Notes To My Mother

 In 2017 I visited Glacier with my son in law, Francisco.  We spent three days together and then met up with a photography workshop led by Andy Cook, of Rocky Mountain Reflections and photographed for another five days.  This year I met up with eight good photography buddies three days before the workshop then joined Andy Cook for another five days.  We were all completely exhausted by the time we did our last evening shoot after 8 days of hiking in the park. On our first morning, I looked out my window at 5:30 am and the sky was on fire!  I grabbed my camera and tripod and ran for the shore of Lake McDonald.  We were staying, as before, in Apgar on the west end of the lake.  I caught the above scene and within a few minutes the colors faded.  I later talked with a ranger and he said it was unusual to experience such intense sunrises here, so I felt very lucky. Later that same morning we made our way to the Hidden Lake and Mount Reynolds overlook....

                                           We were in Big Bend National Park setting up the lights to capture the foreground of a planned Milky Way shot.  I was with Andy Cook of Rocky Mountain Reflections, a top shelf workshop leader. Some of the group were at the car, some of us setting up, communicating over walki Talkis.  Then the call came telling us to come back to the car right away as there was a storm that was closing fast on our location.  We scrambled back looking off in the distance and saw lightning strikes as the storm approached. As the storm came closer the lightning continued and it appeared we were right in its path. It was totally beautiful and exciting.  Sometimes the lightning would completely light up our surroundings. One photographer snapped some daylight-like images as the flashes continued.  Several times the lightning was so br...

If you want to take pictures of the stars, the Milky Way in particular, you will be better off if you find a location with dark skies.  In Sonoma County there are no night skies that are truly dark.  It may look dark, but when shooting the Milky Way to the south, with a long exposure, the lights from the city will show at the horizon.  And, you will likely have airplane trails in most of your frames.  One place with truly dark skies is Big Bend National Park in Texas.  And not airplanes! I have been there a few times with Andy Cook of Rocky Mountain Reflections (great workshops by the way). This first image is of the old movie set located west of Lajitas along highway 170.                                       This view was taken not only a few yards away.  It was totally dark and I could not see the river with my naked eye, but the person I was with reassured me ...