"Cochise don't come in peace...He comes painted on the arrow..."

Back in the late 70's when folksinging duets were popular there I was at a bar in Denver and heard this song. For some reason the lyric line stuck with me, maybe because I've always enjoyed studying 19th century Native American conflicts with the opressive US Government. This area of Arizona was homeland to the Apache and Cochise was the war chief for a while.

As I was driving northeast from Apache Junction I tried to visualize how the Apache made their way through these canyons. When I pulled off the road a couple of miles past Lost Dutchman State Park and hiked into the desert to get a view without powerlines in the way I could barely move through the landscape without getting punctured. If it wasn't the Cholla it was the Pencil Cactus. If it wasn't the Pencils it was the Prickly Pear. If it wasn't the Prickly Pear....well, you get the idea. Everything out here will either bite you, sting you, or stick you and more than once I had to find a rock to bump Cholla clumps the size of golf balls off my pants leg or my hiking boot. I was fortunate that none of them penetrated my skin. But I digress.....

Mostly I was thinking "how the heck did those people travel up these slopes in leather moccasins? How did they keep thorns out of their bodies?" Amazing...legend has it that an Apache youth could run all day with only a pebble in his mouth to make the saliva flow. I could barely walk at a slow pace without becoming a pin cushion.

I blogged a few months ago about my past inability to come away from here without any images that I liked. Well, today I got some stuff I'm pretty proud of. Maybe not world class but I like them. Definitely an improvement over what I've done in the past. I guess the key is to remember that the "magic hour" is barely 30 minutes here before the light gets harsh and ugly. In other climes good shooting light can run nearly an hour but not here. Now I know.

The Devil in the Details

I'm a research junkie. I freely admit it and understand it and sometimes even revel in it. I've been spending some time planning a few trips this spring and summer and it's occurred to me that I may be a bit OCD when it comes to planning. So I thought I might share some of the madness I go through when setting up a trip. In this case we'll take the Yellowstone trip in May. Heather has been asking me to take her to Yellowstone ever since she saw my photos from a trip there in May, 2007 and I've been getting the itch to go again so this is the year. Anyway, here's the procedure.

First, I have to go through the mental gymnastics of checking the schedule at work and comparing it to Heather's spring break schedule. In this case the stars aligned and I was able to get time off in May the week before Memorial Day. That's a great time to be in the park. Bison calves have dropped, elk are about to give birth, and moose are not far behind. And in the Lamar Valley in the northeast corner of the park that means 2 things: wolves and bears. Good thing since that's what Heather wants to see.

So, time and destinations are set. Now the search begins for lodging. I can't camp in the car with Heather along and even if she wasn't there it's still too cold at night up there. So I hit the web and search for lodging around Cooke City or Silvergate, Montana both of which are just outside Yellowstone and the towns closest to the Lamar Valley. Now comes decision time....opulent or basic? Motel room or cabin? Kitchenette or not? If there's a kitchen in the room we can cut some of our costs by not eating at restuarants. Great idea. That decision made, I can narrow the choices down and send inquiries to the choices about availability for our time frame. 2 of the 3 choices responded, 1 didn't so they're out. I weighed the advantages of the other two and made a decision. A quick phone call and the reservation was made. First chore done.

Now it's time to do the same for Grand Teton. Heather says she really wants to spend some time in the Tetons so we'll spend 3 nights in Cooke City before heading south for 2 nights in the Tetons. I have a favorite place to stay there: Signal Mountain Lodge. Pop into their website to refresh my memory about the rooms available then call and make a reservation. That does it, the sleeping arrangements are made for the trip.

