The last few days I’ve been working hard to create beautiful paintings from some of my travel photos. I’m really excited to show the latest pieces.
In a few days, I’ll be offering a service to take YOUR vacation photos and turn them into one-of-a-kind masterpieces.

This first one will go in our living room and it is a 55″x100″ canvas wrap.
If you want to be able to zoom closer to see all the detail and brush strokes, click here:
http://arisingimages.com/painting/amalfi/amalfi.html

Town of Amalfi along the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy.

Here’s the original:

This next one will be a 55″x183″ canvas wrap that is split up into 3 panels. This will be by far the biggest piece that I’ve ever printed and it will go in our living room.
It is a photo of Cliff Palace which is an ancient Anasazi Indian cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park in south western Colorado.

Here’s the original:

As many of you know, I go on a fall trip every year for the goal of getting out and photographing for myself. It’s a time of reflection and refreshment. This year, my trip ended up getting planned too late to take advantage of the fall color in the areas of the US that I still would like to explore. My friend Ben who is the one that I used to do all the backpacking with was also available so him and I decided to team up and go to Italy for a week. I was able to use frequent flyer miles so the free flight was quite nice!

Day 1
The trip started out pretty rough. Our goal was to rent a car and drive into Rome and spend 2 days there. We knew that traffic and driving would be difficult in Rome but we didn’t account for parking being nearly impossible. We drove around Rome for 3 hours and couldn’t fine a place to park. Frustrated and exhausted, we decided to get out of the city and come back later.

Our first stop was a mountain town called Norma which was built on the top of a steep cliff where a number of paragliders were effortlessly hovering back and forth hundreds of feet above the ground.
The town itself didn’t have much but it looked really cool from far away:

We then stopped at an old medieval village called Ninfa but it was closed for the day. Our next stop was another old town called Sermoneta where we spent an hour wandering the steep streets and just in awe of a different way of life:

Our goal was to drive to Naples to stay the night, but we didn’t realize that it would get dark at 5:00pm and driving on the roads after dark while being tired wasn’t a great idea. We ended up stopping at a city called Caserta where we got a “great price” (which I think in Italian means “I’m going to screw you over you dumb tourist”) on our room and meal where they ended up charging us nearly $55 for some of the worst spaghetti I’ve ever eaten at a fairly dumpy hotel/restaurant.

Day 2
The next day didn’t start too much smoother. We drove into Naples and ended up having the same luck for parking as we had in Rome. We eventually realized it was a lost cause but the streets are setup in a way that it is very difficult to turn around and combining that with the sheer volume of traffic, it ended up taking us nearly half an hour just to turn around and head the opposite direction to get out of town.
We left Naples and headed for nearby Pompeii which is where an ancient city was left in ruin after being buried in ash from Mt. Vesuvius. The city itself was absolutely enormous and ended up taking a few hours to explore. It was amazing to see although after a while, seeing ruined structure after ruined structure got a bit old.

one of the most unique things about Pompeii is the body casts. The ash from the volcano completely buried the city along with whatever people where in it. When they dug out the city, in one area they found a number of people laying there including mothers and children and were able to create body casts from the remains.

After leaving Pompeii, our next stop was the Amalfi coast which is known for having towns built right down the sides of the mountains which was an amazing thing to see. We were able to find a hotel and get settled in with enough time to find a perfect sunset location overlooking the town of Positano.

Day 3
Unfortunately Day 3 didn’t start out much better than 1 and 2. We woke up at 5:30 am to go photograph the sunrise and found that we were locked in our hotel which apparently locks up between 4:00am and 6:30am. We had no choice but to go back to bed. Our day today was going to consist of going to the island of capri. We left Positano in the morning and I was able to shoot a fun and colorful shot of the buildings on the cliffside:

We drove to Sorrento where we caught a ferry to Capri. The main harbor had lots of fun and colorful buildings that were hoping with tourists trying to figure out where to go and locals trying to sell those tourists pretty much everything under the sun.

One of the main attractions on Capri is the Blue Grotto which is a water cave where light comes through the bottom and lights up the water. The blue is a color that seems magical, unnatural, and mesmerizing. To get to the Blue Grotto, you have to take a boat to the cave entrance and then get into a rowboat where you get to row in the tiny entrance and duck to get through the opening that’s only a few feet high. The whole experience is unbelievably commercialized to the point where you really can’t enjoy the experience or the cave, but if it wasn’t commercialized we probably wouldn’t have gotten to see it.

The main boat that took us around to the Blue Grotto continued around the rest of the island where we got to view and enjoy the beautiful limestone cliffs and the turquoise water.

Unfortunately the schedule of getting there and back along with the length of the Blue Grotto excursion did not leave us much time to explore the rest of this beautiful island so we went back to the main dock and wandered around until our ferry was there to take us back to the mainland. While at the dock, I was able to capture a few scenes that I enjoyed a lot:

One of our reasons to rush off Capri was that we really wanted to catch the sunset on the Amalfi coast again and I’m really glad we did as it was one of the most spectacular coastlines I’ve ever seen. This was about a mile west of Positano:

That night we stayed in a little town called Praiano.

