It’s a year in review, the best of 2023. For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we were asked to show no more than 12 of our favorite images from the past year. Wow, that’s a hard choice.
It wouldn’t be a Rambling Ranger Best of post without at least one wildflower! Easter Sunday in the Cathedral Hills, Grants Pass, Oregon
I couldn’t do it. Too many favorites. So I tried to narrow it down from the 112 I’d picked out of my files to just the ones I had never published. I still had far too many.
My favorite B&W image of 2023.
That’s probably because I’m STILL processing 2023 images and I find new favorites every day. I finally narrowed it down to 15. Culling those last 3 was especially painful, but those were the rules this week. So finally, here it is, my best 12. Unpublished, that is.
Sunwapta Falls, Jasper National Park, Canada
The feature image was obviously taken in Grand Teton National Park, under the most amazing lighting. The first big winter storm of the season was due to hit in less than 8 hours. You could see the front coming in. I had to keep moving so I wouldn’t be caught by it, but I got some amazing shots as I was passing through.
The day before, though, the light was horrible in Yellowstone. Yet that harsh, in-your-face glare made this photograph possible. I never would have seen it if I’d had good lighting on the bigger landscape.
A small piece of a grand landscape in Yellowstone National Park.
I took the Icefields Parkway through Jasper and Banff on my way south from Alaska this year. I’ve included an image from each park. I wish I could have included more. These were the hardest images to narrow down.
Bow Lake, Banff National Park, Canada
My best photo session of the year, though, was Bandon, Oregon. Scenic views, tidal pools… A third of the images in this post are from Bandon, not to mention the photos included in the last two posts. It was a magic couple of days.
This is my favorite image from my time in Bandon.
The next two images seem like a matched set to me, even though one was from Bandon and the other from Cape Perpetua. I just see them hanging on a wall together.
This one is from Bandon.
I was just SO happy to finally visit tide pools and see sea stars!
This one is from Cape Perpetua.
The landscape at Bandon is so varied, so many views. This next image looked like an alien planet to me, with the grey lighting and minimalist composition. Hard to believe it’s the same beach, and the same day, as the other landscape.
Alien landscape
Another great photography day was winter solstice. I’ve included a couple of images from that day. From the base of the Sandia Mountains, I could see the ice blown onto one side of the trees lining the cliff, so I was excited for, and anticipating, this shot all the way up on the tram. I was not disappointed.
Frosty Day
This last shot illustrates just how rugged and wild Albuquerque’s backyard wilderness really is.
Albuquerque’s back door wilderness
What will 2024 bring? Ten days in and I’ve already got zen cranes and raptors hunting. I’m so excited to see what’s next! How about you?
Last chance is the theme for the final Lens-Artists Photography Challenge of 2023. Tina asks us to include those photos taken in 2023 that we haven’t published yet, that didn’t fit in with the other themes.
So this post is kind of random, an assortment of images that I like, but that are maybe not for everyone. They’re mostly not the grand scenic stuff. (That’ll be the next post.)
Hank, one of my favorite kitties
I’ll start with a portrait of Hank. Hank was my favorite of all the kitties I’ve ever pet-sat for. I spent all of last winter hanging out with him.
Living Potpourri
You’ve seen me post a lot of wildflower images, but not garden flowers. Since I committed to a winterlong housesit last year though, I missed the spring wildflower bloom in the desert and the Sierras. I had to make do with what was around me, and I had fun with the patterns I found in these flowers.
Spring!
I was pretty antsy and ready for a road trip when I was finally free of my commitment on April 1. I headed down the Oregon Coast, looking for signs of spring, but spring was late in coming. I did find a few signs, though.
More signs of Spring!
In one coastal campground, most of the sites were flooded. Not so good for camping, but great habitat for Skunk Cabbages! (Hey, I’ll take whatever wildflowers I can find!)
Shaped like a heart
I found this sea anemone in a tide pool on Cape Perpetua. I thought it was kind of cute, looked like a heart.
Lighthouses are so photogenic!
I traveled south all the way to Bandon, where I had one of those perfect days for photography. You know, one of those days when the light is right and every picture you take just works?
This beautiful sculpture is completely made out of beach trash.
