Make it a double.

My journey back east had a slight delay today with highway 80 getting closed between Laramie and Cheyenne Wyoming. So I have been stuck in a hotel for the last day and a half waiting for the road to reopen. This gave me a perfect opportunity to catch up on some reading and drive around Laramie for a little (there is a reason the roads are closed, conditions are terrible).

Laramie is a college town (home of University of Wyoming), so I went to a local bar/restaurant and just grabbed a bowl of chili and a whiskey and water. When the bartender asked if I wanted a double, I said "Hell yeah, what else do I have to do today". The bar surface was pretty cool as well, as it was created from blocks of wood and rows of wine corks. I couldn't help taking a picture or two.

Snow field

Snow is definitely what I am going to miss most next year being back east. East coast skiing is almost a joke in comparison to the mountains and resorts west of the rockies. To wake up and have feet of fresh snow on the ground is just unheard of back home.

Driving back from Brundage a few years ago, the weather conditions started getting pretty bad. So instead of taking the normal route thru Horseshoe Bend, I went thru Cambridge. The wind had created some pretty amazing drifts along the side of the road, so I pulled over and trudged thru some of the snow to get close enough to the fence line to get this image.

So long Idaho

With moving east next week for a year, I wanted to post a few favorites from Idaho for the next few days to show some of my favorite memories.

This is one of the many many Sawtooth Mountain pictures I have, which is one of the main reasons I have fallen in love with Idaho. I woke up at 4 am one morning in Boise, and just drove up to Stanley for a nice sunrise and breakfast. By the end of the drive I was crashing pretty hard from my coffee and it was pretty cold standing around taking pictures, but it was worth it.

Number 4

Ok, just to set things straight before I get a lot of flack. I am not a Boise State Fan, and I will never claim to be. I picked this picture, because come on they have a Blue Field! How can you not want to photograph that?

The Barber to Boise race actually ended inside of the stadium last weekend, and so I had an opportunity to walk inside and shoot. It was cool to be down on an actual college field (can't claim I ever have before at any school) and to have free rein to shoot whatever I wanted.

Lock Down

A few weeks ago I FINALLY went to the Old Idaho Penitentiary. I had wanted to go for years, but it took Sam suggesting it to finally get me in there. But trust me, if you like taking pictures, it is truly a mecca for creativity. There is everything from old buildings and machinery, to flowers and views of the foothills. It was definitely worth the visit and I will go back the next chance I get.

When visualizing this picture, I thought about a few of the things I was reading in "The Photographic Eye" by Michael Freeman. It's an awesome book about composition and has some great chapters about framing and perspective. It takes a lot to stop yourself from pushing the shutter long enough to think about the final image, but when you can create an image that is exactly what you envision it to be without any post processing, it's definitely worthwhile.

Spit Polish

Not really, but walking into Robert Riebe's Shoe Repair‎ store in Downtown Boise, it feels like they would hock a big one just to get your shoes to shine. The store is very rustic and contains a lot of original equipment for repairing and cleaning shoes. We were hoping to walk into the back when we asked to take some pictures, but they were busy working, so we just shot in the front of the store, which was full of various cleaning and care products.

It was a weird experience to walk into a place and ask to take some pictures, but its one of those things I guess you just have to get used to. They seemed perfectly happy to let us, so I will have to continue asking in the future.

Legends of the Fall

Fall is almost over, but I wanted to at least post one foliage picture. The west coast does not seem to have nearly the explosion of color that the east coast has, simple because there are more pine trees out here. With that being said though, when there is a tree that changes, it does stand out more and is a nice contrast.

This picture was taken on 8th street downtown of some of the random leaves strewn across the ground.

Small wonder

On the same topic as yesterday; all this month at the World Center of Birds of Prey, they are doing flight demonstrations of some of their birds. During the demos they swing a lure (a ring with meat attached) and the birds attack it mid air. Even though Saturday was ridiculously windy (try standing on a hillside with no trees...) they flew three birds: an Arctic Gyrfalcon, a Peregrine Falcon, and an American Kestrel (which is what is pictured below).

