Southwest Winter

Mesa Arch – Canyonlands National Park, Utah

I had been planning a trip to the area around Moab, Utah with my friend Alejandro Velarde for a while. I had been there several years ago on a very short visit and was looking forward to spending more time exploring this beautiful area. Our main goals were to get a good shot of Mesa Arch (above) and to get some images of Monument Valley in winter conditions. Our friend, Marcell Puzsar was able to join as well and we made the trip in early February, with 5 days and 4 nights to photograph. For those looking for a good time to visit these often crowded locations, this was a good one. Temperatures hovered around freezing and even popular locations like Delicate Arch and Mesa Arch only had a few other people around at sunrise and sunset.

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2022 Favorites

2022 was a very different photographic year for me as I actually captured far more images than usual with the vast majority taken over a two week period in early July. While I usually plan several trips for landscape photography during a year, my 2022 plans were based around my twice-delayed African safari in Botswana. You can also see that in the blog posts that I shared this year – virtually all of them were from that tip.

That said, I was able to take some images I enjoyed in California and Montana and hope that you enjoy them as well. Images are presented below in the order I captured them. I’ll also note that this is NOT a list of my ten “best” images from the year. I focus on my favorites – chosen either because I believe the image is particularly strong or because of the memories I associate with it. Best of lists have no room for memories!

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Botswana Safari Part 4: The Okavango Delta

The final portion of our Botswana safari took place in the Khwai Community Area and Moremi Game Reserve in the northeastern part of the Okavango delta. We spent one night in a lodge in Khwai while our campsite in Moremi was readied, and then camped there for four nights. The Okavango is an inland delta where the rivers that feed it, including the Okavango and Khwai, do not flow into an ocean but instead evaporate and simply disappear in the swampy land. Unlike the Savuti, water in Moremi was everywhere and this created a tremendous concentration of wildlife.

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Botswana Safari Part 3: The Savuti

The Savuti is on the western edge of Chobe National Park and is known for its savannahs, grasslands and wildlife population. Our visit was during the dry season so there were limited supplies of water (primarily several large watering holes) available to the animals. We spent 3 nights camping in the Savuti and during that time saw many lions, elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, impala, and buffalo. We also had the opportunity to photograph some impressive African sunrises. The rest of this post consists of some of my favorite photos from the Savuti and are shown in the order captured.

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Botswana Safari Part 2: Victoria Falls and Chobe National Park

I started my safari at Victoria Falls in Livingstone, Zambia. In addition to being one of the world’s natural wonders, Victoria Falls is located near the conjunction of four African countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana making it a logical place to start or end visits to these nations. We were met at the airport in Zambia by our local guide, who brought us to our hotel in Livingstone to drop off our things ands get ready to visit the falls. The hotel is on the shore of the Zambezi River with a view of Zimbabwe on the other bank. Looking downstream, we could see the mist rising from Victoria Falls a few miles away.

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Botswana Safari Part 1: Intro, Logistics and Camping

Heading for Botswana

I originally made plans to go on my first African safari in the summer of 2020. I would be traveling with my usual photography companion, Alejandro Velarde, as well as another friend, Marcell Puzsar. They had both been to Africa before and had decided that Botswana was the place we should go. I was fine with that and we made our reservations for a 12 day safari starting at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and ending up at Maun in Botswana. Doing some research, I learned that Botswana has the world’s largest elephant population, healthy populations of lions and leopards, and is home to the Okavango Delta – one of the world’s largest inland deltas and a very biodiverse habitat. Even better, the country is safe, sparsely populated, and doesn’t draw the safari crowds commonly seen in other African nations.

We decided on a camping safari (more on that below) to stay close to the wildlife while also keeping costs down. We booked with Savanna Safaris and Tours who are based in Botswana. Our itinerary included stops at Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park, the Savuti, the Khwai Community area, and the Moremi Game Reserve. Of course 2020 ended up being an interesting year, resulting in several reschedules and a few changes in plans. Our tour company was completely supportive and flexible throughout and we made our trip starting at the end of June in 2022.

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Wintering at Lake McDonald

Glacier National Park, Montana — *Lake McDonald at Sunset*

I spent most of this winter in Kalispell, Montana which the gateway to Glacier National Park. Our home is less than an hour from Lake McDonald, where most visitors get their first view of the mountains when they visit. This gave me the opportunity to photograph the lake several times over the winter, seeing the area in different conditions and learning how it changes through the season.

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Favorites from 2020

As 2020 comes to a close, it is time to select my favorite images from the year. Needless to say, it has been an interesting year. Like many other people, I had to cancel several planned trips and I got used to spending a lot more time at home. For the early part of the year, my photographic endeavors were limited to taking macro shots at home and some flower photos in my neighborhood. As the year went on, I managed some day (night?) trips to photograph the stars before making the decision to invest in some property in Montana. All of the photos shared below were captured within driving distance of my home bases in Northern California and Northwest Montana.

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Changing Seasons in Glacier National Park

With 2020 being a “work from home” kind of year, I had a chance to work from a different home in Northwest Montana for much of the summer and fall. Being close to Glacier National Park, I was able to photograph several areas of the park through the change of the seasons. Here a a few images from the western side of the park.

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Night Sky Planning

Hidden Lake – Glacier National Park, Montana

While presenting a recent night sky image to our photography club at work this week, I was asked a lot of questions about how to plan those kinds of shots. I hadn’t thought about it for a while, but there can be a lot that goes into it if you have a particular image in mind. My goal is often to try to line up something in the sky (usually the Milky Way) with a landscape scene. To make it work I need to figure out when those things will line up, when the sky will be dark enough to see the stars, and how much light will I want on the landscape, all while also keeping track of the weather and sometimes tides. In this post I will list some of the tools that I use and show how I used them to plan some recent images.

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