Hi everyone-

Here is a quick post of an image that I shot this past October just outside of Gardiner Montana. The image was shot around 10pm.

Of course the camera was on a tripod and the exposure was somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds if I remember correctly.

The light on the clouds and mountains comes from two sources. The main source was a nearly full moon. The second was light from buildings along highway 89 north of Gardiner.

I have never had a camera before the D700 that shot high enough quality low light images to even consider doing this type of photography. Next summer and fall this will be something that I play around with when I am back out in Wyoming and Montana where there is a tad less unnatural light to deal with.

Heading to Nashville today for the PPA ImagingUSA conference and the DWF convention. I am really excited about some of the classes that I will be attending.

But I am also very excited to be working with Bryan Allen and Ted Van Der Linden on a photo project while we are there. We are going to be shooting something pretty cool at the DWF and the BB King Blues Club. I am not to sure what I can talk about and what I can't so that's it for now!!!

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

As those of you who stop by the blog often know I have been taking a much needed break from daily postings. But I am back up and running recovering from the busy schedule related to the holidays. So check back often for new posts.

At this time of transition from 2009 to 2010 I as many others take a look back at where we have been and ahead to where we might be going.

2009 was a great year. There was a lot of good things that happened. As well there were a lot of new friends made. Friends I hope to have forever.

I don't like to make resolutions because I don't ever really keep them. Instead I like to set some goals of things I would like to accomplish or things on which to improve. I have stopped setting unrealistic goals that I know I will never reach.

I have decided that I will strive to improve upon where I am at right now. It doesn't really apply to anyone thing but really to everything, being a husband, father, son, friend, firefighter, photographer etc.

My goal is to be able to look back and say ya I'm better at that than I was last year. It seems like a much more reasonable way to go about this.

I selected today's image because it reminds me of thinking of the year to come. There is a long road, you don't really know where it will take you and along that road will be some storms and uncertainty. But if you stick to it it will take you to a beautiful place. And along the way if you take time to stop and look around the whole journey is beautiful.

Thank you to everyone who is a part of my life. You all mean so much to me.

Thank you also to everyone who comes to this blog. Your comments and friendship are what keeps me and this blog going!

I hope that everyone has a great 2010 !!!

Hi everyone-

Today's were also shot at GSMNP in October. They are taken from the Clingmans Dome area. This is a cool spot to go as it might be the highest point in the park that you can reach easily. You drive most of the way and then walk the last half mile or so.

It is quite a walk though on a paved path pretty much uphill. The elevation gain is pretty good. I don't know what it was but judging by the people in various states of respiratory distress its a couple of hundred feet.

The area offers some great views and even though these were shot a few hours before sunset you can begin to see how this park got its name. I really enjoyed looking at the layers and layers of mountains you can see from this point.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Here is South Central PA we have been enjoying the taste of a little early fall the last few days. Beautiful blue skies and temperatures in the mid to upper 70's. Very nice for the first week of November.

These conditions are just some more reasons why this is hands down my favorite time of year. Crisp cool mornings followed by pleasant warmer days followed by clear cool evenings. You can smell the smoke from wood stoves in the air and you can wear jeans and a sweatshirt all day and be just fine. Love it.

Another great part of this time of year is the fantastic color that blankets the forests and wooded areas around us. While not like Northern PA we still have a lot to see here.

That being said today's images were taken just a short drive over the Maryland border to a little gem of a park that I have not enough attention too in the past. It is called Catoctin Mountain Park. It is a small National Park and is the home to Camp David.

Obviously I have heard of the camp for years but never really new where it was. We figured it out a few years ago when traveling back and forth to see my sister while she was living in Frostburg, MD. This was not the fastest route to get there from our house but was clearly the most scenic.

Recently I spent some time in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and was a little early for the peak of fall color. But while traveling home I decided to take the route across the park and go home that way. Man was I happy I did.

I didn't have much time as I was trying to make it home in time to join my wife and daughter at a local Halloween parade. But I could not pass up the spectacular display of color and beauty in the park. I spent about 45 minutes photographing everything that I could before having to leave to make it home in time.

