chaybert (Brian Rueb)'s photostream  

Being a photographer of landscapes and beasties, despite what most people who don’t do it for a living might think, is not all that glamorous most of the time. Really we shoot 2 times a day for the most part-Sunrise and Sunset. If the clouds are good hopefully we can shoot some monochrome stuff in the hour after sunrise or before sunset. If it’s overcast, maybe we can shoot some waterfalls and fill up that space. If the location is new, we could very well spend the afternoon scouting locations for the upcoming sunrises and sunsets. A lot of times when I’m out shooting I spend it driving from sunrise point A to sunset point B. Being behind the wheel of a dirty Prius is about as glamorous as it gets.
In locations we’re familiar with and shooting for more than a day often times we already know the area we’re going to shoot, and have a rough idea of the compositions we’re going to go for. There’s no driving involved, no scouting to do, and there is nothing but time….waiting.
Such was the case in Death Valley. Brenden and I had shot a very nice sunrise, so there was still the rush of that high to keep up going for a while…but after two miles of walking in sand back to the car the high goes pretty quickly. The kid was hungry so we went on into Furnace Creek to find some food and kill time.
We got some snack foods, and drinks and that killed a whopping 30 minutes of the seven hours we had to waste until sunset. We went into the “visitor center” which is actually, while the proper visitor center is under construction, is a trailer full of trinkets and rangers. The ranger tried to get Brenden to be a Jr. Ranger. He took the information and then when we’d left the trailer asked.
“Do I have to do this? I never told her I wanted it. Can I just throw it away?”
I let him throw it away…all though I kind of hoped he would do the tasks in the pamphlet so we had something to kill time.
Even though I knew where we were going to photograph, I still drove around to scout the locations.
Yup…still there. That killed an hour.
We took naps in the parking lot of Badwater. That killed an hour.
I sat and listened to a ranger talk about his favorite animal in the world….THE COYOTE!
He loved them. I felt his passion. I had to REALLY bite my tongue to not interject my own opinions. I’ve been known to heckle rangers in their campfire programs…and I have to remind myself not to.
“Y’all don’t see many bobcats in the park…but they’re here…d’yall know what a coyote’ll do to a bobcat if he sees one?”
(in my head) “Get it drunk on Boone’s and take advantage of it?”
“Thasss right…kill it!”
The best part was when the ranger let out a coyote whoop. I was hoping the whole crowd gathered in the Furnace Creek store quad area would participate as well….but most of them were just there to eat and enjoy a cold drink. The ranger kind of just walked in and made it an impromptu discussion.
“Y’all here for the afternoon program I take it….well it’s gonna be a good un’”
Nobody looked up from what they were doing. I counted the people who seemed interested and I believe three of the fifteen people in the area were actually there for the program. The rest were just blindsided because they picked the only logical place to sit.
I can just see someone in the trailer. “Hey there’s quite a number of people gathered out in the quad area….get out there and let them know about coyotes.”
I give the guy credit…he was enthusiastic, and persistent. He would shove his portfolio of coyote pics into someone’s face as they were eating a sandwich, and when they didn’t respond, he’d move right on to the next person.
“See that right thurrrr….that coyote’s right on the golf course.”
The whole purpose of the presentation was simple. Don’t feed the coyotes. They will eat anything, and have plenty of food of their own. They don’t need your scraps, chips, or…crockpots…
I tried to get Brenden to come listen to the ranger with me, but he was apparently anti-anything to do with rangers and sat in the car reading a book. Oh well…it killed an hour.
I spent another hour walking in the gift-trailer and watching the slide show and wandering the grocery store. Looking at the ridiculous merchandise they think people travelling to Death Valley might want.
“Hey let’s make t-shirt of a skeleton doing something outdoorsy to signify how hot it is in Death Valley. GET IT its DEATH…valley….it’s a SKELETON! A SKELETON can’t do outdoorsy stuff…he’s a SKELETON! DEATH….Skeleton….DEATH….SKEEEEELLLEEEETON….DEEEEAAAATH….GET IT?! We can put him on a motorcycle to bring in the biker gang dollars….we can put him with a hiking stick to get the other sales…and we can even put a hat on him…because people need to know that there’s sun here and it can cause heatstroke…and a hat will help. It will be an educational shirt too! ”
I got so bored at times I actually hoped the sky would stop looking promising so we could leave and go somewhere else. Thank goodness it was a time of year where the sunsets at a reasonable 5pm and not 8pm or I don’t think I would be able have hacked it.
Around 3:30 we left for Badwater, and then made the hike out to the stark white shapes to wait for sunset. Even though we had an hour to kill until the light got good, it was better than making another lap in the gift trailer or store.
Thankfully sunset was very nice, and we didn’t spend the entire day in Furnace Creek without reward. Eating can be a very nice way to kill time for landscape photographers. We can kill a lot of time snacking. We had avoided eating much during the day though so we could keep room in our stomachs for our ultimate goal for the day….Vegas Buffet! Sunrises and sunsets are all fine and dandy…but they paled in comparison to the real event of the night…eating until ill.
The ride to Vegas was smooth, and with exception of the near death head on collision in downtown Pahrump we had no incident. While driving through main street Pahrump I noticed that a car looked to be coming right at me. I thought at first that it might be due to a curve in the road, but no, it looked like it was coming right at me because it was COMING RIGHT AT ME. Driving down the wrong side of the street. Every car going our way had to pull off the road onto the shoulder so this pioneer of the right lane could continue his path.
It got the ol’ adrenaline pumping which eventually filtered back into my stomach in an increased hunger level.
I don’t think anything quite prepares you for the first time you see Vegas…it’s overwhelming. My son was impressed from the second we saw it glowing on the horizon. I tried to tell him that even though the buildings looked close, they were still miles away.
Having tried a few different buffets in the area, I knew I liked the Mirage “Cravings” buffet, and we opted to make that our point of attack.
Brenden stared wide-eyed as we weaved our way through the casino and all its noise and smell looking for the buffet. Just as I had on my last visit I walked right by it the first time, got lost, and had to ask directions.
Once we found the spot…it was time to eat.
I’ve posted videos on my Facebook page documenting the attack. What you don’t see on the video is the lady next to us who was constantly looking at me with horror every time I brought back a new plate of food….which was often.
My son would like to think he conquered six trips to the buffet…but reality, four of the six rounds he left most of the food behind. He was overwhelmed, understandably, and had a hard time deciding on what to eat.
I made a strong showing, as I tend to do at most buffets…and felt as I normally do after a buffet- really ill.

