Hi everyone-

Yesterday was a nearly perfect day here in Montana. The weather was cool and the sky was sunny. A few afternoon clouds and isolated storms created dramatic skies for a while. Then a cool evening with a nice sunset.

I picked up m friend Bryan (BA to some of you) at the airport in the late afternoon, we headed up to Choteau where got got situated and then had a nice dinner at the Elk Country Grill. After that we headed out towards the mountains for a drive to "see what we could see".

Along the way we stopped to check out an unobstructed view of the mountains. While we were there I saw this interesting looking fence set up. I have seen a ton of fences out here but never one that was like this.

Today we are heading up to Glacier National Park and will be shooting there for a few days as well as the North American Indian Days Powwow on the Blackfeet Nation. It should be a great time.

I'm not so sure of the Internet situation up there so I'll check it out and post if possible. If I can then the next post will be on Monday.

Have a great day!!

HI everyone-

Did you ever think that you needed a vacation from vacation?? Well I am about there. Over the last few days I have been suffering from issue after issue after the crash of my main external hard drive.

On the night it happened I got about 2 hours of sleep (July 3). I spent every free second on the 4th trying to retrieve the data. And most of the 5th trying to make heads or tale of the salvaged data and trying to put it back into some semblance of order.

Well that has continued through today. I really started to make progress. I bought a new external hard drive. Started backing everything up to it. And even though the recovered files were a total mess and completely renamed I was happy to have them back.

Then tonight while i was editing and importing images in Lightroom, the power went out. Only enough to go completely off and then turn right back on. It was just enough time to shut off the power supply to the external hard drive. It was also enough to break the connection between Lightroom and that drive.

Well that was enough to completely screw up the catalog, to the point were I have deleted it and started a new one.

In both instances I lost data. What a huge pain in the butt. And we are talking thousands of images here. So you can understand the considerable amount of stress that this has created. Thus the vacation from the vacation thought.

Hopefully if I just hang on tight, use my head and think about where I am going and what is coming next I can work through this and move ahead. Much like the bull rider in the image.

I am picking up my friend and amazing photographer Bryan Allen tomorrow in Great Falls. Then we will spend the next few days in Glacier National Park and at the North American Indian Days in Browning, MT.

It should be a great time. Hope you enjoy today's photograph.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

We had a great 4th of July here in Choteau, Montana. The celebration starts here on the 3rd. The town has an art and craft show, called Art On The Green, Keg Hockey, Music In The Park, The Boxing Smoker and the Street Dance at the American Legion.

Also my cousins have a great family reunion picnic. That is the most fun part of the day because we have a lot of fun, get to see family from all over the country and of course eat a ton of great food.

On Saturday the day starts with a Run and Walk (we skipped that...lol) and then the parade. After the parade there is a Steak Fry in the park but we head to another cousins house for one more picnic. Then after that its off to the rodeo. That is always a great time.

The evening ended at another family gathering at my cousin Laura's house. There we made s'mores lit fireworks and of course ended the evening watching the towns fireworks display.

The weekend ended on Sunday with a majority of the immediate family departing for home. My girls, my sister and her son and my dad all headed home to PA to get back to the real world while my mom and I hang out for another week or so.

So here is are a few images from the weekend. There are tons more that will come out over the next year. Hope you had a great weekend and Independence Day!

Have a great day!

Waiting for the parade to get started...


Pony rides in the park...


My little 4th of July Princess...


Can't forget the great rodeo action...

Hi everyone,

This image was shot back in May in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone. For those of you familiar with the park, it was directly across the road from the Trout Lake parking area/trail head.

I don't have first hand knowledge of the events that lead to the injury of the mother and the birth of the calf. I was told, however that wolves had made an attack on the mother prior to giving birth. I was also told that at the time these images were taken the calf was just over a day old.

The mother had injuries to both sides, her neck and rump area. Judging by the injuries she must have put up a good fight.To protect her calf she had it tucked up against the river behind it. The water was very high and running quite fast. I am sure none of the parks animals would have attempted to cross her nor would they have made it.

So it was a good choice for a location. She then only had to watch three sides. The last I heard or read these two were still alive. I would think that as long as they were in this area they were doing OK.

