Joshua Tree National Park

Hi all, I've been in Joshua Tree National Park the last couple days. This is a superb park for landscape photography.... the combination of interesting boulder piles and gnarly joshua trees is awesome. The weather has been very tough to photograph in..... extremely windy and cold with bouts of overcast skies. Nevertheless I've worked hard to get a few good images.
And for all my friends back up north, envious that I am in a warmer climate, it's been cold here the past couple days. I froze my butt off camping the last two nights and woke up to heavy snowfall this morning (will post a photo of the snow later)! Tonight I'm staying in a park with electical hookups so I can run my heater.

I'm now en route to try to see (and hopefully photograph) a Lewis' Woodpecker in the San Bernardino Mountains. This is a bird I've been wanting to find for a long time.

A quick post-script.... it's snowing like mad! The park where the woodpecker was seen is closed due to the weather.... damn! Crossing my fingers that it opens back up tomorrow.

Photo 1: Me and the van in Joshua Tree.


Photo 2: Backlit Teddy Bear Cholla
This species of cactus is evil..... they almost jump at you. And once you've gotten stuck, it's a pain to get the spines out.... I still have several stuck in my hand from when I shot this photo.
1DSIII; 17-40; Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer & 2 stop hard edge ND grad


Photo 3: Jumbo Rocks campground at dusk
1DSIII; 17-40; Singh-Ray Gold-n-Blue polarizer
The sky was fairly blah, but I salvaged the photo with the Gold-n-Blue polarizer.


Photo 4: Moonglare through Joshua Tree
I shot this well after sunset will the nearly full moon rising.
1DSIII; 17-40; Singh-Ray 2 stop hard edge ND grad
Light-painted the foreground plants slightly with a flashlight.

Back in the southwest: Short-tailed Hawk & Saguaro

I'm back in the south and enjoying fantastically warm weather. I don't miss the snow and cold of Ontario at all! Today I joined up with some bird photographer friends and we spent the day chasing birds around Tucson. In the afternoon we photographed a very rare species for the southwest.... a Short-tailed Hawk. This particularly interesting individual has tan coloration.

Let me tell you a quick story about my relationship with Short-tailed Hawks. About 15 years when I had just finished university, I took my first big birding/photography road trip from Ontario down to Florida and across to Texas and Arizona. Prior to the departing I had decided that I would get a tattoo of my 500th life bird species, which I would inevitably see during the trip. This occurred in Florida and it was a close call between Red-whiskered Bulbul (an exotic songbird) and Short-tailed Hawk. Thankfully a careful recount confirmed it was the hawk, lest I would be stuck today with a wimpy Bulbul tatooed on my arm.

By the way, I bought a 50D body last week for backup and this is the first photo I've posted with it. Will share more thoughts about this camera soon after I've had a chance to put it thought the paces.

Photo 1: Short-tailed Hawk, Tucson
50D + 500/4IS; handheld; manual exposure

For those of you who are tired of seeing bird photos on this blog, here's a cactusscape that I shot tonight on the way to the campground. I love Saguaros - they're my favorite plant.

Photo 2: Saguaro Cactus, Tucson
EOS 1DsIII; 14-40 lens

A taste of winter

I've spent the past two weeks in Ontario - a brief trip for which I had grand plans of winter photography. But the weather was damn cold when I arrived (-20C) and snowy.... and I was lazy. So I spent far more time socializing and having fun than taking photos. I'm now packing for my return flight to the southwest and thought I should post a few of the photos that I did manage to get during the past couple of weeks.

Photo 1: It snowed a foot one night while I was staying with friends in Penetanguishene. Here's my friend Andrew clearing the driveway with his new snowblower.


Photo 2: I found this porcupine feeding in young trees near Dyers Bay on the Bruce Peninsula. Although just above head height, the white sky background made it a tough situation to photograph. This closeup of the head and face was one of the more successful shots I manged to make. EOS 1DsmIII; 500/4IS


Photo 3: I did some work with the tourism department at Bruce County photographing a crew from the Snowtrax (snowmobiling) television show..... it was a ton of fun!


Photo 4: For much of the snowmobile shoot, I photographed from the back of one of the sleds. Here's an image of us going through a tunnel, with a slow shutter speed to create motion blur. This is from the camera, with no special digital effects.


I'm looking forward to warm southwest weather again!

Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Desert Museum

I'm back in Ontario for 2 weeks to shoot winter stock images and do some assignment work. What a shock this cold weather is... I'll be glad to fly back down to Arizona again soon! While I'm here, the van is down south getting some major work done on it including new head gaskets. It should be like new when I return.

Here are a few photos I've just caught up on processing from the last couple of weeks. All were shot with an EOS 1Dsm3 body.