We left dinner and I decided to show Brenden a bit of the Las Vegas scene, which for an 11-year old meant we walked one block to Caesar’s Palace, looked at a gallery, and went back to the car. Understandably, Brenden was a bit overwhelmed by all that is Las Vegas…and he hadn’t even seen the seedy stuff.

“I think we should get in the car and just go to our next stop.” He said, so after posing him in front of the fountain at Ceasar’s so I could take a photo of him looking abou as uncomfortable as he can get, so I could document his presence in Vegas, we left to the car and got out of Vegas.

When we got home he would tell my wife.
“yeah…Vegas is pretty inappropriate…there was a sign that said YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY SHOW GIRLS…and it showed all these naked girls.”

Vegas is not for everyone.

Our drive for the night was brief. We were going to Valley of Fire. I had seen so many pictures of it and driven by the turn out so many times, but never stopped. Finally, I decided to make it happen.

Stephen Oachs had given me very general directions on how to get to the ‘fire wave’ area of the park, where I wanted to explore.

‘Go to white dome. Drive south. Big turnout. Sign says Wave.’

I don’t know how you could possibly be more specific than that…and having never been there in my life, I suspected it would be super easy to find.

The road into the park out of Vegas, is crappy. It’s narrow, and has lots of ‘whooptie-do’s’ in it. Those little hills are great in the daytime when you can see. During the night they look like the road simply ends and drops off a cliff. They also have these ‘Dips’ where if you take them any faster than 1 mile an hour you’ll bottom out and nose your car into the next hill. I was going 3mph and almost died. There are at least 2.13 million of these lame hills on the way into and throughout the park. Thanks Nevada. Apparently in addition to showgirls, you can also never have too many shitty dips in the road.

You’re not supposed to sleep in the park…yet I’m a firm believer in the thinking you can park a Prius ANYWHERE and nobody will ever suspect it’s being lived in. I try to test my theory as often as I can.

After a random turn that led us to making a few laps of the visitor center parking lot we finally found the road to ‘White Dome’ and ultimately the parking area. I didn’t see the big turnout nor the ‘wave’ sign, but I assumed they were there and set up the Pri-ho for sleepy time. Brenden was wiped out after a long day in Death Valley working on his junior ranger badge…or maybe just thinking about it…or maybe it was just the hiking and pantload of food he ate. Either way he was out quickly. Somehow I had internet reception on my phone, and tried to find some maps or other directions to the ‘fire wave.’ It was late, so texting anyone else was out of the question. I found a great set of directions, but it was in German. I put it through the translator on Google, and it didn’t make any sense. The visual map might as well have had the state of Nevada and then put a dot that said FIRE WAVE right in the bottom, it was pretty useless.

