{"id":2214,"date":"2013-04-04T08:40:26","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T13:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=2214"},"modified":"2013-04-04T12:19:53","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T17:19:53","slug":"back-from-big-bend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2013\/04\/04\/back-from-big-bend\/","title":{"rendered":"Back From Big Bend"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a week in Big Bend National Park,\u00a0I\u00a0can’t help but feel humility\u00a0having been in the\u00a0presence of so much natural beauty.\u00a0 The desert was incredible and\u00a0the weather, the landscapes, the wildlife and the\u00a0camaradrie couldn’t have been better.\u00a0 Joe Zinn and I lead a 4 day instructional photo tour to west Texas that was spectacular.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0were stopped dead in our tracks (tire tracks) by\u00a0a sow black bear with four cubs crossing the highway as we drove into the park’s Chisos Mountains.\u00a0\u00a0On our second\u00a0night out,\u00a0we almost collided with a white-nosed coati and a gray fox.\u00a0 Obviously, it wasn’t just the landscapes that left us inspired.\u00a0 One of the park campgrounds had at least 4 pairs of vermilion flycatchers.<\/p>\n

All of the following landscapes were photographed with a Canon 5D Mark II camera, Canon 16-35 and 24-105 mm lenses, polarizing filter, two stop neutral\u00a0\u00a0intensity filter, cable release, Feisol ball head and Gitzo 1348 carbon fiber tripod.\u00a0 For the bear and birds, I was using the Canon 1D Mark IV camera and Canon 500 mm lens.<\/p>\n

So, take a photo tour with me and enjoy this small selection of photos that I think pretty much tell the story of our trip.<\/p>\n

Our photography journey\u00a0began with a walk to “The Window” in the Chisos Basin at Big Bend National Park for an incredible sunset.<\/p>\n

Click on the upper right portion of a photo to make it larger and sharper for\u00a0viewing.\u00a0 From there, you can advance through the Big Bend photography.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sunset through "the window" in the Chisos Basin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Photographers preparing to capture the grandeur of a sunrise on the Rio Grande.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Rio Grande at sunrise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sunset at Terlingua Cemetery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Riffle in the Rio Grande, sunrise in Santa Elena Canyon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everybody waded in to capture this shot below a small check-dam of rocks below Santa Elena Canyon at sunrise.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A\u00a0shutter speed of less than one second give the\u00a0 current a soft, foamy look.<\/p>\n

While returning to the road from capturing the boulder shot above, I watched an incredible sunset over Santa Elena Canyon and a large prickly pear cactus.<\/p>\n

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Boulder and ocotillo at Cerro Castalon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Prickly pear and ocotillo, sunset near Santa Elena Canyon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Shadow highlighting ocotillo at Keyhole rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This rock looks more like a lion’s head or the Sphinx than a keyhole, don’t you think?<\/p>\n

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Michigan photographer, Tom McLinden, looking for a fresh angle near the Keyhole.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ocotillo on canyon rim at sunrise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Near the park’s west entrance, ocotillos guard the rim of a canyon that reminded me a lot of the painted desert with it’s yellow and gray clay strata.<\/p>\n

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Prickly Pear in bloom as a storm brews at Boquillas Canyon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Never leave a workshop early if you don’t want to miss something special.\u00a0 All our students\u00a0headed\u00a0home a few hours too soon during the last afternoon of the workshop.\u00a0\u00a0Joe and I captured these images as a storm approached Boquillas Canyon.<\/p>\n

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Lightning striking the Boquillas Canyon rim at sunset.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Spirits of ancient Native Americans come alive at sunset where they once ground mesquite beans, fruits and roots on the rocks above the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Black bear mother with reluctant cubs where their trail crosses a Big Bend Park highway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Some of our photographers, including the trip leader, couldn't resist a bird-photography break from the landscape shooting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I hope you enjoyed this trip to the Big Bend.\u00a0 Look for us to try it again next spring.<\/p>\n

Larry<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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After a week in Big Bend National Park,\u00a0I\u00a0can’t help but feel humility\u00a0having been in the\u00a0presence of so much natural beauty.\u00a0 The desert was incredible and\u00a0the weather, the landscapes, the wildlife and the\u00a0camaradrie couldn’t have been better.\u00a0 Joe Zinn and I lead a 4 day instructional photo tour to west Texas that was spectacular. We\u00a0were stopped … Continue reading Back From Big Bend<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}