Picture of the Bright Angel Trail - A Hint of Things to Come

At this point I was continuing the hike along the Rim Trail, and came to a point where I could overlook the Bright Angel Trail. That is the same trail that is used by Mules to carry tourists all the way down to the Lodge that is on the river. The twisting trail is less for the benefit of the sure-footed Mules than it is for the Humans who also make their way up and down the trail.

There will be a lot of pictures from that trail next week.

Stark Relief - A tree at the Grand Canyon

Of course the Grand Canyon is more than just the canyon itself. There are the plants and animals that are part of the park as well.

In this photo, I was intrigued by the way the "skeleton" of this tree remained, seemingly reaching up to the sky. The colors near the trunk giving way to a bone gray in the branches. And behind the tree, a partly cloudy sky with the clouds seeming to caress what had been left behind.

That's what I saw, anyway.

Looking West along the Canyon

Starting off week three on here (but continuing the second day of the actual trip), you can see the fog starting to burn off in the canyon as I began walking along the Rim Trail. The clouds make interesting patterns on the canyon below, and you can see more of the characteristic reds, browns, and oranges with the light coming out.

Of course I did have to stretch out a little bit at this point to get more canyon and less canyon rim here, but it's nothing to what I did for some of the later pictures.

More from the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

End of Week Two - The Camel

I heard different folks calling this feature "The Camel" or "The Eagle". Personally I think it looks more like a Camel, so that's what "I" am calling it :-)

Supposedly folks have been caught trying to jump from the hump to the head, but I don't think that's a great idea. Even though the walls aren't too steep around this, you're still looking at a good fall. And if you don't catch yourself and started rolling... it's a LONG ways down.

Some more photos of Grand Canyon National Park next week as the photos from the 2009 Road Trip continue. If you like what you've seen, remember that I'm able to take time to do all this through the "Public Radio" model. In other words, if you like the site and want to make sure I have money to keep doing stuff like this, I'd appreciate it if you'd drop by the Donations page and give what you can.

See you next week!

Road Trip 2009 - A Panoramic View

Here I was going for more of a panorama of the view from this part of the South Rim. One nice thing about both of the Panasonic cameras I've owned is their wide angle at the bottom of the zoom range.

The colors are a little soft and subdued due to the fog, but I still think it makes for a nice image.

First Shot from the South Rim - Grand Canyon National Park

Got to the parking lot near the visitor center, walked over to the Rim, and this was my first site of the Grand Canyon. Though I grew up in Colorado, I'd never made it over here before. So I was excited to see what it looked like.

You can see how foggy it was in the Canyon itself, making it look like there were rock islands in a sea of sky.

More of the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

Road Trip 2009 - Nearing Flagstaff, Arizona

We've skipped a good bit of the first day of the trip to go from outside El Paso to about an hour south of Flagstaff, Arizona. Yes, it's another photo from inside the car, but you were expecting that, right? :-)

In any event, you might be able to tell already, but the "clouds" to the lower left are actually smoke from a wildfire that I noticed as I neared the top of this ridge. The road didn't get close enough to see the fire itself, and fortunately the wind was blowing the smoke away from the road. However, I would see a lot more clouds like this on the rest of the drive in, as well as controlled burns at Grand Canyon National Park, which I'll start posting photos of tomorrow. Of the Park that is, not of any of the burns. I don't mind taking a one handed shot when the road is this empty and there's good visibility. The burns at the park were much closer to the road, and so made for some interesting driving to and from the canyon.

Week 2 - Continuing West on I-10

Starting on the second week of photos from the road trip, here's a photo of I-10 about an hour from El Paso. You can see that there ARE some mountains in Texas, even if they are primarily at the Western and Southern borders of the state.

Again, this is a shot from inside the car, and it gives a point of view that I really like. You can see how empty the road going my way is, while checking out all the trucks heading east. But also, the clouds in the sky are just spectacular.

Wrapping up Week One - Road Trip 2009 - West Texas Butte

One of the things I really like about my Panasonic FZ28 is that using the iA mode of the camera, I can shoot one handed. That allows me to take pictures like this one while I'm driving down the road. There wasn't an exit for miles on either side of this Butte, so if I hadn't gotten it from here, I probably couldn't have gotten it at all.

This image had to be slightly cropped to remove a bit of the dashboard and passenger column support along the bottom and left side of the image. Since my eyes were on the road (safety first after all), I couldn't completely frame the shot first.

I hope you've enjoyed this first week of images here on Ewan Photos! The site runs sort of like a Public Radio station where the donations that people make help fund the work to make this available for everyone. So if you've enjoyed what you've seen so far, please drop by the Donations Page, and make a contribution to keep things going.

Thanks again for visiting, and I'll have more images up starting again on Monday!

Road Trip 2009 - West Texas from Interstate 10

OK, I have two images for you today. First is a barn with an old fashioned windmill located in West Texas just off of Interstate 10.

Next is a group of modern windmills about half an hour further down the road. While the first windmill would have been used for pumping water, these newer windmills are used to create electricity. What's interesting is that a lot of the power from the windmills in West Texas is actually sent over to San Antonio. So in one sense I was taking a drive to see where the power that recharged the batteries for taking these pictures came from.

Outdoor Office Number 3 - Old Faithful - Last of this series

Last picture in the Outdoor Office series. This time you can see Old Faithful steaming as it prepares for an eruption that occured about 15 minutes after this picture was taken. I chickened out of trying to get a photo during the eruption as the wind was kind of variable that day, and I didn't want to get any moisture on the system. While everything was solid state (thanks to the SSD), it wasn't waterproof.

Next series will start the images from the Road Trip I took in August of 2009 (not that long ago) through Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico. See you tomorrow!

Outdoor Office Number 2 - Rocky Mountain National Park

Here's the next image in my Outdoor Office series. I played with the exposure a bit on this one to make sure the computer screen was visible so folks could see I really was working out here. Got some interesting comments from some of the folks who hiked by while I was setting this up :-)

In the background is a small waterfall that is visible if you take the Glacier Basin Trail heading up to Sky Pond.

First Picture - My Work Environment on the Road

Let's kick things off with a series showing my "Office on the Road" from my latest trip. As you can see in the picture, I used an ASUS 900HA that had been upgraded to 2 Gigs of RAM, and the internal HD was replaced with a fairly fast 128 Gig SSD. The dongle on the right is a Verizon 3G USB modem (which worked well until you got below the rim on the trails), and the white base is a Logitech Notebook Cooler.

In the background is the Grand Canyon as taken from the South Rim.

Camera for this and most of the pictures I'll be showing on the site is a Panasonic FZ28. I will occasionally post (and will note when I do so) some older images taken with either a Panasonic FZ18 or a Canon S2IS.

As I mention on the Donations Page, most of the images here are also available as prints if you are interested. Just drop me an email and let me know.

Of course, I'd love it if eventually doing this covers the bills well enough that I could be shooting images to share with y'all all the time. For the meantime, hopefully you'll enjoy what I do have already for you!

Grand Opening Scheduled - Monday, September 14th

Looks like I have all my ducks in a row to have this site "go live" next Monday morning, September 14th. The plan is to have a new photo up every day, which will be one I've pulled from my collection of the "best" of my photos. Generally I'll be trying to tell a story along with the photos, and occasionally I'll post something designed more to show how NOT to take or edit a photo, or just because it helps with whatever experience I'm trying to relate.

If you haven't read any of my previous stuff, most of the photos will come from the Western United States. Over the first few months I'll be posting stuff from my recent trip to six National parks, as well as some shots taken on the road as I was going past everything.

Look forward to sharing more with everyone next Monday!