On to the itinerary. What are we going to do while we're there? For the next 6 weeks I'll check some websites I know that detail what's going on with wildlife in the park. By the time we get there I'll have an idea where the wolves are hanging out and most likely where there are some fresh kills that bears are feeding on near the roads. That's where we'll be for sunrises and maybe for sunsets. During the rest of the day we'll see the sights of Yellowstone. 1 day we'll head south through the Hayden Valley to Yellowstone Lake with a stop at LeHardy Rapids to see if we can photograph some Harlequin Ducks. Another day we'll head west to Mammoth and maybe south to the Firehole river. The next day we'll have a look at Yellowstone Falls. On our travel day we'll make a stop at Old Faithful and see the geyser pop. Then on to the Tetons for more tourist stuff. Maybe even a day trip to Jackson, the ultimate tourist town.

Now my thoughts turn to the photographic process for the trip. Are there any "must get" shots that I don't already have? Do I have the right equipment? These and other things will be rolling through my mind. I'll be thinking of the last trip and how did my equipment perform. I'll check and clean lenses and cameras over and over again. By the time I unpack the cameras in Yellowstone they'll be cleaner than ever. I'll have to check the memory cards to make sure everything on them has been downloaded before formatting the cards and who knows? I will probably pick up another card or two. You can never have enough memory.

Then back to the web and a search for images of Yellowstone and the Tetons to see if there's anything out there I haven't seen and to look for inspiration. Have I overlooked any locations? I'll review my photos from the previous trips to see what I can do better. Would this shot look better at sunset than it did at sunrise? And along the way I'll try to think of something to sacrifice to the weather gods to get me some clouds for that sunset behind the Tetons. Clear blue skies are good for general sightseeing but they're a pox on the house of a nature photographer. This is when I'll start making a shot list and start haunting the photo bulletin boards for info on specific locations. Finished, right? Ha!

As the trip gets closer I'll start making mental lists of things. Should I take the camp stove and cooking gear? What food will we need to take? What about clothing? This is a volatile period in Yellowstone. Last time I was there in May the temps were in the upper 60's during the day and I got sunburned. At night it still gets down to the high 30's or low 40's usually and there's the occasional night when you have to scrape the windshield in the morning. In 2007 the day I left for home it snowed and I drove through snow all the way across Wyoming. Gotta be prepared for anything

The last few nights before we leave I'll be going over equipment to make sure everything is ready. Tightening screws on the tripod, charging batteries, formatting memory cards, packing everything. I'll be doing laundry and packing a suitcase. Checking hiking boots to see if I need new laces. And bear spray! Gotta have bear spray if we're going to be hiking at all. Fishing gear? Yellowstone doesn't usually open for fishing until Memorial Day but there's a stream behind the cabin we've rented in Cooke City. Will there be time for fishing? Did I remember to pack the maps and compass and what about the guidebooks?

Sometime during this hectic last week before I'll have to decide which route we're going to take. Through Casper to Cody or cross country and through Dubois? Should we leave Friday night and get a motel along the way or leave early Saturday and have one long day of driving?

Are you tired yet? Well, there's obviously something I've overlooked. Hopefully I'll remember what it is before we go roamin through Wyomin. If not, it can't be very important.

So that's a brief tour of what I go through planning a photo trip. Family trips are something else entirely but I don't want to get into that right now. Maybe next time. If you see or think of something I've left out, let me know. How do YOU plan for a trip?

I Just Can't Help Myself

My name is Bill and I'm addicted to buying photography equipment. Well, it's not quite that dramatic but you get the picture. As far as I know every serious photographer has this affliction. There's always 1 more lens, 1 more bag, 1 more gizmo and I know if I just had that 1 more dealio I could make better images. They say you can never be too rich or too thin and you can never have too much photo gear.

I'm not sure exactly when this started but I think it was during my first 2 or 3 weeks at the Fishback School of Photography back in the 70's. I thought I had some pretty good equipment to start the school. I was armed with a Mamiya Sekor 1000DTL body complete with a 50mm 1.8 "normal" lens, a Bushnell 28mm and a Tamron 80-200 zoom. A couple of weeks in I realized that my photographs were mostly fuzzygraphs. I worked with my technique but that didn't help. My friend and instructor, Kurt Fishback, broke the bad news to me: "Bill, I hate to be the one to tell you, but your lenses are crap." And so started my addiciton.