I can not wait to go back next year and explore more of this park on foot and without the constraints of time. One thing of note... You should always check the website before going as there are periodic closures of large areas of this small park due to increased security when dignitaries occupy Camp David.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Today I am on the road...again. I left Choteau, MT this morning and began the journey home to PA. Originally I was going to head down to Colorado and spend a few days there. However a variety of factors have changed that plan up a bit.

Today I am heading to the Rapid City area. On Friday I am going to head to the Badlands National Park to shoot sunrise and then head to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Wounded Knee Massacre sight. After that I will continue down through Nebraska where there are a few locations that I am interested in stopping and shooting. More on that later.

Today's image was shot in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. I really liked the clouds on the morning this image was shot. Clouds have been something that normally are either completely absent or almost to the ground when I am there. So to have a day with cool clouds in the sky was a big thing for me.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

We'll fall is almost here. I got a taste of a little crispness in the air this past week and I can not wait for it to arrive. I am certain it's coming after this last week when of course I got a sinus infection. Thats one of the best ways to tell a change is on it's way! (not that I like having them)

So I have been looking back through some old images while my mind wonders to past trips to Yellowstone, the Teton's and Montana t what I think is the nest time if the year.

Today's image is from Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park. I hope you enjoy it!

Take a chance to check out all the other Skywatch posts from yesterday and today by clicking here ---->SKYWATCH FRIDAY

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Well it's Thursday and that means its time for another Skywatch post!

Today's image was shot a few years ago along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, west of Choteau.

In October there seems to be a lot of overcast days in this area. This of course was one of them But I set out to shoot some images anyway.

As it turns out there was a bit of a storm brewing and as I headed toward the mountains it began to push over and on tho the east.

Have a great Skywatch and dont forget to check out everyone else's images by clicking the link here:---> SKYWATCH

Hi everyone-

I am rounding out the thunderstorm shoot with Savanah and Shay today with something I think they're going to like. They're big fans of the movie Twilight, which was a big influence in this shoot, so I thought I'd up the game and make their very own Twilight poster.

In today's post there are three images. The SOOC raw image, the fully edited image and then the movie poster shot. The fully edited image took me about 3 hours to complete.

Its not that hard to create just very time consuming because of all the detail work that must go into it. I have a few presets that I have created or found that I like to use in Lightroom. Basically similar to an action in Photoshop, its a quick way to make a batch of images look the same with a file that tells the program what to make it look like. Thats probably not a great explanation.

So first I crop the iamge to what I like, then I clean it up. Remove dust, dirt, objects I don't like etc. Once that is done then I retouch the main subjects. That is the easy part.

The next step is what is time consuming. I basically do a few layers (at least) of local contrast enhancement. There is a ton of detail work to be done here so it takes a while.

Once that is done I play around with color and anything else I would like to change in the image. In this case I added lightning. Once that is done then I might have to go back and revisit some of the earlier steps again to blend the added elements nicely.

Once the editing is done I'll go back and look at it again and fix anything that doesn't look right, then I might add some textures or try to create an over all look or feel to the image. That could be another big project. but in these images it was pretty simple.

I hope that racks the surface of how these images were created.

Also today is the Skywatch Friday post so be sure to click the link and visit all the blogs for more great images involving the skies! Click here:----> SKYWATCH FRIDAY

Have a great day!

This is straight out of the camera:



This is the edited version:



And finally, the movie poster:

Hi everyone-

Sorry about the delay in today's post. I didn't get the chance to work up an image for today until this morning. I had an idea for how I wanted to treat the image but after a few attempts it just wasn't working out.

So it ended up taking most of the morning to figure that out. After abandoning that attempt I decided to try and give the image a bit more of a whimsical or fairy take look to it.

I thought that might work for this image as the girls were kind of looking up in wonder at the rain that was beginning to fall.

I also would like to take the opportunity to thank Bryan Allen for promoting both my work and my blog in his post today. I also would like to add that these images would not have been possible without him working with me to create them in the first place.

Thanks Bryan!

