A very talented young woman recently fired up a new website with some amazing images of owls.  The website tells about her images and her efforts to never infringe on a creature’s space.  She’s very aware and avoids stressing the animals while creating some amazing images.  One of the comments posted detailed a photographer’s recent trip to British Columbia to photograph a large concentration of Snowy Owls and the details of other idiot photographers trampling delicate marshland and even chasing the owls to get the “in flight” shots.  And that’s what disturbs me.. that so many other photographers, some of whom are quite famous, have so little regard for anyone or anything but themselves and getting the shot.

I’ve been thinking back this afternoon of the instances I’m aware of where a photographer showed little or no concern for his fellow photographers or in some cases for his subjects all in the effort to get the “shot.”  I won’t share any of the names but let me relate some of the instances that I’m aware of.

First and foremost and quite possibly the most offensive happened in my own backyard.  I think it was about 15 or 20 years ago (the memories get a bit hazy at my age) when I saw a news report about a photographer taking a shot in Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs of a Juniper tree with it’s branches framing one of the sandstone formations.  He then pulled out a saw and cut down the juniper tree.  After his arrest he told the rangers that he got a great shot and didn’t want anyone to ever be able to duplicate it.  I’d like to think he spent some time in jail but probably not.

In a similar vein, I was talking to some friends and fellow photographers recently at a gathering of Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers when a story was related about a very famous photographer that currently has a nationally broadcast TV show.  My friends encountered this photographer and his TV crew while in the field during wildflower season and were talking about photographing this location when the TV show was done.  My friends returned later to find a whole field of flowers trampled to the ground and upon encountering the famous guy and his crew later they were told he did that so my friends wouldn’t be able to duplicate his images.  Unbelievable!  What arrogance!

But not all damage is intentional.  There’s the tale of the well-known photographer who was leading a seminar on night photography at Delicate Arch in Utah a few years ago.  To illustrate the concept of light painting he and his students packed in a bunch of presto logs to Delicate Arch and built a fire underneath the arch…and the creosote in the logs created a stain on Delicate Arch that will probably be visible for decades.  He was subsequently arrested, tried, and ended up paying a healthy fine.  I don’t know if that’s also the reason behind the closing of his gallery in Moab, UT, but I’d like to think the locals were suitably outraged and ran him out.

And sometimes it’s just plain ignorance.  If you’ve ever been to Yellowstone you’ve seen this on display many times.  The tourist with a PHD (Press Here, Dummy) camera trying to get a portrait of some critter or another.  The move closer and the critter moves away.  They pursue and the critter moves away…and so on.  I never wish ill upon anyone but sometimes you can’t help but hope the idiot tourist gets stomped or bitten a little bit.

So what do we do about it? Well, the best thing you can do is police yourself.  If you’re a landscape shooter, be aware of your surroundings.  If you’re hiking and run across an empty water bottle or candy wrapper, pick it up.  Don’t trample a bunch of flowers on your way to get a shot of that perfect flower in the middle of the meadow.  If you’re a wildlife shooter, study your subject and it’s habits BEFORE you head into the field.  If an animal changes it’s behavior you’re too close.  If you notice signs of stress, back off.

When I was studying Forestry in college I spent a couple of summers working for the Forest Service in Washington State.  One summer I spent a week posting signs at trailheads leading into the Glacier Peak Wilderness.  You’ve seen them before..”Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photographs.”  Let’s be considerate and hope that others can enjoy the outdoors like we do.

Here’s the story: A fellow photographer and good friend of mine is currently in the process of getting ready to open a photo gallery in a small western town that derives a great deal of its revenue from the tourist industry.  Though several galleries have come and gone in this town there is currently one that has been around for several years.  The owner of that gallery is a local pro photographer who is very well-known in town and in the photographic community.  I don’t know how well his name is known in the East but here in the West I suppose he could be considered “famous.”

