To call this trip an adventure is an understatement. In early December I traveled with several friends to the northern region of Ethiopia with Erta Ale volcano as the ultimate goal. Fellow traveler Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape was a wonderful travel companion and he has written a very good travelogue. Needless to say, we did not make it to the volcano for a variety of reasons. In forty years of photography I can count on one hand the number of times I have been sick or just plain stymied on a trip, so I count myself supremely lucky.
I last photographed in Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania for my Y2K project The Living Wild. In the intervening years it seems the chimps have become even more nonchalant around people, brushing past like a person would on a crowded street. There is a definite mental connection, but when they come that close you want to be careful in your movements and eye contact. They are incredibly powerful animals and powerfully intelligent so R-E-S-P-E-C-T is in order.
Lake Natron is a soda lake in the Rift Valley of Tanzania that I have photographed many times. But each time it feels like a new experience. The light, patterns, colors, and textures vary immensely from year to year, even hour to hour. These photos are from my latest trip in October.
As a juxtaposition to my September trip to Wyoming, I just returned from a great trip to East Africa, which included Amboseli, Lake Natron, Mahale. So, I begin with these photos from Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Enjoy!
Late September is a gorgeous time to be in Wyoming. The air is crisp with fall, the aspen leaves are fluttering golden in the breeze, and the wildlife is out browsing and fattening up for the harsh, but beautiful, winter.
The Photographic Society of America invited me to Jackson, Wyoming, to present at their annual conference. I was able to take the time to catch some favorite spots in Yellowstone National Park, and then teach another successful workshop in Grand Teton National Park. The week was capped off by doing aerials over the jade & sapphire waters of Grand Prismatic Spring.
I recently led a workshop in the Southern Sierra in California. The fall color put on quite a show, with the aspen trees being a particularly stunning subject to photograph. We also found a lake full of coots, worked on abstracts in Bodie State Historical Park, visited the always fantastical tufas at Mono Lake and stopped at the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest to add more unique texture to the portfolio.
Since I had a rare free day at home in Washington, my friend Bill and I decided to head to Mount Rainier National Park. What began as a five minute stroll out of Paradise became an eight hour marathon. We were in such a hurry to get out there, we forgot to bring snacks which was OK—there were subjects around every corner, so we didn’t even notice our hunger. We looped around Paradise Ridge where I frequently teach workshops in the summer meadows. Hiking to Panorama Point we found large groups of white-tailed ptarmigan as well as blue grouse.
With the very dry year and the September rains I think it is making for a very early fall season, at least three weeks earlier than usual. The night before our hike an ice storm moved through covering the sub-alpine firs and creating a stark contrast against the deep ochre of the fall foliage. On this day the mountain was obscured by clouds, which was perfectly fine because it allowed the other subjects shine forth.
While it takes a bit of doing to get to Svalbard, the photographic payoff is always terrific. It is a land of rugged Arctic landscapes, teeming bird cliffs, hungry carnivores like polar bears and Arctic foxes, and ghostly ruins of a bygone era in European history. We experienced gorgeous golden sunsets over mountains and melting glaciers, a rather spectacular rainbow as a summer rain passed through, and engaging wildlife, in particular Atlantic walrus.
This is my third trip there in recent years, and this was the best yet. It was a terrific group of fellow photographers and we all had fun learning from one another. The staff on the small boat was tremendous in making us feel at home.
I can agree with my fellow traveler Mark McInnis about our trip to the Katmai National Park area in Alaska “…this trip has been amazing. Just amazing.”
He continues on: “Jerry, Art, Becky and I were shooting aerials yesterday when I spotted a White Wolf. We landed on the beach and Art thought that he [the wolf] had probably left because of the noise. But we snuck around the corner and he was still there just napping on the beach! We started clicking photos, but he heard our cameras and promptly got up to leave. Haha, This next part still just cracks me up. Art started howling. Like a wolf. And the wolf stopped, turned sideways, and looked DIRECTLY at us. And of course his shot is twice what mine is, but it doesn’t matter. That memory will stick with me forever. My jaw might have hit the floor. It was amazing and one of the most memorable and comedic moments of my life. Art is such a legend. I love him to death and have only known him for 4 days. Talk about a gifted, talented and honest human. Really love the guy.”
Recently I spent the most remarkable two weeks with several fellow photographers in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. Ranging everywhere on land and in river were the huge coastal brown bears and all the waterways were chock full of spawning sockeye salmon. As a result of last year’s mild winter, there were many sows and cubs feasting on the protein-rich and oily fish.
I am scheduling another trip July 24-29, 2016. Get on the notification list now!
