Photographing Great Basin National Park

My wife, Kay and I, recently took a short trip to Great Basin National Park in Eastern Nevada. Most people go there to see Lehman's Cave but the main attraction for me is the exquisite alpine scenery.


Teresa Lake

Wheeler Peak is the highest point in Nevada at just over 13,000 feet. There are two, glacier formed, lakes at the foot of the mountain that make great vantage points to photograph from.


Kay at Stella Lake

This is one of the few times in my life that I actually used a model (my beautiful wife) intentionally in my photos. The intent was to add depth and perspective to the images.


Kay hiking the trail to Wheeler Peak

Along the trail you pass hundreds of Bristle-cone pines; the oldest living things on Earth. Some of them are 4,000 to 5,000 years old.



They are very photogenic against the deep blue alpine sky.

Old photo of my father

My sister Karren had this old photo on her wall of my dad at the cabin. After I looked at it for a while I realized that it is my old Subaru in the photo and that I took it. Brings back a lot of memories.

Self Assignment: Photographing My home. Toquerville, Utah

I thought I would share a few photos that I took on a self assignment a few days ago. My goal was to stay within 5 miles of my home.



These photos were all taken with in the city limits of Toquerville, Utah, my home. A sub assignment was to make it not look like the driest area in the second driest state in the nation.



I think I pulled it off rather nicely.



The photo above is an HDR experiment using some new software that I have come across. It is called HDR Express and works as a plugin for Lightroom. It worked well and is very easy to use. I am looking forward to more experimentation and will let you see the results when I get a chance.

I live in a beautiful place, don't I.

A chance to photograph a Ring-tailed cat

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a wildlife photographer. Most of them like to lend me a hand when they have a chance. Such a friend is Bob Olsen.



Bob lives in Toquerville, right next to Ash Creek. He has live traps out all the time in order to control the skunks and squirrels. A few days ago I got a call from Bob announcing that he had captured a ring-tailed cat and wanted to know if I wished to photograph it. Of course, I jumped at the chance.



In the thirty plus years that I have been a wildlife photographer, I have only had a ring-tail in hand twice. They are actually fairly common in the southwest but are strictly nocturnal so they are seldom seen by humans. The wide eyes, whisker-covered face and long tail are all adaptations that allow this raccoon cousin to function in the dark.



I ended up photographing the little guy in the fading light of evening. He was surprisingly calm and cooperative. My son Alex shot video while I was shooting stills. When we were finished, we just walked away and let our subject go free. I hope you like the images.