The poor little Kestrel only weighs about 100 grams, so they tried not to keep him in flight very long, and you could tell he was fighting to stay in the air. The bird is so small in fact, that it reseted on a single finger of the falconer and she had to shield it from the wind just to show it off.

Another First

It's funny, I have tried for 2 years to capture a Chukar while in Boise, and when I finally wasn't looking I see a ton of them. I was at the World Center of Birds of Prey with Sam taking pictures of a Falcon demonstration; and I had just finished telling him how I have been here 2 or 3 times, and had never seen a single Chukar (even though its supposed to be a good place to see them). We get in the car and looking out the windshield we don't see just one, but a whole flock of them. We jumped out of the car and tried to get close, but with no luck. Giving up, we start driving out of the facility, and there by the side of the road was another flock.

When it rains it pours...

Flashing. Lights... Lights... Lights...

Quick post tonight, was a long day. Went and took some pics around downtown tonight and captured this image of a string of lights on a tree outside of Chronic Tacos (between 6th and 5th streets). I didn't even know the place existed, but the food was good and I as I took my last bite I couldn't help being reminded of the Ron Burgandy line "Wow, this burrito is delicious, but it is filling".

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

The PCH area of California around San Jose, Monterey, and San Fran is one of the most beautiful areas in the US. This time two years ago I was lucky enough to stay in Capitola for a long weekend. The house we stayed in was a block from the beach which made taking pictures of the Bay a no brainer (especially with all the birds around).

The one section of the beach had a nice long dock with a great view of the pastel colored condos. It just so happened that while taking pictures of the buildings that this gull decide to jump in the frame.

Da Zoo

Hit up Zoo Boise sometime. For a city the size of Boise, we have quite the diversity of animals and a very convenient location to see them at. The new African area especially is very nice. When we went on Saturday it was the birthday celebration for the two giraffes, Julius and Joseph, turning 4 and 3 respectively. They had put out a "puzzle feeder" which is just a bucket with holes cut in the sides that they stuff full of leaves.

Below is a closeup of Julius on his way to the feeder and a second shot of one of the Spider Monkeys. The arms on this little guy were so long, that at one point he was sitting with his arm tucked under his leg with his chin resting on his fist.

Tending the Flock

So yes, as odd as it sounds, Ketchum (or Sun Valley as most people know the area as), one of the more expensive resort towns, has a sheep festival. Called the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, the event is in it's 13th year and is a weekend long celebration of all things sheep. At one point, the Sun Valley area was second, only to Sydney Australia, in sheep production and herds numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Today, the farms are much smaller, but the towns still remember how important it was to their history. I went up on the last day of the festival, where they have a parade in which the sheep are led down main street. I setup on the street, surrounded by hundreds of other on lookers and just shot away.

Taking flight

Busy, busy weekend. Went with a buddy on Saturday and shot pictures downtown all day at the market, zoo, and penitentiary. Then on Sunday drove up to Stanley for a sunrise and to check out the Trailing of the Sheep Festival in Ketchum (yes that is an actual event). Needless to say, I have a ton of pictures to upload this week!

Today, in Stanley, I finally captured a picture I have been trying to get for over two years now; a bird in flight. Saw a Red-Tailed Hawk land on one of the power lines, so I pulled over and waited, camera in hand. I prefocused on the bird, held the Autofocus lock, switched to high speed continuous; and when it took off, got off half a dozen pictures.

A room with a view

Its amazing how "convenient" Glacier (and even more so, Yellowstone) are. You literally have all the comforts of home within a few miles of yourself, but you are in the middle of some of the most vast wilderness in the US. Kind of a strange paradox...

Went to Glacier National Park two years ago for a week long hiking trip. The first night after driving up from the airport was spent in a cabin at the bottom of Lake McDonald. Waking up the next morning and pulling open the blinds, the picture below was the view that could be seen from the hotel room. (Talk about comfort).

Feeling Lucky

Went to Lucky Peak Reservoir today and shot some pictures now that the water level has dropped. Found a place to walk down to the water edge and shot a ton of pictures of the random debris that were stuck in the sand. The result was some unique pictures of bottles and other rusty stuff.