Day 4
Another early day for us. We woke up around 5:30 and headed out super early to catch an Amalfi coast sunrise since yesterday we missed it from being locked in our hotel.
It definitely did not disappoint. Here is a view of the coastline with the lights from Positano showing in the distance.

A few miles down the road was the larger and more well known town of Amalfi. We still had some incredible morning light to photograph the marina.

After Amalfi, we headed inland and up and over the main mountains that lead to the Amalfi peninsula. Our goal was to make it back near Rome but we wanted to take a round about way that would bring us through some really picturesque areas. Once again, today did not go smoothly. The first town we were visiting was called Opi which is an old village buried in the mountains in one of Italy’s national parks. We plugged Opi into the GPS, did a quick check and saw that it was in the park and then drove the 4.5 hours to get there. We were surprised at how NOT big the mountains were and Opi didn’t look anything like the photos we saw. When we plugged in our next destination which was supposed to be close by, we wondered why it was 1.5 hours in the wrong direction which is when we learned that there are TWO villages called Opi that are both in central Italy and both located inside large parks. We picked the crappy one in the GPS…AAAARRGGHH!!! So Opi along with our next lake town destination of Scanno were now in the wrong direction. Thankfully on the way to the wrong Opi, we did pass a couple of cool scenes.
The first is the town of Acciano:

We then came across the town of Beffi and I loved this simple scene with these ruins:

Looking in the opposite direction was a really moody sky with beams of light coming through that looked incredible with the infrared camera:

Since we had driven significantly out of our way, most of the planned locations were the wrong direction so we skipped those. Our next stop was Tivoli which had a number of villas and cool places to see. It was already 3:30 and with it getting dark at 5:00, things were bound to close. Our guide book suggested Villa Adriana as the place to go. If you like LOTS of ruined buildings, then it is definitely the place to go. After seeing hundreds of them in Pompeii, I was pretty much done with that especially since the bright sun and no clouds didn’t provide any help for photographic opportunities. I only photographed one scene in the whole complex and that ended up being one of my favorite photos from the trip.

We planned on going to Rome for the next two days so we decided to stay in a hotel close to the airport and a train station so we could park and take the train in to the city. We checked into the hotel to find out that the nearby train station was closed and we now had to take a shuttle to the airport and then pick up the train. The cost for two people to do that was so high, we decided that we would risk driving again…yes…we are idiots!

Day 5
Since we had decided to drive into the city, we got up super early and skipped breakfast and drove in and parked before anyone was there. It was pretty cool to walk through some nearly deserted streets downtown. Our first stop was the famous Trevi fountain. However, it was so early in the morning that the fountain wasn’t running so I just took pics of the statues.

Next we came across a really cool building that wasn’t on our nifty tourist map so I don’t know what it is but I liked it.

Next was the Pantheon which is an impressive structure but it was still too early and closed and the photos of the outside didn’t make my blog cut. Next was the incredible Piazza Navona which had amazing statues, fountains, and architecture.

We realized that we had already seen a number of the major attractions and it wasn’t even 8:30am. We decided that we could probably see Rome in one day so we headed for Vatican City which was the furthest walk. On our way we passed a number of really cool street scenes:

Vatican City was so incredible with the dome of St. Peters Basilica along with the columns that surround the main square…AMAZING!!

The fountain in the main square was so pretty with the morning light that I have to post two photos of it.

St. Peter’s Basilica was…ridiculously amazing!! The size and ornateness of every surface was unbelievable.

Next we walked through the Vatican Museum which led to the Sistine Chapel where the famous paintings by Michelangelo adorn the ceilings.
I first took a photo of the famous scene that everyone knows at which point I was yelled at for taking photos. I’m sure they don’t want photos so the flash doesn’t ruin the paintings and I don’t shoot with flash.

I then took an overall shot of the whole ceiling which shows how large and amazing the whole thing is at which point I was told again to not take photos.

Upon leaving the Sistine Chapel, there was an amazing ramp that led down to the exit:

The next few hours were eating lunch, walking down the wrong road for a LONG way and seeing some less than awe inspiring locations which didn’t make the cut.

After that we passed by the Campidoglio and then the Monuemento a Vittoria Emmanuel II which was a HUGE building but unfortunately had a lot of scaffolding which didn’t lead to any pics.
We then passed some really impressive buildings and ruins but had our eyes on the prize…the Coliseum!!

By this point, we were totally exhausted and were hoping to get back to the car to get our tripods and do some night photography. We ended up passing through the Trevi fountain area again and this time it had water…along with about a billion people. We wiggled our way to the front and I was able to get a great photo.

Our car was parked near the Spanish steps but the area was so overrun with people that we didn’t even try taking any photos. After walking 10 miles around the city and seeing pretty much all the major attractions, it was time to go back to the hotel and sleep.

