kenstravelphoto.com – Page 29 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, July 2021, Part 1

The last stop on my route to the Grand Canyon North Rim in July 2021 was the Petrified Forest National Park. There is an exit to this national park from I40, but I elected to go into Holbrook, Arizona and go to the south entrance, since there is an RV site just outside the park entrance there. That RV site does not take reservations, so I wanted to be sure to get there early to increase my chance of getting a site. There are actually two places across the road from each other here, where RV’s can park. One site is free, first come, first serve, but has no hookups. The other has electric hook up, but no water. I did not need a water hookup, but I wanted electric, since I expected it to be hot and I wanted to be able to use my A/C or, or at least a fan.

I pulled into the Petrified Forest Gift Shop and RV Park and went into the gift shop to secure a site. Some of the reviews that I had read about this site said the staff were unfriendly, but I did not find that to be the case. Instead, I would characterize the two staff/owners as matter of fact and business like. They were not the bubbly personality types we’ve all come to expect at tourist lodgings, motels and hotels, but they were not unfriendly.

I jokingly requested a site with shade and was matter of factly told that there was no shade. I had noted that fact already. There are scattered trees around the edge of the RV parking area, but the vegetation on the trees is insufficient to provide any significant shade at any time of the day.

After getting my assigned site, I drove into the park for a quick tour. This park has gates at the entrances that open at 8AM and close at 5PM, so there is no way in the summer to be anywhere in this park for sunset or sunrise photography.

The visitor center is not far from the entrance and I stopped here, but I did not go in, since I was practicing “social distancing” during the COVID-19 pandemic. I picked up a guide brochure from an outside location behind the visitor center and proceeded to walk the paths. There were a substantial number of visitors, but not so many that one could not maintain a suitable distance from others.

Since it was mid-day with harsh overhead light, I elected not to carry around my heavy DSLR and to shoot with my iPhone camera. I do not even pretend to have great photos from this park.

There appear to be educational opportunities here and this seems to be a good place for lessons in the geological history of this area.

The base of the petrified tree in the photo above is about 10 feet in diameter. This is a clear indication of the size of the trees in the prehistoric forest that was once here.

Indeed, the size of the petrified logs here is impressive.

What a magnificent forest this must have been!

I noted a little girl and her dog watching me, so I had to include them in a photo.

Satisfied that I had seen everything behind the visitor center, I decided to hike to the “Agate House”, which was mentioned in the brochure. The Agate House is little over a mile from the visitor center. It was hot, but, with the temperature in the low 90s, not nearly as hot as I had expected for this time of the year. I took a bottle of cold water with me to be sure I did not get dehydrated. The hike is an easy one and is on a paved trail. The first portion of the hike is on the remnant of an asphalt road, which ends at what used to be a parking area, then the trail continues on a narrower path to the house.

Along the route, I caught a glimpse of a colorful desert creature moving amid the rocks beside the trail.

Fortunately, this colorful lizard remained perched on a rock just long enough for me to get a good photo before it disappeared into the jumble of broken petrified tree pieces.

The Agate House is actually a partially restored Native American dwelling. The restoration was done via a works program during the Great Depression. Current practice is to leave ruins as they are found, rather than to attempt reconstruction.

I returned to my vehicle at the visitor center parking lot and continued my quick tour of this park.

More later,

Ken

Rusting Automobiles, July 2021

I just realized that I had overlooked a few items that I wanted to get into a post, after I already have a number of post scheduled. So to keep with the chronological order that I prefer for my posts, I’m slipping in an additional post this week, rather than rework my scheduled post dates.

In route to the Grand Canyon North Rim, I spotted a couple of old, rusting away automobiles that I took time to shoot. This Pontiac was located such that I could not get good, isolated images without including distracting items in the photos. This cropped image is the best that I could get.

Parked in front of a church, as if waiting for AAA, to replace a tire, is this rusty, early Ford.

Looks like this old Ford has been here a long time.

Ok, that’s it for this short post,

Ken

Rural Decay, June, 2021

There is a small Texas town that I drive by on my trips westward and each time I go through it, I think I should someday take time to get off the highway and see what is in this old Texas town. Finally, on one of my homeward bound trips, I did just that.

This is not a ghost town, there are still residents, businesses, a post office, city hall, and some modern improvements, but I found numerous abandoned businesses in and around the downtown area and even an older, abandoned city hall.

I shot numerous photos, but many of the settings and the mid-day light were not conducive to getting interesting shots, so I’ve greatly culled the images to present in this post and I had to do some creative editing to add interest to these images.

There is a crumbling building that was an auto sales business long ago.

Given the smallness of this Texas town, I was surprised to find the remnants of an auto sales place here. This one appears to have been abandoned many years ago.

The back side of one of the downtown area’s abandoned business had a couple of windows, one of which had concrete rebar installed for security.