Got a bunch of places on the agenda for this weekend, so hopefully I will have some good pics for the upcoming week.

Little Bird with a yellow bill...

My dad, of all people, taught me the first part of that rhyme, and while neither appropriate or even relevant, I couldn't think of any other title...

One of the better zoos in the US is the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It doesn't even sound like a zoo from the title, but the reason it stands out over any of the others is that its an outdoor zoo where the all the animals are contained in "natural" environments. These are just enclosed areas of the actual landscape, so the animals appear like they are right next to you.

In addition they also have a resident family of Harris Hawks (I'll post some pictures later), that fly in and are fed twice a day, and a walk in greenhouse full of hummingbirds. You can walk right up to them and watch them feed and sit on eggs.

Pecking order

One of the more amazing things I have been blessed to see in my lifetime is a Sage Grouse Lek. If you don't know what this is you're missing out (well not really, but its still pretty amazing). Sage Grouse, while mating, preform elaborate courting displays for days in the spring time. During these competitive displays, they strut around in concentric circles puffing in and out a sack located on their chest. Apparently, there are very complicated rules/behaviors involved in all this (which I will not claim to be an expert in), so if you want to read more check out wikipedia.

Anyway, I had heard about these when I moved out to Idaho, and I wanted to see one. So I wrote an email to the local Fish and Game office and got a few reoccurring Lek locations. I drove out to one in Midvale at 5am, and waited for sunrise. At about 6:30, right when the sun started coming up, I started to hear clicking sounds, and looking out the window of my car, saw one of about 15 birds. I counted about 6 males and 9 females. All the males were strutting and puffing, and every once in a while sparring when their circles crossed. It was a awesome sight to see!

At home on the Farm

It is surprising to me every time I go home how many things there are to photograph. Literally I am surrounded by any medium I want; rusty equipment, old buildings, plants, and of course farm animals. But growing up, I just never seemed to notice any of this. I don't know how I missed out on all the photo opportunities I had!

Last time I was home, I took a ton of pictures around the farm, especially the cattle. I laid down in the field trying to capture the cattle in the background and some buttercups in the foreground, but the cows wouldn't hear of it. They walked right up to me and practically kissed my lens. Fortunately, this worked out in my favor and I captured some great pictures of the cows (with the flowers in the background).

Flower Power

Austin is probably one of the coolest cities in the US. Its a great place all around, because there are lots of things to see/do and because of the "Keep Austin Weird" mentality, its also one of the more unique places. So much art and culture comes out of this one city it's amazing. One of my favorite photographers, Trey Ratcliff, is also from and takes a ton of pictures of Austin. If you have never seen his work, check out his website Stuck in Customs. He does some pretty amazing HDR work.

Anyway... The picture below was taken at my buddy's sister's horse barn. There was a large runoff pond in the center of the horse paddocks between the stables. All the lilac was attracting a ton of bees and butterflies and it was easy to just walk up to any random flower and snap away as they feasted on all the nectar. I stopped this little guy in action landing on one of the flowers.

End of summer

As the days start getting shorter and the temperature starts getting alot colder I thought I would post a nice picture from summer last year (to help think warm thoughts). My family has been going to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware since as long as I can remember, but with moving out west, I haven't been able to go but once in the last four years. Last year was a great time with perfect weather (only rained one day), and the temperature never got above 90 degrees with almost no humidity (a rarity for an east coast August).

I went down to the beach in the morning and waited for the sunrise for about an hour, and as I was waiting this little bird kept running back and forth from the ocean feeding on the way. He seemed completely uninterested in me and just kept at his business, so I got to creep in nice and close and got a bunch of pictures of closeups.

Market crash

One of the best things about summer in Boise is the Saturday market. I don't get to go as much as I would like, but its great to go down there and see all the food and drink vendors (especially to sample the freebies they usually have laying around). Also seeing all the other photographers selling their photos really inspires you to try to get out there and take some pictures!

I try to walk around and get nice and close to every fruit and vegetable vendor I can find (they never seem to mind). Because of this, you can usually get some good lighting from the tents and the variety of fruit/vegetables you find rivals that of most grocery stores.