Day 6
Since we did Rome in a day, we had an extra day to kill and nothing planned. We decided to drive into southern Tuscany and photograph the landscape and scenery. I’m SOOOO glad it worked out this way as these turned out to be some of my favorite photos. The first half of the day we went to a few cities that weren’t very good from a photographic perspective so we kept moving along.
The trees and vineyards were bursting with yellow fall color leaving us a number of beautiful scenes most of which were near Montalcino.

One of my favorite stops was at the Abbizia di St. Antimo which was a beautiful abbey amongst the rolling hills and rich fall color:

As the evening sun got lower and lower, the light across the valley was exquisite.

Then one last parting shot with Ben:

Overall I was able to capture a lot of unique scenes and great images, however, Ben and I really struggled on this trip with lots of people and situations that provided unnecessary challenges around every corner. It was hard being away from Cheridy and Mayz and I am definitely glad to be home!! My eyes are closing as I type this because I’m so tired…time for bed.

Yesterday was a day of photo shoots for students of Cranbrook academy. The grounds at Cranbrook are usually amazing, but yesterday they were even more spectacular with the fall color. Here’s a shot overlooking Cranbrook Lake. We feel very fortunate to be on their exclusive photographers list!

Mayz, Cheridy, and I spent the last couple of days out in Grand Haven for a little R&R. We stayed at our favorite place which is The Looking Glass Inn. It’s a fantastic bed and breakfast right across from Grand Haven State Park which has been rated as one of the top beach spots in the US.

One of my favorite sites is watching the sailboat head out for the sunset cruise:

We spent our first day driving there and then doing pretty much nothing on the beach all day. We bought our first beach umbrella and are now wondering why we didn’t do that years ago since Cheridy+sun=lots of redness. Anyway…in the evening we had a nice dinner downtown and then watched the Grand Haven Musical Fountain which is one of the big attractions. Sadly, it wasn’t as impressive as these photos might have you believe. For anyone that’s been to the Bellagio in Vegas, you should probably pass on this one. This picture was taken with the longest zoom I own as the fountain is actually on the other side of the waterway.

The weather was supposed to be terrible while we were out there, but it ended up being fantastic and we got to see some beautiful sunsets.

Mayz had a good old time playing in the sand:

He always makes a goofy crinkly face when you ask him to smile. What a great photo of my beautiful wife and goofy boy!!

Chillin like a villain:

Quick family pic:
\

For anyone looking for a place to stay in Grand Haven, we strongly recommend The Looking Glass Inn. Norma and Howie Glass are fantastic hosts and Norma cooks up an awesome breakfast every morning. This is our second time going there and we already made reservations for next year. After chatting with them, we’re actually going to be making them a cool new website which will be online soon at www.LookingGlassInnMI.com
Here’s a quick shot of their balcony which shows the view of the beach on Lake Michigan:

Before leaving New York, we had the pleasure of getting to watch one of the most impressive displays of fireworks in the whole world. Our friends Jeff and Angela have an apartment in the city and we were able to watch the fireworks from the rooftop which is at around 40 stories. This year the fireworks were on the Hudson River side in honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson.
We watched the impressive show and then I took a few more pics from the roof showing some city scenes:

On Friday I had a mini art show as part of the Eyes on Design Show at the Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills. It was an event that focuses on automotive design but this year they expanded it to include, a fashion show, live museum, and other types of art. I was able to have a number of fine art pieces on display in the VIP lounge along with a few others around the main part of the museum.
It was a really interesting dynamic for me since I used to work at Design Center at GM. Seeing all the car models and concept cars really brought me back. I even ran into a number of people I used to work with back in the day. Being there reminded me how much I’m glad to not be working in the automotive world any more.

If anyone is interested in purchasing any large framed or canvas wrapped art work, please see our fine art page at www.arisingimages.com/fineart.

I spent some time walking around the museum to check out some of the cool displays.

Cheridy brought Mayz up to hang out for a little while:

I am really excited to say that this month, an article I wrote was published in Rangefinder Magazine which is one of the premier monthly magazine for the professional photographers all around the country.

The article is about the buffalo roundup in South Dakota that I photographed last fall.

The entire article can be seen in the April 2009 edition of Rangefinder magazine or an online version can be viewed here:
http://www.arisingimages.com/blog/images/2009-04/rangefinder_article.pdf

After Imaging USA, I went on a road trip with my friend Ben and Adam.  The trip started off on a rough note with Ben being pretty sure that he broke his foot playing volleyball the night before.  That left Adam and I scrambling to rent a car so we could continue our trip.  Thankfully after going to the doctor Ben found out that he had a broken blood vessel which caused all the bruising and swelling and he was ok to go on the trip with us (although it probably wasn’t a great idea).  We returned the rental car, met up with Ben and headed out for the four corners (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico).

We started out in northeastern Arizona at Canyon De Chelly which is an amazing place.  Other than the sound of the wind, it’s super quiet there.  Of course we had to break that silence by yodeling into the canyon which was awesome when after the 12th echo the cayotes down below howled back!  This is spider rock viewed from the south rim of the canyon.

