Badlands. In geological terms it is a heavily-eroded, dry terrain. However on this particular day, the term "badlands" meant something else to me. It meant frigid weather and solitude.After visiting my parents in Spokane for Christmas, my wife and I embarked on a long road trip back home to Phoenix by way of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. I had visited this beautiful national park before but not in the winter. So I was determined to drive far out of my way to see this place covered in snow.That morning I set off from my motel in the town of Wall, it was foggy, windy and cold. If I recall correctly, the temperature gauge in my 4Runner said 7°F. Once I reached the Pinnacles Overlook, I setup shop with my trusty tripod, Canon 6D and about three layers of clothing.It. Was. Cold!For about 10 minutes I stood there doing what we photographers do... looking through the viewfinder trying to frame-up something inspiring. I was miserable, almost regretting the entire road trip I had made to see Badlands National Park in the winter. I thought of my wife back in the motel all comfy and warm. I thought of the hot coffee I would buy at the gas station when I was finished photographing. Then I thought, "Hey is that tree moving out there??"You see, I was photographing this beautiful snowy scene with, what I thought, was a small juniper-like tree in the lower-right of the frame. But after checking my photos on the camera's LCD screen, I noticed that little tree... had moved! As it turns out, it was not a tree... it was a single lone bison out in the badlands foraging for some food.I suddenly felt a bit of warmth knowing I wasn't the only one in this harsh, frigid environment. There were two of us. Except one of us had a nice fuzzy coat on while the other was wearing a hoodie.
Peridot Mesa is one of Arizona's best places to see wildflowers. It takes a bit of a drive from Phoenix but totally worth it if you get there at the perfect time.
You need a permit to visit Peridot Mesa as it is on San Carlos Apache land. You can grab a permit at the San Carlos Apache Tribe Recreation and Wildlife Office. I have also been told the Express Stop in Globe and Circle K in Globe also sell permits to .
Photos of the Seattle skyline almost always include the Space Needle. It is an iconic piece of Seattle’s downtown. I’ve even photographed it from Seattle’s Kerry Park. However when I think back to my childhood and what I remember as the Seattle skyline, I remember this view the most.
My aunt, uncle and cousins all lived in Bellevue, a suburb to the east of Seattle. When we visited them, we’d often drive westbound on Interstate 90 toward Bellevue Square, Mercer Island or even all the way into downtown Seattle. And this was the view I saw out of my uncle’s Ford pickup. I marveled at the Columbia Center standing tall and omninous. I remember seeing the Kingdome and the Olympic Mountains too if it was a clear day. I was amazed at how Interstates 5 and 90 were intertwined here too.
Keen-eyed folks would say this photo was taken from Beacon Hill, and they are technically correct. But I wasn’t standing in Dr. Jose Rizal Park. No, I was a few feet above Beacon Hill on the roof of the Pacific Tower!
The Ash Fork Steel Dam is a historic treasure and engineering marvel of Arizona often overlooked and unknown. The steel dam was built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1898 as a means of providing water to steam engines. These trains were quite thirsty and used a lot of water while powering through the hot deserts of the southwestern US. Dams and reservoirs were necessary to store large amounts of ground water all along the railroad lines. The Ash Fork steel dam is on the National Register of Historic Places.
During this era, civil engineers were experimenting with steel as alternative to concrete. Bridges and other traditionally concrete structures were beginning to be built using steel, so civil engineer Francis Bainbridge decided to see if steel was a viable material for creating this dam. After almost 120 years of holding water, I’d say he had the right idea.
The Ash Fork Steel Dam is located about 50 miles west of Flagstaff, Arizona just a bit north of Interstate 40. Though it is close to I40, it isn’t particular easy to get to. First off, don’t use exit 148. While there is indeed a road that leads almost straight to the dam from exit 149, it is permanently blocked. Instead use exit 148 and head northeast on the gas pipeline “road”. You can plainly see it on Google Maps’ satellite view. While it is technically a road, it isn’t well-traveled and there are lots of watermelon-size rocks and cattle all over. Just drive slow and don’t mess with the cows. Once you get near the lake, you’ll have to hike down a small decline to the steel dam. You’ll find a National Register of Historic Places sign with a little history about the Ash Fork Steel Dam.