The fall from grace was quick and terrible starting with a move up to a medium format Mamiya C220. Eventually I replaced my 35mm equipment with Canon gear and started a seemingly never ending parade of lenses. Sigma 400 f5.6, Tokina 80-200 f2.8, Canon 35-105, Canon 100-300. There was no end in sight. And the accessories...Heaven help me!

Shoulder bags, backpacks, more backpacks. Larger bags, smaller bags. Tripods, big ones and little ones. Filters, both the screw in and Cokin P mount varieties. Warming filters, cooling filters, polarizing filters, neutral density filters, red filters, orange filters, yellow filters, and the ever present skylight filters. Thank goodness I never liked the effects obtained with warming or cooling polarizers or color intensifying filters. That would have only added to my woes. Oh, and by the way, every lens takes a different size filter so I had to have a complete set of filters in 3 different sizes.

Over the years I developed several stratagies for combating that dreaded question from my wife. When I wanted a new piece of gear she would ask "What will this do that your current equipment won't do?" I learned early on that "make me happy" was not the hoped for response but if I could justify my request I usually got my way. I guess she was and still is my enabler. But I learned to trick her. For example, when I spotted a nifty 4X5 field camera I wanted I did what any normal photography addict would do: I borrowed a 4X5 from work and photographed a landscape in Rocky Mountain National park on 4X5 and the same scene on 35mm transparancy film. When making my case for buying the camera she asked the question. I responded by putting the 35mm slide on the light table..nice, eh? Then I dropped the 4X5 next to it and she said "Oh....I see." Next day I was the proud owner of a Calumet 4X5 wooden field camera and the gear circus began all over again. More lenses, more filters, film holders, polaroid backs, focusing loupes, tape measure to calculate bellows factor, and of course a bigger backpack to carry it all. Oh yeah, a bigger tripod to hold it steady.

That was a long time ago though, and I think I'm finally under control. Well mostly. I don't really consider the deal when I decided to sell the 4X5 and go completely digital. And I haven't bought a new lens in nearly 2 years. Of course you might remind me of the switch to a smaller lighter tripod and smaller ballhead. Then the switch from aluminum to carbon fiber tripod and a newer fancier ballhead. Then the search for another smaller tripod to travel with but it was okay, I still had an extra head for the new tripod. And when I bought the daypack for my trip to Utah last year I had every intention of selling it when I got back, really I did.

But I think I've finally reached a place where I can be comfortable. I've got a nice DSLR and 3 excellent lenses. Not only that but I've converted to all slide in filters and 2 of my 3 lenses are the same filter size so I only need 2 adapter rings. But then, I sold my macro lens a while back and there's a wildflower season fast approaching. And the 100-400 is a great lens but not a fantastic lens...wonder if I could trade it for a nice 70-200 L lens. But then I'd have to find a long fast lens for wildlife. And when push comes to shove my DSLR is two generations removed from the newest model scheduled to be out soon. And memory cards...you can never have too many memory cards.

Honey....can I borrow the checkbook?

And The Winner Is........

Truthfully, the winner is me but in the end I chose this image for large printing. A few weeks ago I blogged about needing to pick out an image from my files to have printed. In January I was very fortunate to win a prize at the RMNP shindig consisting of a free 24X36 print done by Denver Digital Imaging www.theslideprinter.com and mounted by DuraPlaq www.duraplaq.com. Well, I got the print back today and I couldn't be happier.

In the earlier blog I detailed how I searched the files for a suitable image and narrowed the choices down to 2. I burned them both to a cd and took them to DDI and this is the one that looked better on their monitors so this is the one that I picked. I knew they'd do a good job since I was a regular customer back in the dark ages when I shot film. I hadn't been in their building since I converted to digital about 6 years ago but I knew they'd do a fine job.