After shooting some photos from the rim, I spent some time taking some pictures with my infrared camera.

After exploring the rim, we hired an indian guide to take us down into the canyon. Ben has a 4×4 Nissan Pathfinder which was perfect for offroad driving in the canyon, across the river washes, and through the mud. We shot some video of the truck tearing across the river, but that will have to be posted later.
One of the highlights in the canyon is the White House which is an Anasazi Indian cliff dwelling.

It was really cool to see all their carvings in the rock faces.

When down in the canyon, going from sun to shade made a huge difference.  The sun provided warm soft light and it was comfortable to walk around without a jacket.   Here are some horses basking in the sunlight.

However, in the shade, it was cold with a biting wind. Here’s some ice from an area of frozen river. I loved the warm colors reflecting from the canyon walls.

The clear blue sky, orange rocks, and white snow was spectacular:

The light in the canyon provided some good opportunities for some infrared pictures:

After lunch we took off for Monument Valley in southeastern Utah. Our goal was to get there an hour before sunset and drive around the valley to photograph the soft evening light and sunset. When we got there however, the road was closed off except for guided tours which were more expensive than what we wanted to pay. Adam had the idea of paying one of the Indian guides to let us in which worked out great.

Here’s a view of the valley from the deck of the visitor center:

The evening light in the valley was beautiful and I loved the silhouettes of the rock formations against the clear skies.

After the sun went down, it got dark…fast!! Their was a blanket of stars across the sky so we setup our cameras on tripods and did some long exposures. This is probably my favorite photo from the whole trip.

That night we drove out to Cortez which is in the southwest corner of Colorado and right near Mesa Verde National Park. Right before getting to Cortez, we were pulled over twice in 10 minutes for having a busted headlight. The headlight was busted because while driving at night, we hit an elk at 65 mph on the highway. We were really blessed to have just clipped the back end of the elk. If we had hit it straight on, it would have been a REALLY bad accident. It was a huge animal…it’s back end was up higher than the hood of Ben’s truck. We were lucky to just bounce off it. However the damage was still pretty bad with a smashed in quarter panel and a driver side door that wouldn’t open.

The next morning we got up really early to photograph the morning light at Mesa Verde. The mountains heading up to Telluride, CO were not too far in the distance which made for some nice photos:

Mesa Verde is best known for it’s cliff dwellings. These are some of the largest and most well preserved cliff dwellings in the US. We came across a number of different ruins. The first one was called Tower House.

After that, we stopped at the most famous spot in the park which is the overlook to the Cliff Palace. It was a spectacular site and really interesting to just look at and wonder what life must have been like to live there.

The view driving out of the park was beautiful with the snowy mountains and blue sky.

After Mesa Verde, we checked into our hotel in Farmington and took a nice nap. Then it was out to the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico for a short sunset hike. The Bisti Badlands are known for their unique rock formations. They reminded us of the unique desert rock formations we saw in Egypt back in 2004. We walked across some really odd terrain. It was very dry and cracked in some areas and extremely wet and muddy in others. I think we all gained about 5 pounds on this hike from all the mud stuck to our shoes.

Here’s a panoramic photo that is 5 shots stitched together:

As we waited for the sun to go down, we sat back and enjoyed the soft light on the rocks with the wispy clouds in the sky:

Once the sun went down the clouds lit up with spectacular colors to give us an amazing show:

We started hiking out after sunset and we found a mud pool that was reflecting the last bits of color in the sky. This made for a fun abstract photo. It looks like a large lake but it was actually a 4 ft. mud puddle:

When we got back to the car, it was nearly dark. Rather than heading back to the hotel we decided to setup to do some more star trail photos. Shooting photos in the dark, you need to be very careful to make sure your focus is set right. This first picture was a 20 second exposure to just test my focus, but it still brought out a lot of light and color in the sky with just some hints of the first stars of the night.

We then waited for it to get VERY dark when all the stars came out. This photos is a nearly 30 minute exposure of the night sky:

The next morning it was on to Chaco National Heritage area where they have more spectacular Indian ruins. We followed our trusty GPS to take us on a short cut that was going to cut about an hour off of our drive. However, we soon realized that the shortcut had us going down roads that weren’t really roads. In the end, we made it to our destination and DID save a lot of time, but for most of the drive, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to make it there. When we arrived to the park, the ranger was ever so helpful and told us to never trust the GPS in that particular area. Thankfully we had 4 wheel drive and were able to go where we needed to go.
Here’s a quick shot at sunrise before turning off onto the side roads:

When we arrived in Chaco, we were unfortunately there at a really bad time of day where the light was bad. The photos didn’t turn out that great, but it was still a unique experience to see all the spectacular ruins. Here’s a photo taken after hiking up the cliffs to look down on the main ruins of the park - Pueblo Bonito:

and here’s a photo taken from inside the ruins. It was really cool to be able to walk through and see how everything was built.

It was time to start driving back towards Phoenix as our flights were going to be leaving tomorrow morning.