A few days ago my friend was getting his hair cut at the regular place and his stylist who has been spreading the word of the new gallery for some time related a question one of her other clients had asked.  When told of the upcoming gallery opening the customer said “Is he as good as (famous photographer)?”  What a question!  Of course the stylist told the customer to check out the gallery and decide for herself.  Great answer.  But that simple little question has a lot of derivatives.   I’ve blogged before about the byzantine workings of my mind and it’s been working overtime on this one.  Strap in and let’s take a journey.

The first question that comes to mind is how do we define “good” as it relates to a photograph and I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t know.  Oh I know when I look at an image whether I like it or not but I usually have no earthly idea if others will like said image as much as I do.  I suppose it relates back to the old joke:  ”I don’t know if it’s art but I know what I like.”  I’m paraphrasing of course but you get the idea.  What it boils down to is that we all have a different definition of “good.”

The best example I can give is the image at the top of the blog.  A few years ago I was at the Grand Canyon when all the conditions came together to provide me with some incredible images.  The light was right, there was fresh snow, all told it was one of the 2 or 3 best mornings of shooting I’ve ever had.  Some time later I submitted a group of 4 images to an art director for possible inclusion in a calendar.  The image at the top of the blog is my favorite image from that group and I was 100% certain the art director would select this image for their calendar.  WRONG!  They picked one of the 4 images I submitted but this wasn’t the one.  The image they selected wasn’t even my second favorite of the bunch.  Clearly, their definition of “good” is different from mine.  And this is not an isolated incident either.  Time after time when friends or family ask if I have images of a particular type I have learned to give them a few images to choose from.  Sometimes they pick the image I would have chosen but more often than not our choices differ.

Does this mean I don’t know what a good image is?  Does it mean other people don’t know?  Of course not…It’s only an indication that we all have different tastes and perceptions of what we like.  And that brings us to the gist of today’s blog.

My friend and the Famous Photographer are in the photography business as just that…business.  They derive their livelihood, or at least a good portion of it, from the sale of their images or by conducting workshops and guiding other photographers on tours.  They both have their ideas of what makes an image marketable and they often judge the quality of an image by how many copies they can sell.  Don’t get me wrong, both are tremendously talented photographers and they have each created images that I would be proud to call my own.  They both have what photographers refer to as “the eye.”  They have the vision to see an image where many of us just see a beautiful landscape.  They truly can look beyond the trees and see the forest and I suspect that both will have very successful galleries.   But what about photographers like me?

Well, I don’t make my living from photography.  Oh sure, I’d love to be able to sell my images for a gazillion dollars.  I’d like to tour the country in a huge motor home creating images and guiding photo tours but that’s not the driving force behind my photography.  Mostly I just enjoy being there…I love watching the sun come up (though I often wish it didn’t happen so damn early) and watching the sun go down.  I enjoy watching the way the light changes so quickly in the mornings and seeing how light falls on a landscape at different times of the day.  I enjoy hearing a wolf howl in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone or hearing a bull elk bugle on a frosty September morning.  Most of all I enjoy knowing that I have the vision and the ability to capture images of these things that please me.  I’m confident in my ability to judge which of my images are “good.”

In closing, is my friend as good as the Famous Photographer?  I have my opinion but I’m going to let you decide.  Next time you’re in Moab, UT, spend some time in the Tom Till gallery and some more time in The Edge gallery.  I suspect you’ll find some amazing images in each of them.   After you’ve visited them, drop an e-mail and tell me what you saw.

Have some thoughts on what makes a good image?  Leave a comment and let’s talk it over.

I’m the first to admit that my mind sometimes works in strange and bizarre ways.  Many times when I start thinking about something I end up following a lot of tangents and going down countless rabbit holes until the original thought that started everything is obscured.  I know it…I freely acknowledge it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a photo trip I’m planning for spring and early summer to the Pacific Northwest.  The Northwest is one of my very favorite areas of the country.  I spent a few years living near Seattle when I was younger and travel there every chance I get.  This year I’m planning a 2 week trip that will take me to the Columbia River Gorge, the Olympic Penninsula beaches, the Hoh Rainforest, the Palouse, and Yellowstone before heading home to Colorado.  As usual when I start planning a trip I look at thousands of images online, study maps endlessly, and rough out a shot list for the areas I’m visiting.  And there lies the rub….