This sculpture made a powerful point. It was constructed out of trash washed up on the beach. It was an amazing piece of artwork.
I probably should have just put together a post on the beach at Bandon, so many of these last chance photos are from there. That’s partly because it was the batch of photos I was working on when I first started thinking about this post!
Psychedelic melting tide pool
I thought this image was kind of weird and psychedelic but fun. The pink and black rock and the wet sheen made it look like everything was melting. It reminded me of Salvador Dali’s clocks.
Bandon, Oregon Tide Pools
The fun in this picture was in the processing. By opening up the exposure I created a high-key image that looks more like an illustration than a photograph!
Easter in the Cathedral Hills
I spent Easter morning hiking with friends in the Cathedral Hills, in Grants Pass, Oregon. This is another image where I had fun playing with the processing, giving it a misty look, and making it look as much like a painting as a photograph.
Sharing the road with bighorn sheep
Another fun image was captured this fall in Canada’s Jasper National Park, where I had to share the road with a few bighorn sheep. Later during my fall journey South, I also captured the feature image. This was a day when the light was NOT right. I really wanted to visit Yellowstone Falls, but the sun was in the wrong place, mid-afternoon light shining directly in my face when I looked at the falls. Perfect backlight for capturing a small detail, though.
Coming up through the clouds
Finally, I had to include one image from last week. I took the Sandia Peak Tram to the top of the mountain to celebrate Solstice, take in the view, and treat myself to a bowl of green chile stew in the fancy restaurant at the top of the mountain. You know, those perfect photo days when the light is right and every picture just works? Uh huh, I got lucky once again. Winter Solstice was one of my best photography days of 2023!
Thanks, Tina, for hosting the Last Chance Challenge. I’m a day late and a dollar short as usual, but it was lots of fun! Happy New Year to you all!
Well, it’s almost Christmas and Winter Solstice is only a few days away. Kind of reminds me of a Dar Williams song, “Christians and the Pagans”. (Give it a listen) There’s a line in that song, “And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere, ”
I’m a pagan at heart, it’s nearly Winter Solstice, and I do find magic everywhere, especially in the natural world. So here are a few of the places and things I find magical.
Mountains
A magical alpine landscape
I’ve always been a mountain girl, and it’s not only the big peaks that are magical. I’m in love with the alpine, the land above treeline. Not just the big views, either, but every little detail. Especially the little details. There’s another Lilliputian world there if you look closely, and it’s a magical place.
There’s a whole other world beneath your feet!
.I used to play a game with my visitors when I did Discovery Hikes as a ranger in Denali. I would give them circles of string, about six inches in diameter, and have them enclose a patch of alpine tundra. I would ask them to count all the living species they could find in their circle. Then I would hand out magnifying glasses and have them count again. They always found more the second time around, with that closer look!
Water
Waterfalls are magical. Do you see the face in the rocks to the right of the falls?
Water is life. Literally. Without water, there is no life. It’s a magical substance. And there’s this weird thing that happens occasionally when I photograph waterfalls. Although I don’t see it when I’m making the shot, I will sometimes find a face in the photo (the spirit of the waterfall?) when I open it up to process. That’s what happened in this image. Can you see the face? It’s magical.
Trees
Redwoods are amazing trees.
There are a lot of magical trees out there. Have you ever meditated with a redwood? Or wandered through the fairyland of a temperate rainforest, like you might find in the Pacific Northwest?
Olympic National Park has some magical forests.
One of the most magical kinds of forests I’ve ever seen are the Madrone/Manzanita woodlands of Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, with trees that look like women, decorated with delicate lichens and moss. Magical.
Manzanita in the Cathedral Hills in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Tidepools
Tide pools on Bandon Beach
Tide pools are magical places. Especially to me. I’ve been on a mission to find good tide pools, and I’m not always successful. Timing is everything. If you don’t have a real low tide, forget it. But I got lucky last spring, twice; once at Bandon, my favorite spot on the whole Oregon Coast, and then at Cape Perpetua. I scored an awesome campsite with great wildflowers at Cape Perpetua, too.
Sea Stars are making a comeback!
