If you are on my mailing list you should receive this on New Years Eve 2024 at about 10am Pacific time.
Like I stated in my last few posts this is the time of year that I pause and reflect upon the entire year. I’ve had an exceptional year! Lots of adventures in my RV from mid April until mid October. I’ve played with video a LOT!
Most of this Video has yet to be seen. I’m a Photographer remember? For a bit over five decades now, I’ve been a Professional Photographer. Still Images, one at a time. To put together a “story” with light, composition, moving images, and sound has been a pretty big challenge.
I have enjoyed the challenge but I still don’t like showing anything but my best stuff. I definitely do NOT like how I look in Video! My Voice has always been something to deal with. Loud and booming, I can actually blow out a microphone easily. Back in the day I did a bit of radio, and voice over work. Things have changed greatly now.
This coming May it will be a quarter century since I quit my four pack a day cigarette habit. I’m still here alive and kickin’. There is no doubt in my mind that I’d be one with Yoda if I had not quit.
Back To Camping
I have been an outdoorsman my entire life. I have ridden most every single dirt road in the Western United States, either on Horseback, 4X4 Pickup, or Dirt Bike. This is one key reason I am so well versed with locations.
Today while moving files around I came across this Image.
Now this image is no wall hanger mind you. It was captured with my first digital camera… A Sony! Surprised? Sony owns Zeiss. I’ve always loved Zeiss Glass. When I was contemplating Digital over film, I looked hard at Sony. But in those days they had very little glass! So I stayed with Nikon.
The image above is camp at the 9,000 foot level of White Rock Peak. This is located on the Nevada side of the Utah border. The mountain range beyond Melvadeen is the Indian Peaks Range in Utah. Home to the biggest Elk in Utah.
The Utah herd and the Nevada herd join up all the time and travel by, right where I’m camped. No, there are no hookups up in these here mountains. We are completely on our own. Actually? That’s how I like it best.
This picture is from the same hunting trip. My two sons all decked out in orange having a blast! This was one week before season opening on October 1st, 2006 and we’re scouting. Justin just turned 9, Christopher was 14.
This is from 2007 in the same spot. I broke an axel on the trailer on the way up the mountain to camp. Snowed like crazy that night. Two days later I took the wife and kids back to Vegas and left the trailer on the mountain for a week.
I came back up, riding in three feet of snow, chained up on all four tires, in four wheel drive, braking trail for the welder following me up the mountain to fix the axel. We both got pretty wet and tired getting that job done.
The picture below is us pulling the trailer down the mountain chained up on every tire we had, trucks and trailer, with the welder in his truck and and an additional chain from the front of his truck to the back of my trailer, so we didn’t slide off the mountain.
At the end of the road in this picture by the big tree is where the road leaves the top of the mountain and we start down a ten percent grade rough road. That’s the section I broke the axel on.
Fast forward to 2024. I’ve had many an adventure like this. I’m still alive and kickin’. But this past year was the year I really got back in the hills some, by myself. I had an awesome summer! Southern Utah has become a second home to me.
After over a half century in Las Vegas one thing I really like is the lack of mosquitoes! in 2023 I spent the summer mostly up in Idaho outside of Yellowstone National Park. The skeeters up there were horrendous! Skeeters and other things like that really find me appetizing. I did not enjoy sitting outside in the evenings, one little bit!
Also it’s not as cool weather wise in the summer compared to 9,000 feet in Utah. Another thing? Which tree or mountain do you Photograph? They all look alike, except Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Grand Teton actually became more enjoyable for me simply due to less crowd’s, compared to Yellowstone.
So… I find Utah more “exciting” simply because there are less crowds, also a wide variety of landscapes to shoot. Utah also affords a lot of BLM and Forrest service land that is free to camp on. The one thing I hope slows down a bunch are the posts by Social Media Influencers advertising locations.
Something I Learned For Milky Way Photography
I always knew the Eastern United States had less opportunities for dark skies from the dark sky maps, however I never knew the numbers. This year I learned that 80% of the United States population lives east of 100 degrees longitude. That line is basically The Middle of North Dakota down through to the middle of Texas. 11% live in the Pacific Coast States of California, Oregon, and Washington.
