Bachelor Bulls on Winter Range

Every year a group of bull elk move down out of the foothills near my hometown into an area that is viewable even from Interstate 90.  They spend several weeks in the area, making for a number of great photo opportunities.  I spent some time Friday afternoon and Sunday morning photographing them.  Here a few images from those encounters.

 

The Majesty of Creation

I spent some time over Christmas break reflecting on life, my teaching career, my passion for photography, where I live, and the gift God gave me for seeing and capturing His creation.  I am so thankful for His many blessings and realize how fortunate I am to have time to travel through many of the more visually stunning locations in His creation.  To stand and absorb the granduer of a sweeping vista punctuated by massive rocky peaks, a cloak of evergreen forest, and cascading frothy torrents of white gives pause as it bears testimony to His intricate design.  To believe that such took place by chance requires more faith than I can muster. 

The following images, some repeats from last year, provide just a glimpse of God's greatness.  They are some of my recent favorites.

A Few of My Favorites

It's been a long fall, and sadly, with the drawn out passing of my grandmother and other important family issues, my blogging and other social networking has taken a backseat on my priority list.  My website needs updating, my blog needs to be maintained, and my Facebook pages need to be refreshed.  I'll be working on those things over the next several days as Christmas Break has finally arrived.  I'll start here on the blog by highlighting some of my favorites from this year's crop of portraits.  I continue to watch my images evolve as I learn new techniques and purchase new equipment.  I'm quite pleased with most of my work this year.

Because I do field a number of questions in person and through email, etc about my work flow, I'll outline a bit of that here.  I'll start by saying, though, that I spend as little time as possible in front of the computer.  If it's not done right through the camera, 99% of the time it ends up in the recycle bin.  I shoot RAW exclusively for all of my images and process those RAW files using Adobe Lightroom.  Most of the images you see below are simply extracted jpegs straight from Lightroom with no further image manipulation of any kind.  The senior portrait representatives have been further airbrushed for skin blemishes using Portrait Professional.  Otherwise, I work extremely hard to control lighting where I'm shooting so I do not have to spend much time in front of the computer.

Before you begin looking, though, I'd like to ask for honest comments.  It seems that a blog becomes more of a showcase or bragging post, but I truly value any and all constructive comments.  I have been mentoring a couple of friends in their journeys as budding photographers and sometimes wish I had others who might offer me similar help, advise, criticism, etc.  As both a classroom teacher and professional photographer, I simply do not have the time to immerse myself in other photo blogs and networking sites.  I've got to get those papers graded sometime!  Therefore, I'd love to hear any and all thoughts, both positive and negative.