I just drove past this spot last week and they were gone. Obviously they couldn't stay there forever/ But this is wolf country so hopefully they were able to avoid being taken down once they ventured away from this spot.

I hope that you have a great weekend and 4Th of July holiday. Have fun and be safe!

Thanks for checking out the blog, have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Today I am writing from the lobby of our hotel in Missoula, MT. We came down here yesterday for a fun day with the kids. Missoula is a great town and there are a ton of things to do with or without the kids.

But we hit a few kid friendly spots, had a great Mexican lunch and then after a much needed nap we hit the water slides.
They, well we all had a blast.

Today we are heading to the Elk Country Visitor Center to let them check out all the animals and displays. We secretly checked it out yesterday during nap time.

Then I am not sure where we will head after that. But we have to be at my cousin's house at 7 for a picnic.


So today's post was shot back in May while I was in Choteau, MT. In these images are my cousins Freda and Bobby. The images were shot on their property just after sunset.

They live in a very cool little spot at the mouth of a canyon leading back into the Bob Marshal Wilderness. It is surrounded by mountains and the Teton River. I am not sure it gets much better!!

Bobby owns and operates a masonry company that specializes in great (real) stone work. What they can do with stone is really amazing. Freda works in "guest services" for a local ranch.

I lit these images with a single softbox and a reflector to fill in the shadows a bit. The camera was a D700 with 70-200 2.8vr handheld. The strobe was tripped with pocket wizards.

I hope you enjoy them, have a great day!

Oh don't forgett o check out the skywatch blog by clicking here: skywatch

Hi everyone-

Wow what an exciting day yesterday was here in Choteau, MT. This is a normally quiet town with a population of somewhere over 1,000 people.

Well just after noon 15 agencies worth of Law Enforcement swooped into town conducting simultaneous raids on a drug operation they had been investigating for several years.

They conducted raids in two towns and the county. Interestingly one of the arrests happen to take place less than a block from our house. One of the suspects happened to be driving down main street when they law caught up with him. Out of an unmarked pickup jumped two officers, guns drawn. They quickly took him into custody and disappeared.

All the while a DHS helicopter with men hanging out the sides with automatic weapons hovered overhead.

The raids lasted about 2 hours. The helicopter circled overhead and occasionally seemed to swoop in low to block roads or escape routes for suspects.

At one point one of the helicopters took a path over our house and was just above the trees max height was 30-40 feet over the house. We were outside and had to quickly retreat into the house to avoid the debris what was blowing all over. The kids strollers were outside and were picked up and blown to the neighbors yard. Tree branches were blown down and dust was every where.

This caused quite a stir in this normally quite town. Here are a few pics of when they were hovering over the house at a bit higher altitude.







So I did have a regular post set up for today. But I thought the action deserved to be posted right away. I had about 5 shots of a Grizzly that I had shot in Yellowstone ready. I am going to save most of them for another day but I still wanted to share one today.

This guy was about a 1/4 mile from where I shot the wolf images and taken about 15 minutes later. He had just emerged from the river and was heading up into the hills for the day.



Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Yesterday we had a really fun family day. We basically just relaxed at the house. in the morning then headed to the park for a picnic lunch and a little playing in the Spring Creek. After that it was back home for naps, a little yard work a great dinner and then off to the movies to see UP.

All in all it was a great summer day. The weather was perfect. But what was the best part for me is to see my daughter playing and loving some of my favorite spots as a kid.

There are a few things here in Choteau, MT that I clearly remember as huge parts of my childhood. One of them was tubing on the Spring Creek. This is a little creek that meanders through town. Its not big, not deep and doesn't always have water in it.

But As a kid I spent hours and hours floating down the length of the creek that boarders the city park. We would float to one spot where it got a bit over grown and then we would get out very afraid to go any further, unsure of what might get us in there.

After that we'd walk back up to the bridge and do it all again. Cree loved it.

After our day in the park she took a much needed nap and then we played and she took a trip to the grocery store with grandma.

After dinner we headed to the Roxy Theater to see UP. I loved going to this theater as a kid and it hasn't changed one bit.

So al in all it was just a great family day. The ones that only summer can bring and there isn't a better place for that than Choteau, Montana.

Have a Great Day!