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Wind Farm – Palm Springs, CA

November 9, 2011
landscapes, photography, travel
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For years I have been driving through the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm on the way to Palm Springs or Phoenix and have wanted to pull off the freeway to take a look around. I suppose I always assumed that I wouldn’t be able to get close enough to the windmills to make the detour worthwhile. Turns out I was wrong. I finally decided to stop a few weeks ago on a monsoon-y afternoon drive from Phoenix to Orange County and was able to get much closer to these massive structures than I had expected. There is something very ominous about this setting, like a scene from a David Lynch or Coen brothers movie….

San Gorgonio Pass wind farm

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San Gorgonio Pass wind farm

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San Gorgonio Pass wind farm

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San Gorgonio Pass wind farm

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Train - San Gorgonio Pass wind farm

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San Gorgonio Pass wind farm

 

Monument Valley – Valley of the Gods – Deer Creek Reservoir (Monochromes)

September 5, 2011
landscapes, photography
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I was on the road and in the air for much of August, including a long drive from Phoenix to Midway, Utah at the beginning of the month. I have made that trip several times and never tire of the spectacular scenery found along the entire route. My greatest frustration in driving those roads is not being able to stop every time I see something I’d like to shoot. It’s a drive that can normally be completed in 10 or 11 hours, but with several detours along the way, it took us the better part of two days. If I had stopped every time I wanted to, I’m sure I could have spent a week or more meandering my way north.

One of the detours we made was through the Valley of the Gods, located just north of Mexican Hat, Utah. We had spent part of the previous day driving the heavily traveled loop through Monument Valley, which is beautiful, but a little overrun by tourists. By contrast, the Valley of the Gods, which I think is equally as dramatic as Monument Valley, was empty. I think we may have seen one or two other cars during our several hour drive through the valley. I was experimenting with a GoPro HD camera, which I attached to my headlight with a suction cup, so I didn’t take many still images of Valley of the Gods, but I will post some video once I have a chance to edit it.

Here are a few of the images from the road trip:

Moonrise in Monument Valley

Cairns mirroring geological formations in Monument Valley.

A fisherman on Deer Creek Reservoir, Utah

A wakeboarder on Deer Creek Reservoir, Utah

A skeleton (deer?) by the side of the road.

Derelict gas station – Arizona SR 163

A detail from the derelict gas station on Arizona SR 163

Bonneville Speed Week

August 23, 2011
events, landscapes, photography, photojournalism, sports
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It is said the Bonneville Salt Flats are so huge and so flat that from certain perspectives one can see the curvature of the Earth. It is also one of the few places on the Earth wide enough and flat enough for motorized land speed records to be set. Several times each year, hundreds of highly modified cars and motorcycles converge on the flats to see who can push the speed envelope just a tiny bit further. Some of the vehicles don’t look much different than what you might see driving on a neighborhood road and others bear more resemblance to aircraft than they do to automobiles.

Bonneville Speed Week, one of the largest annual events on the salt flats, was held last week and I was able to get out on the salt for a day to capture some of the action. I had a great time, met some fantastic people and saw a bunch of cars and motorcycles go really, really fast. Here are a couple of the images:

Bonneville Salt Flats

An unblown fuel streamliner getting ready to go fast.

Monochrome – Bonneville Speed Week

Some folks come to go fast and some come to ogle.

This is the short course. The long course is seven or more miles long.

Spectators. Mountains. Salt.

Recreational Vehicle – Arcosanti, AZ

July 26, 2011
landscapes, photography, travel
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After four years in Arizona, I decided it was finally time to visit Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri’s city of the future , which is just off the freeway between Phoenix and Flagstaff. You can only walk around the site with a tour guide, so it’s difficult to slow down enough to find interesting photographs. I’m not thrilled with anything I shot in Arcosanti itself, but I thought this was an interesting scene: a slightly worse for wear RV under the huge Arizona sky.

US 287: Seat 3D

July 15, 2011
landscapes, personal, photography, travel
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When I was younger and more prone to moments of wonder, I always chose to sit by the window when I flew. I loved the freshness of perspective that looking down from 36,000 feet gave me. As I have gotten older and more claustrophobic, however, I have increasingly opted to sit on the aisle. I want to be as comfortable as possible in that cramped aluminum tube, and when I arrive I want to get out as quickly as I can can. Which means, of course, I miss those moments of reflection and wonder that come from staring out the window as the country passes below.

I have seen so many amazing sights from the window of an airplane: lightning storms all along the eastern seaboard as I flew from D.C. to Miami; the thin, green ribbon of the Nile tracing its way through the Sahara; the flood-stricken Great Plains states; the mast of an enormous sailboat poking through the fog as we took off from Orange County, California; the Grand Canyon and the Meteor Crater in Arizona; the Milky Way and countless full moons and sunsets. As I think about those experiences, I feel indicted by Louis CK’s widely viewed Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy rant on Conan O’Brien’s talk show.

So, on a recent two hour flight, when I found myself in a row by myself, I moved from the aisle to the window, put away the stacks of reading materials I had brought and pulled down my camera from the overhead bin. It was hot on the ground and the air was hazy, but I still took about 250 photographs along the way. It was another example of a recurring phenomenon in my life as a photographer: the camera helps me to see. The world is an amazing place. I need to remember to slow down and look at it.

Here are a couple of images from my recent flight:

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Rainy Day – Quicksilver Park – San Jose

December 14, 2010
landscapes, photography, travel
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One of the joys of visiting San Jose, California is hiking in the spectacular Almaden Quicksilver County Park that rises above the western edge of the Almaden Valley. I have hiked Quicksilver in every season, in every kind of weather, and never cease to be amazed by its serenity and beauty, particularly considering its proximity to the cacophony of the city just beyond its ridges. I was in Northern California this past weekend and was able to extract myself from a busy schedule to do a quick hour and a half loop on a drizzly Saturday morning. I’m so accustomed to trying to compensate for the searing light of the desert Southwest that shooting on a softly lit, overcast day was a joy. Here are two of the images from our morning hike:

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