I’ve seen hundreds of incredible images of the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge.  Heck, that’s what is attracting me to the area.  But here’s where my mind starts sidetracking.  While all are a little bit different, basically all the images I’ve seen of (fill in the blank) waterfall are inherently the same.  Given this information my brain promptly turned to the amazing places I’ve visited and photographed over the past 35 years.  Many of those images are of iconic locations:  The Grand Tetons, Dead Horse Point, Mesa Arch, Monument Valley, the aspens of Kebler Pass, and the list goes on and on.  Places that tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of photographers have shot and for the most part have shot in the same way from the same place.  And I’m no different.

So that leads me to a lot of questions.  How do I differentiate my images from the tens of thousands of images of the locations I’m going to visit?  How can I show them in a way that’s unique to my photographic style.  For that matter, what the bleep IS my photographic style?  And I’ve reached some conclusions.

Yes, I am going to take the standard shots of the icons I’ll be visiting.  I’m going to photograph Punchbowl Falls and more of the falls in the Gorge.  I’ll be getting the standard shots of a babbling brook flowing around moss covered boulders.  I’ll take the standard sunset shots of the various beaches on the Olympic Peninsula and the iconic views of the rain forest.  I’ll shoot sunrise and sunset from the top of Steptoe Butte and sunset at Palouse Falls.  But that’s not all.  I’m going to concentrate on finding more creative more stylish images in these areas.

How do you handle the icons?  Leave a comment and let’s talk about it.

The company I work for has something in common with all large companies in Corporate America…they want everyone to have a “career path” and an idea of what they hope to accomplish while working there.  Several years ago a group I was working in got a new supervisor and during my first 1 on 1 with her she asked THE QUESTION:  ”Bill, what are your goals with the company?”  Bear in mind this is not my first career but with any luck it will be my last.  So being 20 years older than her I gave what I thought would be a simple answer:  ”I just want to put in my 10 years here and go fishing.”  Her reply was “No…Really…what are your goals?”  It took me nearly 2 years to convince her that goals at 55 are different than goals at 30.

I’m not one for a lot of New Years resolutions.  I don’t think I’ve kept more than one or two during the course of my life.  But I do tend to begin every year with some goals in mind for my photography.  I won’t bore you with the standard “My goal is to acquire a new 1200mm IS lens” or some such nonsense.  These are real goals and objectives.  So sit back and let’s plan.

1.  Improved post processing technique and work flow.  I rub elbows with some very talented photographers and view the images of many more and one thing stands out again and again.  I understand that my digital processing skills are probably adequate at best.  Some of the images I see demonstrate processing techniques that I couldn’t do if you put a gun to my head.  Whether I have to take some seminars or watch countless hours of online tutorials or simply talk to my friends, I need to get better.

2.  Learn HDR processing and strike a balance between the images that are truly improved by HDR and the ones that appear cartoonish through heavy-handed HDR processing.  I have Nik HDR Effex Pro and need to learn how to shoot for it and process with it accordingly.

3.  Become accomplished  at night sky photography.  I’ve been looking at the work of Bret Webster and Grant Collier and their night sky images make my jaw drop when I see them.  I’ve tried night shooting a couple of times and the results have been less than stellar to say the least.  I really want to learn this.

4.  Spend more time outdoors in the company of other photographers.  One of the great pleasures of our avocation is being able to communicate silently when in the field with other shooters.  It’s like going to a ballgame with your best buddy.  If neither of you say a word during the whole game nobody is left wondering “He hasn’t said a word…is he mad at me?”