Oh well, it couldn’t be THAT hard to find…I would wake early and we would find it in the morning. The hike was less than half a mile…it would be easy.

Morning came and we had successfully spent the night rogue in Valley of Fire. Prius-1 Nevada-0
We drove down the road a few hundred yards and there was the pull out. Great…the first part of the directions were out of the way. I walked outside and saw a miniscule sign that said ‘WAVE’ with an arrow pointing straight ahead. Well…alrgihty! This was gonna be easy. Brenden and I waited in the car for a little more light so we could see, and then grabbed our gear and set off. The sky was beginning to pale on the horizon and already I could see clouds in the sky. It was going to be another glorious morning.

We followed the well-marked footpath in the twilight, making small talk, and discussing the rest of our day after shooting. Fifty yards into the trail the footprints STOPPED.

“Do you see the trail?” I asked Brenden

He didn’t.

It VANISHED. TO my left was the road…no need to go that way. To my right began the desert proper, red rocks, filled with some swirls of color, and slick rock dotted sparsely with various desert foliage. It had to be out there, the slick rock must have just masked the footprints. We turned and exited into the desert to find our fire wave. Now, if you’ve been there…you know where I went…and you can go die, and stop laughing. To our credit, Brenden and I did see occasional footprints, which led us to believe we were on the correct path. The farther out I got the higher I climbed, and I didn’t see anything the even remotely looked like the fire wave area…I didn’t even SEE anything that looked photographable. The light was beginning to intensify and fluffs of pale pink filled the sky.

In some miraculous zone of contact, I managed to be able to fire texts off to Stephen, who I knew was awake.
‘go SW it’s there. Did you see the sign?’

I did…and this is where I’d like to tell my iPhone to go F- itself. The compass WAS pointing to the SW, and I WAS following that direction. I just wasn’t seeing it.

Another text from Oachs.

‘Super easy-dude…can’t miss it…if you get to a wash, you’ve gone too far.’

I was IN a wash….SUNUVABITCH.

Go back the other way. Another text.

‘Find it? SO EASY DUDE…only 1/3 of a mile TOPS! It’s SW from the trail.’

I go BACK down SW direction. Nothing. Brenden is doubting me by this point.

“Dad, are we going to shoot…it’s starting to turn pink?”

I didn’t even know at this point. Another text.

‘Find it?’

No. No, I didn’t. Oachs and I exchanged texts, I tried to explain where I was…he tried to tell me I was so CLOSE…just go SW…and ‘Get high up…you’ll see it.’

I did all of that, and that was nice, the higher vantage point gave me a great view of seeing the sunrise, which was QUITE good.

Sunrise faded, and we were nowhere near finding anything to photograph. Sweaty, pissed, and without images we trudged back to the car.

I texted Stephen.

‘I ******** hate this place’

As I sat in the car, I decided I HAD to find it…and left again to follow the trail. I started at the sign and walked. Again, the trail VANISHED…I was certain it wasn’t the low light of morning that had made it appear the trail just disappeared. It really WENT AWAY. I wandered the area looking for a trail…and wouldn’t you know it 50 yards down the road something catches my eye that I had not seen in the dark when I began my morning.

A sign.

A sign on the OTHER side of the road saying, ‘WAVE ←’ and points out to the desert on the OTHER side of the road. I had spent over an HOUR walking on the wrong side of the street. I walked to the sign and sure enough there was a perfectly marked trail…AND I could even SEE the wave area off from that. Had I been on the right side of the road, I’d have photographed it easily.

I exchanged a few more text with Stephen where I said some very not nice things about the state of Nevada and Valley of Fire.