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

As many of you know this past July Bryan Allen joined me in Montana for some fun and shooting for just over a week. Bryan is a fantastic photographer and great friend who live in Knoxville, TN. He is an amazing people photographer and teacher. please make sure to check out his work, you will love it.

One of the fun things I had lined up was a shoot with my cousins Savanah and Shay. I only had a mild plan in mind for what we would do. Other than that I thought we would wing it and see what happened. We brought a long some props and a few changes of clothing.

Well we were out for a few hours and decided it was time to head back to town and get some dinner, a change of clothes and then head back out toward the mountains for sunset.

Well as luck would have it we were running late from a longer dinner than we had planned. So as we were driving the 20 miles out to the mountains the sunset was fast developing before us. Not necessarily a problem abut a line of thunderstorms were moving through and were really threatening to put the kabash on the whole sunset.

So we dropped back and punted. And I think it really worked out well for us. We just stopped along side the road, went out into the field and began shooting. The results were very cool.

All of the images in this series are a joint effort between Bryan and I to create the final image. As I post them I will explain more about what we did to create them.

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Today's image was shot on a beautiful July morning at Swiftcurrent lake in Glacier National Park.

In any direction that you looked there was an awesome sunrise image to be had. It wasn't terribly breezy, which is good for ay sunrise in Glacier.

This image was created by merging 12 hand held vertical shots in Photoshop. Then I played around with the color and bringing out some of the details. When printed the image will be 2 feet ish by just under 6 feet. Now to find a good wall...lol

Check out all of the great Skywatch images posted today and tomorrow by clicking the link here ----> SKYWATCH

Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Thanks to all of you who emailed or commented on Facebook about my Dad. He is doing well. The hip replacement surgery went smoothly and the doctor said everything looked great. He rested fairly comforably throughout the afternoon and evening.

Today he started therapy and will continue learning to walk with the new hip today and tomorrow. He should go home on Saturday and then will continue therapy for several weeks a few days a week.

He was in good spirits and seemed to be doing quite well. Thanks again to everyone that asked about him, he was glad to hear from all of you.

Today's image was shot from a bluff south east of Fairfield, Montana called the Fairfield Bench. This was the first day of Bryan Allen's trip to Montana. He had come from some really warm weather to the low 70's and no humidity. Once we started driving toward Choteau we noticed these storms moving out of the mountains and across the prairie lands.

I figured this would be a good spot to shoot from so we headed in that direction. Well the temperature dropped to the low 60's and the wind was around 30mph gusts. It was quite a change....I said well Bryan, welcome to Montana!

There was cool images to be shot in any direction. This one was looking to the south at Square Butte, a local landmark that looked a bit ominous in the storm. I hope you enjoy...

Make sure you take the opportunity to check out all the other cool Skywatch Friday Blog posts starting at 2:30 today by clicking the link here:----> SKYWATCH FRIDAY

Have a great day!

HI everyone-

As you might have noticed today's post is just a little late. Sorry about that but I just plum FORGOT!! Can you believe it?

I have been trying get a lot done around here (at the house) and got busy first thing this morning and before I knew it, it was the middle of the afternoon!

So anyway, today's image was shot on the Belview Road just out side of Choteau, Montana. ONe afternoon a pretty large thunderstorm moved through the area and Created some spectacular skies. This image is shot looking southwest toward the Sun River Valley west of Agusta, Montana.

The angle of the sun created a brilliant red sky as the rain fell from the clouds. I hope you enjoy this image as I was a bit on the nervous side as the lighting crashed around me.

Have a great day and don't forget to check out all the great Skywatch action be clicking here: --> SKYWATCH

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-

I spent most of yesterday sorting images, deleting bad ones, processing the good ones etc., from my trip west.

Today I thought I would post some of my favorite landscape shots from the trip to Yellowstone. I hope you enjoy them!

Have a great day!

Yellowstone Lake...


Lamar Valley, Yellowstone...


This range is the Crazy Mountains just north of Livingston, MT...


Same image just processed differently...


I honestly don't remember where this image was shot...