The Bisti Badlands National Wilderness Area, San Juan County, New Mexico.
I sometimes feel sorry for areas called “badlands.” It seems so negative. But after investigating a bit, I realized the name was well-earned in this case. As beautiful as the otherworldly hoodoos might be, they deserve to be called the New Mexico Badlands.
Cooking is a lot of work, many will let you know. Mother Nature started working on a dish about 70 million years ago that ended up getting very involved. The Badlands were once the delta of a river flowing into an ancient, inland sea. Over millions of years, sediment and organic material accumulated at some high spots in the delta, forming the stone known as Lignite. At some point, a massive volcano erupted, spewing ash over these small islands in the delta. A few more million years on, the sea had disappeared and the delta had filled in. All was quiet and forgotten. But then, about 25M years ago, the former riverbed lifted skyward as the Colorado Plateau rose. This exposed the alien-like structures we see today. It also exposed a lot of coal. Coal comes from Lignite, in case you didn’t know.
Somehow, a coal fire ignited. It lasted centuries. This was like a finishing touch on the geological soufflé we see today. It’s Earth’s culinary showpiece, still fresh from the kitchen of the eons.
I want you to look at this picture an imagine it glowing, surrounded by red-hot coals. Squint and tell yourself this wouldn’t look like hell on earth. Badlands.
Fellow photog Ty Cook and I arrived at the Bisti Badlands as the sun was setting. The area is still remote and undeveloped enough to make getting there an adventure. Spotty cell service allowed only occasional use of Apple Map’s satellite view. Following footprints the old-fashioned way did the rest.
I thank novelist and motorcycle addict Bill LaBrie for turning me on to the Bisti Badlands about five years ago. It’s obviously a place to inspire a sort of dark, yet beautiful poetry.
Plane spotting at LAX doesn’t get much better than sitting outside with a Double Double in one hand and your camera in the other. Just outside LAX’s runway 24-Right sits an In-N-Out Burger with one of the best views I’ve ever seen of approaching airliners. The address of this spectacular In-N-Out Burger is 9149 S Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045.
On this day I specifically wanted to see an Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner, fly above me as it landed at LAX. Thanks to the help of this list of A380 landing times and my trusty FlightAware app, I was able to plan my day around when these giants were going to land.
My wife and I arrived at the LAX In-N-Out Burger roughly 30 minutes before the first A380 landed. She grabbed a table outside while I sat in the drive-through. The line was long, but the In-N-Out employees are efficient and got me through in under 5 minutes. Parking was a bit tough but I was eventually able to find a place to park after circling the parking lot three times.
I gathered my photo equipment, the bag of yummy food and found my wife at the table. I anxiously kept looking at my FlightAware map waiting for the first Airbus A380, Emirates Flight 215, to arrive. While I waited, various 737s and A320s landed and provided a huge rush to those of us outside. It was hard to imagine how it would feel to have an A380 fly over. Then finally, in the distance I saw a four engine behemoth slowly heading our way over Inglewood. I put my burger down, grabbed the camera and ran near the entrance of the In-N-Out so I could get this photo.
So if you are in the Los Angeles area and seeking an adrenaline rush and one of the best fast food burgers west of the Rockies, head to the LAX In-N-Out Burgerr!
Photography, sometimes it’s all about luck.
Earlier in the day, my wife and I made a trip to to the “famous” LAX In-N-Out Burger to do some plane spotting. I had done some meticulous research of when the majority of the Airbus A380s would land and was quite pleased with what I saw. I thought I was very lucky to photograph this photo of an Airbus A380 over the In-N-Out Burger.
