Visuals & Views

I didn’t realize how long it’s been since my last post as I have been really swamped with work over the last few months. I am in the midst of selling my financial advisory practice as I enter retirement. For me, retirement is not just sailing off into the sunset. I have spent months finding a suitable buyer for my practice, and will be spending the next few months in joint meetings introducing my…

For those of you who have been following me for quite a while, you may recall that Capitol Reef National Park in Utah is one of my favorite desert hangouts. The area is much less crowded that Utah’s more famous parks like Arches, Bryce Canyon or Zions. The scenery here is just as spectacular, if not more so. Some of the coolest things about Capitol Reef are that it has so much different geology…

Once again work is getting in the way of hobbies, but I did manage to get away in mid January to spend a couple of days out in the far west desert of Utah near the Nevada border. If you saw my last post, Remembering Topaz, you know I had driven down to Delta, Utah to scout out a remote camping spot away from any light pollution. After that trip I decided to continue west on US 50 past Delta…

Several years ago I drove out to Delta, Utah to visit the Topaz World War II Japanese Internment Camp. Over the weekend I made another trip down to Delta to scout out some possible camp sites for some winter desert photography. While I was in the area, I decided to drive over to the Topaz Internment Camp Site to see what had changed. For those of you who are not familiar with this part of the…

Part II Hopefully, you saw my previous past about my adventures in northern Manitoba, Canada photographing the polar bears and other wildlife. If not, go back and check that one out first. Last time I talked about how the trip came about, with a bit of history of the Churchill area and a little about the polar bears. Today, I want to share more about the feelings from the trip, the experiences,…

Part I Last Christmas my wife, Sheri, gave me an incredible present – a photographic guided tour of the polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada! I was totally blown away – I have never been on this type of an adventure. The arctic has always fascinated me, and I have wanted to go to Churchill for quite some time to see the polar bears. This bear on the shore of Hudson Bay was curiously…

Recently, as my photography skills have progressed, I have upgraded my photo processing software from Photoshop Elements to the full version of Adobe Photoshop. Why? Well, Photoshop Elements only allows photo edits using 8-bit color whereas the full Photoshop allows 16-bit color processing, for more vibrant images. In addition, Photoshop has the ability to stack images one on top of another for…

In my last post, I mentioned that I had booked enough time in Bandon to do some decent exploring. About 4 miles (6.4 km) north of my hotel along the coast road is a turn off and parking area for another beach known as Face Rock Beach.  The beach is so named from a large rock formation just offshore that some say resembles a face pointing skyward.  Anyway, the beach is accessed by descending a…

When visiting with some of my Oregon clients last year, they had suggested that I see the southern coast which is more remote. Last January I had gone to the central Oregon coast, and made my base at Newport, Oregon. But I didn’t have time to go much farther south. However, prior to my annual Portland, Oregon visit, I made some extra time and visited that southern Oregon coast. After studying…

Last month I traveled to the southern Oregon coast to do some exploring.  Bandon, a little town on the southern Oregon coast, was my base.  One of the things that I was hoping to accomplish while there was to attempt some star photographs. The last time I tried to get some star shots, I was in a location with too many trees, and a bit of a moon.  I got lucky on this trip as there was no moon,…

Last week I drove out to the southern Oregon coast – my first visit there ever! The route to the coast took me through some really different country, including across the Bonneville Salt Flats via Interstate 80. I have only driven out to the Salt Flats a few times, this was maybe the third time. As you approach the Utah/Nevada border from Utah on I-80, you come to a rest area just before…

It’s been a little while since I had much time to be out doing some serious photography, so I decided to re-examine some of the photos that I took at Capitol Reef National Park on a trip with my wife, Sheri, last October. I keep learning new things, and have recently purchased some new photo processing software, On1 Photo Raw Max. One of the very cool people I follow on WordPress, Leanne Cole,…

Daily writing promptWhat brings you peace?View all responses I was just looking at the WordPress Dashboard today and saw this question – What brings you peace? Normally I would just blow this off and bypass the question, but this one hit home for me today? Why? Well given the turmoil that has hit my country (the US) since our election last fall, I am not feeling much peace. Our nation is…

In January of this year, I made a trip over to the Oregon Coast, and one of the places I spent a bit of time was at Seal Rock. Seal Rock is a little coastal town about 10.6 miles (17 km) south of Newport Beach along US 101. I was on my way to Cape Perpetua, but I had stopped there for lunch. I caught these cool waves breaking over the rocks! This is definitely a place to watch yourself around…