It’s been some time since I’ve written. I have to admit the last two years have been challenging. I have suffered the loss of loved ones and I have ridden the wave into the future, be it less than what I hoped for. Sometimes, I felt as if I had been sucked beneath the surface to drown. Other times, I rode it high in the sunshine with blue skies. I have not been stopped, merely slowed down. I am optimistic about the future. I pray for this nation and it’s inhabitants. I have taken every opportunity to get out and enjoy life despite the risk. I am still chasing the dream. I have faith, endless faith, that all will work out. I admit I live in a rural area without much contact with the outside world, but I am not staying at home as a recluse. I have camped in remote places and continued to do what I love to do. Shoot the stars. Yes, I have altered my “normal”, but I’ve tried really hard to remain the same. I am always ready to meet a new friend, always ready to jump into a new adventure knowing that if I just keep swimming, I WILL reach my destination. Thanks for visiting. Thanks for looking at my images. I truly enjoyed creating them. Just keep swimming, even if it feels like you are treading water and going nowhere. It’s the only way to get where you wish to go.
Even Bad Things Work Out
If you read my last post, you know that my recent trip to west Texas was not that great. It was a seven day adventure that produced one single image, the one seen above. Many things went wrong, but when you have lemons, you make lemonade. It’s not the best, but I learned from my mistakes. Don’t trust your equipment. Make sure it’s working properly before setting out. Shoot even if it’s cloudy. The clouds were passing through but you can’t see it in the image. Make sure the foreground shots are sharply focused and properly exposed. This is a composite of around 300 images shot throughout the night. The foreground was shot during the blue hour and blended with the stack of star images to create this star trail photograph. I didn’t think I had anything to work with and the whole trip was a wasted effort because the interval time between shots was too long. The camera wasn’t set properly and I didn’t realize it until the next day when I got a chance to look at the images. When I got home, I edited the images and stacked them anyway not expecting it to look good at all. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected. It’s not perfect by any means but I like it enough to feel satisfied. I had hoped for so much more but accepted so much less. I hope to do better next time. Just keep trying. It’s bound to fall into place at some point. Be happy with your achievements, even if it didn’t hit the mark. You can try again, and again if necessary. I will keep trying. When I finally reach my mark, I think I shall raise the bar so that I am continuously challenged. Tonight is supposed to be clear and cold with the new moon in less than a week so I think I will go out and try again. It’s not the truly dark skies of Big Bend here in the east Texas piney woods, but it’s just outside my back door and it’s dark enough. Thanks for visiting. Just keep swimming.
Knock,Knock, who’s there?
Work hard, play hard. You never know what will come knocking.
Chasing clear, dark skies filled with stars is what I love to do more than anything else. It’s getting harder and harder as light pollution encroaches into all but the most remote and least populated areas of the United States. More than half of this country is so bathed in light that few people have ever seen this magic. The skies are so filled with stars that it gives you goose bumps to think of all that is out there. I do not believe we are alone. I wish every one could see this at least once in their lives. It kind of puts all things into perspective. Science tells us there are billions of galaxies in the universe. Each one contains billions of stars and each star has planets and moons. We are but one tiny light in the glitter that is strewn across the heavens each night.
This adventure began on a Thursday morning, one week before Thanksgiving. My fellow photographer and I drove from east Texas to Lake Amistad Recreational Area just west of Del Rio on the first day. For those who don’t know, that’s a really long way, around 400 miles. It was windy and cold at our primitive campsite in Governors Landing. There is no electricity or water, only a picnic table with a ramada, which is a roof structure, a fire ring and a cleared area for a tent. I was glad I had brought 2 tents, one large and one small. The smaller tent says it sleeps four but I just don’t see that. The area cleared for tents in our campsite was really tiny, not even big enough for the small tent without crowding the cactus and a sheer drop off. Lake Amistad is one of the most beautiful lakes in Texas. It’s limestone cliffs, steep drop offs, and brilliant turquoise waters are breath-taking. The bridge across the reservoir is terrifying, at least for me it is. I hate bridges with a passion. It’s two lanes across an expanse that goes on forever and hovers at least a couple of hundred feet above the water. To the left is Mexico, just a stone’s throw away. To the right it drops off into deep blue water with lots of little coves that can only be reached by boat. It is one of the most pristine waters I know of in Texas. I hadn’t felt well that morning but had pushed on. Now I felt really sick. I had driven a long way and to be honest I was glad it was 100% cloud cover that night. No possibility of photographing anything tonight. I was more than happy to crawl into my sleeping bag and fall asleep instead of spending the night outside trying to capture the bridge with the stars as background. Yes, I have waited some time to get those images. I have planned, thought and timed the moon phases. I come through here every time I got west but have never stayed here. This was the first opportunity I had to make that happen and I simply wanted to crash. The wind blew so hard that night I thought the tent would cave in sending us down the slope and into the water. I didn’t care. I just rolled over and hoped for the best. The next morning, we broke camp and with a bit of coffee and tortilla with egg and cheese, we packed it up, and pushed on.
