Photography – Page 17 – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada – Part 1

My oldest son, also a photo enthusiast and excellent photographer, met me in Snow Canyon on the first morning of my stay. The weather forecast called for considerable rainfall for our location over the next few days, so we began to consider our options. After some discussion and exploration of not too far away areas, we decided it best to move into Nevada in the vicinity of Valley of Fire State Park.

Valley of Fire State Park has two camping areas, one with full hookups for RVs and another with no hook ups, but water available. At the time of our visit, those campgrounds were still on a first come first serve basis. This is a popular destination in the spring, so it is difficult to get a camping spot. We stayed a few miles outside the park on BLM land for the first several night, traveling into the park and into adjacent areas. We made a few passes through the campsites, while in the park, looking for open sites. It was not unusual to see would be campers waiting in line for a campsite to be vacated that could be claimed.

As is our normal practice, we scouted areas for photography and I made many photos with my iPhone, during these outings. So part of this series of blogs will contain mostly those scouting photos.

I got down low to photograph this small cactus, making it look much larger than it is.

Late day sunlight lights up the rocks in Valley of Fire, enhancing the color, shadows and textures.

We spotted these two desert sheep as we were driving. I shot these from the vehicle. That slope is much steeper than this image makes it appear and the soil is loose, making their hooves slip with each step. These animals have a remarkable balance and the ability to navigate steep rugged terrain.

There is an old CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) multiple room crude cabin used by CCC members, who worked in the park during the Great Depression, in the park. The following image is from the larger of the three rooms.

More later,

Ken

Snow Canyon State Park, Utah, March 2023 – Sunrise Day 2

I set out from my campsite before sunrise on the first morning after my arrival in Snow Canyon to hike to my chosen location for sunrise photography. It was a crisply cold morning, which I dressed for, but I was soon unzipping my jacket as my body generated heat from the gentle uphill hike.

I stopped at a location near petrified sand dunes, chose a location to set up my camera and waited for sunrise, making a few pre-sunrise images.

I’ve always liked the lighting just before sunrise and I often like those images better than those after the direct sunlight hits the subject.

I made a number of images as the direct rays of the rising sun began to impinge upon the distant canyon walls and add color to the sky.

After seeing the early morning rays touching the uppermost parts of the highest peaks, I began to hike back towards my campsite, looking for other scenes to photograph.

The park has rules requiring visitors to stay on the official trails, which is limiting for photographers. It does not appear that those rules are rigidly enforced. There were numerous footprints and even bike tire tracks in the sand, adding unsightly features in my photos. Sometimes I will edit these out or at least try to mute those via editing, but many times I think the editing introduces undesirable artifacts, so I might not eliminate all such features. It is likely that casual observers will not note the edits, but knowing where the edits are, I can nearly always see unnatural results and would rather not introduce those into my photos.

Until next time,

Ken

Snow Canyon State Park, Utah, March 2023

In late March of 2023, I traveled to Snow Canyon State Park in Utah with the intention of staying here a full week. The park features, which are impressive, are essentially located along the roadway that goes through the park. However, due to the orientation of the canyon, sunrise works for golden hour photography in some portions of the park, but sunset golden hour is either very limited or non-existent. This was a disappointment, as that greatly limited my photographic possibilities here.

After checking into my campsite, I drove towards the south exit/entrance (I had entered via the north entrance) to check out the scenery in that direction and to get a cell phone signal. There is only a weak, at best, phone signal at the campground, but a good signal at and near the south entrance.

On my way back to the campsite, I stopped to check out Jenny’s Canyon, a very short slot canyon that is accessible via a short hike from the roadway.

Eastern Canyon Wall, Snow Canyon, Utah, iPhone Photo

I stopped to shoot this image of the canyon wall, that I hiked towards, which is the rock formation where Jenny’s Slot Canyon is located.

Big Mouth Rock, Snow Canyon, Utah, iPhone Photo

I noted this rock atop a portion of the canyon wall, that I dubbed “Big Mouth Rock” for obvious reason.

Sky Slash, Jenny’s Canyon, Snow Canyon, Utah, iPhone Photo

Sunlight filtering down into narrow canyons can create some remarkable color contrast on the canyon walls. The image above is shot looking upwards towards the sky from within the short slot canyon.

Sky Slash 2, Jenny’s Canyon, Snow Canyon, Utah, iPhone Photo

Canyon Wall Details, Jenny’s Canyon, Snow Canyon, Utah, iPhone Photo

Usually, I find something of interest to photograph in route to my destination, but I found nothing of special interest during my first two days of the drive. Maybe I wasn’t looking intently enough and too preoccupied with getting to my stops. Although, I did see this group of deer near the entrance to my first overnight stop.