That means that only 9% of the US Population Lives in the Mountain States! I’m very OK with that! Tourism draws people from all over the country to the Mountain States from Memorial Day till Labor day… but! If you know what you’re doing and where to go? ? ^_^ Yup! I know! So the crowds are manageable, and the scenery varied.
I will be concentrating much more on Milky Way Photography this season in 2025, before it’s no longer available. All the National Parks now have rules about Photography at night. It’s those influencers I mentioned above. The Internet caused a lot of those rules to be enacted.
I’ll be showing people where to go, but I will be asking those people to keep the locations close to their breast. Otherwise? They will no longer exist!
One of my Camp Spots for the summer of 2024 is below. Yes, this was a really nice dark sky location! Every time I tried to shoot the Milky Way over my camp? I was clouded out. Hopefully this year!
My Shots From The Year
Lightroom and a proper organization to your catalogue can reveal all your favorite images with the click of one button. This is the time of year I reflect on those images. Are there a ton of wall hangars in the bunch? Nope! I still haven’t had time to edit a lot of what I captured. However, I like going through these images just to pause and reflect. You might wish to adopt this practice yourself.
My LightRoom Catalog is organized by Year, Month and Day with a description. When I edit images I use the star system. One star means to look at it harder, three means I edited the image some, four stars is a completed edit, and five stars are all my print files.
When I have things in a collection by year It shows me quickly what I might wish to go back and work on further. Sometimes we simply “forget” or loose track of images we wish to take more time on. My three stars or greater collection assists me with this. In 2024 I only took a bit over 20,000 images.
Back in the day when I did a lot of Weddings, Portraiture, Architecture, Product Shoots and things like that I shot over 250,000 images per year. Now you might understand why Professional Photographers edit so quickly. We had to!
Understand that now a days If I shoot only one good image a day, I’m happy with that! Newer Photographers wish to shoot a lot of images. The experienced Photographer wants to shoot less and of higher quality. ^_^ (much less work!)
The image below is my favorite Infrared Image for 2024. I really like the way the contrast of infrared brought out the excellent mural on the wall.
Reviewing Your Storage
Now is the time that you might wish to check out how much storage you have used up, and what room you might have left. I did this just yesterday and realized I only have 250 gig available on my current M2 drive that I’m using.
I’m now super happy that I bought another drive while they were on major sale over Black Friday! Time to get that out and install it in my enclosure! The cheap way to add fast storage capabilities using ThunderBolt 4 is to buy the enclosure for $250.00 and add to the four slots it contains! The picture below is what I’m currently using.
No, Other World Computing is not paying me for this recommendation. It’s simply that Thunderbolt 4 hard drives can be expensive. They’re worth it! Buy the enclosure and add your own M2 drives to it. Easy peasey! Also currently the least expensive way to go. If anyone knows different? I’m all ears…
This is also the time to create your 2025 Folders in your Raw storage hard drive, and also in your DNG storage drive. BTW… remember to back up your DNG’s over your Raws! The DNG’s are where all your work is stored!
Will I Be Photographing Fireworks On New Years Eve?
No I will not! Two reasons… #1. Fireworks are designed to be shot from the ground into the air above. When shooting them off from the tops of Casinos? You get to Photograph a lot more smoke!
#2. Every year my neighborhood is like a war zone! So I’ll be busy trying to keep the dog from having a heart attack, or my house burning down.
However! If you would like to Photograph Fireworks? I have the PhotoSafari for you! How would you like to Photograph Fireworks for four hours instead of ten minutes? Two or three nights in a row? I’ve been to this event many times, and I can tell you I have thousands of Fireworks Images from it!
Dates will be February 15th & 16th… at this point in time I have six rooms blocked, so attendance will be very limited! Even getting rooms for this event is very difficult. It’s usually sold out years in advance. Cost will be $695.00 for two days including logging. To check it out click the button below.
If you would like to go on the King Tide PhotoSafari in Southern California, time is running out to register for that. Dates for the Safari are January 9th to the 12th, 2025. Cost is 695.00 including logging. I’m closing registration for that this Saturday January 4th. The link for that is the button below.
I currently have two free classes at B&C camera coming up on January 16th, 2025 about locations to shoot in and around Las Vegas…And another class on Lighting scheduled Saturday January 18th, 2025… you can access signups for those FREE classes by clicking the button below.