Once we were done with our meal and the last A380 landed, we decided to leave LAX and have a donut at the Randy’s Donuts in nearby Inglewood. While my wife ordered our donuts, I took at look at my Flight Aware app and saw one more Airbus A380 was just a few minutes from landing. I hopped out of the car, looked east and sure enough there was a baby blue super jumbo in the distance.
I scrambled for my camera and tripod, thinking I would get a mediocre photo because I was rather far away from LAX by now. But as the Airbus came closer, I saw it was in the path of the giant donut on top of Randy’s Donuts. I adjusted my position just a bit, crossed my fingers, and waited. Seconds later, the Korean Air Airbus A380 went behind the big donut and emerged right in the center of the hole.
Click!
And what a way to celebrate a lucky shot with a delicious Randy’s Donut and some milk.
One of my fondest memories of my 2016 road trip to the mid-south US were the way the small highways rolled through small hills and valleys through the beautiful green forests. We don’t see that very often in the southwestern part of the country.
I remember this particular road in Missouri snaking its way through the forest. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was rather low in the sky. This let the sunlight peek through the dense trees to the west leaving zebra stripes of sun and shadow all over the road. Combine that with the little roiling hills and valleys and it made for quite an amazing stint of our trip.
Machines usually exist to make life more convenient. That’s the goal behind most mills, though often people seem to forget it. There are some strong emotions around the word “convenience” when mentioned as a factor in life. Some still remember Dana Carvey on as the Church Lady judging people for their life choices. “Well. . . . isn’t THAT convenient!” Well, Missouri’s Alley Mill on Alley Spring has all sorts of convenience in its background — and it’s come out beautifully.
This mill dates only to 1894. The original mill built at this site in 1868 used a water wheel. This new one one used one of the new-fangled turbines produced by the Leffel company, which is still in business after all these years. The convenience of the turbine is this: its speed is adjustable by varying how much water goes through it. In the Alley Mill, the turbine spins a driveshaft that runs the length of the building, running multiple grinders.
It was convenient to locate the mill there at what came to be known as Alley Spring, and thus the mill thus became a convenient meeting place for all sorts of activities that had nothing to do with grinding wheat and corn. There were dances, revivals, and even — for a short time during prohibition — a resort on the grounds of Alley Mill. It’s said that people came from as far away as St. Louis to enjoy the calming flow of the waters — and the noise and smells of grinding corn, one supposes.
For the first part of its history, the site of the mill was called either Mammoth Spring or Barksdale Spring. When it came time to locate a post office in the small village that sprang up beside it, USPS officials complained those names were too long. Thus, for the purposes of convenience, the town was renamed Alley Spring after John Alley. Alley was a humble miller. Guess it was his big day.
On the day I was here, I learned something about convenience.The weather was hot and humid. My truck has strong air conditioning. As soon as I set up my tripod in the extreme humidity of that July afternoon, I found my lens and sensor covered in condensation. I waited for 30 minutes while my space-age technology adjusted itself to the atmosphere in which the simple turbines and grindstones of Alley Mill had functioned without fail for decades.
And to tell you the truth, that was kind of inconvenient.
The Hodgson Mill towers over the natural beauty of Bryant Creek in Ozark County, Missouri.
This is the third mill to grace this spot. The site’s original mill was built in 1837. It was rebuilt in 1861, only to fall victim to the widespread destruction of the Civil War. The current mill dates from 1882, and was named after millwright Alva Hodgson. Hodgson’s mill stayed in continuous use until 1976, when production moved to a modern facility in nearby Gainesville.
The spring feeding Bryant Creek flows almost 3,000,000 gallons of water each day. This spring for many years was a center of industry, at one time powering a lumber mill, a clothing factory, and even a cotton gin. Before the Rural Electrification Administration provided a centralized power plant sometime in the 1930’s, the waters also generated electricity for the mill and the surrounding area. The water flows at a constant temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit, which made the spring – and mill – a year-round community center. This is a characteristic it shares with many other Missouri mills.