There is always at least one in a group photo that is not looking at the camera. iPhone Photo.

I’ve picked out a general location for sunrise photos tomorrow. The results are next up.

Ken

Indiana Fall 2022 – Old and/Or Abandoned

With only one day left of our fall 2022 Indiana visit, I traveled the backroads from our cabin one last time. Many trees were already bare, peak color was nearly all gone, it was overcast and threatening rain, so I hoped to find interesting barns, old homes or other interesting rural scenes to photograph.

Those three trees out front were probably planted with the anticipation of sitting on the porch in their shade some years down the road. The child’s bike beside the house makes me think that a family lived here or maybe a child visited grandparents here.

I saw numerous other interesting rural scenes similar to these, but either there was no place to pull off of the roadway to photograph those or those were set back too far on private property to approach without permission.

This is the final post for Indiana Fall 2022.

Thanks for following,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2022 – Rainy Day at the Cabin

During the two weeks we were in Indiana this fall, we witnessed how fleeting the beauty of fall color can be.

These images were made from the back balcony of our cabin one rainy, misty day. When we first arrived, those bare trees had leaves and the tree on the left was nearly all green with only slight color beginning to show at the extremities of one branch.

Astute observers will note that these images are all of the same general scene with various compositions. The light rain, wetting the scene, brought out the color in the gray tree trunks, bare limbs and foliage, while at the same time muting the more distant trees.

Later,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2022 – A Short Walk and A Short Drive

One morning before going out for the day, I walked just less than a mile down the country roadway that went past our cabin. I knew there was an old barn in the neighborhood that I had passed by many times and never taken time to photograph.

After conversion to black and white, I use selective colorization to bring out a little of the fall color in the nearby trees and a little color on the barn.

We had friends with us for the first week of this fall visit to Indiana. I wanted to show them at least one covered bridge, since they had never seen one. They did not want to spend hours in a vehicle to get to an area with lots of covered bridges, but there was one small covered bridge just a few minutes away, one that I had seen on a previous visit to this area.

This bridge is located along a narrow country roadway, where there is limited space to pull over and turn around. Our friends were driving today. I routed them to the bridge along the best part of the access roadway, but turning around to get back out was a challenge for their minivan. Continuing without turning around would have presented other problems, if another vehicle came along going in the opposite direction.

More Indiana Fall later,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2022 – Old Stuff – Part 2

More old stuff found in Indiana Antique stores.

Hint: Old rusty railroad spikes can often be found in large numbers alongside railroads, where these are left after railroad repairs.

I learned not long ago, via one of my British Flickr contacts, that Toppers is an old British term for hats.

This is the first time I’ve seen this type tall Texaco oil bottle. Usually, these are all shaped like the Gulf and John Deere ones adjacent to the Texaco bottle.

Apparently, enclosed cog wheels was an advanced feature in the age of this wringer washing machine. Probably a safety feature.

A pre-computer version of a home office.

The Garret is an old home that is now filled top to bottom with old stuff everywhere. It is run by an elderly couple that purchased the old home many years ago. I was not able to stand back far enough to get the best shot, especially after having to edit the original photo to make this structure look more upright. I was inspired to take this shot by the clouds in the blue sky above. It reminds me of something that might have appeared in the movie “Ghost Busters”.

That is all of the old stuff, at least for now.

Ken

Indiana Fall 2022 – Old Stuff – Part 1

Visits to Indiana with my wife always require visits to local, and sometimes not so local, antique stores. To occupy my time I look for interesting photo subjects for my camera phone.

I used such equipment as this waveform generator in a physics lab.

To be continued,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2022 – Nashville

Nashville, Indiana is the nearest town to the cabin we stay in while visiting Indiana in the fall. It is a quaint tourist town with all that such towns offer – lots of tourist, crowds, expensive stores selling all kinds of goods, expensive restaurants, limited parking.

I am not a fan of such places, but it is always mandatory to take in some of this tourist town on each visit. I usually end up pacing the sidewalk, while my wife shops.

Sometimes I shoot a few photographs of the local scene with my iPhone camera.

Decorative grass and flowers are common along the streets of downtown Nashville. The sunlight highlighting the plumes on this one inspired me to shoot it, cropping in close to exclude the street scene.

Nashville is most popular in the fall with the nearby Brown County State Park a draw for leaf peepers. Artwork and crafts related to fall are common place.