly Pear Cacti in this area.

Looking towards Little Baldy, iPhone Scouting Photo

In addition to checking out the lake, I was interested in the map feature referred to as Little Baldy. I was not really sure what to expect of Little Baldy nor where exactly it was, given the sketchy map, but I figured I would know it when I saw it.

On the way to Little Baldy, iPhone Scouting Photo

There were many granite rocks and boulders scattered around, so I experimented with using those as foreground objects and tried to visualize how the scenes would look at sunset and sunrise.

When I spotted Little Baldy, I explored around and up its slope, trying to pick vantage points from which to shoot at sunset today and for sunrise the following morning.

View from Little Baldy, iPhone Scouting Photo

Shooting with the sun low in the sky, one’s shadow often becomes a problem to deal with. Sometimes a desired composition just can’t be obtained without one’s shadow and compositional adjustments have to be made.

Now that I know where I want to be at sunset, I just have to figure out the timing for departing my campsite and getting into place prior to sunset. I’ve now got a good idea of the most direct path from my campsite to my intended location, so all I have to do is time the hike. Doing so as I returned to my campsite, it turned out that the hike is only about 10-15 minutes. That is really convenient and means that I can return to camp after sunset shooting without hiking in the dark and I can even hike back for sunrise photos and not have to hike in morning darkness, either.

Standby for the sunset shoot,

Ken

Black Canyon of the Gunnison – North Rim

From Ridgway we traveled to Hotchkiss, Colorado, where we planned to visit the North Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Years ago we had briefly visited the south rim, but this was the first visit to the North Rim. After checking into our motel, which was surprisingly nice for such a small town, we drove to the north rim.

It is a fairly long drive from Hotchkiss to the canyon, but I wanted to do a bit of scouting, prior to returning for late day or early morning photos. It was early afternoon and the sun was high in the sky. We stopped at a number of canyon overlooks, where I snapped iPhone scouting photos.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison, North Rim, iPhone Photo

Since this is a deep canyon, direct sun light penetrates to the bottom for only a few minutes each day. The best time to photograph the canyon is probably not during the typically preferred golden hours of early morning and late day, so timing when to be here is a problem for those of us that are not highly knowledgeable of the lighting variation across the seasons here.

Much geology is revealed in the rocks of the canyon walls. One can find lots of information on the canyon’s geology via many online sources. Here is one link to check out, if interested, and another here.

The last photo in this post shows a feature referred to as “The Camel” (left of center and just above the vertical center).

My original intention was to return to the canyon with my DSLR either later today or the next morning, but given the travel time from our lodging and the uncertainty about the best time of day to be here, I decided more effort on this visit might not be adequately fruitful. Instead, we changed our travel plans and decided to move on towards home a day earlier than planned.

I know these iPhone photos are not very good, but these are all I have for this trip.

Ken

Telluride, CO, August 2022

After a morning of browsing and shopping in Ouray, we traveled over the Dallas Divide to Telluride, another quaint, old Colorado town that is popular with summer tourist and winter skiers.

In route along Colorado 62, I kept an eye out for potential photography sites, hoping to return for sunset photos. I stopped at one location to get a few shots of the afternoon storm clouds building over the mountain tops.

In Telluride, I only used my iPhone to shoot a few images in the old town.

There must be a story behind this mural painted on the side of a Telluride building, but I don’t know it.

Butch Cassidy reportedly took over $24,000 in the robbery of the San Miguel Valley Bank. That was quite a bit of money in those days, equivalent to about $857,000 in 2022 money. Butch should have retired after this haul.

So much for this quick visit to Telluride.

Until next time,

Ken

Silverton, Colorado, August 2022

Silverton, Colorado is a picturesque old town nestled below Rocky Mountain peaks along U.S. 550 between Durango and Ouray. Silverton originated during mining boom times in the nearby mountains and was a rowdy place of saloons and bawdy houses, where the miners came to spend their wages, earned by their hard toiling in the mines.

It is now a major tourist attraction with lots of art galleries, antique shops, souvenir shops of all sorts and numerous restaurants and eating places to choose from. Nothing here is inexpensive, food or otherwise.

When we decided it was time to have lunch, most of the restaurants were crowded, including the limited outdoor seating, which we required, since we were traveling with a miniature labradoodle.