We stopped at the Painted Desert National Park which had some beautiful colors in the landscape but was otherwise not too thrilling.

There were a few wispy clouds that provided a nice backdrop for some infrared photos:

Our last stop was at Sedona where we went to watch the sunset at the Red Rock Crossing. There were lots of other photographers all doing their best to stay out of each others way. What a spectacular location:

As we walked out, I saw these tree roots which I thought made a cool abstract photo:

Just after sunset the sky turned a beautiful hue of pink above the red rocks:

Here’s a photo of Adam, Ben, and myself at the Bisti Badlands:

The latest free screensaver slideshow themed “Waterfalls” is now available for download.
The link below will be the location of all of our screensavers and it contains the download links and installation instructions:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart/screensavers

A few days ago I returned from what was by far the most interesting and unique trip I’ve taken in a long time. As many of you know, for the last few years, I’ve been taking an annual trip to photograph fall color. For the past five years I’ve gone east and decided to switch things up and go west this year.
My trip has by far produced the most unique collection of images I’ve ever shot in one time span and it’s going to make for a REALLY long blog post!! It was an aggressive trip with 2000 miles of driving in about 6.5 days but overall it was a tremendous experience!
Some of the photos below are available for purchase on the fine art section of our website:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart

Here was my 2000 mile loop:

9/26/2008 – Day 1
I flew from Detroit to Denver on an evening flight. I was able to fly out of the new Detroit North terminal. It seems to be very functional and “new” and a significant improvement over the old terminal, but overall not too exciting.
Once I arrived in Denver I drove to Estes Park which is at the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park.

9/27/2008 – Day 2
I woke up really early (which you’ll notice will be a common theme on this trip) and headed into Rocky Mountain National Park and went and watched the sunrise over Bear Lake. Since I had arrived after dark last night, this was my first glimpse of the sun lighting up the golden aspen trees which was beautiful.

Driving back down into the valley I was able to catch some beautiful morning light off the nearby foothills.

There is an area in the park that is well known for having lots of Elk. Thankfully, what I read was correct and within a few minutes, I found myself within 50 ft of a huge one!

By around 9:30 in the morning, it was time to head out of the park because I had a long 7 hour drive up to South Dakota to go to Custer State Park for the Big Buffalo Roundup. Earlier in the year, we photographed a wedding for Sarah and Ethan out in Golden, CO. Ethan was raised in Custer State Park where his dad spent his career as a park ranger and helped start the tradition of the Buffalo Roundup. There are more buffalo in the park than what the park can sustain through the winter months so every year they round up the nearly 1500 buffalo and auction off the extra ones. This is also a time where they can be branded, tagged, vaccinated, etc. It’s an event that is an experience in the wild west where you get to watch cowboys on horseback chase down hundreds of buffalo and get them into a corral. Ethan and his dad helped get me connected with the right people so I was able to get my hands on a media pass to get a front row seat along with some other perks.
Anyway, so I got to the park around 4:30 pm and drove the 18 mile wildlife loop which reminded me of the time when Cheridy and I were driving through the game park in South Africa a few years ago. Anyway…Custer State Park is a very beautiful park with rolling hills and tall grass that blows in the wind.
This is one of my favorite photos from the park that shows off the simplicity.

During my stay I saw lots of buffalo, antelope, wild turkeys, and donkeys. This little guy was on the other side of a fence from me. I stuck my long zoom through the fence to get photos of him, and he just trotted right up to say hello.

That night I stayed with Ethan and Sarah at Ethan’s parent’s house nearby the park. I also got to meet Ethan’s friend Matt who is also a cowboy, there are a few photos of him later. We had a nice dinner and some good conversation around the dinner table.

9/28/2008 – Day 3
The next morning I got up well before sunrise and headed into the park to photograph morning light on Sylvan Lake which you might recognize as it was the set of one of the scene’s of National Treasure II with Nicolas Cage.

I then drove down the Needles highway which is a road that is an amazing feat of engineering that twists and turns it’s way through the park. I was able to create a beautiful image of the rock formations along the roadside. It was a great time to drive down the road. Since it was so early, there was no traffic on the road that is usually jammed with tourists.

I had to be at the park office by 8:00 am. As part of my media pass, I was given a tour of the buffalo herd by one of the park rangers. There were about 10 media people and 3 pickup trucks. We got to ride in the beds of the pickups as the rangers drove us through the park and right into the buffalo herd.

In this photo, we had driven up a hill to get a view looking down on the herd. You can see the other two trucks with photographers and videographers still shooting footage of the buffalo by their watering hole.

It was really neat seeing the tire tracks in the tall grass.

As we drove through the park, we saw lots of donkeys. Tell me this isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen…seriously!!

One of the journalists in my truck was telling me that the donkeys will come right up to the cars and stick their heads in the windows looking for food. This image cracked me up!