It was a bad start to the day. As we drove off, defeated, we cold only hope the rest of the day would show us better conditions…

Hello Flickerinos

I’m still alive. I just haven’t posted here as often. I should. The overflow of places to post photographs now, and the social media blitz has gotten quite ridiculous. Have I Facebooked, Tweeted, 500,72dpi’d,Google+,Flickr’d, this shot? I hate to write the same thing twice, so most of the time new work gets posted on one or POSSIBLY two places…then I just stop. I barely even update my own webpage. I’m horrible at the “marketing” side of things. Not for lack of good intentions, just lack of enthusiasm for the multitude of posts.
I just got back from a week long trek with my oldest son (11yrs) He had a report to do on the state of Utah…not because we’re Mormon and were making a pilgrimage to the homeland, but because it’s the state he got assigned for school. It also happens to have some kick booty landscape. This allowed us to kill two birds with one Prius so to speak. I got to do some personal photography work, and he got to see Utah in all its red-rock glory.
Brenden had a morning dentist appointment to fill a cavity, and we left directly after. His face was partially numb from the Novocain injection so he spent most of the first couple hour slapping at his useless lip and cheek, and speaking very little. When you have kids, as you know, sometimes that can be a good thing. The Eastern Sierra has gotten next to no snow thus far this “winter” and that meant Tioga Pass was open. Seeing an opportunity to photograph a frozen lake seemed intriguing so the plan was to drive hard and reach Tioga for sunset and perhaps take a crack at Lake Tenaya, or maybe Olmsted Point…
We hit Tioga off of highway 395 with just over an hour before sunset….but the farther inland we got the cloudier and more grey the sky became. It became quite clear that there was to be no sunset of worth from the pass. In a hasty decision I decided to drive back down to 395, and hopefully get to Mono Lake in time for some color. The clouds on the lake looked fabulous when I drove past them the first time and I hoped I could get to the tufa in time for sunset. Motorhomes, and curvy roads prevented me from making very good time back down the pass, and I arrived as the sky lapsed into grey and what little color the clouds had taken on faded. In reality I should’ve gone STRAIGHT to Mono Lake and told Tioga to piss off, but the thought of finding something new overpowered me. It’s sad, but I always see Mono Lake as a failure.
Even though I have nice shots from the lake, and I enjoy photographing it, It seems that every time I show up there it’s because something else fell apart. It’s my crutch. I tell myself that it’s probably because there’s not too much else in the area that’s decent to shoot at sunset. Reality is that I usually get a late start on road trips. The pass is normally closed. I can’t make it to the Bristlecones, I’m too lazy to hike into the mountains….any number of reasons really. I settle for Mono Lake because it’s safe, and simple.
Now the time I try something new….Mono comes back and burns me. I hate you Mono Lake.
The sunset was gone so we continued south. The goal for the evening was to get to Death Valley. We’d sleep in the Pri-ho (Motorhome + Prius= Priho), wake and shoot the dunes for sunrise. Brenden was getting hungry now that he could again feel his face. We’d stop in Bishop, get dinner, and then proceed on the last couple hours to the dunes.
Well apparently the sunset WAS NOT done…simply waiting for me to get far enough away from Mono Lake that I couldn’t turn to go back and shoot it. While my son was explaining to me the something or another about Pokemon’ I looked to my rearview and saw that electric pink lighting up the lenticular clouds. Like a chorus of pink clouds grabbing their collective crotches and giving me the finger and saying,
“You had a chance ONCE to stop at the lake and shoot…and you passed it up to try the pass….then you had ANOTHER crack to stop…and you PASSED THAT up. EAT OUR PINK LENTICULAR goodness Rueb!”
Not to be bested by the weather, I frantically found the nearest place to pull over to shoot. Lake Crowley. The lake has never much appealed to me ever the numerous times I’ve driven by it on my way south…but here at this moment it was all there was. Luck was not playing fair, and the gate to drive down to the lake was locked. I had to park near the road and then RUN. I told my son something about ‘Just try to keep up and follow me, or stay in the car….I GOTTA GOOOO!!!!!”
I made the lakeside after some huffing and puffing and near falls running over the sagebrush littered landscape. The lake was frozen solid, which was unexpected and neat. I carefully slid out onto the ice and managed to grab a few shots as the last bit of pink faded. I hate when sunsets do crap like that. I thought it was bluffing, turns out it wasn’t. I walked back to the car in the dark where my son was sitting, pissed at me for “ditching him.” I spent the next few minutes as we drove off trying to explain/justify the insanity good light can cause a photographer. I don’t think he got it, but we had an understanding that we’d communicate better about where I was running so he could find me.
After a burger in Bishop, we set off over the pass on our way into Death Valley. I was trying to get directions from fellow photographer friend and fellow Aperture Academy instructor Jean Day as to where some new spots she had found. She was super good about trying to give me directions and GPS coordinates all over the crap cellphone signal I had. The farther we got from Bishop the less signal I had.
We arrived in Death Valley and I had no signal. I had some GPS coordinates, some written Directions (park 2.3 miles from X ), and I had some visuals to look for as well (Look for the black hill, walk along the side)
The only problems are A) I don’t have a GPS, and if I did I’d probably not use it because I’m a lazy bastard. B) I really don’t pay attention to East, West, North, or South type direction…those are just words…I like descriptions like THAT WAY…and THIS WAY….UP…DOWN with lots of pointing and other visuals. I love visuals…so things like “LOOK FOR THE BLACK HILL” are right up my alley…the only problem was that it was DARK, and all the hills are black. That being said, I still found the spot and was 90% sure it was where I was supposed to be. The issue than became, did I want to attempt to walk out in the dark to a place I had never see, and hope I was right. It turns out I did NOT want to do anything like that, so after a reasonably decent night sleep for two people in the back of a Prius I woke up in the morning and with my son and his camera in tow, I headed off into the Dunes the SAME OLD WAY I always go.
I knew that the dunes would be thrashed with footprints. The new parking lot draws in even MORE people who run, jump, slide, and kick the sand to hell all over the first mile or so of dunes. To get good shots of footprint-less dunes you either need to go after a huge windstorm, or walk FOREVER to find pristine sand. Jean’s way probably would’ve put me right at the nice dunes…but I wasn’t much for risk. I’d rather walk for days in soft punishing sand to find my shot.
I give my boy some credit. He put up with me being pretty annoying. We’d walk forever, struggle up a huge dune. I’d look around and go.