One of the most miraculous discoveries in my successful tidepooling this spring was that sea stars are coming back! Decimated by sea star wasting disease, it’s been years since there was a healthy starfish population anywhere on the Pacific Coast, but there were a lot of them in Oregon this spring. Brings joy to my heart
Desert
Arches are ephemeral.
Arches and natural bridges are pretty magical, too. I listed them under desert to go with my photo, but you can also find them on the coast, products of erosion, sculpted by the waves. In the desert it’s the wind doing the carving for an arch, and water for the natural bridges.
These nature sculptures are ephemeral. beings. You never know how long they will last. The arch in this photo, Shakespeare Arch, is already gone, collapsing a couple of years ago. I’m glad I saw it when I did because it was a beauty, now gone forever.
Mosaic Canyon in Death Valley
Another magical product of erosion are slot canyons. All canyons are magical, never knowing but eagerly anticipating what’s around the next bend as you hike up one. Slots just bring the excitement up a notch, with the beauty of their polished walls and the way they have of drawing you in, deeper and deeper.
Flowers in the desert can be magical.
A good wildflower season in the desert is definitely magical. To see a landscape that is pretty bleak most of the time, nothing but dirt and rocks, transform into a veritable garden of delight, completely drenched with flowers – well, it’s got to be seen to be believed. Maybe we’ll get lucky this year. Fingers crossed.
It’s not only the quantity of flowers that blows me away, it’s the incredible variety.
Home
Last, but not least, I live in a magical place. When I first came to McCarthy, I felt like I’d discovered Never Never Land. It was a place where you never had to grow up, unique, like nowhere else in the world. That was before social media, before McCarthy was discovered by the rest of the world.
Perhaps it’s not quite so magical now, now that it is on the map. With Instagram, there are no longer any best kept secret magical places. But I’ll bet it’s still pretty magic to people who have never been there before, who are freshly discovering it. And after all, it’s the people who play the largest part in making any place magical, and McCarthy is still filled with amazing, kind, beautiful people, people who keep the magic alive.
McCarthy is a magical place.
Thanks to Ann-Christine of Leya for this week’s Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge, Magical.
For this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, Patti invites us to explore empty spaces in our photography. Empty spaces can draw more attention to our subject, as it does in this wildflower photo.
Empty spaces draw attention to your subject.
In wildlife photography, leaving a lot of empty space in front of your subject gives them room to move.
Empty space gives this meadowlark plenty of room to strut his stuff.
Or empty spaces can be used in landscape photography to evoke a mood or illustrate the vastness or wildness of a place. Possibly my favorite place to capture emptiness in landscape photography is Death Valley National Park.
There’s a lot of empty in Death Valley’s landscapes.
Empty spaces can accentuate the vastness of a landscape.
The empty space in this image highlights the vastness of the landscape
Including a lonely road can evoke a mood of solitude and remoteness.
A lonely road can evoke a feeling of solitude and adventure.
Since many of the most exciting nameless canyons in Death Valley are reached by hiking up an open wash, these wide open spaces create a sense of adventure and exploration in me.
A canyon in the Grapevine Mountains
But by far my favorite empty spaces to photograph in Death Valley are the sand dunes.
Mesquite Sand Dunes
With five major dune fields contained within the park, there are a lot to choose from.
Panamint Dunes
Emptiness can not only emphasize distance, it can also highlight the sheer massiveness of certain landforms.
Shock and awe – Empty landscapes can take your breath away.
Empty spaces don’t need to bring attention to a particular subject. They can also be used to bring attention to something more ephemeral, like color, as shown in the sunset colors of the feature image, captured in White Sands National Park. Empty spaces also make great palettes for abstract photography. Here is my favorite meditation image, a celebration of emptiness.
All is Illusion
Death Valley has been on my mind a lot lately. A huge storm in late August dropped over a year’s worth of precipitation in one day. When the park finally reopened 2 months later, the basin was still filled with water,
There’s water still in the Badwater Salt Flats.
If there are enough little rain events in the upcoming weeks to keep seedlings moist, that big storm could lead to great things for 2024. It IS an El Nino year. Dare I hope? Could we actually have a superbloom? It’s possible. Stay tuned. I’ll be watching the weather closely. I’m keeping my dance card open, not committing to any housesits for 2024 yet. I’m hoping that instead, maybe this year, I can once again follow the flowers.
