Sotol Vista

Sotol Vista is an overlook in Big Bend National Park that is the premier place in the park to watch the sunset.

On my last trip there I, of course, had to go there for at least one sunset. I ended up picking the best possible day as it had the best clouds of the entire trip.

The main view is obviously west. This is looking south. You can see the sotol-a yucca plant, and the distant desert mountains.

The rocks, yucca, ridges, and sky all made for a great composition I set up to work the scene in both black and white as well as color with the sunset.

On the Rio Grande

Along the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.

I spent a week this fall on Big Bend and one of the highlights of the trip was driving the River Road and photographing along it for three days.

Here is the view from one of my camps. This is on a small bluff overlooking the river. There is not another person for many miles and the view is amazing-desert, river, and mountains.

Follow more of my travels in Big Bend in my Wilderness Photographer blog linked to the right.

The Rim

The rim of the Guadalupe Escarpment looking south. On a long weekend I visited the Guadalupe Mountains or the Guads as we sometimes call them. The range reaches it most dramatic heights in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, but if one goes north into New Mexico the range is not as high but still has a dramatic drop off on the west.

Here is a view from my campsite along the rim. This is looking south up Dog Canyon toward Texas and the national park.

This is really a dramatic and steep drop although I do not think this image really conveys that. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, but here I think it actually falls short.

Three Boulders

Three boulders on the edge of the Llano Estacado.

Driving across eastern New Mexico one will come across the western escarpment of the flat topped Llano Estacado. There the flat suddenly drops off 200-300' to the plains below.

Just the sort of place to make an image and when I saw these three I knew it was a great place to stop to capture the open country and the dramatic edge.

Caprock Canyons

I was out at Caprock Canyons State Park in the Texas panhandle on a cloudy, rainy day. What great conditions for black and white!

Actually this whole summer has been a black and white event for me with my b+w to color film ratio about 8:1. It has allowed me to do much more daytime photography where my color work is always around the edge of the day. That makes it ideal for the long days of summer.

I am looking forward to fall and some fall color, which will tilt me back toward color and then winter may see me shift again to more black and white.