Photo 1: The road into Death Valley National Park at dusk. 24-70/2.8 lens; Singh-Ray 3 stop hard edge ND grad (4x6" handheld in front of lens)


Photo 2: Joshua Tree against starry sky (light painted the tree with a flashlight). I had very limited time in Joshua TreeNP and my photo mojo was off. It's an incredibly scenic park with gnarly-shaped trees and otherwordly rock formations. I'll be going back next month to make the most of its photographic potential! 24-70/2.8 lens; 44s exposure at f5.6


Photo 3: Mountain Lion (captive) at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (ASDM). This world-class outdoor living 'museum' has great opportunities to photograph wildlife in a natural looking setting. 500mm IS lens + 1.4x TC


Photo 4: Great Horned Owl (captive) at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. If you make it to the desert museum, be sure to see the live raptor shows offered twice daily... and have your camera ready! 500mm IS lens; 580EX II flash at -2 for fill (the bird was backlit by the natural sunlight)

Death Valley sand dunes

With broken shocks on the van and nightfall approaching, it made sense to camp out for the night and sneak in a morning shoot before leaving the national park for repairs the next morning. As luck would have it, the Stovepipe Wells campground was right next to Death Valley's famed sand dunes. We hiked out before sunrise..... the best dunes were much farther than it looked..... and had an incredible morning of photography out there. The combination of soft light, sand ripples, undulating dunes and mountain backdrops makes this an absolutely awesome spot for landscape photography. It would be hard to take a bad photo there!

Below are some of the results (hope they look ok, because it's difficult to get the raw conversions right when working on the laptop in the van!). All were shot with EOS 1DSm3 body, Singh-Ray LB colorcombo polarizer and 2 stop hard edge ND grads. Lenses were either 24-70 or 17-40. Cable release and mirror lock for every photo.





Raven tracks across the top of the dune:

Bacon below Sea Level

I'm in Death Valley National Park in eastern California. The park is a landscape photographer’s dream, with its varied and almost surreal terrain. Yesterday I visited the Badwater Basin – the lowest spot in the US - where I fried bacon for breakfast at 282ft below sea level. Very cool!


The afternoon plan was to make it to the “Racetrack", a salt flat where small boulders, presumed to have been blown by strong wind, have left their tracks across the playa. This is one of the top 5 places I wanted to photograph in the southwest.

Getting to the Racetrack requires driving 27 miles on a gravel road which is described as "famously bad". The park ranger told me to drive very slowly or it would cause serious damage to the vehicle. I should have listened better!

Approximately 5 miles down the washboard "road", one of the rear shocks on my van exploded. Abandoning hope of getting to the Racetrack, we turned around to figure out where the heck we'd find auto parts and a mechanic. Halfway back to the main road, the other rear shock also exploded. Thankfully the van was driveable and there was a town about an hour and a half away where we found new shocks and a mechanic who was open on Sundays. Everything worked out well and it turned out to be a fairly cheap fix (you can't say that often on VW vans). As a side bonus, this unexpected issue ended up causing changes in plans that lead to two spectacular photo shoots. I'll share some of those photos in the next post. And rest assured, I will get back to the Racetrack... next month. But I'll drive slower - much slower.

Here's the first exploded shock on my van. I used string to stop the bottom half from dragging on the road.


And here's me “communicating” with my buddy Chris while I surveyed the damage. He was laughing hysterically about the incident. Can't really blame him, I would have done the same!


By the way, I always carry a point and shoot camera (a Canon G9) to capture special moments like these!

Grand Canyon

Photo: Pima Point, Grand Canyon
EOS 1Ds3; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB colorcombo filter and 3 stop hard edge ND grad

Just made a short overnight visit to Grand Canyon National Park which allowed one sunset and sunrise shoot. I was elated to find a trio of yucca growing on the edge of the canyon last night and make a photo that I had been dreaming of for years!

My buddy and I are now in the epicenter of American culture.... Las Vegas. We're heading out for a walk on the strip with point & shoot cameras - should be fun! Tomorrow we drive to Death Valley in California. Can't wait!

Tucson ducks

I'm killing some time at the Phoenix airport waiting for a friend to arrive... we're going on a whirwind tour to the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Joshua Tree over the next couple weeks. So for those of you who are tired of all the bird photos, don't worry.... landscapes are coming!

During my few weeks in Tucson, I was focused (almost obsessed) with capturing good in flight photos of Canvasback and Redhead ducks. It may seem funny to be photographing ducks in a desert city, but any pond is an oasis for waterfowl. Out of literally thousands of attempts, here are my best results.

Photo 1: Canvasback drake in flight
EOS 1Ds3; 500mm IS lens + 1.4x TC


Photo 2: Redhead drake in flight
EOS 1Ds3; 500mm IS lens + 1.4x TC

Happy New Years!