We ended up purchasing sandwiches from a food truck that had picnic tables and umbrellas for shade. The sandwiches were tasty. In talking to the lady working in the food truck, we discovered she and the food truck were from East Texas not so far from our home base. They trailer the food truck to Silverton for the tourist season, live in an RV, then back to Texas in the winter months. There were lots of Texans in Colorado. No doubt fleeing the excessively hot and dry summer in Texas this year.

Next up a spur of the moment decision to take a 4 wheel drive road to the ghost town of Animas Forks.

Let’s hope we don’t end up like this rusty truck in a Silverton alleyway.

Until then,

Ken

Durango, Colorado, August 2022

After departing Santa Fe, New Mexico we headed to Colorado, stopping for a couple of nights in Durango.

I had anticipated spending most of our time in downtown Durango, allowing my wife to shop to her hearts’ content; but she was not interested in shopping here.

Our motel was near the Animas River, with a walking/bicycle path along the river. We checked out that path, but discovered that it was not a great walk at this location, being completely open with no shade and it was warmer in the sunshine than we expected. There was a pedestrian bridge on this path with good views of the river and that was as far along this path as we ventured.

We drove a few miles into the downtown area, intending to have dinner at one of the many restaurants there, but we could find no available parking. After a number of circuits through downtown, we abandoned it and finally found a decent Mexican restaurant in a small shopping center off of the main roadway between our motel and downtown. We enjoyed our dinner at outdoor seating at that location and judging by the number of Hispanic customers, it appeared to be a popular restaurant with the locals.

There are numerous parks in Durango and long pleasant walking/biking paths along the Animas River, which we checked out the full day we had in the area.

I noted that the two youngest kids in the front of this raft were more interested in me than the river. It must have been the phone camera that I pointed at them.

There are modern art work pieces in the parks.

We drove around the local area to check out the countryside, driving up into a national forest and along numerous backroads. Along one of these roadways, I spotted a large rafter or flock of wild turkeys, maybe a couple of dozen.

On to Silverton next,

Ken

Santa Fe, New Mexico – Miscellaneous

We were in Santa Fe, New Mexico in early August, 2022, meeting up with one of our sons and his wife, primarily to attend a couple of performances at the open air opera.

Santa Fe is a typical tourist town with over priced everything, but a very pleasant place to visit, although it was warmer than the pre-trip weather forecast indicated. The old town atmosphere is charming, with lots of shops, street vendors and activity. I usually had the task of waiting with our labradoodle, while my wife shopped. Some stores allow dogs inside, some do not.

This portion of our trip was not conducive to photography activity, so I have only a few iPhone photographs to share. The image above was made prior to the first opera performance we attended. The mustache on the stage might give away the performance: “The Barber of Seville”.

The sun sets behind the stage and it was spectacular at the beginning of this first event. The second night’s sunset, during the early portion of “Carmen”, was not so great. Even though this facility is covered, it is open. We were expecting cooler temperatures at night, but it was still quite warm in the audience area.

One afternoon we went to the Meow Wolf art display, which is a rather wacky place.

There are numerous good museums in and around Santa Fe. The only one we went through is the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

This museum had many beautiful pieces of pottery, old and modern, on display with historical information.

There were other museums that looked interesting, but we did have time to visit those on this trip.

On to Colorado next,

Ken

Old Stuff – Antiques

One of my wife’s favorite pastimes is browsing in antique stores and malls. I frequently accompany her on these visits, occupying my time shooting photos, usually with an iPhone, of items or displays that I find interesting and/or nostalgic.

Fuzzy Blue Ducks – A large plates decorated with ducks in a pond

I recall seeing the Memorex magnetic recording tape commercials many years ago, but I do not recall Memorex brand radios, which seems strange, since Memorex came into existence in 1961, while I was in high school. I had a Westinghouse clock radio in my bedroom then, not Memorex.

Having photography as a hobby, I’m always drawn to displays of old cameras.

The vendor of the booth in which this odd electronic device is displayed has an elaborate description of its ability to transport one in space and time. I see no Flux Capacitor, but there are numerous potentiometers in its Circulator panel.

Cameras, comic books and yams. What can be better?

Remember when cameras were manufactured in the U.S.?

Six-20 Camera, as opposed to Brownie Scouts or Fudge Brownies.

Not sure what makes these “Lucky”, but it was a popular brand for years.

Sieves used for sorting some materiel by diameter, probably have/had numerous application in industries. Maybe these even were even used for particle size distribution analysis of data that I used in my job, prior to retirement.

