New Jersey & New York
A couple of years ago in November we took a road trip to see family in North Carolina, I am itching to go back and visit once all is safe to do so. Of course our trip would not be complete without taking a nature hike. It was dusk in the fall so it was the perfect golden hour. I found a patch of Daisy Fleabane that I just could not part from. There is something whimsical about wild flowers in a golden hue .
Fall is my absolute favorite season ever! just everything about it, the cool crisp air, the warm colors of yellow, orange and red. On a mid-October trip to Bar Harbor, Maine these were the amazing sites we were able to experience in Acadia National Park. Some of the images were created using a Lensbaby
Ever since I was little I loved to hang out and play in my grandmothers attic, as scary as it was it was still so much fun. So when the time came to have to sell the house I tried as much as I could to go back a document in my own way the house that shaped my childhood.
In the Spring during the new stages of our shutdown I ventured out to collect flowers & blossoms from the trees and shrubs around me to create still-life’s. Here are the results. Since now that we are stuck indoors due to our third snow storm in a row perhaps I should scour my apartment for a winter isolation still-life ?
I have recently played around with an alternative way to develop film. The Caffenol Process is not new but to me it is, and I am in love! I miss being able to have the resources of a darkroom at my fingertips and I love love, love film but it is costly to not only buy but to develop as well. This is why I was super excited to try this method out, it is a mixture of instant coffee, vitamin C powder, and washing soda. Super simple at home supplies, you of course still need photo fix but all these supplies are readily available online. This process only works with black and white film and it also increases the grain of the image so be careful
of your lighting and subject matter.
It was chilly, overcast and drizzling but Zion National Park was still breathtaking. I always seem to have the luck of rain when I travel, it never fails where ever I go! In this occasion, I honestly didn’t mind at all because it contributed to us having beautiful waterfalls. The area was also in a one hundred plus day dry spell so it was very much needed.
On our three-day tour of Arizona and Utah, the first stop was to the Road Runners Cafe in Seligman, AZ. This small stretch of road had a few stores which most were closed for the winter seasons or out of business. This little town is what helped to inspire the children movie Cars, Radiator Springs is Seligman, AZ. Unfortunately just as the movie showed it fell on hard times with the advancements of the interstate. I am glad that this was a stop for our tour company and other tours as well, it is great to support local small businesses.
Monument Valley on the Navajo Reservation is AMAZING! It was one of my favorite stops on our trip. The large stone structures and the vast spaces in between make you feel so small and just shows you how large America actually is, this feeling is really amazing but also scary. After our ride into the valley, we were treated to a traditional Frybread lunch.
While in Vegas one of the first places we visited was The Neon Museum. It was Amazing!, we went on a twilight photography tour so we had an undisturbed amount of time to take photos instead of being restricted to the cell phone only guided tour. Here they have the salvaged neon signs from the casinos that started it all. Most of them no longer work but there were still some that did. I highly suggest checking this place out, they are working on expanding and a new exhibit where an artist projects onto the non-working signs what they actually looked like when they did work.
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These are some images from the first part of our tour at The Hoover Dam, and the Western Rim of the Grand Canyon. The images of the Dam are from a newly constructed bypass. you can still drive directly on the dam but because of tourist traffic causing a major backup directly on the dam, they created the bypass. As part of the bypass construction, they created a parking area where you need to walk up several flights of steps or use the handicap ramp to get to this viewpoint.
At the Western rim of the grand canyon, you can circle around to various vantage points on the Reservation via a shuttle system. One of those points aside from the Skywalk is Eagle Rock which also has the stone structure known as the sleeping dog.
