Anežka Late Summer Fashion Session
Anežka had a selection of new dresses to try and the Illinois River boardwalk was the perfect spot to get some late afternoon photos.
Belle Senior Graduation Photos
Belle’s Senior Photo shoot was on a windy fall day. The leaves at Jubilee State Park we’re in full color and they provided a colorful backdrop for the photos. Belle did not mind that her hair was windswept! Atone point she was caught in a whirlwind of leaves Look for more from this great senior photo session!
Grand Canyon Winter Sunset
This epic view of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim was created by merging 16 Raw photos, each at 24 megapixel. The finished product gives great detail across this wide expanse. Layer after layer is shown and even details like the trails and river can be seen. This would be a great backdrop for your adventure session, engagement photos, or elopement photos! Contact me to set up your next adventure photo shoot!
Whales are the most successful intelligent species on Earth
“The primary danger to the whales is a newcomer, an upstart animal, only recently, through technology, become competent in the oceans, a creature that calls itself human. For 99.99 percent of the history of the whales, there were no humans in or on the deep oceans. During this period the whales evolved their extraordinary audio communication system. The finbacks, for example, emit extremely loud sounds at a frequency of twenty Hertz, down near the lowest octave on the piano keyboard. (A Hertz is a unit of sound frequency that represents one sound wave, one crest and one trough, entering your ear every second.) Such low-frequency sounds are scarcely absorbed in the ocean. The American biologist Roger Payne has calculated that using the deep ocean sound channel, two whales could communicate with each other at twenty Hertz essentially anywhere in the world. One might be off the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and communicate with another in the Aleutians. For most of their history, the whales may have established a global communications network. Perhaps when separated by 15,000 kilometers, their vocalizations are love songs, cast hopefully into the vastness of the deep. For tens of millions of years these[…]” Excerpt From Cosmos Carl Sagan, Neil de Grasse Tyson & Ann Druyan
The Gates of The Valley
I woke up before sunrise to venture to one of the quintessential views of Yosemite Valley. Valley View it is called and it really encompasses the grandeur of this wondrous National Park.
Half Dome, East Side Cable Ascent
A view of the east side cable ascent of the last 400 meters of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
You start with hundreds of stairs carved in stone up to the top of Vernal falls, then a zigzag trudge up similar stone alongside Nevada falls.
This photo above was Vernal Falls in May. This photo below was Vernal Falls in September.
Then a hike through sand along the Merced River to the foothills of the backside of the subdome.
You think you're halfway at the Little Yosemite campground are, but then the endless, steep, switchbacks through the forest begin. We take a break on a downed tree and chat for a moment. We compare notes on how sore we are feeling and wonder if how much further to the base of subdome. Then we hear the bone chilling rattle of a snake at our feet. The five foot long rattler slithers along the underside of the downed tree and we count ourselves lucky to have avoided a bite this far into the hike. Rattlesnakes and bears (yes we saw them)...this adventure just got real.
Then you reach the base of subdome.
Subdome is actually steeper than the final stage of Half Dome. Just when you really need it, you start to lose your sense of balance at this point. Your brain’s stereoscopic sense of balance is challenged, because, above the treeline there are no vertical foreground objects. You see horizon unmoving in the distance, but you have no nearby vertical “things” to gauge your left and right balance. Normally your stereoscopic eyesight would indicate left and right movement by seeing the foreground move against the background. This sensory information is absent as you start climbing up subdome.
Since you are climbing on a dome, very much like the rounded surface of an egg, everywhere you look is going over and edge. You have to trust that you’re headed in the right direction and keep going up.
Then your reach the narrow saddle (about 20 feet wide) with drops of thousands of feet down on either side. That’s the point of view in the photo above. You squint at the little dots going up the last part of Half Dome and you try to make out the individual people on the cable section. You are exhausted at this point. The air is thinner. The sun is intense. There is no shade. Time to put on the gloves and do the final climb. This is a real arm and back workout, as you pull yourself up the cables and search for stable footing.
More to come next week as Adam and I go for a second round on Half Dome, 2019. Stay tuned for more photos and video all the way up to the top!
Keith
Wedding at the Black Sea, Romania
A seaside wedding at Mamaia Beach, Romania
The oldest processed gold in the world, (7000 years old! 🤯)
was found in seaport of Varna, Bulgaria in the Black Sea.
The Black Sea was supposedly sailed by the Argonauts.
The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis, (now Georgia),
marked for the Greeks the edge of the known world.
A TBT to a beachside wedding two years ago at the Black Sea.
Happy Anniversary to @nikoll.t and @alexandrucostas ❤️🎉
Tina Maternity Session
When Tina and Nate announced the upcoming birth of their daughter, we soon began talking about doing a maternity photoshoot. I’d never done a maternity session before so I reached out for advice. My friend, and talented photographer, Mary Anne Stephens in Colorado had some great tips for me regarding posing for this type of session.
Armed with these tips, my Sony A7III and my favorite G Master lenses, I met up with Tina at one of my lesser known Peoria, Illinois nature locations.
The golden hour light happened to be amazing that night and Tina looked stunning in this red dress! We wrapped up the shoot during the blue hour with some gorgeous silhouettes against Peoria Lake.
Keep America Beautiful
Horseshoe Bend, Page, ArizonaSnowfall on a point in the Colorado River called Horseshoe Bend.