“Naaaaah, too many feet prints….let’s try this one over here (lots of pointing)”
We did that numerous times, and I could start to see the sky beginning to change from dark to the deep red of a good sunrise. This light was going to come and hit HARD…and I needed to find a dune. We did. We found a good dune, and set up shop. My son has very limited knowledge at this point on how to work a camera. I tried before we left to explain the manual settings to him….which apparently were WAY over his head. I needed to realize that just because I shoot on manual, doesn’t mean he’s quite ready to do it as well….on only his second time with a camera.
I hooked his camera up to the tripod I brought for him, my old Gitzo, and set his camera for Aperture Priority and let him try to work on his composition.
While I was shooting a glorious sunrise he became more and more frustrated. The camera was still set on auto focus and due to the low light…it was NOT focusing for him…which mean it was NOT shooting for him…which made him angry. He also figured out in only 5 minutes what it took me months to realize….Gitzo tripods are NOT that good. He was struggling with that tripod to make it grow WAY too much. I felt bad that he had to use it, because I hate that piece of crap more and more every time I see it…and here he’d have to use it for a week. Poor kid.
Brenden dealt with me the way any 11 year old would. I got the silent treatment. Sitting high on the dunes getting mad dogged and shunned by my own flesh and blood.
“What’s the matter?”
“…”
“Do you need help?!”
“…(hard looks)”
“Why aren’t you taking pictures?”
“..:”
It went on for a while and we both missed some pretty outstanding light. Eventually he let me help him, and there was enough light for the camera to focus on and I turned him loose, sans Shitzo tripod to shoot his heart out.
The light was nice…and once he had calmed down from being frustrated he saw how cool everything was and enjoyed the rest of the morning. After the photography was done we had fun running down some of the steeper dunes. I’ve done it before so I know what to expect. Brenden had never run down dunes of this size before, and half way down the dune, when the sand hardened up, he gained speed…and the sheer look of terror on his face as he FLEW past me down the dune was hilarious…he reached out to grab me but he was going waaaaay too fast. When he hit the bottom of the dune, his pants (which he forgot to belt….typical kid) started to fall down…and he flumbled off into the desert one hand trying to pull up his pants, and the other outstretched to brace himself if he went down.
I was laughing hysterically and of no help at all. He never fell, and the whole experience lightened the mood, and set us off for a great rest of the morning as we sat in Death Valley waiting for sunset.

