Best Photos of 2019
Posted: November 03
At the end of each calendar year I go
through the photos I have taken during the year to identify
those I think are my best efforts.
If you would like to view the Best Photos of the Year
from previous years, click
here.
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Casa Budde West Construction
Posted: October 29
A blast from the past!
I was looking through some
stuff and I ran across some photos that were taken
during the early days of Casa Budde West. I thought some
of you who have visited might enjoy these.
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Rocky Mountain National Park
Posted: September 13
Rick Scheussler and I drove back through Rocky Mountain
National Park on the way back to St. Louis.
We spent most of one day driving from the west entrance
near Grand Lake to the east entrance near Estes Park. We
did not do any hikes on any of the many trails leading
into the backcountry. There were NO clouds and thus the
photos presented here aren't very good in my opinion.
Short of going into the backcountry, I don't think Rocky
Mountain National Park presents much in the way of nice
photographic opportunities. Its vistas are much TOO VAST
to ever be captured in a single photo composition.
Individual peaks are not in and of themselves very
photogenic either.
Color me spoiled by the Tetons!
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Grand Teton National Park
Posted: September 11
Rick Schuessler and I visited the Pilgrim Creek area for
a morning shoot.
As you can see from the above photo, the clouds were low
lying this morning and probably covered a bit more of
the peaks than would make for a more ideal photo
composition.
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Craters of the Moon National Preserve
Posted: August 30
These are the other photos I took while visiting Craters
of the Moon National Preserve.
I arrived in the afternoon when the skies were pretty
bright. I drove the Loop Road mainly looking for a
location to return to for my Milky Way shoot. I took
some other photos as well. The next morning with a bit
better lighting conditions and a few clouds I drove the
loop again for some more photos.
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Craters of the Moon National Preserve
Posted: August 29
I went to Craters of the Moon National Monument yesterday
with the primary objective of taking Milky Way photos.
Craters is designated as a "dark sky" area and I thought
a change of venue from the Swan Valley old schoolhouse
was in order as well. This was very much a learning
experience for me.
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Big Holes
Posted: August 25
I went on a Jeep ride with my good friend Rodney Henry
into the upper reaches of the Big Hole mountain range
on the west side of Teton Valley. We drove some very
rugged roads all the way to the top of the highest peaks
in the range. Cell towers are located on these peaks. |
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Wash U Swim Team Mini Reunion
Posted: August 25
Over this past weekend, I hosted a mini Wash U Swim Team
Reunion here at Casa Budde West.
Pictured above L-R: Don McIntosh (Middlebury, VT), Bruce
Canaga (Vienna, VA), Ted Roche (Salt Lake City UT) and
yours truly. This picture was taken on top of Fred's
Mountain. No flowers were harmed in taking this photo.
During the visit we took a number of hikes in the area,
ate some fantastic food but mostly enjoyed each other's
company. During this too short visit, a great time was
had by all. |
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Grand Teton National Park
Posted: August 20
I dropped Bruce Canaga off at the Jackson airport around
9:30 AM. I brought my camera gear along but there were
no clouds in the sky. I debated whether or not to take a
drive into the Park and decided why not!
I am so glad that I did as the clouds, nice clouds,
began to appear. I wanted to take photos that were not
the standard photos so I drove the Pacific Creek and
Pilgrim Creek Roads and worked compositions looking back
at the Tetons with various foreground elements. |
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Bluegrass Festival
Posted: August 12
This past weekend was the 32nd Annual Targhee Bluegrass
Music Festival. Unlike last year, the weather was nice
and cool.
As usual, the music was great and the crowds large. |
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Blacktail Ponds Overlook
Posted: August 03
I went over to the Park this morning to meet up with
some other members of the Teton Photography Club for a
sunrise shoot. Got up at 4:45 AM. Ugh!
The sunrise conditions weren't all that great but it was
a nice opportunity to get to know some other folks. |
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Music on Main
Posted: August 01
The weather was not the best this evening (rainy at
times with a bit of lightning) but in spite of that it
was overall a great evening. I got a chance to talk to a
number of friends, some whom I had not seen in awhile.
Always good to see friends.
The musical guest was Pinky and the Floyd obviously a
Pink Floyd cover band. They were very good. |
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This is Pretty Amazing
Posted: July 25
My friend Mike Margulus passed this link along. It links
to a YouTube video which displays the life cycle of
various flowers in a time lapse manner. It is fairly
long (~ 5 minutes) but is a very beautiful video. |
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Music On Main
Posted: July 25
Nice night for music. The Young Dubliners were the
musical guest.
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Music On Main
Posted: July 18
Nice night for music.
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Targhee Fest
Posted: July 14
The weather turned out to be no where near as hot as
predicted. I set my sun tent up in the mostly shady area
and was quite comfortable all weekend long.
Targhee Fest had an outstanding lineup of performers
this year. Some of my favorites were Commonheart, Taj
Mahal, Los Lobos, Larkin Poe, Galactic, The Motet and
of course, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue. |
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Music On Main
Posted: July 11
There was quite a large crowd this evening. The first
performers were a very, very good group of young
musicians from Teton Valley. The featured performer was
Carrie Rodriguez whom I have seen perform before at
Targhee Fest. |
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Driggs Fireworks
Posted: July 04
DUMB LUCK. I often say that my life has been governed by
Dumb Luck. Well proven correct once again.