Scouts Outdoor Code
"As an American, I will do my best,
to be clean in my outdoor manners,
to be careful with fire,
to be considerate in the outdoors,
and to be conservation minded"
On my recent trip to Arizona, I had the chance to photograph some of the Southwest's natural wonders. From the Grand Canyon to Monument Valley, I was able to see amazing vistas, capture some memorable photographs, and have a ton of fun in the process!
One of the places I stopped gave me more than just a great photograph; it also gave me a lot to think about. This place was Horseshoe Bend, a picturesque wonder of geology carved by the Colorado River. I had been to the site once before, about 18 months ago. On that first trip, the area around the bend was quiet, serene and visited by a fairly small number of people. Coming back only a year and a half later, the location is now serviced with shuttles and busloads of tourists. Sadly, the effect of more human activity in the area was all too visible: litter, makeshift trails, and portable toilets. Facilities that were designed for a few thousand visitors per year had long since been overwhelmed, and now a major construction project is underway to build facilities and a hard surface pathway to the ledges.
The change wasn't a fluke. The National Park Service and other organizations have documented the massive increase in the number of people who visit Horseshoe Bend. Five years ago, the site was known only to locals and a handful of unusually knowledgeable visitors. Today, the rim above this winding bend on the river draws over 1.3 million visitors annually. The main culprit, according to experts, has been social media. Beautiful pictures of Horseshoe Bend have made it known to the entire world and drawn in hordes of visitors in the process. The place itself, in a sense, has gone viral.
The situation at Horseshoe Bend made me think about the unique conservation challenges of the 21stcentury. At a time when popularity on social media can turn quiet, out of the way spots, like this random bend in the Colorado River, into tourist destinations practically overnight, we have to ask ourselves what we as visitors can do to ensure that these places remain for future generations. When we haven't even solved the problems that have existed for well over a century, how can we cope with the new ones that are still arising?
Over the years, there have been plenty of initiatives aimed at aiding conservation by getting everyday people like you and me to do our part. While none of them provides a complete solution, I think they all have something important to teach us about our own roles in preserving the places we visit. Perhaps the most basic of these is The Outdoor Code, a brief oath recited by every member the Boy Scouts of America. This code has the young scouts pledge to be clean and considerate in the great outdoors, treat nature with respect and follow good conservation practices. Although it's over 60 years old and written for young men, I can't help but think how much better Horseshoe Bend might look today if the adults among us adhered to the simple principles outlined in The Outdoor Code.
Expanding on these principles a bit is the concept of a "land ethic", first proposed by writer and conservationist Aldo Leopold in his 1949 classic book A Sand County Almanac. Leopold observed that while codes of ethics existed to govern how individuals interacted with each other and with society as a whole, no such code governed the relationships between humans and the land. While Aldo Leopold never presumed to develop an all-encompassing land ethic, he did leave us with the following insight into a basic rule he believed could help humans make ethical choices in their interactions with the natural world:
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
One of the most successful pushes to bring conservationism to the mainstream was launched in 1970 by Keep America Beautiful, a non-profit organization that embarked on a massive campaign to make the general public aware of the effects of pollution and littering. The group's effort to distribute mass numbers of free pamphlets to educate the public was followed up in 1971 by perhaps the most famous public service announcement ever created. The 1-minute television advertisement titled “People Start Pollution: People Can Stop It” helped to spur the modern environmental movement and educate millions of people about the personal role they could play in conserving our country's natural beauty. Keep America Beautiful has continued this important work ever since. Fifty years later, with political and corporate interests manipulating public sentiments to burn more fossil fuels, or the rush to mine lithium to add hybridization and energy storage to everything from cars to power grids, I think the struggle continues.
Most recently, we've seen the emergence of the Leave No Trace movement, a campaign that focuses on responsible hiking and camping. Leave No Trace proposes seven principles aimed at helping visitors leave nature exactly as they found it. These principles range from proper waste disposal and fire use to being aware of the surfaces you're walking or camping on. From these seven basic tenets, outdoor enthusiasts have hit upon a large body of best practices for preserving various ecosystems and minimizing the risk of human damage. Of particular importance is the fact that the Leave No Trace movement has offered some helpful guidance for responsible social media portrayal of natural locations that may address the problems I saw at Horseshoe Bend.
As a photographer, conservation efforts are especially important to me. I've had the pleasure to visit and photograph some of the most beautiful natural scenes in the United States, and I can't help but wonder what these places will look like 50 or 100 years from now if those of us who come to enjoy them don't become more responsible stewards now.
The effect of social media popularity and human negligence on Horseshoe Bend isn't unique. Other sites, including Zion and Yellowstone National Parks, are suffering from many of the same problems I witnessed firsthand on my recent trip. This experience definitely got me thinking, and I hope that some of my thoughts will resonate with you and encourage you to take a more active role in conservation on your next outdoor adventure.
Photo: Adam Folken
References:
https://www.outsideonline.com/2291861/horseshoe-bend-canary-our-park-system
https://www.outdoorethics-bsa.org/OutdoorCode.php
https://www.aldoleopold.org/post/understanding-land-ethic/
https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/leave-no-trace.html
https://lnt.org/blog/new-social-media-guidance
https://e360.yale.edu/features/greenlock-a-visitor-crush-is-overwhelming-americas-national-parks