Zion National Park

The sun sets on another scorching July day at Zion Canyon in southern Utah. Actually the weather was pleasant  at this vantage point on Kolob Terrace at 7,000 foot elevation. Down in the canyon temperatures reached 110 degrees during our stay.

Winter snowmelt and runoff from summer rains is soaked up by the sandstone and literally "weeps" from the walls, staining the red sandstone with mineral laden deposits. Here I layed down on my back to capture the towering walls.

Beach Dreams

This idyllic stretch of sand on the southern Oregon coast is called Arizona Beach. Massive headlands on the north and south end of the beach protect it from the nearly constant winds, providing the beach with a relatively balmy climate. Sisters Rocks protect the south end.

This is the north end headland of Arizona Beach. We climbed up a trail to the top while we were waiting for the sun to go down. Like much of the southern Oregon coast, we had the place mostly to oursleves.

Splash of Light

Summer arrives pretty late up here in Oregon but when it does the landscape explodes with beauty. One of the great things about photography is capturing these special moments in time and preserving them for later reflection. This beach, Horsfall, is the closest to my place nearby up in the woods and so I go there a lot. I look back at the photos I've taken there and the diversity of faces the place shows at different times is amazing to me.

Sweet curl. There are a lot of folks that surf here and there are some great breaks. Too cold for me! I'll take Hawaii for that. Next week I'll be checking out the Pistol River Wave Bash, part of the pro American Windsurfing Tour, down at Gold Beach and will send some shots your way. Check out their website. http://americanwindsurfingtour.com/

White Rhododendron

Back to the spring flower thing. This rhododendron is enormous and a great producer of blooms year to year. The mother bush.

Here is a close up of some of her babies taken in the black of night. The long exposure lends an other worldly texture to the photo.

The Big Moon

May 5, 2012, the full moon rises over Coos Bay. The moon was closer to Earth than it had been in twenty years. Scientists and others argued back and forth over whether this moon would appear bigger than others. What do you think? Maybe if could have shot it coming out of the sea, you know, right next to the horizon. Beautiful it was, if not bigger.

The moon event gave me a chance to practice "night photography", which I'm going to do a lot of this summer.

Trillium 2012

One of the treasures of the Oregon Coast is the native flowers that appear as if suddenly materialized in the forest. This Trillium is a rare flower, although abundant in the moist woods along the coast. This one lives in my atrium where several first appeared last year. Now, again, this year.

After about a month the flowers have transformed to a translucent pink and shortly afterward they are gone. The rhododendrons are now starting to pop. I'll keep you informed.

Indian Wells Art Festival

On a recent visit to Southern California to see relatives, I made a 400-mile side trip to Indian Wells to see the 10th Annual Indian Wells Art Festival. I wanted to get a feel for the “Art Fair” scene.

  Hundreds of these juried professional art events are held every year at outstanding venues throughout the United States, including more than 400 in the Western states alone. To find a show and see for yourself, check out Greg Lawler and his helpful Art Fair Source Book.

Indian Wells was bright and shiny on the gorgeous April day of my visit, an alternate-universe oasis dropped into the desert near several other, similarly lush enclaves -- Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, and of course, Palm Springs, the original desert hideaway for Hollywood’s elite.

The venue was the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the site only three weeks earlier of a major two-week international tennis tournament, the BNP Paribas Open, which drew more than 370,000 fans. I would love to have attended that event too, but this country boy can’t be hanging out in these environs for too long.

It was great to see the art, the array of exhibitors and the crowds browsing the tree-lined aisles of the Festival. About a dozen photographers’ work was on display, reflecting a wide disparity of styles and presentations. Landscape photography was the most prevalent form, including several artists who combined painting and photography in creative ways. Many really large pieces were on display, in hopes of attracting folks with some really large walls to fill. 

I had some great conversations with the artists, and left feeling I had learned a lot and met some top professionals. My favorite: Michael Gordon, a Long Beach, Calif., fine-art landscape photographer.