The Zion Petroglyphs
Tucked away in plain sight, 100 ft from the road but they still seem hidden, these awesome artifacts of Southwest history show images of what our forebearers saw … and did.
Go click through the NPS handout regarding these glyphs as it explains their awesomeness better than I can. I'm just here to show off the pics.
I'm reluctant to share information about exactly where these artifacts are hidden as the park seems to be consciously making an effort NOT to advertise them. Probably an effort to deter over-viewing or vandalism. Sometimes, people can suck so I understand.
I only heard about them from a friend who has worked in the park for a number of years and they're surprisingly easy to find. Stop, park, walk down a slope and along a dry river bed. Make a couple turns and Boom! You're there.
Tucked away in a small canyon of their own, the place seems a worthy shrine to history.
What's there to say about them? I'd rather have you look at them in their natural surroundings and think about what life may have been like in this beautiful but harsh landscape. Scorching hot nights, chilly nights and death just one misstep away. Those cliffs are unforgiving.
A Trip Through Sprague, Wa
A car, a camera and a few spare hours!
The town has a seasonal creek running through it named "Negro Creek." Much debate has occurred regarding the creek's name but the name remains.
Yeah! An interesting town, for sure.
Hey! Which way do I .... Oh, I see. thanks!
For this trip, I took the GoPro Hero 4 that I've borrowed from the good folks at Huppin's. Using the Hero 4 for the type of photography I do is certainly a stretch. It has great features but I don't think that it was designed for landscapes or cityscapes and stuff. Despite that, I think that I've found an interesting mix of photo taking and processing that ends up with a pretty cool final product. I capture the images at about 14 MB so there's plenty of detail with which to work.
The area around Sprague, Wa has such wonderful views of the horizon. I intend to return again this summer and try a few new things with this camera. The time-lapse and video features will be great tools with which to capture the shifting skies. Stay tuned for that. Even in its basic modes, the expanses captured are impressive.
Hey, Buddy?! Why the long .... Oh, you've heard that one before?
I'm pretty certain that some of these images will end up on my print gallery. I really do like how the nuances of the GoPro seem to add more cool elements than they take away.
And look! I DID return to Sprague!
Orlando by iPhone
A family visit run amok. By "amok", I mean exactly as I wanted!
Orlando is not a place I ever saw myself visiting. Despite its obvious popularity as a vacation destination and as a town with a huge and happy population, I just never saw me as a good fit for the area. I'm much more of a mountains and rivers kinda guy. Not gonna lie, though. The idea of mucking around through swamps HAS always sounded cool ... for short periods of time.
Well, no swamp mucking for me. No hunting for feral anaconda and boas in the Everglades. Maybe another time I'll get to go with my friend Tammilee on one of her cool, Florida adventures. This trip was purely personal, a family visit. But me being me, I made it a point to look around and see the things that aren't normally seem.
In the above gallery, the image of the egrets and alligators has become my absolute favorite. It's "Just a stupid iPhone pic" (you know who you are - shakes fist!) but it's a capture and creation that I'm quite proud of. Taken at Gatorland in Orlando, it was a matter of timing and then, a lot of editing to get the colors and composition the way I wanted. All of the images are meaningful to me; looking up from the swamps, a visit to probably the coolest lighthouse I've visited, and, of course, the stork (pretty much a F'n dinosaur) captured with a selfie-stick while he was on (literally) a hot tin roof!
Perhaps it's a character flaw of mine. When I visit places, I do my very best to enjoy the moment and enjoy the company I'm with but I can't help but to see scenes and how they might play out in 1/200th of a second or after some artistic editing. I enjoy walking through a place and having a vision of both how it IS and how it could be.
Allow me to finish this post with an image of an egret riding an alligator. I guarantee you that, although you may be cool, you'll never be "egret riding an alligator" cool!