I didn't know a lot about DuraPlaq since I've always been a mat and frame kind of guy but I'd seen a couple of prints and some samples at the RNMP shindig and was pretty excited to see the result. They did't disappoint. The final product looks FANTASTIC! I need to learn more about them and the price structure though. I've had a difficult time selling large prints in the past since the matting and framing for big prints is very pricey. I have a 13X48 panoramic print on display at T Rowe Price in Colorado Springs and the frame and mat for that one set me back nearly $250. I'm thinking DuraPlaq will prove to be an alternative and will most likely be competitively priced.

So, a big shout out to my friends at RMNP for the door prize. A big thanks to my old friends at the Slideprinter/Denver Digital Imaging, and a really big thanks to the folks at DuraPlaq. Thanks to them I got me a great big beautiful print to hang above my poofy leather chair.

I was reading a blog post by a fellow photographer yesterday about knowing your subject and your art. As is often the case I started thinking and remembered an essay I posted on my website about 7 years ago after a family reunion of my wife's family in northern Nebraska. "Nebraska?" you say? Well, google up the Niobrara river, have a peek, and we'll talk photography in Nebraska. Anyway, I decided to repost the essay. Hope you enjoy. Yeah yeah, I know the image isn't from Nebraska but it is one of my favorite sunrise shots. Deal with it!

They Just Don't Get It.....

It's the kind of morning that city people can't understand. It begins when I wake in the half light that envelopes the world about 30 minutes before dawn and continues as I stand on the porch of a 100 year old farmhouse and watch the sun slide past the horizon. Maybe it's the way the steam rises off my first cup of coffee that tastes so good I could swear it's the nectar of the Gods. Perhaps it's the way the new sun glints off the spider webs in the field just beyond the mown area of lawn making them shine like a new silver coin in the sun. Personally, I believe it's the air.

The storms that moved through night before last and yesterday afternoon have scoured any impurities from the atmosphere and left behind air so pure and clean I'm sure if I take a breath I'll never be able to breathe city air again without choking. It's not quite like cold clear mountain air that sears the lungs when I take a breath and it's certainly not the filtered purity of a modern air-conditioned office where I spend most of my waking hours. No, this is something else entirely. A bit more humidity, remnants of the previous storms, but mainly it's the clarity that makes me feel this is what God had in mind when he designed mornings.

I am a photographer after all, and I spend a lot of time praying for mornings like this. When I create an image I try to convey the feelings I experienced when I saw a particular scene and it's almost impossible to make a bad photograph on this kind of day. But a photographer friend once told me the best images are often the ones in your mind, not on the film so occasionally I leave the cameras in the case and just observe the magic.

I have a lot of friends that wonder why I never travel east to photograph their parts of the country. My wife nags me a lot to visit the cities of the east: New York, Boston, Washington. I'm sure the eastern landscapes are magnificent in their own right and the cities are spectacular but they hold no allure for me. I sometimes struggle to explain why I have no desire to visit any place in the east knowing that they just don't get it.

But I'm okay with that. Really I am. You see when I experience a morning like this I realize it just doesn't matter that they don't get it. It doesn't matter that the East will never see a magical morning like this. The sun is shining on a fresh new world, the magic has begun…I get it.

Gear Review: Induro C014 tripod/Markins Q3 ballhead

I haven't done a lot of gear reviews in the past and I've always been sort of a rebel in some aspects so this isn't going to be your typical review. I'm not concerned with specifications like the thickness of the wall of the leg tube or the maximum load capability. That kind of stuff relates to all sorts of gear ratings but the one that comes to mind is capacity of tents. A 4 person tent can only accomodate 4 persons if they're all really good friends or if all of them are pygmies. Same with load ratings of ballheads and tripods. If you look at the max load specs of the Markins ballhead you would believe this device can support up to 65 pounds. Good luck with that but more on that later. On with the review.

