Postcard from Las Vegas

For me, Las Vegas is good for two things these days...drinking Manhattans and taking night photographs. I stopped gambling years ago and there are very few floor shows that interest me. So, I would rather sit with a good friend and drink a quality Manhattan and catch up. 

Now, I am fussy about Manhattans as I make the best one ever found on the planet. I seldom order them at bars or restaurants because few bartenders know how to do it right. But, I found a couple of places in Vegas that do one heck of a good job. 

All this is to say that I am worn out with this city that never sleeps. I have been here countless times, mostly for trade shows, so there is not much I have not seen. And I always feel like someone is trying to lift my wallet to get more money out of me. So, I never go unless absolutely necessary.

But, as for photography, I love wandering up and down Las Vegas Blvd at night photographing the amazing sites that make up this unique city. You may have seen some of my other night photos here before. I've also had some fun photographing on old Fremont Street with my camera in the day. But night, is still my favorite time to shoot.

Fortunately, I use one of the best lenses on the market for anti-shake so I can shoot in low light without image blur...not always true, but most of the time it works. Of course I could use a tripod, but that is quite a challenge on busy Las Vegas Blvd. But, we do what we must to get the quality photo.

This, of course, is Caesar's Palace, an older facility that has been remodeled a few times to stay up with some of the new spectacular casinos like, Paris, New York New York, the Bellagio, Venice and others. This photo is a great example of a photo has a foreground, middle ground, and background. Your eye moves smoothly from each section to the next, just like it is supposed to. Having the red underwater lights in the very front of the photo is the first thing your eye seeks, and from there it is an easy flow to throughout the entire image. 

Sorry for the photo lesson here...I do that sometimes.  So best to just sit back and enjoy this night shot of a Las Vegas landmark. Better yet, sip on a Manhattan and see how the photo gets even better.   

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

 

Postcard from Zion

Two months ago, I published a blog here that showed a photo I took at the Court of the Patriarchs in Zion National Park. In that blog, I explained how most of the sunrise was blocked by a bank of clouds and my photo only had one little section of the mountain lit by the sun.

Well, while waiting for the super sunrise that never came at the Court of the Patriarchs, I glanced off to the left and saw another mountain that did get a bit more of light…and that is what you see here. I swung my camera around and used my longest lens setting to capture this photo. Also managed to capture a little Autumn foliage that helps enhance the overall image. So while I didn’t capture the image I really wanted at the Patriarchs (although what I did get was pretty good), I managed to get a nice bonus image that cold November morning.

Like the image from two months ago, I took five quick images in succession at different exposures and blended the best of them into one image using the Exposure Fusion method.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Oxford

This image laid buried for seven years among many I shot on a trip to Europe. It is the first time it has been seen by anyone, other than myself. This is the entrance to the Keble College Chapel. Keble is one of 38 colleges that comprise Oxford University. It is also one of the newer colleges, having only opened its doors in 1870.

You see, Oxford is a very old university, founded perhaps in 1096 (no one is sure of the exact date). It is the second oldest surviving university (the University of Paris is #1). The university really kicked into high gear around 1167 when King Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. In 1209, after many disagreements between scholars and city residents, many academics moved further north to found Cambridge University.

So, looking at the dates, you can see Keble’s founding in 1870 is quite new. And, in fact, there are several newer colleges than Keble…and there is actually a college in Oxford called “New College.” It can’t be called really new as it was founded in 1379…but it is still called New College. You had to be there…

Of course, it was the light coming through the windows that caught my attention. It’s a lovely sight and I often wonder if the architect planned it this way to capture the afternoon light…the way the light leads you right to the chapel doors...and the patterns of light and shadow is just wonderful.

As if you could not guess, the original image was shot on film…slide film to be exact. Over time, you will see more and more of my best images from the days of film.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Along the Merced River

Rivers hardly ever run in a straight line.
Rivers are willing to take ten thousand meanders
and enjoy every one
and grow from every one.
When they leave a meander,
they are always more
than when they entered it.
When rivers meet an obstacle,
they do not try to run over it.
They merely go around
but they always get to the other side.
Rivers accept things as they are,
conform to the shape they find the world in,
yet nothing changes things more than rivers.
Rivers move even mountains into the sea.
Rivers hardly ever are in a hurry
yet is there anything more likely
to reach the point it sets out for
than a river?

(James Dillet Freeman, Rivers)

Postcard from Tucson

Yes, it’s that time of year in the Sonoran Desert…when cactus varieties of all kinds start to bloom. It’s wonderful to walk on desert trails and see the cacti in full bloom. The colors are bright and vivid and it still is a great site for me to enjoy.

Three years ago I came here, never having seen a cactus in bloom. I was used to the spring flowers of the northern climes…daffodils, petunias, snapdragons, pansies, and the unforgettable iris, just to name a few.  And we do have some of those here.

But seeing the desert in bloom for the first time is an unforgettable experience…I still enjoy it even after three years. Those who know me know that I understand very little about horticulture or the names of plants. But, I believe this is a small barrel cactus with multiple blooms. Please correct me if I got it wrong.

Soon, the biggest of them all, the Saguaro cactus, will start to bloom. Definitely a site worth seeing, especially on my side of town where there are hundreds, if not thousands on the hillsides all around me.

April is not a bad time to come to Tucson, if you are in the mood.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from a Rain Forest

I have a few photos, not many, but a few, that I don’t remember taking or where exactly I was when I photographed the scene. All I know for sure is that it is a small creek on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

No doubt I was inside the borders of the Olympic National Park. The west side of the Olympic Range faces the ocean and catches all the storms that come in off of the Pacific. Of course, this is where the rain forests are located as the area gets 140-170 inches of rain per year. That’s a lot of rain! It’s the wettest part of the continental United States. Only the island of Kauai in Hawaii gets more rain than here.