Colorful lamp shades hark back to the early days of popular home electric lighting.

Rows of colorful glassware always catch my eye,

as do rows and shelves filled with old cameras. Such displays remind me of how fast technology advances. This image (and all others in this post) were made with a device that is obsolete, even though it is only a few years old.

Not Dak Prescot, but seen in Dallas.

From Wikipedia: “An anastigmat or anastigmatic lens is a photographic lens completely corrected for the three main optical aberrations: spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism. Early lenses often included the word Anastigmat in their name to advertise this new feature”.

I learned something new from this old camera.

All the best,

Ken

Upper Calf Creek Falls, Escalante National Monument, Utah

As a side trip from Capitol Reef National Park, we decided to hike to Upper Calf Creek Falls in the Escalante National Monument. The trailhead to this waterfall is just off of Utah Route 12 near Boulder. We traveled this route numerous times going to and from Torrey and the southern portion of Capitol Reef National Park.

The trail to the falls is only about a mile one way, but it is very steep over slick rock for the first portion, before becoming moderately level, then moderately steep just before the base of the falls. It is so steep that not only is coming back up the trail strenuous, but going down the trail takes some effort to avoid slipping and falling. There were a few places on the trail that required big steps down and up.

The information we found for the trail says the grade is 14% at the top and my son’s trail app showed as much as 20+% grade over some portions. Anyone reasonable fit can do this trail, but care is advised.

We had planned to make the round trip to the falls in about an hour. When we signed the trailhead register, we noted that the two previous hikers had taken hours on the trail, which gave us pause to consider whether much of that time was due to the strenuous nature of the trail.

Anyway, we proceeded cautiously down the trail. I knew the trip out would require me to stop to take periodic breathers, but I had no doubt that I could safely navigate down and back.

Due to the steepness and strenuous nature of the trail, I elected not to carry the weight of my heavy DSLR and lens. So the few photos in this post are via my iPhone.

Upper Calf Creek Falls and Pool, iPhone Photo

We took time at the base of the falls for photography, snacking and hydrating, before heading back to the trailhead. Our round trip time was 90 minutes, 1.5 times as long as we had anticipated. The additional 30 minutes was mostly due to the strenuous nature of the trail both going down and coming out.

We had done the trail to the Lower Calf Creek falls years ago. That trail is three times as long, but mostly on flat, sandy ground along the creek bed.

Until next time,

Ken

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, March 2022, Part 23 – Abandoned Drilling Rig and Scouting Photography

Heading northwards along a dirt road in the northern portion of Capitol Reef National Park (actually, this is probably outside the park boundary, maybe on private land or BLM public land), is this abandoned drilling rig. I think it was a water well rig. It reminds me of the old cable tool rigs used in the very early days of oil well drilling, with its wooden mast and wooden flywheel.

The old truck body has been used as an artist canvas and for target shooting by someone or someones.

There was a watering facility near this old rig for a local cattle herd. Some of the cattle watched me as I watched them to be sure none of them took exception to my presence.

One never knows what one might find in the great open spaces of the western U.S.

Desert Overlook, Capitol Reef National Park, iPhone Photo

Painted Hills, Capitol Reef National Park, iPhone Photo

Thanks for following,

Ken

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, March 2022, Part 22 – Cathedral Valley Exploration

My readers have already seen many photos of some of the fantastic, massive geological features in the Cathedral Valley portion of Capitol Reef National Park. The long loop road through this area passes many such features. We did not have time to explore around all of these and certainly not time to visit each area for golden hour sunrise or sunset photography.

But we did stop and walk around at some of the more easily accessible areas near the roadway. Often, I would use my iPhone camera to capture the scenes, rather than lugging around a heavy DSLR and lens.

Desert Vortex – Sky and Earth, iPhone Photo

Desert Sentinels/Commander and Sidekick, iPhone Photo

Until next time,

Ken

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Tag: iPhone Photography

Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma – Quanah Parker Lake and Little Baldy Scouting Photography

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Black Canyon of the Gunnison – North Rim

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Telluride, CO, August 2022

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Silverton, Colorado, August 2022

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Durango, Colorado, August 2022

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Santa Fe, New Mexico – Miscellaneous

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Old Stuff – Antiques

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Upper Calf Creek Falls, Escalante National Monument, Utah

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Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, March 2022, Part 23 – Abandoned Drilling Rig and Scouting Photography

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Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, March 2022, Part 22 – Cathedral Valley Exploration

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