Can you imagine this wide open empty space filled with flowers? I can.
I’m a nature photographer. It’s what I do. I go wild for my photography.
I go wild for photography!
John of Journeys With Johnbo chose this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, “The Road Most Traveled”. He asks us to showcase whatever style of photography is our go-to, our favorite, our road most traveled.
Fall colors on the Denali Highway
I don’t think I can define a particular style as my go-to, but I can definitely define a genre. I do nature photography – to the almost total exclusion of any other kind of photography.
Nature photography is my genre.
I guess that makes me a bit of a one-dimensional character. Especially since being wild is almost a prerequisite for a photo of mine. Domestic flowers don’t really interest me. I have plenty of opportunities to do pet photography, being a petsitter and all, but I seldom make pictures of my charges. I also have the opportunity to stay in some lovely homes while petsitting. But I rarely take photos of these houses. There are very few farm or country landscapes in my files, and never a cityscape. Like I said, pretty one-dimensional.
Point Lobos, California
It’s not that I don’t appreciate other types of photography. Most folks have broader interests than mine. Architecture, travel, food, portraits, street photography – I admire what other people are doing in those genres. I enjoy seeing these things through their eyes. I just don’t feel inspired to go there myself.
If it’s wild, my interest is limitless.
But if it’s wild – then my interest is limitless. Desert, mountains, seashore, I love them all. Grand vistas to teeny tiny details. Animals, plants, water, rock – I can’t get enough of them. Macro to wide-angle to zooming in, black and white, color and monochrome – all tools and techniques that help me to express my greatest love, the natural world.
Plants, animals, waters, mountains – I love them all.
There is one genre of photography that I rather regret not doing my whole life, and that’s people photography, taking pictures of friends and loved ones. I’ve photographed a few friends’ weddings, and taken pictures at 4th of July parades and a few musical events, but that’s it. I have very few photos of friends and family just enjoying life.
I love it when viewers can visually or mentally “walk into” one of my images.
I do understand why I don’t have many people pictures. I only take people pictures at events where my role is one of an observer more than a participant. When I’m with friends and family, I want to be totally present. Those moments are precious to me. I want to be a participant, not an observer. For me, taking pictures at that time would remove me from living in the joy of the present moment. I would be concentrating on taking a good picture instead. Weird, I know.
Have you ever seen a big moose hide behind a skinny little tree? I caught this one in the act – in my front yard!
I’m certainly glad others don’t feel that way. I am eternally grateful to the friends and family who do document those moments. You know who you are, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The older I get the more precious those people pictures are.
Nature photography is my way of telling these beings, “I see you. I honor you. Thank you for being.”
As I ponder the role photography plays in my life, I realize it’s a tool to further what seems to be my mission in life, my vocation and my avocation. In my photography, my writing, and my work as a ranger, I seem to be pursuing the same goals – turning people on to what makes a place or a subject special and unique, and encouraging others to be kind to our Mother the Earth. It’s what I do.
Nature photography is one way I turn people on to what makes a place special and unique.
I attempt to capture a scene or a subject in such a way that a viewer can visually and mentally walk into that place themselves, to feel like they could be there even if they’ve never seen it in person. When I know I’ve done that, I feel successful as a photographer.
Practicing the Art of Seeing
Nature photography is a meditation for me. It’s how I give praise to Creation. I acknowledge the other beings I share this planet with, both animate and inanimate, by practicing the art of seeing. Focusing my total concentration on a subject or a scene is a way of saying to those beings, “I see you. I honor you. Thank you for being.” I try to capture just a little of the essence of my subject. What makes that being or that landscape essential.
Trying to capture the essence of my subject – rain forest sparkle party!
If others can discover just a little of that essence through my nature photography, then hopefully they too will acknowledge that that thing or that place is unique and essential. Perhaps they will feel inspired to care for it and keep it safe.
Hopefully my images bring a smile to your face!