The adjacent window had no bars and the lower glass pane was missing.

A street corner building had an interesting looking backside. The image above is cropped from a wider view to remove distracting items. The monochrome conversion seems more fitting for this subject than the original color version.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Bisti Wilderness, June, 2021, Part 13

Hoodoo Sentinel, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

This large hoodoo seems to be standing guard for those in the valley below it, ready to alert of approaching photographers.

Bisti Valley, Bisti Wilderness, June 9, 2021, PM

Delicate Balance 1, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

I spotted the hoodoo above from a far distance as it stands out very distinctly in this broad valley in the Bisti Wilderness of New Mexico. I had scouted around it looking for ways to photograph it and found what I thought were promising compositions, only to discover that many of those compositions did not work out well.

A Valley of Hoodoos, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

Delicate Balance 2, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

Sunset Clouds and Hoodoos, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

Desert Sunset Sky, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

Long, Thin and Flat Hoodoos, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

Petrified Log and Sunset Light, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

It was a cloudy afternoon, but some rays of golden hour sunset light broke through.

Golden Hour Hoodoos, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

Sunset Features, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

I was in a dead end spur off of a big valley and went into this small nook, where I noted interesting rock features and hoodoos with the golden hour light on the top of the background hills and blue sky with fluffy clouds above. My son was calling for me to come out into the main valley, where the day’s final rays of light was peaking, so I hastened to get this shot, not at all sure it would be worthwhile; but I think it turned out well.

Soft Sunset Light, Bisti, June 9, 2021, PM

So there you have it, the final part of this visit to Bisti. I do not usually include so many photos in one post, but since this is part 13 and I had exactly 13 photos to wrap up this Bisti visit, it seems fitting to end it so.

If you can, please look at these images on my Flickr page and on a big screen, where the details are much better viewed.

Revisiting these images has put me in the mood for another visit to Bisti, but it might be some time before I can get back, so readers will not have to suffer through more Bisti any time soon.

Stay safe and thanks for following,

Ken

P.S. Actually, I just remembered that there is one remaining item for this visit: Night photography with stars and maybe the Milky Way, if I ever get around to finishing the editing, which is always a pain for such images, so I tend to procrastinate with that task. There will probably only be one or two or three photos, so that post will be short.

Bisti Wilderness, June 2021, Part 12

Bisti Hoodoos and Shadows, June 8, 2021, PM

I shot these same small hoodoos early one morning. This late day composition captures their long shadows across the desert valley floor.

Creature Face Hoodoo, Bisti, June 8, 2021, PM

Small Hoodoo – Long Shadow, Bisti, June 8, 2021, PM

This tall hoodoo with a very small cap seems to cast an unusually thin shadow, given the apparent thickness of the structure as seen from this angle.

Small Alien Hoodoo, Bisti, June 8, 2021, PM

Small Alien Hoodoo and Triplets, Bisti, June 8, 2021, PM

I photographed this alien looking hoodoo from various viewpoints (it was in an awkward place for getting a good shot) and under various light conditions. The photo just above may be the best image that I got.

Natural Bridge Hoodoo and Shadow, Bisti, June 8, 2021, PM

Late day shadows are encroaching on this feature just as the light gets best. At least I got its shadow on the hillside behind it.

Readers may recall seeing a monochrome version of this last photo in an earlier post. While not a compelling image, I liked the shadow of the central feature on the hillside behind it. The shadow is more distinct in this color version than in the monochrome version.

Stay tuned to the next morning’s shoot,

Ken

Bisti Wilderness, June 2021, Part 11

After the best early morning light, I continued to move around the valley in the vicinity of Nefertiti’s Crown looking for more composition with the great variety of rock shapes and hoodoos nearby.

Greeting The Sun, Bisti, June 8, 2021, AM

The same features can be photographed from various angles and distances, yielding completely different looking shapes, shadows, highlights and textures.

I tried various points of view and compositions for the scene above, but keeping my shadow out of the shots eliminated the best composition, so I settled for this view and it is not very satisfying.

Actually, I’m not really happy with most of these shots after the golden hour, but I do like the next to last image, with its wide angle view of the area from an elevated perspective and Greeting The Sun.

Bisti Wilderness, June 2021, Part 10

My son and I were out early again in Bisti waiting for sunrise. We had to hike about 2 miles to get to our destinations each day of our visit, so for sunrise we were initially hiking in the dark on the way out. After sunset photos, we could sometime hike all the way back to the parking lot without light, but sometimes we needed our headlamps for at least a portion of the hike back.

We were back in the area of the “Michelin Tire/Nefertiti Crown” and “Shark or “Surfboard” (our nicknames) hoodoos and I managed to get a few decent compositions here, while waiting for sunrise.

Bisti Jumble, Pre-Sunrise in Bisti, June 8, 2021, AM

I usually try to compose photos with multiple objects, such as those in the above photo, so that there is separation between all the objects, but sometime I could find no way to completely separate them.