I’m sure there are more things to consider but in the interest of brevity I’ll stop there.  More will be addressed as they come along.

So what are your photographic goals?  And what are you doing to accomplish them?

I admit it, I teared up a couple of times during the Super Bowl.  Considering that football is just my 2nd or 3rd favorite sport that’s a bit unusual for me.  I had no emotional ties to any team or any individual in this game.  I wanted the NFC team to win but only because when the NFC team wins, 80% of the time the stock markets have a good year.  And when the stock markets have a good year my job is a whole lot easier.  But there I was, getting all misty eyed not once but twice.  What the heck????

The first time was during the halftime show.  I suppose there are some who think Madonna is supremely talented.  I am not among them.  And the halftime show was so bad it made my hair hurt which takes a lot cause I don’t have a lot of hair.  It was so bad the pain caused me to shed a tear.

But that’s not the real reason I got all emotional.  When I was a child growing up in Wichita, KS, we could tell what season it was by the sport we played with our friends in someone’s back yard or the nearest empty lot.  Winter was basketball..it didn’t snow a lot and we could usually tolerate the cold on weekends.  During the week we played hoops in the gym at school.  Spring and summer was for baseball. My friends and I would fill a 5 gallon jug with cold water and haul it to the baseball diamond behind the school and play ball all day long.  And in the fall it was football season.  I didn’t care about hockey.  I didn’t know anybody that cared about hockey.  Heck, I didn’t know anyone that even thought about hockey.

When we played our informal games we would usually pretend to be our favorite player in each sport.  My baseball hero was Mickey Mantle.  I tried to emulate his batting stance and even learned to be a switch hitter to be like him.  Long before anyone wanted to be like Mike I wanted to be like Mick.

When football season rolled around most of my friends wanted to be a quarterback which suited me just fine because my favorite player wasn’t the quarterback.  Oh sure, I liked watching Bart Starr and Len Dawson.  My favorite quarterback was Johnny Unitas…because he was the one that threw the ball to my favorite player, Raymond Berry.  Ol’ number 82 in the familiar Colts jersey.  We didn’t have instant replay or video tape in those days but some of Raymond’s catches are burned into my memory.  My favorite pass pattern was the what is now called the “out” because that’s the one I saw Raymond run to perfection and  make circus catches game after game.  Run hard off the line to push the D-back off then head fake inside and cut 90 degrees to the sideline.  Johnny U would put the ball on the money and Raymond would stretch on his tiptoes to reach the ball and stay in bounds.  I practiced that pattern and catch for hours in the back yard with my friend Bruce (who later was quarterback of our high school team) until I thought I did it as well as Raymond.  I was probably the best 10 year old out pattern runner in the country.  And it was all because of Ol’ Number 82.

Tonight when the Super Bowl ended and the awarding of the Lombardi trophy occurred, it started with Raymond Berry carrying the trophy up to the awards stand.  As I watched him slowly walk through the gauntlet of Giants players all reaching to touch the trophy, I was 10 years old again and running out patterns in the Buchanans’ back yard with a garden hose stretched out as a sideline.  And yes, I teared up a little.  Thanks for the memory Raymond.  Wanna play catch?

Looking back I think  it was about September, 1977 when I became addicted.  That was the first time I slid a blank sheet of photo paper into a tray full of Dektol, rocked the tray gently for 30 seconds, and watched the image magically appear on the paper.  It was magic and unlike any rush I had experienced up to that point in my life.  I was hooked for life.  And for most of my photographic life Kodak was my pusher…my enabler…my partner.

In those days Kodak was the 800 pound gorilla in the room.  The vast majority of all film, photo paper, and chemistry to develop them was made by Kodak.  They were one of the largest companies in the world and acknowledged as the best at what they did.  And now they’re on the verge of being gone.