Now, the Hodgson Mill draws visitors as a scenic monument, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. With stoic beauty, it stands guard over a small millpond, where native mosses and ferns thrive. The three-story mill is framed perfectly against a hill by verdant trees. This area is kept green and fertile by occasional flooding. Bryant Creek occasionally crests at the door on the top level of the mill.
On this day, my appreciation for the beauty of this classic Missouri mill was only partially offset by the typical heat and humidity of an Ozark summer, and the constant stings of mosquitoes on my ankles as I tried to get this shot. Still, the sheer poetic beauty of the mill – combined with the sense of history -gave me an overwhelming feeling I could only describe as “You sure are in Missouri, now.”
“What are you doing?” asked the man in overalls. “Taking a photo of this barn” I replied. Bewildered, the man replied, “why?”
I love photographing old barns. During my road trip to the south in the summer of 2016, I had no shortage of weathered, old, abandoned-looking barns every few miles. And nowhere else were these barns more prolific than in Kentucky.
Many of the barns in Kentucky are black, which I found to be quite unique. Farmers mixed in creosote to paint their barns black and this had two benefits to the farm. The dark color obviously raised the temperature which helped cure the tobacco stored inside. The creosote also helped deter termites, one of wood’s worst enemies.
When I saw this particular tobacco barn, I noticed an old farm truck parked inside and vines of kudzu draping over the front. I had to turn around and get a photo. I parked along the side of the road on what I think was the original entrance to the barn. I setup my tripod and camera across the road along the adjacent hillside and started shooting.
A few minutes into my session, the sound of Cummins diesel rattled its way near me. Out of the late 90s Dodge pickup emerged what looked like a hard-working man wearing overalls and a hat. I said “Hi”. Instead of reciprocating with another “Hi”, he just said “What are you doing?” in a gruff, insinuating tone. I told him I was taking a picture of the barn. He did not seem to understand why in the world someone would want to photograph a barn, his barn, just for fun.
I must have looked a bit out of place, perhaps even suspicious. Driving a white Japanese SUV, wearing a baseball cap backward and most of all… photographing this person’s property with a big camera and a huge 70-200MM Canon lens.
Apparently, this man has experienced some vandals in his barn lately. He told me someone stole the radiator out of his Ford F1 recently. I can understand his cause for concern. While I wasn’t trespassing or doing anything illegal, I still did not want to upset the man. No photo of mine is worth making someone mad. After all, my life’s goal is to “See the world and meet its people”, not piss-off its people.
I told him I was just a photographer who enjoyed photographing old, decaying, abandoned stuff and that I would not disclose the location. He was fine with that but still had no idea why in the world someone would want to photograph old crusty things. Too bad he didn’t see the beauty in this old barn that I did.
One of the main things I wanted to experience on my epic 2016 road trip were waterfalls. I don’t see many waterfalls and rivers living in the desert southwest, so it was quite a treat each time I ran across even the smallest waterfall. Cumberland Falls however is certainly not a small waterfall. Nicknamed “Niagra of the South, Cumberland Falls has an average height of 68′ and spans 125′ wide.
My visit to Cumberland Falls State Resort Park could not have been better. My wife and I had already visited some beautiful sights in Kentucky earlier in the day and we were ready to find a motel in Lexington to rest. While gassing up though, I simply Googled for “Kentucky waterfalls” and up came Cumberland Falls as the number one search result. After a few minutes of browsing photos of the waterfall, I was determined to make it there before the sun went down.
We arrived at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park about 30 minutes before the sun went down. It was lightly drizzling and most people visiting the park were changing out of their wet clothes from swimming and heading to their cars. I grabbed my camera gear and quickly walked to a few of the viewpoints. I finally found a terrific spot to photograph Cumberland Falls from high above with just a bit of light left in the sky. I considered myself very lucky to get here in time to experience this beautiful place.
This natural bridge in nothwest Alabama is the longest natural bridge east of the Rocky Mountains. It spans 148 feet and 60 feet high! This place was an unexpected surprise (aren’t all surprises?) for my wife and I during our 2016 road trip back east. Once we saw the sign, we had to stop.