After my driving tour was over, I drove over to the horse corrals and met up with Ethan and Matt where they were doing an orientation ride which is where the riders all meet one another and go out on a ride the day before the big event and are shown where they will be riding and what they will be doing. This was a great chance for me to get some cowboy photos!
First, just a few detail shots:

Here’s the horse Ethan will be riding…his name is Whiskey

I had Ethan and Matt do a few setup rides in areas where I could get some cool shots of them. Here’s Matt riding along the ridge of the nearby hill.

Here’s Ethan and Whiskey

This is Matt galloping at full speed.

Once it was time for them to have their prep meeting before the ride, I was hanging around waiting and ended up meeting a fellow photographer (Heather Kallhoff) and her friend Randy. Heather and I are both a part of the Digital Wedding Forum which is an online community of wedding photographers. It was pretty cool to have a connection with someone when on the other side of the country. Heather, Randy, and myself went out into the nearby hills and sat and waited for the group of cowboys and cowgirls to ride on by. We waited for a LONG time because unfortunately one of the men got a blood clot in his leg and had to be rushed to the hospital and everything was delayed. In the meantime the three of us had no idea what was going on and were sitting out in the hills waiting…and waiting…and waiting. While sitting there, I took this cool shot of the moody skies.

They eventually made it over near us.

Here’s another shot of Ethan. He spotted me taking pics and trotted over.

This is one of my all time favorite photos. I love seeing the cowboys riding off over the hills with the dramatic sky. This was shot with my infrared camera which helps bring out the drama in the sky.

After getting those photos, I took off and drove out of the park. I went to visit the Beautiful Rushmore Caves. That has to be the best advertised business as they had signs EVERYWHERE. They were open until 5:00 but when I got there at 4:30 with cameras in hand, I was told that the last tour had left at 4:00. I told the man that I had driven for over an hour to get there (which was true) and all I wanted to do was see the caves really quick. The man I was talking to happened to be Tom Hagen who is the owner of the caves. He ended up taking me on a private tour of the cave. He showed me every area along with a really cool room that most people don’t get to see as it’s fairly slippery and difficult to get into. Not only did he do all this, but then he didn’t charge me as he had already locked down the register for the day. I’ll be sending him some photos that he can hopefully use! Going into the caves was a really unique experience. They are some of the largest caves in the US and have some really cool stalactite formations. I asked Tom about all their signs and he said they have 82 billboards….wow!! He also told me that it’s quite a conversation piece to tell people that you own cave. I imagine that would lead to some puzzled looks!

Once I left the caves, I went to the nearby Mount Rushmore. I was a bit overwhelmed by how commercialized it is. The amount of parking structures there made me feel like I was at a mall. It was pretty crazy.
However, I was quite blown away as expected. The mountain carvings were exquisite and just amazing that they were able to do that out of rock using explosives.

The amount of detail is exquisite…there were even catch lights in the eyes which makes an eye look alive. How they did that…I have NO idea!!! Amazing!!

Seeing the faces of the past leaders of our country with all the flags waving put me in a quite patriotic mood.

It was near sundown and I headed back to the house for another enjoyable dinner with Ethan’s family.

9/28/2008 – Day 4
Roundup Day!!! Today was another ridiculously early morning. We woke up around 6:00 am, had breakfast and headed to the park. The roundup typically attracts 10,000-15,000 people and the park roads are not meant to sustain that much traffic. The round up happens halfway around the wildlife loop so you basically need to drive about 9 miles on a 2 lane twisty road with around 6,000 other cars depending on which entrance you came in. Thankfully Ethan new the back roads into the park that allowed us to skip the traffic. With a media pass, I had a great parking space and a front row spot which was fantastic. Here’s the media area with some of the photogs and videogs setup for the big event.

As we waited I had a fun time waiting with all the other media. I met people from the local ABC and NBC affiliates along with a lot of local journalists from Rapid City and some other South Dakota photographers including Lisa Houghton who is an amazing baby and kids photographer. Al Van Zee, a local news reporter shot this footage of the roundup. Ethan gets interviewed related to the buffalo that he helped chase down:
http://www.kevn.com/NewsStories.aspx?StoryID=12943

I love this shot of the lone cowboy waiting for everything to go down.

It was quite a site watching a thousand buffalo running across the field as the cowboys (and girls) were chasing them towards the corrals.

I skipped the part of the Roundup where they do the branding, etc. as I wasn’t interested in that from a photographic perspective. I knew I had a long drive back to Denver and I wanted to beat the 12,000 spectators out, so I headed out pretty quick. I drove the 7 hours back to Estes Park and headed back into Rocky Mountain National Park for the sunset. I drove the lesser-traveled Fall River Rd, which is a 10 mile twisty-turny dirt road that traverses the side of the mountain on the opposite side of the valley from The Grand Ridge Rd. which is the main highway through the park. Along Fall River Rd was a beautiful stop called the Alluvial Fan…a spectacular waterfall!!

I was just in time to start catching the beautiful evening light as it entered the valley.

I found a few tranquil scenes along Fall River Rd.

When I reached the mountain pass where Fall River Rd and Grand Ridge Rd. intersect, the sunset light was just starting to peak and I was in the right spot. Here’s a shot through the famous Rock Gap.