I first began to notice a change in the 1980′s when Fuji began to make slide films that were competitive with Kodachrome and Ektachrome (whatever version you prefer) and Ilford began to make inroads in the B&W areas with their films and papers.  I was Lab Manager at a commercial photo lab when I first encountered the smugness and arrogance that Kodak began to display.  It was almost as if they felt they were too large to fail.  ”If you don’t buy stuff from me, no big deal…someone else will buy it” was the prevailing attitude.

Things became more competitive in the 90′s.  Photographers that cut their teeth shooting Kodachrome started using the competitors’ products.  Velvia was born and became a standard.  Fujichrome 100 was improved to the point where it could be used in professional applications.  Kodak, against their better judgement, began to see an erosion of market share and they didn’t react well initially.  We started seeing various permutations of Ektachrome and Kodachrome processing started becoming harder and harder to find.  R3 chemistry which was used to make prints directly from slides went away.  And the bells began to toll softly.

After the turn of the century Fuji and Ilford began to really turn up the heat on our Great Yellow Father.  New and better films, Ilford chemistry and papers…really high quality products.  And then the digital monster reared its head.

At first I thought they would make it.  Kodak aimed their digital efforts at the amateur market and it appeared they would succeed in securing a decent market share.  Their early digital cameras were easy to use and they made it simple to upload and print digital files.  They began making printers and eventually created a system that supposedly used less ink than most printers. (I’ll blog on that one sometime…but it will be more of a rant)  I really thought they were onto something.

I don’t really know where they went wrong or exactly why it happened but a few days ago Kodak filed for Chapter 11 protection.  Their stock was removed from the NYSE and trading was stopped for all intents and purposes.  And the photographic world went into shock.  Several of my photographer friends have written about it which, in large part, is why I waited till now.  That and the fact that I’m more than a little sad.  Kodak and their products have been responsible for some of the most enjoyable hours of my life.  I began this entry by telling about my first print experience.  It was a great rush then and still is.  Kodak and the photographic industry in general was responsible for the career path I chose for over half of my working life.  And without Kodak films and the desire they kindled in me to get out and create images I would have missed out on thousands of hours of sunsets, sunrises, wonderful locations, amazing animals, and other things I’ve seen while in the field with a camera.  And that saddens me tremendously.

It’s been said that our government considers some companies, mostly financial institutions, too big to fail hence the bailouts.  In their heyday I like to think Kodak would have been on that list.  At one time they were truly the best in the world at what they did.  But as Native Americans say, “Only the rocks last forever.”  So Bon Chance Kodak.  I hope you’ll pull out of the depths to which you’ve plunged.  But if that’s not to be, just know that I and thousands of my photographic friends will miss you.  Bon Chance old friend.

I’m really kind of new to this social media thing so sometimes I wonder if I have the rules straight.  And there are as many rules are there are media.  Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, and many more that I don’t even know about.  What’s a guy to do?

I climbed on this crazy merry-go-round in 2009 when I attended my 40th High School Reunion.  I got reacquainted with lots of folks I hadn’t seen in 4 decades and wanted to make sure I didn’t lose touch again.  Several of my old dear friends told me about Facebook so I agreed to give it a try.  And it’s been great!  I’ve been able to maintain contact with lots of my relatives and friends on a consistent basis, much more so than before.

When I heard about Twitter I was very skeptical.  At work one of my older co-workers and I made fun of people using twitter.  ”I am sitting at my desk” went through the e-mails quite often when one of us needed a chuckle.  My friend and fellow photographer, Bret Edge, put a link to his Twitter files on his blog page and I started reading some of the tweets.  After a while I decided to give it a try.  And it stuck.

Lately I’ve been working with a newcomer to the social media world called Google+.  A lot of my photographer friends use G+ to display their work and I’ve come across the work of many other photographers there.  It’s a terrific resource and I’m glad I got onto it.