I was a bit skeptical about buying a tripod with twist leg locks. I kept remembering my first serious tripod, a Leitz Tiltall which had twist leg locks. It worked really well as long as the temperature was between 45 and 80. Much colder or hotter than that and the legs were a nightmare to open and close. Don't get me wrong, it was a good sturdy tripod but when I discovered that I couldn't remove the 3 way head and put a ballhead on it the Tiltall had to go. My next tripod was a Bogen 3221 with a Bogen ballhead. The quick release plates on that head didn't lend themselves to a secure platform and the lever release enabled me to drop a 500mm f4 lens on the concrete. 2 days later the Bogen head was gone, replaced by a Graf Studioball head. This rig served me well for over 10 years and I don't know it's actual weight but I think it was about 87 pounds so as I got older and my knees got stiffer it had to go, replaced by a Manfrotto 190XB with a Mini Studioball head. Much lighter and also much smaller. Then I started reading about carbon fiber tripods. Ultimately I came across a Manfrotto Carbon One 441 tripod for a decent price and sold the 190XB, using the proceeds to acquire the Markins Q3 ballhead. Well, that tripod is my main unit. It's a perfect height for me, very light, and very sturdy. But it doesn't fit in a medium sized suitcase! Arrrrrrggggghhhhh. Conclusion: Man can not live on 1 tripod alone. So I started shopping for a smaller tripod to travel with.

After a lot of research and reading reviews online I narrowed my choices down to the Induro C014 or the Velbon El Carmagne 640. Ideally I'd have opted for the El Carmagne but I'm not one of those guys for whom money is no object so in the end, price was a major determining factor. I found the C014 on Ebay at a screaming good price ($150) pushed the button, and 3 days later I had a new tripod. Here's the data. I said I don't care a lot about specifics so I'm not going to give you very many. Here's what I care about:

1. Will it fit in a medium sized suitcase?

2. How far do I have to bend over to use it?

3. How sturdy is it and how much does it weigh?

4. How quickly can I set it up and tear it down?

Other than that I don't really care what it looks like though this is a pretty snappy looking unit. So here goes.

The interior measurement of my medium suitcase is 24 1/2 inches. Folded length of the tripod with the ballhead mounted is 21 1/4 inches so no problems there. Diagonally it might even fit in a small suitcase that's appropriate for carry on but I'll check that some other time.

At 5'9" tall I'm what used to be called "average" size and this is the only gripe I have about the tripod so far. With the legs fully extended the top of the ballhead is 49 1/2 inches tall. I'd like it to be maybe 6 inches taller with legs extended. I NEVER extend the center column unless it's absolutely the only way I can get the shot because that effectively turns your tripod into a monopod and 80% of the inherent stability is gone. That being said, if you're 6' plus or have a stiff back then this is probably not the tripod for you. Of course, if it were 6 inches taller it probably wouldn't fit in the suitcase. The height is not ideal but it's a worthwhile trade off for me. You have to bring some to get some.

How sturdy is it? My field test this weekend was a bit abbreviated but I'm convinced this tripod/head combination will be more than adequate for the lenses I have. I probably won't use it much with the 100-400mm but it will handle the 17-40 and the 28-135 with no problems. I don't have a 70-200 (yet) but I suspect it would handle one of those pretty well too. As for weight, when the postman gave me the box my first thought was "Dang this is light. I hope they didn't forget to pack the tripod." With the Markins ballhead mounted the whole thing is just over 3 pounds which makes it a breeze to carry and it's remarkably sturdy for such a tiny thing.

I was concerned with the time it takes to set up a tripod with twist lock legs but there's something amazing about this little guy. My hands aren't inordinately large but I find that I can loosen all 3 twist locks on a leg at one time, pull the leg out to full extension, and lock them in place probably quicker than I can set up my 441 with lever locks. As for cold weather performance, one of the properties of carbon fiber is it's ability to resist contracting in extreme cold or expanding in extreme heat. Last weekend I was shooting in 20 degree weather and had no issues with the legs either extending or collapsing and the locks were good and solid without having to torque them down really hard. That's a plus.

