Grand Canyon — Round Two! (1/3)

Landscapes, Photography, Sports, Travel

Early this year the unthinkable happened. On January 11, exactly one year after hiking out of the Grand Canyon (as blogged about just a few posts ago), I hiked back down and floated the second half!

The serendipity was striking. Get additional details in the full write-up I did for the News-Miner.

Olympic Peninsula (1/3)

Photography, Travel

For years my grandma told me Washington’s Olympic Peninsula is her favorite place to vacation. Last spring I finally took some time to check it out — and immediately understood her enthusiasm. From expansive beaches to the rain forest and climbing into the high alpine, all in one day, Olympic National Park has something for everyone.

Being a land-locked Alaskan familiar with world-class mountains, I was most excited by the stunning beaches and joys of exploring tide pools. This post I’ll featuring a few of the sea anemones and star fish I photographed at Kalaolch’s tide pools.

Next post I’ll highlight the dramatic scenery of expansive beaches.

Critter Corner: Mt. Rainier and Georgeson Botanical Garder Frogs

Alaska, Landscapes, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

A few weeks ago I posted images of real bears in Denali National Park and a bear statue from UAF’s Georgeson Botanical Garden. Today I’m posting a similar diptych: A frog from Reflection Lake in Mt. Rainier National Park and a frog from the botanical gardens.

The first image the frog is the only subject, he was an itty-bitty frog, maybe half a deck of cards. The mostly brown hues were rather ugly, so I did a quick and dirty desaturation of the image, converting it to black and white. I think the the black and white does a better job accentuating the frog’s natural camouflage. The shadow provides a small amount of depth to the mostly flat image.

The second image I like a lot because of layers. Shooting through a fence, with more fence in the background. The frog is far from the main subject. What’s fun for me is comparing the two subjects, the real frog in nature and the artificial frog in a man-made environment. I enjoy both, though the statue was a little easier to shoot.