Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho

Bruneau Dunes State Park has become one of my favorite stopping places when traveling across Idaho. This year I used their excellent campground as a place to spend the night on my way to the John Day, Oregon area on my annual camping trip.

The spectacular dunes are a great place to take pictures when the sun gets low just before sunset.  People on top of this dune were sliding down the steep shadowed side as if it were snow.

One of the attractions is the 470 foot high largest single structured sand dune in North America.  There are a couple of ponds in the park that allow the rare opportunity to photograph dunes reflected in water, but this actually isn’t as good as it was several years ago because the beaches have become overgrown with trees and reeds.  Swimmers have kept a few passages open through the reeds.

The wind does amazing things with the sand.  What can cause such abrupt changes in the ripples?  The color of the sand changes from gray to rust as the sun gets low.

There are a few flowers on the dunes that cast long shadows in the afternoon light, like this nakedstem sunray.

The day ended with warm sunlight reflected in the lake from the big dune.  If you decide to photograph these dunes, I suggest putting your camera away until about an hour before sunset when the color gets richer and the shadows and ripples in the sand create wonderful patterns.

Please respect my copyright and do not use these photos without permission.  I often donate usage for charitable purposes, but will charge a small fee for personal or commercial use.

Arches National Park, Utah

This is a flashback to a trip Linda and I took to southeastern Utah last October.  We were exploring the red rock country from the Green River area to Monument Valley in northern Arizona.  One evening we drove into Arches National Park to photograph the late light.  Arches is located near Moab, which is the perfect place to stay to explore several state and national parks.

It is nearly impossible to find unique photos in Arches National Park.  The place is so beautiful that I can't imagine how many photos have been taken there.  After entering the park, there is a steep hill to ascend, followed by this magnificent sandstone ridge called Park Avenue.  As the sun descended in the west, shadows from another ridge were outlined on the huge formations of Park Avenue.

Continuing on, we soon came to Balanced Rock, another site that has been photographed thousands of times.  As the sun continued to drop in the west, the rock took on a bright glow.  Pretty, but what could be done to make it different from the average tourist photo?  I decided to fill the sky with this rugged old tree as a companion to the beautiful red rock.

We really weren't very far into the park when we turned down a side road to the Windows area.  The scene was changing fast as the sun nearly touched the horizon.  When I got to North Window there was a crowd there watching the moonrise through the arch.  Just a couple of years earlier, I had the good fortune to photograph a sunset here when I had the view to myself.  Anyway, I kind of like having people in the picture to add human interest and scale.  By now, the very low sun had turned the reddish brown rock a glowing orange-red.

Just a few minutes later the glow was gone.  I turned and looked toward the west in time to see the sun disappear, giving me a quick silhouette of Turret Arch to photograph.  Magnificent!

I barely scratched the surface of all there is to see in Arches National Park.  The road goes on for miles past several more arches, and there are trails to many more.  I've learned from experience that this is one place where early or late light is the only way to go for most images.

Steptoe Butte, Washington

Steptoe Butte is a high quartzite island rising above the beautiful rolling hills of the Palouse in southeastern Washington State.  I was on an annual camping trip with two friends, Bruce Gregory and Stephen Johnson, and we decided to photograph the landscape at sunset from the Butte.  We wanted a viewpoint that would look across the hills instead of straight down on them, so we drove about half way to the top and waited for sunset.

The sky was gorgeous, but the beautiful clouds blocked the sun from touching the ground below.  All we could do is wait, and hope the sun would drop below the clouds before it went below the horizon.

And then it happened.  The sun found a slot below the clouds and sweet light touched the tops of the hills below, lighting the immaculate farms of the Palouse.

A grain elevator stood out like a beacon in the soft light.

We had five minutes, or less, to capture the rolling landscape before the sun disappeared.  As I was photographing these hills, the light went flat almost without a transition.  It was an amazing evening.  We had waited an hour or so for the light, and when it finally came, we captured a few memorable images and the show was over.  We will have to return to Steptoe Butte again soon.

Oregon Coast Panorama

Linda and I need to see salt water and taste fresh seafood once in a while, so we drove to the Oregon coast last month. We rented a condo on Siletz Bay in Lincoln City and ate plenty of seafood, but photography was tough because of terrible weather. After reviewing my photos, I noticed that a lot of them looked better cropped to near-panoramic proportions.

Photography was difficult in the fog and occasionally heavy rain, so some of our photos attempted to capture the stormy mood.  There was little of interest in the foreground sand and blank sky of the beachcomber photo, so cropping to emphasize the center of the photo seemed to be the answer.

When we finally got some sunshine, the storm had churned up huge waves, and the wind was blowing the tops off. Faint rainbows appeared in some of the spray on these waves at Boiler Bay.  Cropping helped the viewer's eye go to the center of interest.

Sunset didn't have much color, so cropping this photo of Siletz Bay was a good way to de-emphasize the sky and create a peaceful mood.  The photo was taken from the balcony of our rented condo.

This flock of birds was also photographed from our balcony, when it was pretty dark, using a fairly long exposure to create a feeling of movement.
When reviewing your photos it is important to realize that the proportions of the image created by your camera might not be the best proportions for every photo you take.  Don't be afraid to crop out unwanted elements to make a panorama, a square, or a photo with some other proportions.