We have this bridge where I live. It’s called the Sundial Bridge. It’s kind of cool in that it brings all kinds of people to our city to see it. It was made by a famous Spanish Architect, Calatrava and it’s just something we have here that seems to make people happy. It makes some people UN-happy as well, that needs to be said too. However you feel about it, it’s here. Because I live here and am a photographer, I have to shoot this bridge….a lot. It’s easily the thing I sell the most copies of. People love this friggin’ bridge. I don’t complain. I have quite a nice selection of images from this bridge in my portfolio if I do say so myself. While I would much rather be out photographing a mountain lake this bridge helps pay the bills, and that means I need to photograph it often.
Last night I had plans to go photograph the creek by my house. My wife pointed out
“Hey they’re lighting the bridge up pink tonight for breast cancer awareness week.”
That switched my plans to go shoot the bridge instead. I had gone the previous year and suffered in the river for an hour, walking on dead salmon (which I thought might be a dead person initially) I got some images I liked, but ultimately I left wishing there had been a few clouds in the sky to make the image I had in my head come to life on the screen. This is what I ended up with.
www.flickr.com/photos/rueb/5105762846/

It works. I was pleased for the most part. I wanted to go back this year though, and retry it if there were clouds. There were, so off I went. I arrived on the bridge as the sun was setting. I hurried across, and made my way down to the riverside where I dawned my waders, and set out to find my composition. Once I had found my composition I got a nice low angle and promptly SAT in the river, which caused my whole rear region to absorb river water, which swiftly ran down my legs and into my waders. It was a great moment for me to be sure.
I had no idea that there was a specific TIME that the bridge was to be fully lit up, so I sat and waited. They had the tower lit up pink, so I just readjusted my composition, and went with the vertical shot (you see here)
While I waited for total pinkness, I could smell the aroma of participants in the event taking their medicine in the bushes near me. Leave it to Shasta county residents to smoke marijuana at a breast cancer event. I also saw a lot of people smoking cigarettes. I wonder if they think that they are supporting breast cancer by getting lung cancer instead?
I waited for a good 40 minutes out in that river before it got too dark to see and my fear of possibly stepping in a deep hole and dying on my way back to the trail got the better of me and I left. While on my way back I ran into several local photographer friends who were out grabbing their shots of the pink bridge, and they told me the bridge wasn’t being lit up until 7. It was only 15 minutes away, so I opted to stay and wait and see what happened.
7pm came and the bridge sat dark (except the tower)
7:30 came and the bridge sat dark
We had heard that 8pm was the real time, and that the newspaper who reported 7pm was wrong. The bridge would be lit up at 8pm.
Fine. I had waited this long, I was going to wait until 8.
8pm came and the bridge sat dark.
8:15pm came and I left. I don’t need a pink bridge shot THAT badly. On my way back, I asked a few people wearing pink shirts that looked official what the deal was.
“10 more minutes….then it’s coming on.” One told me
I could wait 10 minutes. I could. My rear was wet, and I think I was mildewing but I could wait 10 minutes.
At 8:30 the bridge finally lit up. I tried to make some pictures of it…but I was too mad from waiting to really put any heart into it. I left.
When I got to my car I had the utter joy of waiting over an hour to move 30 feet in the parking lot. It took FOREVER. People were angry…People went from being happy to being very angry and wishing ill on the people who didn’t plan for the parking fiasco, but not cancer…because that would defeat the purpose of the event. They just wished other type of ill on those responsible. I blamed the city as a whole…it was less specific and went along well with my non-confrontational attitude better.
Finally after I had moved 50 feet…someone came over and told me that by just turning around and driving the other direction I could get out easily…and I could. I made a U-turn in the parking lot, and drove right out…all the way. I sat over an hour waiting to be told that.
I came home well after 10pm…tired, angry, and well on my way towards being mildewed. I did get a shot I kind of liked though…here’s to anyone who is dealing with or has dealt with this disease.

I'm not thrilled with Flickr any more. I think they've screwed up their company and the system isn't working for them. I'm also busy, but the main reason I don't post is that flickr makes me a bit angry.

My dog makes me angry too. It won't stop escaping my house. She's dog Houdini. She just wants to go hang out with people so whenever we have to go away for a few hours, she sets to escape mode. Right now it's a pretty even battle as to who wins more, me keeping her in or her escaping.

Every day is an adventure to see whether she'll be there when I return, and if she's managed to break the other 2 out with her.

it's fun.

This is Iceland. it's nice there in Summer. I was there two more weeks this past summer. If you like it and would like to come along on a workshop we'll be posting it soon at our Aperture Academy site.

Just got back from a GREAT workshop weekend, and a lot of whirlwind photography. Kevin McNeal, Steve Davis, and I found this place on Friday while scouting our workshop locations...it was really different and made for some great unique images from a very photographed location.

That hole is about 5 feet deep. We were worried Kevin would fall in and go all the way under. HAHA. Just Kiddin' Kev.