Hola 2009!
What a great start to the year! I spent the morning photographing ducks in flight and finally nailed American Wigeon and Canvasback. During mid-day, I lounged next to the pool drifting in and out of a nap with some classic U2 cranked on my iPod. For evening light, my Mom and I went to shoot landscapes at Sabino Canyon - a scenic park in northeast Tucson. When we arrived back home, my stepdad had BBQ hamburgers ready. Life is good!

Photo 1: American Wigeon in flight
500IS + 1.4x TC; 1/1000s @ f/7.1 (manual exposure)


Photo 2: Saguaro Cacti
17-70mm; Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer; 1/15s @ f/22


Photo 3: Sabino Creek (flowing well due to rain a few days ago)
17-70mm; Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer; o.8s @ f/22


Photo 4: Saguaro Cactus reaching up
17-70mm; Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer; 1/4s @ f/20
-gold reflector used to illuminate the right side of trunk


Photo 5: Saguaro Cactus against the Catalina Mountains
70-200mm; Singh-Ray LB Colorcombo polarizer; 2.5s @ f/18
The Colorcombo polarizer is quickly becoming one of my favorite filters for helping to bring out vivid saturation.

Tucson birds - part 2

Tucson is a great city for bird photography.... there are birds all over the place. I've been hooked on a small flock of Canvasback that have found a small pond as their desert oasis. This is a tough species to shoot - I've never had a good crack at them until now - so I'm taking full advantage of the great opportunity. They're one of my favorite duck species.

Here are a few photos from the past couple days. All shot with EOS 1Ds mIII and 500IS with 1.4x or 2x teleconverters.

Photo 1: Canvasback incoming


Photo 2: Canvasback portrait


Photo 3: Cactus Wren


Photo 4: Northern Mockingbird

Happy Holidays!

I thought this photo might help to spread the holiday cheer! This was some kind of domestic hybrid duck that was hanging out in a flock of ducks I was photographing in New Mexico. I nick-named it "Fluffy" and smiled every time it swim past us. Although I've been photographing amazing natural landscapes and species almost daily, this is one of my favorite trip photos because of the character it evokes.

The holidays are going great..... I'm spending time with my folks at a beautiful rental house in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains in Tucson. Since the weather has been dull, I've been enjoying being lazy..... vegging out in front of the television, fattening up on great food and drinking fine red wine. What a perfect break from life in the camper van.

I wish everyone a great holiday season!
Ethan-

2 Month Trip Update with Stats

Today marks 2 full months on the road since departing from my father's house in Kingsville, Ontario on October 20,2008. The trip has been incredible so far.... and I sure appreciate being down south when my friends tell me about all the snow back home right now. I'll take blowing sand over blowing snow, any day!

First, let me thank everyone who has been following the blog and especially those who've taken time to post or send comments. A huge THANKS!

I thought you might be interested in some of the trip stats which are current as of today:

• 19,955 photos taken
• 14,180 km driven
• 170 km walked carrying my camera gear
• 77 species of birds photographed
• 1,156 unique visitors to this blog (don't worry, I don't know who you are!)
• 5 days - longest time I've gone without a shower
• 13 times eating Mexican food for dinner
• 7 pieces of camera gear damaged or wrecked
• 1 hard drive ruined (backed up)
• $1.49 US/Gallon - cheapest gas [equals about 50c/litre CDN]
• 3 Mexican residents seen climbing the fence between Mexico/US border then running
• 1 public washroom found with bullet holes straight through both walls

Every day has new adventures and photo opportunities. Thanks again for continuing to read the blog!

Tucson birds - part 1

This morning I met up with legendary raptor photographer Ned Harris, who very generously took me to some outstanding bird photography opportunities around Tucson. It was such a good morning, I was nearly in a state of bird photography euphoria!

Lunch was at a Tucson diner called "Luke's Italian Beef". If you're ever in town, be sure to stop by for a delicious sandwich at a bargain price.

I'll be in Tucson for the next couple of weeks spending the holidays with my folks. Expect to see many photos of birds and Saguaro cacti.

Photo 1: Peregrine Falcon (Catalina Mountains in background).
EOS 1DsmIII; 500IS lens + 2x. Image cropped about 30%.
What better way to start a day than with peregrines in sweet light!


Photo 2: Canvasback drake; EOS 1DsmIII; 500IS lens + 1.4x TC
Close Canvasbacks....what a dream! I shot about 10 gigs of them. Will post more later.


Photo 3: Ring-necked Duck drake; EOS 1DsmIII; 500IS lens + 1.4X
I could shoot RN ducks all day!

