As I type this it is now the first week of August, and I’ve been on the road since mid-April. Have the past few months been perfect like you see all over the internet? No they have not, those excerpts are simply not real.
Life is not all perfect as some would love you to believe on the internet. However those challenges far outweigh the alternative.
In my goal to always embrace being different, honesty ranks up there pretty high. True to my Sagittarius profile, sometimes I can be honest to a fault. Have I been miserable? NO I HAVE NOT! Matter of fact just the opposite!
The highest goal in my world is to escape temperatures above 80 degrees. In my charmingly antique state, I have put up with the heat most all of my life. I detest it! So? That is one of my challenges to solve.
The Oregon Coast
I spent the first two months of the summer on the Oregon Coast. My Mother turns 90 this year, so I was able to spend some time with her in Florence Oregon. I also spent those two months exploring points North on the Coast from Florence to the Washington Border.
The weather was about perfect that entire two months! Never over 68 degrees! However coming from my Vegas base for the past 50+ years, there were still some challenges. The humidity was one. My towels and other things never seamed quite dry.
The weather also challenged some of my Photography exploits as well. However this is really nothing new. Due to weather conditions many outstanding Photographers will spend lots of time in one location, simply to obtain the light and weather conditions they desire.
Just the same we all need to adopt the phrase “ya get what ya get, so don’t throw a fit!”
Work to obtain the best Images you can muster for the conditions present, that’s all. I detest skeeters too! Or anything that attacks me like those do. There were plenty of those challenges as well!
Currently I’m In The Mountains Of Southern Utah
I’ve had challenges here as well. The biggest one being mice in my RV! I caught five of those buggers in one night! Four drowned in my dirty dish water, and one in the trap. Since that night I’ve set a trap every night, sometimes two.
Every morning I have woken up to another mouse in the trap. I think this is all winding down now. I’m pretty sure I picked up the mice in Oregon. They set up house and had a litter of little mice. All I currently see in camp are chipmunks and squirrels. I was blessed with squirrels last year! So far they are keeping a distance.
The positives about my current location? NO SKEETERS! yay! Also way cooler overnight temperatures. This I love! My best sleeping weather is when it’s in the forties. I have also been blessed with some pretty awesome skies and thunderstorms. My current camp is set up at the 8,000 foot level.
About 40 miles away, down the mountain is Cedar City, Utah. There I have some friends and the local camera club. I’ve been doing some seminars, private lessons, and PhotoSafaris. This past weekend three of my students came up all the way from Las Vegas, to Photograph the Milky Way with me.
Clouds Are Awesome! But Not All The Time…
Photographers love clouds in their images! But not for shooting night skies… The very best “Photographer Day” would be clouds when it’s sunny, with dramatic clouds at sunset, and then perfectly clear nights. How often does this happen? Rarely! That’s how often!
So we really need to take advantage of all weather conditions somehow, and adopt the attitude of “ya get what ya get, and ya don’t throw a fit!” One thing is certain… you will Photograph very little sitting on the couch at home. Or in my current situation? Inside the trailer…
So the other night after an awesome cloudy sunset… we had a beautiful clear morning. I took those students down to the lake we were going to shoot with the Milky Way in the foreground. There we were able to Photograph a Humming Bird taking advantage of the Thistles around the Shoreline.
Since I was playing tour guide I did not have my big boy Camera with me. But I was able to capture stills and Video of that humming bird with my iPhone! This was one of the most cherished moments of my entire lifetime!
A hummingbird in natural habitat with an iPhone?! DO NOT ever count out iPhone Images! Now the image above of the humming bird is not really that good. It is a still image and an extreme zoom using the iPhone zoom feature.
However! The video of the Hummingbird is really good! I simply have not learned to embed that into an email yet. Soon Natasha, soon… ^_* Mean time if you would like to see that video it’s on my Facebook Page.
Now For A Small Challenge…
Which images in this post were taken with an iPhone? You know the Hummingbird was, so that one doesn’t count. But what about the others? I can’t wait to hear the responses to this one!
My schedule is going to open up soon, so I’ll have more images edited of my exploits since April for you to see in the near future.
