News and Adventures
General Drift – National Park Inspector
If there is one given concerning my camping trips it is that I will forget to bring along a pen to write with. After all, why would I need a pen in the great outdoors? Well, the most immediate reason is to fill out a campsite registration form, or a backcountry permit, one of which you almost always have to do. (Another reason is to take copious notes like my friend Lee Rentz so your blog and image captions will be complete and accurate, but that’s another story.) So, upon arriving at the White Tank Campground in Joshua Tree National...
read moreIn Memoriam, Brie Lucas (Brie O’Neill), 1970-2012
I need to take time out from my photo trip posts to pay tribute to a very dear friend from a past life. Most of you have never heard of Brie (rhymes with “cry”), but I have to do this, so please bear with me. Before I moved to Seattle, I lived in Dallas for ten years, and one of my favorite people there was Brie O’Neill. I met Brie when she was just out of college, and we immediately became great friends. Brie was young and beautiful, super-smart and passionate about everything she did. Her quick wit was unparalleled. And...
read moreNot exactly feeding the animals, but…
Last week we talked about all the reasons we shouldn’t feed the wildlife while hiking and backpacking. This week we’ll look at a different way of, um, supplying the animals with nutrients. Last October I joined four Mountaineer friends on a trek of sorts to The Enchantments, a gorgeous area in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, simultaneously near Leavenworth, Washington, and at the same time seemingly a million miles from it. We headed out on a Saturday morning and returned the following Friday afternoon, and every single morning when...
read moreDon’t Feed the Wildlife – Really!
In a way, I wish I had never had the opportunity to get this image. Sure, it’s a beautiful red fox, up close and personal, and I didn’t have any red fox images prior to this. But it’s the way I had to get the image that bothers me. I had just finished shooting in the Paradise area of Mount Rainier National Park and was catching a ride back to Longmire with my photo buddy Jeremy. After we left the Paradise parking lot, Jeremy said, “Keep a look out for a red fox on your side! He starts at this first pullout looking for...
read moreYosemite in Winter – it Snows There, Right?
I cannot believe it’s been almost four years since my last trip to Yosemite! Well, it was time to go back, and Southwest Airlines wanted to make it cheap and easy, so I booked a trip. But this time would be different. Four years ago I wasn’t much of a camper/hiker/backpacker/snowshoer/scrambler, so I stayed in hotels and tent cabins (yes, the ones that killed three people with hantavirus last year); but this time I’d be winter camping in my tent. No sweat – now I’m a highly trained Mountaineer. Or something. The...
read moreThey tried to hack what?
Well, it was bound to happen. My site has only been up for a few weeks, and already some idiot in France with a rogue bot has found me. Apparently these attacks on WordPress-based sites, masked as the work of the Microsoft Bing search crawler, have been going on for at least a year now. Well that’s just great. Of course they won’t find anything on my site that isn’t already public, but they sure can drag down a site while they’re working their mischief. So if you’ve tried to access my site lately and found it to...
read moreAnother Contest Win – and a Secret
One of the advantages of being in my newsletter “club” is that you have access to some of the dirty little secrets that sometimes accompany my images. Yep, it’s true – not everything in my image gallery is exactly what it seems. But first let’s talk about the contest. I seem to be on a bit of a roll here, with two contest wins back to back. Now I haven’t actually won a single thing from either one, but it’s nice to get the recognition. This contest was run by the Naturalists of the Seattle...
read moreBrains vs. Brawn – A Squirrel Tale
I’d like you to meet my little friend, a golden-mantled ground squirrel who lives in Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park in the Canadian Rockies. He came out from his den while I was photographing in the area to inquire about snacks. Now the thing you have to understand about this area is that it is grizzly country, and one of the grizzly’s favorite snacks is the golden-mantled ground squirrel. While a grizzly shaking scared little squirrels out of trees might make a dramatic wildlife video, that’s not how it works.What...
read moreFirst Gallery Exhibit – in Vermont?
About a month ago, I came across a contest that I just had to enter. I don’t enter many contests, especially if there is an entry fee, but this one was different. The theme was Color Story, and they were looking for colorful images. It was to be juried by Seth Resnick, one of North America’s most prolific corporate, editorial and stock photographers, a Canon Explorer of Light, feature consultant for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, columnist, lecturer, and founder of lots of things. I’d never heard of him. But that’s OK...
read moreChristmas Present from Getty Images
As an employee of Getty Images in Seattle (as a Software Developer, not a Photographer), I often thought it would be cool to also be a contributor of imagery as well. People say it’s rather difficult to get images accepted at Getty, so I thought it would be a nice honor to belong to that club. At first I didn’t have any images worthy of consideration, but over time I thought I might actually have a chance, so I indicated my interest by checking the “Make your photos eligible for invitation by Getty Images” option on...
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