Because this is a temperate rainforest, as opposed to a tropical one like the Amazon Rainforest in South America, it is dominated by dense coniferous timber, including Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Coast Douglas-Fir and Western Red Cedar and mosses that coat the bark of these trees and even drip down from their branches in green, moist tendrils.

There are plenty of lovely hiking trails in this area, but be prepared to get wet…even on the rare sunny day. When I hiked these trails, the woods were filled with impromptu lakes overflowing streams and lots and lots of mud…and it was a sunny day. Still, I am glad I did get to hike here and see it all for myself as it is certainly the exact opposite of where I live now.

Oh…just for your information, the eastern part of the National Park, the part separated from the west by the Olympic Mountains, only gets about 16” of rain per year. What a huge difference a mountain range can make.   

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Devil’s Garden

About 17 miles down Hole-in-the-Rock Road is a small area of interesting rocks known as Devil’s Garden. Now, if you are wondering where Hole-in-the-Rock road is located, it is just east of the town of Escalante along the famous Utah Highway 12, so often mentioned here before…and goes 62 miles south the northern shores of Lake Powell.

The road is well known to backpackers and photographers, but not to many other people. It is not a well traveled road as all 62 miles of it are unpaved and a bit rough. Lots of washboard spots for drainage and lots of mud after a rain. Of course, it is covered in snow during the winter.

If you wonder where it got its name, you will find that answer down at the end…a hole in the rock that looks out over the lake. The road was built by Mormon settlers in the area. It originally went down into Glen Canyon, but since Lake Powell now occupies that space, the last 300 feet of the road are underwater. The road itself has little scenery to recommend it to most folks, but there are a few spectacular places along the route that make it worth doing.

My friend and fellow photographer Dave Forster and I headed down that road on our last trip to southern Utah. Our destination was Dance Hall Rock, about 40 miles down the road. We were about halfway there when we ran into a ranger. He told us we would never make it all the way as there was lots of mud ahead because of a rain and snow storm two days earlier. He suggested a stop at Devil’s Garden on our way back to Highway 12.

Dave had been there once before, but it was new to me. So we headed back and took the side road into Devil’s Garden. It is an interesting collection of large eroded rocks, quite similar to Goblin Valley with fewer formations on a bigger scale. There is a picnic area, a short loop path and two interesting arches. The photo above is one of them. That is Dave in the photo to help give scale to the size of the rock formations…and yes, that is snow on the ground and on top of the arch.

It was an interesting place and I have a few more photos of the area I will share in future. We didn’t spent much time there as we decided to head back west along Highway 12 in order to be in Zion National Park by sunset.

And while I was glad to see this Devil’s Garden (there is another place by that name in Arches National Park, shared here before), we both were disappointed we did not get to make it to Dancehall Rock. There was a special photo opportunity there we both badly wanted to make. Hopefully one day in the future.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Leavenworth

Bavaria in Washington

Not only have I written before about this little Bavarian-style town in Washington, but I have also showed you this photo before(a few years ago)…except that I made it better…much better. Sometimes I look back at photos I did a few years ago and wonder what was I thinking.

But no artist should beat himself up too much over past work. We grow, we change, and we get better. We learn new tricks, acquire new tools, and make our work better. While a painter or sculptor cannot go back and update past work (other than a touch-up here or there), a photographer can…even a photographer in the age of the darkroom. We can make improvements to past works, and I have routinely done so. And in a few years, I will probably come back to this one and make it better.

For those of you not familiar with Leavenworth, it is a Bavarian-style town on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. Everything, including McDonalds and Starbucks must be done in a Bavarian Style. In the stores, employees wear Bavarian-style clothing…and of course, there are Bavarian and not-so-Bavarian festivals all year long. My favorite, of course, being Oktoberfest.

If you haven’t figured it out already, Leavenworth is a tourist town. People come from all over the world to visit and partake in this unique atmosphere. If you like German food, you will find some good restaurants here to satisfy your cravings. Pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and all the other kinds of food you find in the outside world are also abundantly available.

Every weekend during late Spring, Summer, and Fall, you will find an art show in the downtown park. I did that show for a few years, off and on, when I wasn’t doing shows in other West Coast cities. I have fond memories of this little town in the mountains, and I must say, I do miss it. But, that was from a different chapter in my life.  

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.

Postcard from Red Cliffs

About 12 miles north of St. George, Utah and around 30 miles west of Zion National Park, lies a protected wilderness area known as Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. It is well know to locals who frequent the area to hike, picnic and camp out…but not so well known to the rest of the world.

On my last trip to Zion, I took a side trip to this lovely spot in the desert and found a few interesting places to photograph. I hiked into the wilderness area along the Red Reef Trail. It was here that I found this lovely scene of a cascade flowing from one quiet pool above, into another quiet pool below the falls.

The trail first leads you along Quail Creek to the lower pool…then it goes up on top of the rock to give you this elevated view. While the falls are lovely, the rock walls and their contours have an almost surrealistic appearance, making the scene quite unique. What I found out later is there is a water-carved cave underneath where I am standing.

From here, the trail continues on to a beautiful slot canyon that I will show here soon. I could only hike into it so far as it had rained a couple days before I got here, so Quail Creek was pretty high.  Often there is no water in the creek and one can hike through the canyons where the creek usually flows. I hope I can do that someday. Again, this is one of those areas where you have to watch the weather forecasts to make sure you don’t get caught in a flash flood.

So if you make a trip to Zion and have the time, be sure and visit this lovely, relatively unknown spot in the Utah desert. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

If you subscribe to this blog by e-mail and wish to purchase a print or send a free e-mail greeting card using this image, click this link to the main Postcard Blog Site. Don’t forget, e-mail greeting cards are free.