Calendar July

This is a lot closer to home.  It's the peeling bark on a madrone tree. Madrone trees are found in the foothills and they look like manzanita only bigger.  In the spring the bark peels like this, making some interesting patterns.  I walk past this one every day on my excersize hike.  I made a trail near my house that goes through a canyon with a creek at the bottom, Dry Creek.  This is a very steep trail down to the creek and it's equally  steep up the other side where I turn around and come back.  It's about a 1 1/4 mile trip.

Here is another shot that is not quite so close up.  This tree is only about 8" at the base but madrone trees can be up to 5' at the base and as much as 75' tall.

This is what it looks like right where I cross Dry Creek.  It is a nice place to walk except for the steepness but then that's why I do it.  Sometimes I see deer.  Often I see wild turkeys and in September 09 I saw a bear.

One of the fringe benefits of my trail is that when we are not traveling I still have opportunities to practice my craft.

Calendar August

OK, here is the story behind the airplane photo.  As I mentioned earlier we were photographing a wedding in Talkeena, Alaska.  The bride's uncle is a professional pilot and is affiliated with the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum.  So as a wedding present he took the bride and groom on a flight around Mt McKinley in this fully restored 1943 Grumman Widgeon.  Wanting some PR photos of this event, the museum sent a float plane to carry the photographer.  That happened to be me! After an hour flight and about 300 photos, I could almost do a calendar on just the flight.

The scerery there was incredable!  What you can see behind the plane is part of a place called the Amphitheater. It's kind of like a bowl on the side of Mt McKinley where a number of smaller glaciers flow into one very large glacier called Ruth Glacier.  This bowl is so large that when we first arrive both planes were flying around in it and we couldn't spot each other.

The enormous size of everything here is hard to comprehend, even when you see it in person.  I'm sure it's even harder to see in the pictures but I think this one might help.  If you look close near the center of this photo you can see the blue plane.  I told the bride and groom that it had looked like they were flying very close to the rocks.  They said they weren't close to the rocks at all and they thought that we were.  I never felt like we go close to the rocks either.  Everything is just so large.

The Widgeon is an anphibious plane and it can land on a runway or water.  They took off from the airport but when we returned they landed on the lake where my float plane had landed so we could have some more photo ops including this one.  It was quite an experience for me as well as for Jeremy and Danielle.

Calendar September

This was just one of the better views from the highway on our trip home from Alaska.  This is a view of Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory.  The clouds on the snow covered mountains combined with the strip of fireweed in the foreground makes for  a stunning view.

This is Worthington glacier from the highway on the way to Valdez.  We made a detour to Valdez on our trip home.  We were told that the scenery was good on the drive to Valdez and we were not disappointed.

Just to help you appreciate the size of this Glacier, and it’s not a particularly large one, it dwarfs these climbers who were just coming out of a crevice when we arrived.

Here is a nice waterfall called Horsetail Falls that’s right beside the highway near Valdez.

Calendar October

This is another photo taken along Dry Creek in Paradise where I walk everyday.  There was a mound of earth that was totally covered with ferns.  When the oak leaves began to fall on the ferns it created this beautiful pattern.

Here is another colorful scene found along the trail in the fall.  Don’t ask me the name of the plant or the berries.  I was just attracted to the array of colors.

Have you ever seen ladybugs swarm?  It’s quite a site.  I found millions of them on a fallen try one day and fortunately I had my camera with me.  Here I just zoomed in on a very small section of the log.

The moss grows extremely thick on some of the trees near the creek.  I guess it’s because they don’t get much sun down in this deep canyon.  After a rain it gets very green and creates some nice contrast with the fallen oak leaves.

Calendar November

The June Lake Loop is a nice little road in the eastern Sierra off of Highway 395 in California.  It goes by June Lake, Gull Lake and Silver Lake and then returns to Highway 395 near Mono Lake.  We were there in October 08 for fall pictures.  This is Rush Creek near where it comes out of Silver Lake.

This photo was from the same trip but further south near the town of Bishop.  Here we are looking up Bishop Creek into the high mountains.

This is Mono Lake and was taken on that same trip.

Again it’s Mono Lake.  I was there before sunrise to get some pictures and as and added bonus the full moon was just setting. There were quite a few photographers there for this event.  They had planned ahead for it and I was just lucky.

Calendar December

These photos were taken on the same trip as the January and February photos.  I just had too many nice winter scenes from that storm on our February trip to Yosemite not to use them.  This is a view of the Merced River right after the snow stopped falling.

I had initially used this shot for December when I was creating the calendar.  It’s taken from Tunnel View in Yosemite looking up the valley.  I had trouble deciding which one to use and I ended up switching. Both have been declared as favorites by different people.  Just for fun, if you have a preference leave me a comment by clicking on the link below.

This is Yosemite Falls right after the snow stopped falling.  Remember, you can enlarge any photo by clicking on it.  Just hit your Back button to return to this page.

Here is Bridal Veil Falls right after the snow stopped falling.  Actually I would love to hear your comments on any of my pictures or blogs. 

From the cell phone.

Well, since I can access the internet with my phone, I just wanted to see if I could post from it. Yes! Not to sure about adding picture though.