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I’ve been to Moab, Utah region many times and have found with each visit that there is always something new to discover. Potash Road, as I found out during our October trip, is a must see and do. Just North of town near the entrance to Arches National Monument, a road crosses and follows the mighty Colorado River. Vertical red rock canyon walls are Mother Nature’s embellishment to a landscape that is an absolute world of art. Slow down and look a little closer and you’ll find that the Native Americans were inspired to follow suit. Rock Art is everywhere and mostly untouched for centuries except here and there where someone felt to compelled to destroy it.

If you continue up the road beyond the pavement, you will find yourself skirting a number of tailings ponds, leftover from the cold war era uranium mines. You’ll want to make sure you…

“Monumental Sunrise”

Each Fall I find myself struggling to accept the seasonal loss of light and color. The Northern Hemisphere is tilting toward the dark and cold side and there is nothing I can do about it. This year I held on as hard as I could for as long as I could and I’ve stored up the images that I need to sustain me until Spring. Beginning at the end of September, I went on a fall foliage bender like never before. Before it was all said and done, denial fueled a journey to the relatively low elevations of extreme Western Colorado and Eastern Utah.

Alexander Supertram (the camper) at Sand Flats near Moab, Utah

The high desert around Grand Junction and Moab is always visually stunning. Add the colors of fall to the red rocks and big vistas and you have a beauty that is hard to describe…

“As Close As I Dare” – I basically crawled to the edge of the Goose Neck turn of the Colorado River, afraid the bank would cave in.

I’ve been editing photos like a maniac several days now and I’m finally ready to share more. Last week’s photo expedition to the Utah Desert was a success and I’ll be sharing a bunch or images. I’ll keep it short and sweet this morning and simply brag about the fact that we drove Alexander Supertramp right through the middle of a Hollywood set on the remote Shafer Canyon Road, the back road into Canyonlands National Park. We knew something was up when we took note of a campsite along the Colorado River. A long ticky tacky row of luxury tents and heated outdoor sitting areas were the first signs that something big was being filmed nearby. It turned out that HBO is filming…

“As If It’s Your Last”

Autumn’s procession is finally moving along here in Denver and at a pretty good pace. The Flora is now shedding its summer sweater with apparent haste and the colors are not lingering like they do in a more average year. Is there a blanket of snow in our immediate future?

Yesterday morning, I left the house before sunrise, on foot and carrying my heavy equipment pack and tripod. My stride had purpose as I could see that there was a clearing in the cloud cover along the eastern horizon and I was anticipating a beautiful sunrise. I had to hurry to get to the spot that I envisioned, a walking path bridge along a small creek. At a busy street crossing, with “Walk” sign began flashing green and I stepped off the curb to resume my cadence, something was terribly wrong. The Driver of a…

We awoke to the music of the Atnarko River, its rhythm throbbing with life. It’s a wonderful joy to wake up so excited about exploring a beautiful place that you’ve never been before. At first light, I ducked through the small camper doorway and scampered down the steps, Camera in hand and bear spray on my hip. Bears before breakfast? We only had one neighbor in the campground, a couple who we had met the previous evening. They were in a hard sided truck camper and pulled a trailer with a canoe and what looked like every camping gadget imaginable. I had beat them to the punch and I stood all alone on the banks of the river. The low morning sun streamed through the forest, illuminating the mist that hovered the surface of the water and the Salmon that spawned below. All alone, I stood there and marveled at…

Re-Boot Your Life

I had the opportunity to re-visit the old haunt yesterday.  I was in Southern Colorado on assignment and ended up running head on into the most beautiful colors in the Cuchara and Weston areas.  We were fortunate to have lived in these Aspens and Pines for seven seasons and I shot a photo from this exact spot about 10 years ago.  I’ll have to dig it out and compare.

From time to time we become overwhelmed with the complexities of life and we get locked up, paralyzed, much like our computers do when we overwhelm the RAM memory.  When that happens to me, I look for a way to shock me out of the gridlock.  This photograph was exactly the Re-Boot that I needed yesterday, the right thing at the right time.

South Platte River at Chatfield State Park near Denver, Colorado

If there was a pause button on the Wheel of Seasons, I’d be pressing it any time now. I’d hold off the falling of the leaves, the darkness of the shorter days and the coming of very cold nights. As life goes I have no choice other to embrace the moment, breathe it in so deep that it will sustain me until Spring. October always brings a heightened awareness of all of the beauty that surrounds me and that is a good thing. The anticipation of saying goodbye for a while to the abundant life of summer causes me to take notice of how much there is to appreciate just outside my door.

Sagebrush Symphony

As you can tell from my posts, I’ve been bitten hard by the photography bug and am having a bit of a challenge keeping up with all the editing. I seriously haven’t forgotten to finish my story about the trip to see Grizzly Bears, I’m just putting it on hold, taking advantage of the season to bank images of Autumn in Colorado. Last weekend, my two grown Sons and myself loaded our gear into the camper and headed out in search of nature’s seasonal grand finale. We didn’t even know where the journey would lead us. We would drive as far west and south as necessary to find ourselves surrounded by peak colors.

Darkness fell just as we reached the summit of Monarch Pass and we pondered camping there for the night until we realized how frigid the air temperature was. Onward we pushed past Gunnison to…

Pacific Beach, Oregon

The concept of the sabbatical is intriguing to me. I suppose in its truest form, every seventh year would be a year of rest and rejuvenation. If you ponder the roots of the notion you will find that they sprout from the Sabbath of the Bible. Imagine what it would be like to let go of our dominant concerns for an entire year in the interest of having new experiences, in the interest of finding a new and better way to approach life. Unfortunately, most of us have been conditioned by our culture to be pacified by occasional vacations, short slots of time that must earn their way onto our busy calendars. Too often, the vacation becomes nothing more than a temporary diversion from the status quo, mere entertainment which is quickly forgotten once we return to our old routines.

Fly By

The modern classic “Into the…