I love how expressive penguins seem to be, as in this seemingly joyful panorama from Half Moon Island off the Antarctic coast.
Drowning
The dunes are an ocean. Not your typical ocean, the colors are wrong, the particles far too hard, and far too large. But they shift in waves both small and large, and sometimes drown the things they overtake, such as this struggling succulent in Utah's Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.
Strange new locations...
As I've mentioned, I recently did a short trip into Zion National Park, which was quite lovely as always, but I spent my last day back scouting through areas I've never been. This place caught my eye, it's a section of Cathedral Gorge State Park in eastern Nevada. I only took a couple hours there to look around, but I'm sure I'll find a way to go back and spend some quality time there in the future, the place was nearly empty, save for innumerable photographic opportunities.
Back from a quick trip to Utah...
...and I"m starting to think about PhotoCentral's annual Big Spring Show. I love to participate in it, it's always a wide-ranging array of great work from dozens of excellent artists. I'm leaning this year toward including three of my early experiments with infrared digital photography. So far I've had a number of equipment issues with the work, but I've loved a few of the results I've managed, including the glowing image from along the South fork of Bishop Creek above.
Details on the shot to follow, but it's exciting to think I'll be able to give some of you a real look at some of the pieces from this new body of work for the first time.
(And if you prefer my color polar work, fear not, I've got much more to come, and at least one or two more trips planned to keep you swimming in icy goodness for a good long time to come.)
Big Ice
One of the things I often struggle with in my polar work is capturing the sheer magnitude of the landscape there, and the awe it creates within me. While this capture likely won't be a final portfolio image of my polar work, it does get at (perhaps too directly) a bit of that sense that one is a nearly insignificant creature in something much greater.
Here, another Zodiac of photographers helps provide a needed sense of scale, at a modest risk to their personal safety.
If you're not familiar with icebergs you may be wondering why that tower of ice is standing... it's actually part of a much larger set of ice, connected to the icebergs in back of it by areas of ice which are entirely underwater. You can make some of that underwater ice in the brighter green color near the tower.
You'll almost certainly need to click-through to see the whole image if you're reading this from Facebook or other social media that crop images willy-nilly.
Ice Abstract
Hues, shapes and textures all combine in this unexpected extraction from the back side of a stranded, sunlit iceberg near Antarctica. I'm not entirely sure why there was a hint of red to purple in the blues here, but they were there in the moment, and part of what attracted me to this scene.
Fantasy Ice Shapes
I doubt I'll ever get bored with the seemingly-infinite variety of shapes and textures that ice takes on in polar regions. Here, the top of a modest iceberg off the coast of Antarctica melds architectural and organic forms into something that to me reads straight out of a fantasy novel.
Petrified Forest Panorama
I was recently thinking about my 2008 residency at Petrified Forest National Park, and was reminded of this image, which didn't make it into my original show from residency, but which has stuck in my mind over the years since.
Penguin and Child
Mother and child, with a view of a scenic Antarctic channel. While my previous Antarctic visit gave me a number of opportunities to see older juvinile penguins, particularly on South Georgia Island, the number of even younger penguins and eggs I got to see this time around really put a smile on my face.
Whale and Ice
When I think of Antarctica my mind goes to weather, ice, glaciers, mountains, penguins and maybe seals, but whales were also a frequent sight during my last trip. I wasn't as prepared for the very long-range shooting they often require, but we had a few close encounters, and this was one of my favorite results, a nice cascade of water off the tail, and enough of a hint of the ice behind to give the image a sense of place.
Ice cove
I never get tired of the colors and forms one can find in icebergs. Here I managed a nice opportunity to show some very close texture with medium and large scale forms, which (for me in any case) helps provide some context. (I also have some great abstraction pieces from the type of light you're seeing at the left, so if you enjoy my more abstract work, you have something else to look forward to!)
Midnight Sunset
We didn't quite make it as far South as the Antarctic circle due to pretty amazing stretches of sea ice, but that did mean there were a couple of opportunities for sunset/sunrise color. I loved the little "boop" the cloud line makes here.
Waves of Ice
A delightful interplay of curves within the strange and wondrous shapes of Antarctic icebergs. Here I almost see the form of a breaking wave in the ice shapes.
Much like many of the images you'll be seeing from my Antarctic journey, this was shot from a fairly crowded Zodiac, that is, a small rubber boat. Finding the perfect alignment of these curves was more a matter of timing than personal movement. These conditions also test my handholding capabilities, a fun stretch for a landscape photographer such as myself who so very often relies on tripods for stability. I loved every minute of it.
Early Light, Square Berg
An unusual example of a tabular iceberg in that it's barely wider than it is high, but a pretty one, with gentle morning light near the north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Part of a more typical example is visible near the horizon on the left, not the triangular peaks, but the long, seemingly short iceberg all the way to the horizon.
Pit Stop California
I'm back from Antarctica (it was incredible), and am only a day and a half from having to head out toward the Mono Lake Winter Workshop I'll be teaching next weekend. But I did want to get a quick note out to let you know the Antarctica trip had been a wild success, and that I was very much looking forward to the upcoming weekend.
And to give you a little taste from the Antarctic images, of course!
Zodiac'ing through a set of icebergs just outside the Southern outlet of the Lemaire Channel, we passed a large berg and I happened to look back and immediately noticed that that side of the berg has, in addition to having a gentle S-shape, lined with hundreds of icicles dripping outside of the usual couple-foot tall carve out you see near the waterline of icebergs. We stopped and did a large number of shots lining up the icicles, and eventually moved on, but as we left the scene, I saw a new angle and quickly shot three frames as we sped away. I just loved the way the curves repeated here, and how gentle reflected sunlight off the water created even more interesting light on the lower parts of the iceberg.
Anyway, it may be several days before my next installment (I should return to daily posting after that), but I did want to check in and give a progress update. More soon!
Soon I will be on my way...
I have been greatly anticipating a return to Antarctica for the last year or more, and I'll soon be starting my next adventure there. I'll try and provide a few updates from the road, but it's quite likely that I will be incommunicado during the time I'm on the ship, so.. if you don't hear from me until mid-January, know that I'm off making more images! Wish me luck!
Winter Flight, Bosque del Apache
A sandhill crane flying over the frozen winter ponds at Bosque del Apache.
Homecoming
It's hard not to imagine these two sandhill cranes are reuniting after a long absence, wings wide. Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Reserve, New Mexico.
Magic Redux
Another one of the set of IR images I made during last weekend's workshop. Actually taken quite near the previous image.
Magic in the Forest
Yesterday's "Redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains" workshop presented all sorts of interesting opportunities and challenges due to a perfectly timed weather front. Our band of intrepid adventurers stayed optimistic as I improvised a new afternoon itinerary which brought us to Butano State Park near the coast, which allowed us some wonderful sunset light as well as a lot of quality time in one of the Bay Area's lesser known but most beautiful redwoods parks.
I didn't shoot a great deal during the workshop, but I did get an opportunity to make a few infrared monochrome images during our longer stay in Butano. The incredible glow of the ferns here, in part the lighting and composition, in part the characteristic light foliage of infrared, really creates a mystical presence for me. I can't wait to get to printing this image, I'll probably make a first draft of it tonight.