But how and why do I continue to use these forms of media?  Well here’s the bumper sticker version:

Facebook-This is where I socialize.  I keep up with friends and family here more than anywhere else.  I also post images here since it’s the quickest and easiest place to post and let folks know what I’m doing and what I’ve been shooting.  I have even been known to play some games (Words with Friends) here.  This is my social outlet.

Twitter-I use Twitter to keep up with the photographic communities.  Twitter is just a quick hitter with 140 characters maximum per message.  But I also post links to images that I post on the web and blog posts too.

Google+-This media is exclusively for photography.  The only things I currently do with G+ is view other photographers’ work and display some of my images.  I have several people in my “circles” here that are also friends on Facebook but as I said, G+ is exclusively for photography for me.  Lately I’ve had to bounce some folks out of my circles for posting non-photographic stuff.  Once in a while is okay but someone posting absolutely nothing photography related is gone.  Please don’t hold it against me…it’s a character flaw of mine.

One thing bothers me though.  And it may be related to what I just referred to regarding non-photographic posts.  It seems that some folks, mostly on Twitter and G+, put more emphasis on how many followers they have than on what content they post.  I guess that’s something I don’t understand.  Granted, I sometimes post some nonsense but usually because I’m going for a cheap laugh.  While I’d like for everyone to find what I have to say entertaining, frankly, I don’t really care if I have 25,000 followers or 25.

So there you have it.  That’s how I feel about social media, and the ones I use.  And for now, “I’m typing on my laptop.”

Several of the images I posted as Favorites were not my technically or aesthetically best images of the year.   Due to some health issues I wasn’t able to compile a tremendous amount of images in 2011 but after scouring the files I’ve come up with what I feel are my 10 best.  Hope you enjoy them.

We’ve been traveling from Denver to Phoenix for several years since Erin, Sean, and Katrina moved there and I’ve always wanted to spend some time traveling Old Route 66.  When we drove south in September for Erin and Sean’s wedding I made it a point to make time for this.  We started here, in Albuquerque, NM.

I’ve been wanting for several years to photograph the Palouse region of Washington state but haven’t yet made it there. (Watch out this June, though…mega shooting trip in the works) I drive past this scene every working day of my life and one day the light was just right, the new mown hay was the right color and it struck me as Palouse like.  BTW, it’s Franktown, CO.

Our house in Parker is about 100 yards from Cherry Creek.  I went out Christmas morning hunting images for future Christmas cards and came across this “S” pattern in the Ice.

My Father-in-Law purchased a time share several years ago.  In the past we’ve met up with them several times and once we were able to trade it to pay for half of a cruise to Alaska.  I literally rested my camera on the open door of my car in the parking lot of the time share in Sedona when we all gathered there for the wedding.  I love late summer skies full of thunderstorms.

In May I spent a long weekend in Moab, UT hanging out with about 20 other photographers/members of Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers.  Good food, good friends, great conversation, and excellent photographic opportunities.  This is one of my favorites from that weekend.  A simple telephoto extraction taken from the Grandview overlook in Canyonlands National Park.

From time to time I get the itch to create some “fine art” with my photography.  I found this old shed while strolling the streets of Jerome, AZ.  A little abstract, a little whimsical…I love it!

Another image from my afternoon in Jerome.  This is a 1930′s vintage fire engine looking out through the garage door of the Jerome Fire Department.

Every year for the past decade or so, I’ve made a trip in late July to Crested Butte, CO which unabashedly bills itself as “The Wildflower Capital of Colorado.”  My preferred route is over Cottonwood Pass and this area is on the west side of Cottonwood Pass on the way down to Taylor Park.  In a good year the forest floor is carpeted with Lupines.

Another image from Crested Butte.  I am particularly fond of Columbines and look for them every time I’m in the mountains in the summer.  This time the background and composition was exactly what I’d been looking for.  A little bit of cloud cover to create soft even light and there it is!