The light hitting the far away mountains was beautiful.

After a long day I started to head back into town to grab dinner but still managed to catch some beautiful images on the way down the mountain.

9/29/2008 – Day 5
Surprise…another stupidly early morning. My goal this morning was to catch first light at Emerald Lake which was a 1.8 mile uphill hike from the Bear Lake parking area. To catch first light, I had to start hiking while it was still dark. This was quite a challenge since it was so dark I couldn’t see much and I had no flashlight. The trail was pretty wide and within a few minutes my eyes adjusted and a bit of light started to creep in which helped things out. Unfortunately, the path was steeper than I expected and it took me too long to get there for the good light. By the time I was there, it already looked pretty bland…but yet still was a very peaceful place.

When I got there, I was so tired from having woken up at 5:00 am along with the previous early days and lots of driving. I was all alone out by the lake and leaned up against a rock and huddled away from the cold wind and took a nap. When I woke up, I spent some time looking for some smaller details which might be more interesting than the overall scene. My favorite of those was the color on the water which was twinkling just a few feet from me. The blue sky and golden reflection from the aspen trees created a beautiful image.

I also really liked these images of the trees.

While hiking back I met Stephen from StephenCarterPhotography.com and we chatted for a few minutes and he gave me a few tips on where to go.
On the way back down, the color and grandeur of the park really came through.

Once back to my car, I planned to head over to the west side of the park but before I left I noticed the diagonal lines formed by the different colored trees.

I once again headed over the continental divide via Grand Ridge Rd. but was less than impressed with the west side of the park.

It was time for the long drive towards Aspen. I found some beautiful scenes along the way. I loved seeing the horses grazing with the golden trees and bluish mountains behind them.

As I got close to I-70 around the Vail area, I realized that the last week of September to early October is truly the best time for fall color in Colorado. The mountain sides were on fire with golden aspen trees lit up by the sun.
One of the places that Stephen had told me to check out was a little ghost town called Ashcroft about 10 miles Southwest of Aspen. The drive out there had me stopping every few minutes to photograph the fun scenes.
Here’s a grove of aspen trees.

There was just yellow and gold EVERYWHERE!

The late afternoon sun lit up the hillside with the incredible mountain peaks in the distance.

When I arrived at Ashcroft I had missed most of the good light but was stll able to catch a few nice scenes. I was pleasantly surprised to find a place with nearly 10 buildings still standing. Walking through there made me wonder what life must have been like back then and it also made me feel incredibly blessed to not have to live in a log cabin!
Here are a few scenes from Ashcroft.

After that, it was time to head back to Aspen to have dinner and crash for the night.
Aspen was definitely not my favorite place and I looked forward to leaving.

9/30/2008 – Day 6
From a purely photographic perspective, this was the most unique, diverse, and productive day I’ve ever had in my entire life! As you’ll see below, I was able to see and capture an amazing amount of images.

I started the day catching the sunrise with a view of the Maroon Bells over the lake at the end of Maroon River Rd. about 10 miles outside of Aspen. It is probably one of the most photographed scenes in Colorado for good reason. There were lots of photographers lined up around the lake to photograph this spectacle of beauty.

Most of the photographers were so focused on the lake and the Maroon Bells that many missed the opportunity to turn around and capture the morning light that was unfolding behind them.

When I went to the ghost town in Ashcroft yesterday, the light wasn’t great and I knew the morning light would be better. I ended up driving back to photograph it again and see what I could capture. When I was driving back from South Dakota to Colorado I remember seeing a sign that said “Welcome to Colorful Colorado”. I remember thinking that that was a pretty lame motto and not very creative. However, driving the road to Ashcroft, I remember just looking around in awe while thinking how amazingly colorful Colorado is. So I guess the motto made sense after all.

It seemed like the entire hillsides were in peak color.

It was sometimes difficult to keep an eye out for the simple things as opposed to the grandness of it all. I noticed this simple log fence running alongside an aspen grove.

While in Ashcroft I got out my infrared camera to capture some of the amazing sunlight that was making the trees in the valley glow.

I also used the infrared camera to capture the front face of one of the old houses.

The old buildings framed by the golden aspen trees was quite a site!

Upon leaving Ashcroft, I drove back through Aspen and then over independence pass. The views across the valley were amazing.

While at a high elevation, I looked down into the valley and loved the abstract pattern that the water reflecting the sky was making. This had to be captured with a long lens to keep it a natural abstract image.

The cloudy skies added so much mood and drama, it was spectacular.

Once I made it back down into the valley, my eyes started getting droopy since it had already been such a long day. I pulled off the road and took a little nap. Once reenergized, I explored that area and took a few photos. I was feeling pretty lazy and didn’t feel like switching lenses off the infrared camera so I tried creating some images with that.

As I was sitting there, a little butterfly was having fun with a dandelion and let me get super close with a macro camera.