For several days prior to the Fourth, I scoured Driggs
to attempt to find the location of the launch of this
year's fireworks so that I could plan where I wanted to
set up my camera to take photos. Try as I could, I could
not find the location. I was told by someone in the City
of Driggs office that it was somewhere around the
airport. Tried again but did not find it.
Ok so night of the fireworks I went to a location that
would give me a clear sight line to the airport and the
surrounding areas. Set up my camera on my tripod waiting
for the show to begin. Never on time I waited.
All of a sudden the show started. Lo and behold, my
vantage point was no more than 100 yards from the
location of the launch. Can you say DUMB LUCK? |
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Swan Valley
Posted: July 02
I took an overnight trip down to Swan Valley to take
Milky Way and sunrise photos. As usual, the Milky Way
photos were somewhat of a disappointment.
However, the sunrise and the clouds were phenomenal! |
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Music on Main
Posted: June 27
Tonight was my first Music on Main of the season. Last
week it was too cold and I did not stay long enough to
take any photos.
It was not an overly target rich environment this
evening so I only have a few photos to offer here. |
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Trail Creek Pass
Posted: June 18
I had lunch in Ketchum Idaho... a great club sandwich!
It had been many years since I had been through Ketchum.
I had forgotten how lovely a location it was located in
as it is surrounded by mountains.
From Ketchum, I drove north over Trail Creek Pass.
It was a very pretty drive. The road at its highest
elevations was an unimproved road but seemed to have
been recently bladed and was quite nice. It was
advertised as "one way with pullouts". This drive is
definitely do-again-able! |
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Craters of the Moon National Preserve
Posted: June 17
I was not expecting much in the way of photography
options here but boy was I surprised!
I arrived in the late afternoon and therefore the
lighting conditions were pretty nice. I was also greeted
by some fairly nice clouds to further improve the
compositions.
I do plan to return in the future. This area is also
designated as a "dark sky" area so I may time my return
to coincide with a new moon.
If you want to more about this National Preserve,
click here. |
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Camas National Wildlife Area
Posted: June 05
I visited the Camas National Wildlife Area this
afternoon. The various ponds were very full and the
mosquitoes were in abundance.
These photos were taken handheld with my Tamron
150-600mm lens and they were heavily cropped for
presentation here.
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About Camas National Wildlife Area - |
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Gros Ventre
Posted: June 02
After dropping the Odenwald's off at the airport, I did
some photography up the Gros Ventre canyon.
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Grand Teton National Park
Posted: May 31
Decided to do some photography while Steve,
Kathy & Matt rode bicycles in the park.
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Grand Teton National Park
Posted: May 25
Went over to Jackson for the Old West Parade and then on
to the park to take some photos of often taken subjects
with a significant amount of snow in the mountains. The
clouds were not the most cooperative however. |
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Capital Valley
Posted: May 21
Since the weather had been so funky on my first drive
through the La Sal Mountains, I decided to redo the
second half of the drive to try to capture some better
photos looking down into Capital Valley.
I had planned to stay in the Moab area at least another
couple of days but when I woke up Wednesday and looked
out the window, I decided to leave Moab and head on to
Driggs. |
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Arches National Park
Posted: May 20
Today was spent in Arches National Park. Again the
weather was not the most cooperative.
- About Arches
National Park -
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La Sal Mountains
Posted: May 19
Today I drove the La Sal Mountain Loop Road. I had not
done that loop since the time I visited Moab with Don
McIntosh and Vinnie many years ago. The weather was not
overly conducive to top notch photography but you works
with what you got!
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About La Sal Mountains - |
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Utah Highway 128
Posted: May 18
This was the first time that I had driven the whole of
Highway 128. I started at the north end of Highway 128
at Interstate
70. It follows the Colorado River and tees into Utah
Highway 191 at Moab.
- About
Utah Highway 128 -
Video of the
drive |
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Teton Photography Club
Posted: February 20
I recently joined the Teton Photography Club which is
based in Jackson WY. The
February monthly meeting will
feature photos from a number of members, The photo above
is my submission for this event. Those photographers who
were not able to attend in person were asked to present
a short video describing the photo. What follows is the
transcript of my video.
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Heaston Visit - Little Rock
Posted: February 05
This past weekend I visited my good friends Bill
and Jane Heaston in Little Rock AR.
It was a fantastic weekend filled
with basketball, Super Bowl, old friends, new friends,
many laughs and copious quantities of food.
This was also the first time I met Brecon, their one
year old Corgi. Quite the people dog.
The photo above is of Little Rock's Central High
School... a national landmark. This is the first school
integrated in 1957. These students became known as the
Little Rock Nine.
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Blood Moon
Posted: January 25
We had a wonderful "Blood Moon" on January 20.
I had planned to go to Forest Park
in order to get some foreground interest in the shot.
As I came out of my front door and looked up in the sky,
I realized that the moon was too high in the sky to get
a shot with any foreground interest so I set up my
tripod in my driveway. It was quite cold out but I was
dressed for that. I was out there for about 45 minutes
taking photos.
As you can see from the photo above, I am not very
skilled at obtaining a sharp focus on celestial objects.
If you follow this blog, last summer's Milky Way photos
also highlighted this weakness as well.
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