Madera Canyon

This week I spent a couple of days shooting in Madera Canyon in the beautiful Santa Rita Mountains. Although the weather has been fairly cloudy and windy over the past 5 days, there were a few excellent photo opps. Two cooperative Painted Redstarts in Madera were a highlight! The birding was pretty good too..... I had great looks (and got so-so photos) of Arizona Woodpecker and Elegant Trogon.

Unfortunately I spent today in a repair shop in Tucson getting work done on the van (new CV joints). But it was a good chance to hunker down at my laptop and catch up on photo work, which will pay for the van repairs!

Over the next few days I have some superb bird photography lined up, so check back again to see the results!

Photo 1: Painted Redstart
EOS 1DsmIII; 500/4IS + 2x


Photo 2: The Santa Rita Mountains at Madera Canyon
EOS 1DsmIII; 17-40mm; Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer and 2 stop hard edge ND grad

Alex Mody photo road trip

One of the cool things about travelling to beautiful natural areas is that you end up meeting lots of other outdoor photographers. I bumped into Alex Mody at Bosque del Apache and it turns out that he is also on a photo road trip/adventure (for 3 months).

Alex is a young photographer with outstanding talent. When I was his age I think I was still photographing with a Kodak disk camera!

Be sure to check out Alex's website: http://www.alexmody.com/
And follow his trip blog: http://alexmody.wordpress.com/

Sulphur Springs Valley, Arizona

This past week I've been photographing mostly near the Whitewater Draw in the Sulphur Springs Valley of SE Arizona. This is a great birding area with a wide variety of species to shoot, and is especially known for raptors.

I've been staying in the town of Bisbee, which is a vibrant community full of eccentric folks.... a haven for hippies and artists. It's a cool town!

Photo 1: Mule Deer
EOS 1DSmIII; 500/IS + 2x


Photo 2: Loggerhead Shrike
EOS 1DSmIII; 500/IS + 2x


Photo 3: Ferruginous Hawk in flight
EOS 1DSmIII; 500/IS handheld

Photo 4: Northern Harrier

I've been trying to get a half decent shot of a harrier for years. It finally happened this evening!

EOS 1DSmIII; 500/IS + 2x

Photo 5: Sunset over Mule Mountains

EOS 1DSmIII; 70-200/2.8; no filters

Nikon Humor

I don't get caught up in the debate between which camera system is best (it's obvious to me that the system you're out shooting with is the best!), but when my friend sent me this humorous link - a Nikon rant - I laughed so hard I nearly spit coffee all over my laptop:

Advance apologies for anyone who might be offended by the Hitler reference, but take it for what it is....
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tnwf2RShNV0

Southeast Arizona

I'm camped out in the desert tonight under a bright moonlit sky. Although I'm in the middle of nowhere, there is good cellular coverage (I guess there's nothing to block the signal)... that's how I'm able to make this post.

Photo 1: There was a beautiful sunset last night with dramatic clouds over the Mule Mountains. This one is for my stepdad Tom, who has a general dislike for sunset photos!
EOS 1Ds mIII, 70-200/2.8 lens; Singh-Ray 2 stop ND grad on the sky; 3.2s @ f/14


Photo 2: Vermillion Flycatcher is one of the birds I most wanted to photograph this trip, but I wasn't expecting to have much luck until spring. Boy was I wrong! I found several relatively cooperative birds today. I'll probably spend most of this week photographing them.
EOS 1Ds mIII; 500/4 IS lens with 2x; 1/1000s @ f/8


Photo 3: Self-portrait from atop the Mule Mountains, overlooking the town of Bisbee, Arizona. Here's me this afternoon, proof for my family and friends that I'm still alive and eating well. Craig, thanks for the reminder to shoot some self-portraits!
EOS 1Ds mIII; 24-70/2.8 lens; 1/15s @ f/22

Note: For self portraits, I now use the fancy Canon cable release/interval timer (the one that is ridiculously expensive). I set it to shoot a frame every 10 seconds, which means I don't have to run back and forth to the camera for each shot.


I've got so many more photos to share, but I have to ration the use of my laptop out here in the desert so I don't deplete the batteries. More to follow later...

White Sands National Monument

I stopped for a brief overnight at White Sands National Monument on my way south from Bosque del Apache. When I arrived mid afternoon, it was rainy and heavy overcast so it was an ideal time for a nap (I was completely exhausted). When I woke up a couple hours later, the sky was breaking with dramatic clouds and light. I ran into the dunes and took advantage of the brief conditions. Although I went back the next morning, there were no clouds in the sky and it just didn't measure up to the night before!

I'm now in southeast Arizona..... doing some hiking, photographing birds and catching up on photo work. The weather is fantastic and there is good coffee in town, so life is good!

White Sands Photos:
All taken with EOS 1Ds mIII and either 17-40mm, 24-70mm or 70-200mm lenses.
Singh-Ray circular polarizer and 2 stop hard edge ND grad.