Finally, my #1 favorite image of the year (with the exception of some of Erin’s wedding photos) and also on my Best of list.  This is from the top of the ridge on the trail to the Marching Men formation of Klondike Bluffs in Arches National Park.  I got this image almost by mistake.  Several photographers from RMNP were hiking in to Marching Men and me being overweight and out of shape, I stopped at the top of the first ridge instead of dropping down in the basin with the others.  With all due respect to Bret, Scott, Sarah, and all the others, I really like this image better than the ones y’all got of the Marching Men.  Sorry folks.

So there you have it.  I admit, the catalog for 2011 is a bit sparse in comparison to other years but 2012 is looking far more productive.  I’ve already compiled some wonderful images from a New Year’s weekend trip to Utah and will be making a few more photo trips this year.  I hope you don’t wait a full year before checking back but also look for this to be a regular feature of Bill’s Blog.

They’re called Icons for a reason.  Anytime a group of photographers get together the talk invariably turns to the list of icons we’ve seen and photographed.  We can’t help it.  These are places you’ve seen on hundreds of post cards, thousands of calendars, and a significant number of movies and TV shows.  Sometimes we even joke about putting our tripod legs in the same holes that have been worn into the rock by untold thousands of tripods before us.

As photographers we have all visited a number of the icons.  We know thousands of  shooters have created images of these locations but we’re going to photograph them anyway.  Just so we can say we did.  Sometimes we go back again and again trying to improve on the shots we’ve gotten of a particular location.  There’s a contradiction in there somewhere.  We all want to create unique images to display our own style yet we’re drawn back to places we may have seen in hundreds or even thousands of images before.  We swear we’re not going to photograph icons anymore.  But the next year we’re right back.  Where does it end?

For years I’ve wanted to get this image of Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park.   About 20 years ago when I was planning my first trip to Arches and the Moab area I asked a photographer friend who is familiar with the area what his favorite sunrise shot would be.  He didn’t even hesitate for half a heartbeat before saying “Mesa Arch.”  Based on that, I’ve been to Mesa maybe 6 times in the past trying to capture this specific image but in the past there have been reasons I couldn’t get it.  Maybe I slept a little too long and missed the sunrise.  Maybe it was cloudy.  Maybe there were just too darned many photographers jostling and shoving for shooting space.  Mostly it was because of the time of year.  This time, just 11 days past the Winter Solstice, the sun is starting to move north but still very far south creating a different angle of light.  Earlier in the year, either spring or fall would have the sun too far north thereby washing out Washer Woman Arch.  Also, as the sun moves further south towards the solstice it has to penetrate more of the atmosphere when it’s near the horizon and that changes the quality of the light.  It’s softer…redder…different than sunrise in May or September.  And I finally got the shot.  Now I’m left with 2 questions:

1.  Could I make the image better?  Well, yeah…Ultimately I would possibly have used a longer lens and stood back a ways to achieve the same viewing angle but using a more telephoto perspective to make Washer Woman Arch appear closer.  But significantly better?  Maybe not so much.

2.  Will I be going back to Mesa Arch again?  Probably…but not anytime soon.  For me this was the Unicorn I’ve been chasing.  The conditions were perfect, I had the best equipment I can get my hands on, and my photographic ability is at a pretty high level.  I can’t imagine what conditions would possibly allow me to improve on this image.  I’ve been chasing it for a long time and finally caught it.

I may go back to Mesa Arch in the future.  Maybe if I’m with family or friends who have never been there.  Maybe in a few years I’ll go back to remember some of the wonderful things I’ve seen in my life.  But as a photographer…to capture a wonderful image….No thanks.  I’ve got mine!

But what about you?  Have you crossed any icons off your list because you got the image you wanted?  Leave a comment and let’s discuss it.

There’s starting to be a hint of a shift in the tectonic plates of my mind.  A brainstorm, head hurricane, earthquake between the ears….call it what you want but there’s a strong possibility I may be close to an epic change in my way of thinking about photo trips.

