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Posts tagged ‘Sunset’

Feb 13

Wildlife Photography in Rockport, Texas

An old friend of mine, Joe Des Rosier, runs the Blue Lagoon Lodge, down in Rockport, Texas. He invited me down to visit with thoughts of putting together wildlife photography tours, to add to his already popular fly-fishing tours. I had 24 hours to scout out a few possibilities. We ran into some challenges and learned a lot, but overall, it was a great trip.

The Texas coast is well known as a birding destination, and is home to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge was set aside in 1937 to protect the marshlands favored by migratory birds and other wildlife. In 1938, there was only one migratory flock of whooping cranes with fifteen birds. Today, there are over 500 whooping cranes that winter in the Aransas Bay area.

While whooping cranes were high on my priority list, I was eager to see other large birds, and any other wildlife that presented itself. After settling in at the lodge, we hopped on the boat and set out. The very first photo I took was of this Great Blue Heron, only a few hundred yards from the lodge.

Click on any image to enlarge.

Great Blue Heron

We saw heron in several other locations, as well.

Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron

We also saw a few sandhill cranes, with which I am familiar from my many trips to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I’m pretty sure the bird below is a juvenile Sandhill Crane. Any bird experts want to confirm or correct? Do so in the comments below.

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Dec 1

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Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

Snow geese at sunrise, Bosque del Apache NWR

Bosque del Apache, a wildlife refuge in south central New Mexico, is one of the premiere locations for bird photography in the United States.  It’s a wintering spot for thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese (and dozens of other species of birds).  Its 57,000 acres straddle I-25, the Rio Grande, and El Camino Real.

I first came here in 2005—with a 35mm film camera, a few rolls of film, and with an 80-200mm f/2.8 as my longest lens.  I came back with a digital camera and better lenses every year for awhile.  After a few years, I got burned out and stopped coming.  It was getting more crowded, and I felt like the refuge was being managed in a way that made the photography harder.

I’d been wanting to come back; I’d heard reports that the refuge was in better shape for photography.  I had a window of time right before Thanksgiving where I could drive to Socorro, spend a couple of days photographing, and then drive back.  It’s a long drive, but driving let me bring more gear than I would been comfortable flying with.

Here’s my gear list:

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Oct 2

Joshua Tree National Park

I was in southern California recently, and had an afternoon to drive over to Joshua Tree National Park. I first visited there in 2007, when I was in Palm Springs for a NANPA photography summit.

I planned my trip to arrive for sunset light. There weren’t many clouds in the sky, but I still managed to get a little sunset color. I just had a great time quietly hanging out among the Joshua Trees and watching the sun set.

Afterwards, I drove down to the town of Joshua Tree and had dinner before driving back west towards the city. It was an incredibly short visit, but I loved every moment.

Apr 23

Mystery Valley, and on to Hunt’s Mesa

On Sunday, April 13, we began in Monument Valley and, with a Navajo guide, visited Mystery Valley before making our way up to Hunt’s Mesa.

I got up for sunrise in hopes that we might get some good color.  I was playing around with HDR (high dynamic range) photography.  I didn’t get any colorful shots that I liked, but I decided to process the HDR as black and white, and I kind of like the way this turned out.  The sun is rising just behind this mitten…

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(Click to enlarge)

Here’s a map showing where my photos were geotagged.  We more or less worked our way in a counterclockwise fashion, starting at The View hotel at the top, Mystery Valley to the southeast, then further south as we and east as we worked our way up Hunt’s Mesa.

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Here’s an infrared photo from Mystery Valley.  They had a bad ice storm this winter, and several trees were damaged.

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Here’s a nice claret cup cactus in bloom…

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We saw plenty of pictographs and petroglyphs…

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As the day wore on, it was clear that we were in for windy conditions.  This affected visibility to some extent, but it wasn’t a complete bust.  Here’s a photo of El Capitan as we worked our way around to the back side of Hunt’s Mesa.

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I’ll save you the story about how our vehicle got stuck in sand for about an hour and how we managed to get it unstuck.  But a little later, we reached a sandstone cliff, and our guide, Tony, admitted, “I’ve never been up this way before.”  This was our signal to get out and walk.  Tony decided it was passable, but with our confidence waning due to getting stuck in the sand, we told Tony we’d meet him at the top.  Here’s a photo of him charging up the hill…

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Eventually, we made it to the top of Hunt’s Mesa.  Here are a few images from late afternoon and sunset.  It was still very windy, especially as we approached the edge of the mesa to take these photos.

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We camped out on top of Hunt’s Mesa that night.  The wind died down about midnight, and it turned even colder.  I was warm in my REI +25 sleeping bag, but eventually (at 5:30 AM), it was time to get up for sunrise.  We guessed the temperature was in the mid to high 30’s on Monday morning.

Nov 26

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

For the first time in four years, I made it back to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.  I arrived this afternoon, and had a couple of hours of sunlight to try to come up with a plan.  Each year at the Bosque is a bit different—the refuge managers change things up every year.  I drove around the entire refuge to see where the crops are growing, which fields are flooded and which are dry, and see where the birds are hanging out.  There are a lot of potentially good spots for sunset, but on any given day, only a couple are likely to pay off.

I knew that sunset was likely to be pretty spectacular; there were several high clouds in the western sky. I chose one of the areas on the east side of the refuge where it looked like I’d have a clear view of sunset, with several hundred sandhill cranes in the foreground.

I was a little nervous as people left just before sunset—did they know something I didn’t?  I stuck with the decision to stay at my location and see what was going to happen.  As the sun went down, there were some nice pale oranges in the sky, but I had a feeling that the colors were going to get better.  I waited.  A couple more people left.  I waited.  And then a hint of color in the clouds, and a bit more, and finally…

It was worth the wait.

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This evening at a restaurant in Socorro, I ran into Arthur Morris, one of the world’s best bird photographers.  It was good to see him, meet his workshop co-leader Denise Ippolito, and see his workshop participants.  You can read more about Artie in this blog post I wrote in 2008.

That’s it for now; I’m hoping for a great sunrise in the morning.

May 18

Hawaii, Day Five

Today’s word is “patience”, for two reasons.

First, I didn’t have time to edit any photos today, so I hope you’ll have patience with me and this blog, and wait for more photos tomorrow.

Second, our afternoon ended with a patient wait for a beautiful sunset that didn’t happen.  We were at Ke’e beach, a beautiful spot on the north shore to watch the sunset, but some clouds moved in on the horizon, blocking the sun.  Still, we waited patiently, hoping that the clouds might light up in brilliant colors.  But, the clouds and sky just turned to gray, and we packed up and drove to Hanalei for dinner.

Tomorrow, we are fly over to the Big Island of Hawaii to continue our adventure.  See you then.

Dec 20

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Grand Canyon, South Rim

On Friday, I drove up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, driving from east to west. There were a few inches of snow along the rim, but with a little care, I managed to get to some of the overlooks. Here’s an infrared shot from Grandview Point. (To see more detail in each image, click on them to enlarge.)

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For sunset, I drove to Pima Point, which is along Hermit Road almost all the way to Hermit’s Rest. Here’s some of the last of the evening light falling on the Tower of Ra [see the comments].

Tower of Ra

Here’s another infrared photo.  I think this does a good job of showing the variety of textures and layers in the rock.grand_canyon_infrared