We reached Presidio, Texas, another300 miles west, at around noon. I needed gas as there is no gas in the park. I have two five gallon external Jerry cans for extra fuel. I needed ice and something for a really bad cold or flu. We made our purchases, drove eleven miles to where the black top ends and began the real adventure part of our journey. I wanted to make it to the ranger station by 4:00 pm. I drive slow on this road, rarely above twenty miles an hour. “Knock, Knock, who’s there.. a flat tire… really? Yes, a flat tire. The road into the park is 26 miles of gravel, plagued with sharp rocks, especially after it has been graded. I was told that the park has a rash of flats every time they grade the road because the rocks are sharpened. There was a huge puncture in the tread and the tire went down in a matter of seconds. I could hear the “hiss, hiss, hiss” as we rolled along. The spare tire is on the back gate so it’s easy to access. However, the jack and the tools are under the cargo area so we had to unload most of the gear. A ranger drove by, asked if we were ok and told us that the station has a garage and might be able to fix the flat. That’s great I thought. I wont have to drive the two and a half hours back into Presidio. Big Bend Ranch State Park is no place to be without a spare. They actually recommend two. Even on the main road, it could be hours before someone comes by to offer assistance. We made it to the station before it closed and checked in. We drove the short distance to our campsite. It was already getting dark by the time we got the tent up. I didn’t feel like eating so I downed some Nyquil and turned in. It was cloudy, which makes for beautiful sunsets, but not for stars. I was hoping it would clear toward the dawn, maybe around one or two. I got up a couple of times, but it really wasn’t the greatest set up for trails. You must have absolutely clear skies or you won’t be able to stack the images. As the clouds move, they obscure the stars so what you end up with is a picture of blurred clouds and very few stars. What the heck, I needed the sleep anyway. Fever and chills. I thought I would freeze to death.
A cold front had blown through during the night but the cloud cover didn’t lift until after sunrise. Coffee, yes coffee. It takes a long time to make coffee in a old time percolator on a coleman stove. The wind was whipping all around us and that didn’t speed up the process. A bite of something to keep my stomach from growling and off to the ranger station to see about the tire. The rangers were awesome. We pulled around to the maintenance area and sure enough there was a full blown tire shop. Well, not tires, but full repair equipment. I was impressed. They must deal with a lot of flats. Knock, Knock…”you need a new tire”. “I can patch it, and it will work for a bit, but do not drive on the highway with it” admonished the ranger. If it wasn’t safe for the highway, it wasn’t safe for the many four wheel drive, high clearance back roads in the park. That’s not a good place to get stranded. So, we went to Presidio. Two and a half hours out and two and a half hours back. I went to the only two tire shops in town and neither one had a tire that matched what I had on the jeep. Oh well, it’s back to the ranch and hope for the best. I didn’t come all this way for nothing and I definitely wasn’t about to make the drive all the way back to Alpine and miss the first clear night. I had a spare that seemed to be holding air for the time being but if I had another flat, I would be forced to pack up and leave. No back roads this trip.