For the past 15 or 20 years I’ve been somewhat of a photographic loner.  Most of my photo trips have been taken solo.  I think it started about 1991 on a trip to Yellowstone.  Judy and the kids were planning a week or 10 day trip to visit her parents and I wasn’t able to arrange that much time off.  I was able to set up a long weekend though, and set up a trip to Yellowstone.  I hadn’t been there for nearly 30 years and got the itch to go back.  Long story short, Judy’s trip fell through and she started hinting that she’d like to go along.  No problem, I said.  But I’m going to travel light.  I’ll be sleeping on the ground, eating mostly cold food, and staying out from before sunrise to after sunset.  If I see something I want to photograph I’m going to stop and photograph it if the light takes 2 hours to get good.  If I see a stream I want to fish in, I’m going to stop and fish.  Needless to say, she declined.

I’ve detailed in numerous blogs and conversations how I’m not generally a great person to be around when I’m shooting.  I tend to “zone out” and eschew any thought for the well being of the folks with me.  My family members learned this long ago and though there is always an open invitation to accompany me on trips they realize that I’m not there for them, I’m there for me.  Thus, a photographic loner.

But in 2011 and on New Year’s Day some things happened that have started to change my mind.  In May I spent a long weekend in Moab, UT with about 20 or 25 folks who are members of a group I belong to, Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers.  Saturday was the group day with a caravan from Moab to Dead Horse Point State Park for a sunrise shoot.  A few of us headed over to Mesa Arch after the shoot at DHP and were there for a while before dispersing until lunch when we all got together at the city park in Moab for lunch.  We ended the day with a sunset group shoot at Klondike Bluffs in Arches National Park.  And it was fun!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we were all there with interwoven tripod legs getting the same images at the same time.  Once we gathered in the parking lot at DHP everyone headed over to the rim then sort of spread out, each of us looking for our own vision.  Same thing at Klondike Bluffs.  We all headed up the trail at the same time but once we hit the top of the ridge everyone split up for the most part. Lots of different ways of seeing, lots of different images.  One of my most pleasurable photo days in a long time.

This morning, New Year’s Day 2012, I met up with my friend Bret Edge at the trailhead to Broken Arch in Arches National Park for a short hike to photograph the arch.  It’s a short, relatively flat hike so I wasn’t gasping for breath and we had a nice conversation both on the hike in and out and while we were shooting at the arch.  Bret learned some new stuff about me and I learned some stuff about him.  And like DHP and Klondike Bluffs, it was fun!  Again, we hiked to the location then went our separate ways looking for compositions we liked.  Afterwards we took another short hike in the park before splitting up.  But the seed was planted.

So about now the little man in my head, the one I’ve learned to listen to most of the time, is working hard.  I’ve enjoyed the autonomy of my solo trips  in the past.  I could stop and look at roadside markers, I could eat lunch when I wanted to, and if I had to wait for the light to be right it was no big deal.  I didn’t have to justify to anyone that I sat and watched an elk carcass in Yellowstone for 4 hours before any action occurred.  I didn’t have to worry if the family members sitting in the car while I hiked to some location or another were hungry and bored.  When I’m solo it just doesn’t matter.

But hanging out and shooting with other photographers is pretty cool.  They understand why I don’t just walk up to the rim of the Grand Canyon, shoot a couple of handheld snapshots at high noon, then move on.  They know that on most photo days breakfast and supper will be late because I need to be in the field during the “magic light” time frame.  We speak in a common language and mostly understand what the other one is saying.  We can empathize with someone who has driven 500 miles only to discover the tripod strap for your backpack is missing or worse, you left the tripod at home.  We can chuckle at someone who left their memory cards a mile away in the car and know they won’t be offended because they know we’ve done the same thing at one time or another.

So look for me to be hooking up with other photographers more often in the future.  I’ll still be taking plenty of solo trips since I’m such on obsessive compulsive about my photography, but not every trip.  I can feel the plates in my head shifting…can you hear the rumble?