Visiting the natural bridge is quite easy. The park itself is close to the highway and admission is just a few dollars.
There is a short trail leading to the natural bridge, then another trail which leads you inside the cave for a spectacular view.
Living in and exploring the American west, I have seen quite a few natural bridges and arches. But this natural bridge in Alabama is a little different than those in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. I especially loved the two tall trees that were growing right up through the top of the cave.
Horseshoe Lake Dam is my favorite dam of all. It has a wide and long spillway where water from Horseshoe Lake flows over and down into a small canyon of rocks. Once the water hits these rocks, dozens of small and unique waterfalls are formed. One of the most unique things about this dam is the walkway under the spillway. You can actually walk from one side of the Verde River to the other via a walkway under the spillway. You can almost reach out and touch the falling water above you.
The dam at Horseshoe Lake was built by Phelps Dodge in the early 1940s and now managed by the Salt River Project. Horseshoe Lake Dam stands 144 high and is 1500 feet wide.
This photo of Horseshoe Lake Dam was shot from my little Mavic Pro drone on a random Wednesday night after work. My wife and I heard that the spillway was flowing thanks to the abundant winter rains we received in Arizona. After work we headed up to Horseshoe Lake in hopes of catching some beautiful photos and video. On the drive north, the skies were gray and overcast. I was a bit sad. However once we arrived, a small piece of sky opened up on the horizon letting through some beautiful sunlight allowing for this awesome sunset.
The “swastika bridge” stands near the end of the mighty Colorado River, once providing access to the Laguna Dam. The bridge was completed in 1909, long before Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror. Some might not know that the swastika is actually a religious symbol of divinity in some eastern religions.
To learn more about the swastika bridge, read Walter Smoter Frank‘s excellent article which has to be the oldest and most thorough history on the web. There is also great information about the swastika bridge and the Laguna Dam district on the National Park Service’s official website.
Just having some fun in Photoshop. This was shot from my hotel room at the Aria in Las Vegas during a work-related event. I was lucky to have a room facing McCarran Airport and was able to catch a few planes taking off, including a British Airways 747-400!
The China Dam in Arizona is located along Humbug Creek a couple miles north of Lake Pleasant. I haven’t found much history about the China Dam on the internet, other than it was built in the late 1880s for hydraulic mining purposes.
The Wheel of Misfortune near Las Vegas is an interesting art piece created by street artist Aware. in 2012.
I was in Las Vegas for a conference, bored and laying on my hotel bed anxiously Googling for something cool to photograph the next day. Photographing the Vegas strip… again, didn’t sound interesting. However I ran across this great article on VitalVegas.com about the Wheel of Misfortune. I’m always down to photograph something unique, plus it was on the way to Lake Mead which I intended on visiting anyway. Score!
The Wheel of Misfortune itself is located at the defunct Three Kids Mine alongside Lake Mead Parkway, specifically at 36°05’04.2″N 114°54’50.4″W. Aware. and crew painted the Wheel of Misfortune onto a 250 foot diameter thickener pit which was used in a leaching process at the mine. This is private property, so don’t trespass! However if you have a drone, you can park alongside Lake Mead Parkway and take a short 1,000 foot flight to take a look from above, arguably the best vantage point for something like this.
The Kekaha Sugar Mill was built in 1954 in the small town of Kekaha on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. The mill was closed in 2000 when the Hawaiian sugar industry collapsed and is now a semi-popular place for tourists to photograph and fly their drones over. I wasn’t able to venture inside to see this cool abandoned sugar mill but flying over it was the next best thing.
I always look forward to crossing the Burro Creek Bridge when I drive to Las Vegas from Phoenix. Maybe because it’s the halfway point between Las Vegas and my house, or if it’s because of the nice view of the canyon 388 feet below. I also like looking for the wild burros that often wander around in the desert here.
This duo of double truss steel arch bridges was built over Burro Creek in 1966, then the second span in 2005 to accommodate more traffic along Arizona’s Highway 93. It’s only 680 feet long.