I drove through Twin Lakes and Leadville and I think my favorite things that I saw were the little symbols that represented a very different lifestyle than my own.

The next leg of my trip was a 3 hour drive down to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. On an ordinary day, this would have been a pretty boring drive but I was lucky enough to have a stormy day with some of the most incredible skies I’ve ever seen.
While gone, I liked to check in with Cheridy and Mayz every time I had cell phone service. Since I was in a lot of rural areas, many areas did not have service. This next photo cracked me up because I was in the middle of NOWHERE and somehow had a great cell signal. I remember telling Cheridy that I was next to an old shack and some tumbleweeds and not much else.

The road itself was pretty long and desolate but the moody skies had me jumping out every few minutes.
This was the view out the front window:

Side window:

In the rearview mirror, that’s where the real drama was unfolding.

Once I turned down the final road that headed towards the park, the stormy skies were getting closer and intensifying. The infrared camera helped me to capture some of the drama.

Sunbeams were shooting through the clouds and lighting up the far away hills and mountains.

When I arrived at the sand dunes it was raining some of the biggest raindrops I’ve ever experienced. Looking in the rearview mirror, the storm was clearing towards the horizon and the afternoon light was creating all sorts of patterns in the sky.

Looking in the direction of the sand dunes, you could actually see it snowing on the mountain range behind the dunes. It was really neat to see.

Once the storm cleared, you could see the freshly snow capped peak

I took some shots of the dunes and with the Photoshop processing, they looked like a weird martian landscape.

As the storm was clearing the evening light flooded the area.

The shafts of sun coming through the clouds were lighting up different areas. At one point, a sunray hit me and I felt like I was in a spot light in an otherwise dark landscape. I took a self portrait:

Then the sun went down and the moody skies continued to dominate my attention.

This was the end of an amazing photographic day! I was tired and hungry and unfortunately there was no food anywhere for about 30 miles. Since I planned to be here for sunrise in the morning anyway, I decided to just eat some food out of my cooler and spent the rest of the evening looking at some of these fun images.

10/1/2008 – Day 7
This morning I of course had another really early day and spent the sunrise watching as the light created some abstract shapes on the sides of the dunes.

At one point a cloud was blocking the morning light from hitting the sand dunes but there seemed to be good light everywhere else. I was able to capture some intriguing scenes with the infrared camera.

After leaving the dunes I drove to Colorado Springs where I had a couple places to visit. Unfortunately both were tourist traps which left me less than thrilled.
The first place was Seven Falls which is a private park with a very commercialized waterfall that cascades in seven sections. I shot mostly close-ups to try to cut out the stairs and other man made obstructions.

After that, I went to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings which is also a very commercialized Indian ruin. It took creative cropping to cut out the modern hand rails, the “watch your head” signs, and the descriptive plaques explaining what each room was for.

It was time to head back to Golden, CO to meet up with Ethan and Sarah. I was staying at their house before heading to the airport in the morning.

10/2/2008 – Day 8
Yet another early morning! I had to get up early to drive back to the airport for my morning flight. The stars were still out just as the morning light was starting to creep into the sky. Here you can see Orion in the top left.

Ethan and Sarah have an incredible view from the front of their home which overlooks the entire city of Denver.

Is anyone still reading? If so…I love you. Please leave a message and say hi!

Some of the images are available for sale in our fine art galleries for Colorado and South Dakota that can be found here:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart

We’re starting a new tradition at Arising Images…free screensaver slideshows from our travel photography.
Every month I will be releasing a new themed screensaver that contains some of my favorite images from that theme.

The first theme is “Castles of Europe” and it contains 11 of my favorite images.
The link below will be the location of all of our screensavers and it contains the download links and installation instructions:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart/screensavers

I’m really excited about this and already have about 2 years worth of fun themes picked out including canyons, waterfalls, wildlife, mountains, landmarks, etc. etc.  etc.

This is the first image in the Castles Of Europe series.  Please use the link above to download the free screensaver slideshow.

Earlier in the year, we photographed Ethan and Sarah’s wedding in Colorado.  Ethan’s dad Ron Walker is one of the cowboys that started the Big Buffalo Round Up that happens in South Dakota every year.
Ethan helped get me connected with the right people who were able to set me up with a media pass.  At the event, the park staff spend a few days organizing all the buffalo and then on the last day they do a big push over the hill and 1200 buffalo come charging down. I will have one of ten slots to ride in a truck on Sunday and follow the herd and then for the big event on Monday I’ll have a spot in the front for best photos and viewing. This is a really exciting opportunity and something very unique and different!!  Check back in early October for pics and stories.

The annual Buffalo Roundup is an important part of the park’s resource management program. To control the size of the park’s bison population, a portion of the herd is sold at the annual Buffalo Auction.  The park can sustain about 1000 buffalo during the winter months so the additional ones need to be auctioned off and sold.   The revenue received from this auction remains in the park and comprises a portion of the park’s annual operating budget.

Image from: http://www.sdgfp.info/Parks/Regions/Custer/round.htm
South Dakota Office of Tourism