If my images occasionally fill my viewers with awe for the wonders of the natural world, that makes me proud of a job well done. Or maybe my nature photography will just bring a smile to their faces or a warm feeling in their hearts. That’s a worthy goal, too.
I do love making wildflower images!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my musings on the art of nature photography. But I hope you enjoy my images of Nature even more.
Emulating Ansel Adams – Headwaters of the Susitna River, with Mounts Deborah and Hayes
“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. ” –Albert Einstein
I think I’ve had more alone time this winter than I’ve ever had, in any season, in my entire life.
I didn’t plan it that way. The people I am housesitting for said it would be okay if I had guests, and I put the invitation out there. At least half a dozen friends and family members expressed an interest. Ocean-front property on Orcas Island? Sure! Sounds like fun! But in one way or another, somehow all those plans fell through.
I’ve had lots of alone time on Orcas Island.
Even though I’ve been on Orcas Island for four months, I haven’t made new friends. I’ve put out a few feelers – introduced myself to neighbors, attended a few concerts and other town social events, entered an exhibition. Everyone has been nice, I’ve had some interesting conversations, but that’s as far as it goes.
Everyone has full lives. They have no reason to go out of their way to befriend a here today/gone tomorrow transient housesitter. It’s kind of a waste of their precious time, even if she does seem to be a nice lady! I get it.
Everyone needs alone time.
I must admit I could have tried harder. Although I am outgoing and find it easy to talk to strangers in my work persona as a park ranger, in my personal life I’m kind of shy. I didn’t put myself in any situation that would take me out of my comfort zone. I didn’t get an outside job. I didn’t go to the bar.
The truth is, I haven’t tried harder to make new friends because I really have been enjoying my solitude!
We need solitude for reflection and contemplation.
“Solitude is creativity’s best friend, and solitude is refreshment for our souls.” -Naomi Judd
Everyone needs alone time. Solitude sparks creativity. It can renew your soul. It allows time for daydreams and imagination, reflection and invention.
There is freedom in solitude.
There is freedom in solitude. No one to tell you what you should be doing or where you should be going. Instead, it’s all up to you.
Me and my shadow
Some activities require solitude. Reading, writing, and meditating come to mind. There are other activities where going solo brings immense rewards but at the price of much greater risk. For instance, as a park ranger, I often have to tell people that they should hike with others. It’s much safer. Yet I, and most rangers I know, revel in solitary treks. It’s very important to understand and acknowledge the risks of solitude and to be aware of the possible consequences of your actions when pursuing these kinds of activities solo.
Going solo can be risky.
“Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it. “ -Thomas Merton
For many people, it’s not easy to get that alone time we all need. The demands of work, family and friends can consume our lives. Solitude becomes a rare and precious event. If this sounds like you, it’s especially important to carve yourself out some alone time, even if you have to make a date with yourself and schedule it.
Even if you usually run with the flock, you need to carve yourself out some alone time.
“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
There’s a big difference between solitude and loneliness. Solitude is the positive application of alone time. Loneliness and depression happen when you dwell on the negative aspects of being alone. Solitude has a purpose.
Loneliness is the dark side of solitude.
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.” – Henry David Thoreau
Some people need more solitude than others. They need their space. I’m in that category. So are many of my friends back home in McCarthy. A friend of mine once said, “McCarthy is where loners go to be social.”
Some odd birds like me need extra alone time.
McCarthy is very social in the summer, but most residents deal with a lot of alone time in the winter. I find it interesting that two of my friends from McCarthy have also written about the pleasures of solitude this week. Jon Erdman of the Wrangell Mountains Center wrote a post about the effects of solitude. Kristen Link is a natural history artist and science illustrator. One of the prompts in her latest newsletter encourages other artists to draw what silence looks like. I don’t draw, but the following image is my answer to that prompt.
This is what Silence looks like.
Perhaps that is why I feel okay about my season of solitude. It’s winter, a natural time to draw resources inward, to go quiet, and be dormant. The quiet time is necessary for future growth.
Alone time is necessary.
Spring will soon be here, a time for new growth, new connections, the ground prepared and spirit renewed by that season of dormancy. In April I will be traveling, embracing old friends and new experiences. I look forward to my spring travels, but I will also cherish this final month of alone time.