As we drove the long gravel road back into the park, we made note of rock formations that made a good back ground for star trails. Seemed like we stopped a million times to check the compass just to make sure that our composition was due North. You must have the north star, Polaris, in the middle for perfect trails. We chose a good sized wash that we could pull into for the night and headed back to camp. Dinner was eaten early and with the bare minimum of stuff for the night, we headed back down the road. The wash was right where we left it. Four wheel drive just in case I get stuck and off into the fine gravel left behind by swift moving water. I didn’t go far, as that would have been just stupid. A flash flood can come without warning at any time. It was perfect. Just off the road enough to be safe. I set up the shoot using low level LED lighting for the foreground and fired off a few shots. I wasn’t sure it was going to be enough light, but with a nice long exposure, the rocks came to life. All right, something went well for a change. I took eight images and two dark frames for noise. I set up the intervelometer on my Nikon D800 to go all night and placed my sand bags against the tripod for stability in the wind. I was all set. I tripped the shutter and climbed into the back of my jeep. It was cold and I ran the heater for a bit before settling down into my sleeping bag. I dreamed of cougars on the windshield and awoke to windows that were so fogged up I couldn’t see outside. For once at least, I was fairly warm and fell back asleep. Something kept nagging at me though and in the wee hours, I climbed out to see what was going on. Moisture had come with the cooling of the night and I worried about my camera. I could no longer hear the shutter clicking away so I went to get it. Yep, it was all fogged up. I grabbed both cameras, mine and my partner’s, leaving everything else, and climbed back into the jeep. I cranked it up and turned on the air. The A/C with the temp turned up so it won’t leave condensation inside the camera. A slow warm up of you will. I wondered just how many images it had taken before things went south, but that would have to wait for morning. Both batteries were dead and I just wanted to go back to sleep.
The ride back to camp the next morning was uneventful. I made coffee, got some breakfast and had a look around. There is nothing for miles and miles unless you head down the road to the ranger station. It lies in the middle of the park. There are fifty one campsites in 300,000 acres so you don’t have neighbors Everywhere you look, there is beauty. Mountains, valleys and sky. It’s peaceful and quiet. The only sounds are the birds in the morning and the coyotes at night. I know it won’t stay that way forever though. With time, more people will learn of this place and come. I hope they never have electricity as that will bring poles and lights. This is a designated international dark sky park. One of the few places where you can still see the stars and I would like to preserve that. You cannot have a generator in the park either so I had to charge all the camera batteries in the jeep. It took all day to charge three batteries and was a total pain. You can’t park in the campsite. You have to leave your vehicle about one hundred fifty yards away. I walked back to the jeep many times to check on the progress. At least I got in some exercise. With the batteries charged, I got a chance to look at the pictures. Knock, Knock. The intervelometer malfunctioned and you got nothing. At least nothing you can use. The time between the frames was over a minute long. What the heck? Another night with no usable images. I was not winning this game at all.
Feeling defeated, plagued by bad luck and freezing my tail off even before sunset, I decided to use up what little firewood I had managed to bring with me and build a fire. The low that night was in the mid thirties. It was clear and crisp so I set up a shoot with what I had to work with. It was only the grasslands, no mountains, no trees, nothing more than short creosote bush. I took a few frames for the foreground and settled into a manual shoot. That means you have thirty seconds to do what you need to do and then you have to push the button again to start another exposure. I use a wireless remote so it’s not like a tether to the camera but you still have to pay attention. I cooked dinner, poured a glass of wine and I settled down next to the fire. It was hypnotic. Listening for the click of the shutter, watching the flames dance in the wind, looking up to a sky so filled with stars that it takes your breath away was mesmerizing. I can think of no finer way to spend the night. I had on enough clothes to barely fit into my sleeping bag with the hoodie part pulled over my head. Gloves on my hands, the special ones my sister knitted for me with the finger tips out so I can feel the buttons on my camera. The firewood was within reach, the remote was on my left wrist and my wine was to the right on a small table. Life was good.
I had set out to create colorful star trails. You have to shoot a lot more frames than normal so you can use a lower ISO. The best images I have seen take about six hours of thirty to forty second exposures blended together with the foreground images. Somewhere between the fire and the wine, I forgot to push the button. I think I got about three hours worth, so half way. The next day, rain moved in and we had to spend the day in the tent. I still had battery on the lap top so I downloaded the images and looked through them briefly. I did a bunch of sudoku and wished the rain would end. It did finally in time for dinner. Our last night in the Bend. Hopefully, the tent would dry before too late in the morning, we needed to get an early start home. The rain stopped but the cloud cover hung on so another wasted night with no images. The next morning we were blessed with a beautiful sunrise. We took the time to fire off a few frames and began to dismantle our home away from home. It takes a lot of stuff to camp off grid like this, but we made short work of it and were headed back down the road to Presidio by mid-morning.