Finally the Markins Q3 ballhead. In the past I've used ballheads by Arca Swiss, Foba, Bogen, Studioball, and now the Markins and I can say that the Q3 is by far the smoothest and easiest to adjust ballhead I've ever used. It's fit and finish is immaculate. In short, it's a purty little devil. The key there is "little." I've put it through a lot and finally was able to discover it's one shortcoming. In January I was photographing Sandhill Cranes at Bosque Del Apache with my 100-400mm lens and as long as I was photographing stationary objects the Q3 performed great. The issue was panning to try and photograph cranes as they take off in the morning. The little Q3 would get really sticky if I tried to pan more than 100 degrees. As an experiment I switched lenses and found I could pan with no issues using the 28-135. The big zoom was just too darn heavy for the Q3. Other than that I have no issues with the Q3 and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone with the proviso that you be aware of it's limitations.

All in all, I am convinced that this tripod/head combination is very close to my ideal travel/hiking/lightweight tripod. It weighs nearly nothing, it's very sturdy for it's size, and most importantly it fits in my medium suitcase. I think I'll keep it!

Music Can Set You Free

Let me say right up front so there's no mistake...I'm a Rock 'N' Roller. I grew up during the 60's listening to artists like The Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix. I played lead guitar in a couple of garage bands during High School and made a little money at it though not a lot. When I got my first car I went through all the gyrations to make the AM radio sound good, installing speakers in the rear deck of my 1964 LeMans along with a reverb device. I was astounded and obsessed when 8 track tapes came around and later followed them to cassettes and finally cd's in all my vehicles and at home.

I've listened to lots of different kinds of music but I always come back to Rock. Guitar rock...the cd currently in my car stereo is a compilation cd that I burned with lots of hot guitar licks. My musical tastes are more esoteric as I grow older but given a choice I'm still going for the hot screaming guitars. I've never been a devote' of Classical music other than to notice that most of the cartoons I watched as a sprout were set to Classical music, a fact that was lost on me until I was in my 30's and watched some cartoons with my kids. The exception (for obvious reasons) being Ravel's Bolero. If you younger people don't understand the reference, don't e-mail me, I'm not sharing.

But tonight, watching the Winter Olympics, I heard a piece of music that moved me. Not because the couple skating to it were fantastic. I despise pairs figure skating. But for another reason entirely.

The music was "Sunrise" from The Grand Canyon Suite by Grofe. I don't know why it caught my attention, possibly because I enjoy the Grand Canyon. But as I listened, I was mesmerized and transported to another place and another time. Back to early 2008, standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon watching the clouds break and seeing the sun light up the Canyon. I'd arrived around 4pm Thursday, having driven in from Las Vegas, and once checked into my hotel room I headed out to the Canyon to get some shooting time. Before I could get there, though, it started to snow, lightly at first then heavier and heavier until I could barely see 100 feet. No problem I thought, it will stop during the night and I'll get in some good shooting tomorrow. That was Thursday night....24 hours later when I finished supper it was still snowing hard and I had to leave by 11 the next morning to make my flight in Vegas so I was beginning to worry.

Saturday morning at 5 it was still snowing but I decided to head out to the Canyon and sit in the car until the weather broke or I had to leave, whichever came first. at 6am it stopped snowing and at 6:30 the clouds in the east began to break and let the sun shine through. It was one of the most magical sunrises I've seen anywhere and led to the most productive 2 hours of shooting I've had in many years. But back to the story.....

Listening to the music tonight I closed my eyes and was back on the rim of the Canyon that morning. I could see the clouds breaking, the first hint of light in the East. Then more light, lighting up small sections of the Canyon. And finally the sun fully lighting up the morning and the clouds melting away. It was a magical morning and the music put me right back there.

I can't promise I'll listen to it regularly, but I'll tell you this. Before too awfully long I'll have the full cd set of The Grand Canyon Suite. It will be in the car and burned onto the hard drives of all my computers and who knows...I may treat myself to an Ipod one of these days. But for now, I'm content with the images from that trip. How bout you?