Thanks, Patti, for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. Nature – now that’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart! What a broad category! Where do I begin?
Patti may be a city girl, but I’m a wilderness woman, and my whole life revolves around nature. From the mountains
Denali
to the grasslands,
Steamboat Rock State Park, WA
to the ocean,
Watching the waves in Monterey Bay
from the forests
Mendocino National Forest
to the desert.
Tucson Mountain Park
Immersing yourself in nature means taking the time to observe the little details
Leaf. Lichen and Wood
as well as the big picture.
Death Valley National Park
Water is such an integral part of nature.
Water is life.
Nature is life – from the tallest trees
Redwoods
to the tiniest flower.
Very tall belly flower! Bigelow Mimulus
Nature is animals, from the very big
Bull Elephant Seal
to the very small
The bug is more beautful than the flower!
and all shapes and sizes in between,
Pronghorn Antelope
from the multitudes
Willits feeding on the tidal flats.
to each unique individual.
Snowy Egret at San Simeon
Nature- It will save your soul and make you whole.
I usually only answer the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge every other week, but Amy’s theme choice, Landscapes, was irresistible. I LOVE landscape photography!
Water is big in landscapes. Sometimes a landscape includes a bit of the sea…
Oregon Coast
Recently I’ve been spending my time on the central California Coast.
Garripata State Park
Reflections are always a big hit in landscape photography.
Talkeetna Mountains
I need vertical topography to charge my soul…
Fall in the Tetons
Alaska is all about big landscapes. My favorite seasons are summer
Denali National Park
and fall.
Denali Highway
And then there’s the desert. Talk about a diversity of landscapes! Whether it’s dunes…
Powerful magic indeed. Water – creator, destroyer. The most powerful force in our universe.
The awe-inspiring power of water
Water and time, joining forces, create the landscape we see before us.
Glacial ice carving mountains.
The Matanuska Glacier carves a course through the Chugach Mountains of Alaska.
Rivers cutting canyons…
Smith River, California
Waves sculpt rocks, eroding away miles and miles of coastline.
It’s thrilling to witness the power and fury of a Pacific storm.
Blessed rain.
Rainbows are the perfect union of water and light.
Water is beauty. Water is life – the key ingredient that unifies all life on Earth.
Water is life.
Without it, none of this would exist.
Desert reflections
Splash!
Wave Watching
There are still a few hours left to take advantage of free shipping and handling on wall art and fun stuff featuring my photography. Go here to learn more!
Ahhh yes, the sweet light…what a wonderful lens challenge Amy has set for us this week! There’s the magical light of early, early morning. I don’t get see that very often myself. I’m not an early morning riser. Too much of a night owl, I guess.
Jumbo Mine, Wrangell St. Elias National Park & Preserve
You shouldn’t discount rainy days. Some of the most magical light, and some of the most stunning images are made on those rainy days, when the light dances with the clouds.
Rainbow in the Wrangells
And of course, if not for rain, there wouldn’t be rainbows. Magical light is the very essence of rainbows.
Ajo Lily (Hesperocallis undulata)
Strong sunlight can be magical, too. I love backlight on flowers, for instance.
Sweet Light on the McCarthy Road
But my favorite magical light is early evening. I’ve done blogs about it before. In an Alaskan summer, that sweet light can linger a long time.
Bigleaf Maple
In most places though, it only lasts an hour or so before sunset.
Alpenglow on Skyline Arch
The best light of all is alpenglow, the reflection of the sun setting on the landscape that you see when you look east. Sometimes, especially in the mountains and the desert, it’s more impressive than the actual sunset.
Sunset near Bandon, Oregon
But not always.
(I had to make a decision a few years ago – buy a DSLR or build a house. I chose to build the house. But I never let go of the Art of Seeing. Photography feeds my soul, and I can’t give it up. So all these pictures were taken with a high-end point-and-shoot, a Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ80. One of these days I’ll get my hands on a “real” camera again, and the possibilities will be endless. For me, for now, though, it’s the vision, not the tool.)
I’ve just discovered the WordPress Lens Artist Photo Challenge. Tina Schell, whose blog is called Travels and Trifles, came up with this week’s theme, “Big is Beautiful”.
How appropriate that I found it this week, I can’t help but think, as big is beautiful has defined my life in many ways.
For one thing, I’m a big girl. I keep telling myself big is beautiful, but I don’t always believe it.
More importantly though, big is beautiful has defined my life geographically, as a rambling ranger, for many years. After all, I live in Alaska, the biggest state in the Union.
Maybe vast is a better word than big to define Alaska.
I even worked for a few years in Denali National Park, home to the biggest mountain in North America.
Denali
I live in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the biggest national park in the U.S. by far. It’s the size of Switzerland with Yellowstone and Yosemite thrown in.
Hiking in the Wrangells
My favorite geologic feature in this fabulous park is the Stairway Icefall, one of the tallest icefalls in North America, if not the world. It rises 7,000 feet in under 2 miles.
The view of Stairway Icefall from my front yard – I’m a lucky girl.
I work in the “ghost town” of Kennecott. The Kennecott Mill just may be the tallest wooden building in North America. It’s big.
The Kennecott Mill, is a big, TALL building
I spent 8 winters as a ranger in Death Valley National Park. At 3.2 million acres, it is the largest national park in the contiguous United States.
Don’t let the name scare you, Death Valley is big and beautiful. Just don’t go in the summer!
Currently I’m spending time in the Pacific Northwest, home to big trees.
Old Growth Maple
The place where I’m staying is only a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, the biggest of them all!