Behind the Shark, Pre-Sunrise, Bisti, June 8, 2021, AM

Nefertiti’s Crown Hoodoo, Bisti, June 8, 2021, AM

I shot the Nefertiti Crown hoodoo again in sunrise light, but with a wider angle view this time. Nefertiti’s shadow is still falling on the “Shark”.

From the point of view in the above photo, I got the shadow from the low, tilted hoodoo in the foreground that it cast upon the base of the Shark Hoodoo. Note that Nefertiti’s Crown Hoodoo looks completely different from this point of view, hence my initial nickname of “Lumpy Hoodoo”.

“Morning Breaks” is my favorite from this batch and I had to use multiple exposures blended via HDR software to get this one. Although, “Behind the Shark” is a close second and “Bisti Jumble” comes in close behind that.

More later,

Ken

Abandoned Houses and Structures on the High Plains of New Mexico, March 2021

Down the road a few miles from the old ranch and windmill, depicted in the previous post, is a small community, that was once more vibrant. Like many rural towns in the US, it has suffered from the evolving economy and technological advances that result in lost livelihoods. As people move away and are not replaced, homes and businesses are abandoned.

I have stopped in this community once previously to photograph an abandoned school under a clear sky. There were scattered clouds today, so I figured I might get more interesting images this time through.

Abandoned school on the high plains of New Mexico.

Just down the gravel street from this school was another one that I had neglected to photograph during my first stop here.

Abandoned school on the high plains of New Mexico.

Those big fluffy clouds added much interest and black and white seemed a good treatment of the images.

Abandoned school on the high plains of New Mexico

I could see a number of other abandoned homes and structures scattered around this little community, so I took time to photograph a few of those.

Abandoned house on the high plains of New Mexico

Abandoned commercial building on the high plains of New Mexico

Abandoned commercial building on the high plains of New Mexico.

Dilapidated Windmill and Water Storage Tanks on the high plains of New Mexico.

Abandoned house on the high plains of New Mexico.

The trees die as they are abandoned along with the houses and other buildings.

Abandoned stone fence and home on the high plains of New Mexico.

Abandoned house on the high plains of New Mexico.

The final image in this post was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page and so far has received 5737 views and 192 favorites.

Until next time,

Ken

The Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, March 2021, Part 5

There was a brief sleet storm just after I went to bed the second night of our stay near the Great Sand Dunes National Park. It was going to be a very cold night, so I wondered how the sleet and cold would impact our morning photography.

We arose before daybreak to get into the dunes before sunrise. It was 17 degF, the coldest morning we had experienced during this trip.

The dunes were dusted by the overnight sleet. This added interest to the landscape, but the sleet and cold temperatures preserved footprints from the previous day.

At least the footprints were somewhat muted, but there seemed no way to avoid getting footprints into photographs. I might have removed these in Lightroom, but I’m sure the results would not have been satisfactory.

In a valley between dunes, I found interesting patterns, where there either were no footprints or I could easily exclude those from my photos.

The sleet dusted, frosty sand dunes with snow covered mountains and clouds over them were good for making black and white images.

Snow and Sleet on the Great Sand Dunes, Colorado, March 2021

This wraps up the highlights of my March 2021 photography in the Great Sand Dunes.

Thanks for following,

Ken

The Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, March 2021, Part 4

We returned to the dunes in the early evening for sunset photography and I struggled to find satisfying compositions. Maybe we were not in the optimal location for this shoot. There were low clouds on the western horizon, which also blocked the sunset light.

As we were giving up and beginning to hike back towards the parking lot, there was a sudden and brief break through of light. My son, being much younger and more fit than I, ran to the west to catch the fleeting light, while I walked as fast as I could, hoping to get to a good vantage point before the light was gone.

I think the image above is the best one the I got during this outing. I was still far from the best vantage point for the best light, but I knew the light was fading fast and I had to stop and shoot now. I got low to catch the dim light in this grassy patch of sand with the fading light on the dune in the background and the interesting clouds over the dune.

After the light faded from that dune and illuminated the mountainside to the east, I pointed my camera in that direction to get this final shot.

Stay tuned for our final morning in the dunes,

Ken

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Tag: kenstravelphoto.com

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, July 2021, Part 1

Like this:

Rusting Automobiles, July 2021

Like this:

Rural Decay, June, 2021

Like this:

Bisti Wilderness, June, 2021, Part 13

Like this:

Bisti Wilderness, June 2021, Part 12

Like this:

Bisti Wilderness, June 2021, Part 11

Like this:

Bisti Wilderness, June 2021, Part 10

Like this:

Abandoned Houses and Structures on the High Plains of New Mexico, March 2021

Like this:

The Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, March 2021, Part 5

Like this:

The Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, March 2021, Part 4

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: