The Way We See It: Road Trip

Showing posts with label Road Trip. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Hello from across the Border

Off Lake Road
Canon 5D MarkII + Canon 24mm f3.5L TSE Pano Stitch

We're in Canada again!...
This time we're with good friends on sleepy little lake in Ontario living a bit of the cabin life. There's no electricity and no plumbing, but there's plenty of beauty and solitude to inspire this contemplative photographer.
Cheers from the road,
bruce

Distant Storm
Canon 5D MarkII + Canon 24mm f3.5L TSE Pano Stitch

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Trip Alert #4: Canada's Got Bears!!

American Black Bear - Kootenay National Park, Canada
Canon 40D + 100-400IS L

We've seen 3 to 5 bears a day since making it to the Rockies... here's an unprocessed, but cropped shot... more to come when the editing is done!!

Cheers from Radium,
bruce

Friday, June 22, 2012

Trip Alert

On the Road - iPhone

Summer is my shooting season. With school out, long days and brilliant light it's time for some road-tripping. We put 500 (plus) miles on the Jeep today and Tamy, Sequoia and I are now beat. Banff, Jasper and Kootenay are still a few days away, but that's the direction we're heading. I'm taking a break from posting tips until I return to the States, so until then, you'll just have to follow the travel diary.

Sunset at Camp - iPhone Shot and Processed with Camera Awesome

Hit the road and take some pics!
bruce

Thursday, August 11, 2011

My Twist On Icons

In short, today’s post is a brief interpretation of icons. Our brief road-trip to Wyoming and Montana collided with the peak travel season. There’s no irony here, I’m a teacher and most of my adventures overlap with this peak. I’m off, my students are off, the weather is moderate and we all want to get away at the same time. So, as I’ve shared previously, we hitched the pop-up (mobile photo-lab) to the Jeep and raced west for 1500 miles. Our campsite bisected the road between the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, and we were prepped for some amazing photographic opportunities.

Upon further review...

Sunrise in the Geyser Basis - Yellowstone NP
Canon 5D mkII + 50mm f1.4USM

Upon further review... What was I thinking?

When I Googled the directions from my home in Stillwater to the Flagg Ranch, the internal siren should have fired in my brain.

Lower Falls - Yellowstone NP
Canon 5D mkII + 50mm f1.4USM

Estimated drive time: 19 hours, 42 minutes. I read and reread the mapped directions, repeated the drive time, “19 hours, 42 minutes,” and even dragged out the road atlas. With the aid of my trusty index finger, I traced the route ...Hwy 36 East to Interstate 94... Fargo (ya, you betcha), Bismark, and Billings. From Billings we would head due south on Hwy 90, make a few rights, lefts, and bingo ...National Park city! We had seven days off and we were determined to see some real mountains.

The Rising - Yellowstone NP
Canon 7D mkII + 300mm f2.8L IS

I should have respected the estimate... 19 hours 42 minutes, but much like the climate change deniers, I refused to believe the data... Clearly, it was subject to interpretation. Google did its mapping thing, spit out directions, and calculated a distance. But these estimates are dependent on many variables. If I drove fast, made only a few stops, and left early, we could beat the Google hypothesis.

Sunrise on Jackson Lake - Grand Teton NP
Canon 5D mkII + 17-40mm f4.0L

Upon further review, much like the climate change deniers, I was wrong. With only seven days off, we spent 22 hours driving to Yellowstone and 22 hours driving home. Need for sleep required an intermediate campground on the way to and from Wyoming, and this left us with only four days to see the parks.

Tree Plague - Yellowstone NP
Canon 7D mkII + 300mm f2.8L IS

Now that I am in edit mode, I know that I need to visit these places again. The finite schedule required fast analyses, and forced us to shoot and run. With no time to study patterns or retrace our steps, the quality of our work suffered. Our self-imposed time limit quieted the creative muse, and we are now left with little more than memories. Yes, we went to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, but we did not really see these places...

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Road Tripping Through Ecosystems #6

Bull Moose - Grand Teton National Park, WY
Canon 7D + Canon 300 f2.8ISL w/ 1.4x converte

Why don't they call two Meece?
Five days following our travels through Teddy Roosevelt, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks time has made me reflective. Our journey traversed 2500 miles and 54 hours of Jeep time. We inaugurated a pop-up RV, survived severe straight-line winds and endured searing afternoon temperatures. While I'm sure that time will temper my thoughts, I can comfortably claim that I've never worked so hard to see so little. The landscapes are spectacular, my country has stunning beauty, but the distances between here and there are immense. I won't call it a disappointment, but Yellowstone was not the safari I expected...

Road Tripping Through Ecosystems #3

Pre-Dawn on Jackson Lake - Grand Tetons National Park
Canon 5D markII + Canon 17-40L Lens shot @ f11

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Road Tripping Through Ecosystems #2

Dawn
Yellowstone Lake
Canon 5D markII + 100 f2.8 USM Macro Lens

Friday, July 29, 2011

Road Tripping Through Ecosystems #1

Hot Spring Morning - Yellowstone National Park
Canon 7D + 300mm f2.8L IS

In this blog, "The Way We See It," I have tried to honor the tag line... We work to Travel - We travel to Explore - We explore to Learn - We learn to Teach - We teach to Conserve.

While brevity is not my strength and I am prone to excessive analysis, I do believe that images inspire. I use photography to tell stories, to provoke a response, and to teach. As an educator in a bedroom community, I see the xenophobia that grips our society first hand. Communities at large stress that if you are not "one of us," then you have little value to us. The current debate about budgets, fiscal irresponsibility, and debt crises completely cloud the important things in life.

So what does this rambling have to do with photography, ecosystems and road trips?

Throughout this summer I have made a commitment to travel and photography. In one brief month, I have traversed multiple time zones, crossed the continental divide, and straddled the equator. I have endured the discomfort of twelve hour drives, showerless days, and straight-line winds to see my planet with fresh eyes. The monotony of responsibility is replaced by a devotion to my craft and admiration for the planet's biodiversity. So, as politicians continue to debate minutia, and people live in fear of each other, I think that it is only appropriate for me to ask... WTF?! Crawl out of that damn shell, hit the road and take a risk. There are more important things to our survival as a nation and a species than taxes and balancing the books. A good old-fashion road trip across the country or the planet hold lessons for us all. You will be reminded about the fragility of our ecology, recognize our unchecked opulence, and develop respect for simple living.

So, to unleash your latent road-tripper, I plan to share seven images in seven days. Each picture will be captioned with little more than a location and photographic data. I sincerely hope that these photographs will inspire you to leave the comfort of home and do some living...

The Way We See It