The plan was to head north out of Predisio up to Marfa and cut east on Hwy 90 to Alpine. I still had to address the spare tire. I could gamble, and just go home. If I didn’t have another flat it could wait until then. The farther you drive east, the more populated it becomes and the chances of getting another flat are really not that bad on the highway. After all, I had just had the tires checked out before the trip and they were in good shape. Heck the spare had never even been on the ground. Knock, Knock. Oh crap, another flat. Really? Here? Now? Again we unloaded the jeep to get to the tools to change the flat. Thank God the spare was still holding air. We changed the tire and prayed we would make it the rest of the way down this unforgiving gravel road. I went back to the tire shop I had been to before and purchased four, new, ten ply tires. With two of my tires ruined by puncture, it was all I could do. I would have liked to have taken the two good tires home with me for future spares, but there was no room in the jeep. I put my spare back on the gate and wished I had a roof rack. It was too late to make our next camping reservation at Garner State Park so we headed off to Alpine to sleep in a motel. A hot shower and a bed sounded good to me. We had about five hundred miles to cover the next day if we wanted to be home for Thanksgiving.
Early, early, not even sure the motel lobby is open for coffee, early I made my way downstairs. They didn’t have a room on the first floor and the lobby was halfway around the building. The wind howled and it was cold. The lobby was indeed open and I had a nice conversation with a patron about how this area is a place to really, really get away from everything. I had to agree with him. I had a quick fill of my coffee mug, a bagel with cream cheese for later and was loaded up well before sunrise. We left in the dark. I had stopped in Alpine because I feared the deer on the highway at night. Hwy 90 is very, very rural until you reach San Antonio and the surrounding land has an abundance of deer and other wildlife. The sheer number of dead deer to be seen along the way is testament to that. Once, I counted seventeen dead deer on a five mile stretch of this highway. It was good to be on our way home. It’s a double edged sword. On the one hand, I love the remote wilderness of west Texas but I also love my home in the east Texas piney woods. KNOCK, KNOCK What the heck is that in the road?????? Thank goodness it was more on the other side than on my side and I easily swerved to miss it. I came to a stop and made an immediate u-turn to see what it was. There was nothing. No evidence of it at all. No movement in the grass to indicate an animal trying to get away. We looked at each other and said “that was an elk wasn’t it?” A great big bull elk with a full rack just standing in the middle of the highway. Yep, that’s what I saw. I knew the deer were big and there were a lot of them in this area but I never thought I would see an elk. Well, no photo of that either, but no damage done except for a bit of jostled cargo in the back. Now it’s on to civilization. I can’t wait to return to the park. In the spring, yes, in March when the moon is new and the Milky Way returns to the night sky.
I know this was a long read and I thank you for reading to the end. You have to roll with the punches, or Knock, Knocks, if you will. Chasing the stars is full of uncertainty as is life. You just have to keep going and trying. I’ll keep chasing my dreams and you do the same. Thanks for visiting.
Bit Off More Than I Can Chew?
The world of website building is about to kick my tail. Yes, I looked up all the terms I didn’t know. I searched and I read. I now know all about pages, posts, plugins and widgets. I know about themes and page builders. My greatest take-away from all of this researching is that this is not for those with limited funds. Yes, you can go the free route, as I have done so far, which does not get you much in the way of a “real” website. I know what i want it look like and I know how I want it function. I want to be able to showcase my images for purchase. I want my portrait clients to be able to review their images and give me feed-back, or at least that’s the plan when I get a client. I’ve done all this planning. I’ve done lots of dreaming. I’ve done all the research. Have I traveled very far on this road of enlightenment? Maybe. Maybe not, but I am no longer at the beginning and that’s what counts. Life is a constant struggle. It’s how we tackle those problems that matters. It’s the “my glass is half full vs my glass is half empty” mindset that determines the outcome. Positive attitude, positive life. Negative attitude, negative life. I prefer the former. It’s the only thing that keeps me going. The belief that dreams do come true if you persist in the quest. I haven’t given up, I just haven’t gone very far yet. I will continue to put one foot in front of the other with a smile on my face and a song in my heart knowing that if I don’t give up I will accomplish my goal. I hope you find encouragement in my words to continue pursuing your dreams. Without dreams, we are hopeless as a people. It is the dreams of others that have given us the comforts of life we take for granted every day. What if they had given up? Just keep swimming and I will too. Thanks for visiting.