August 2008 Archives

Geocaching - II

Three caches located, one that we couldn't find on a second attempt...

Hillside Cache - GC1AD18- N 33° 21.966 W 111° 23.939: Placed Blaze Bear here following a week of him being out of the sun and visiting with us. US General Land Office Survey marker located nearby.

Lefnt - GC19E2F - N 33° 21.588 W 111° 23.383: We keep managing to follow the wanderings of Creepin' Jeepers....

Me Want Cookie - GC1A8RY - N 33° 23.464 W 111° 21.316: Found the cache with only a little bit of difficulty, only because we didn't expect it where we found it. Nice hide.

Along the Trail - GC16NX1 - N 33° 26.756 W 111° 30.533: Second try for this one. We searched all around this for about 30 minutes. We're wondering if it wasn't removed, or washed away by weather.

Show me your War Face...

I have always been intrigued about good portrait shots and have decided to start working on my craft in this regard. I have been recently trying new ways to work on my old photographs and realize that a lot of my old photos that i thought were horrible could be salvaged. My only regrets about my time in Iraq was that I was a novice photographer and that I didn't shoot enough using the RAW format.

Above is a shot i took of a fellow in Iraq. He was tired, but obliged me with a photo. His expression to me sums up the war experience.

Level 7

I was trolling the shadows of "Denver Proper" fighting crime when i popped off this shot of an empty level 7. I liked the contrasting shadows across the platform...the rainbowing seen around the structure is light playing off the vinyl signs hanging over the parking structure advertising the coming Democratic Convention.

For those wondering about my abilities as a crime fighter, I believe that the photo speaks for itself. I see no crime occurring in the photo...'nuf said.

Geocaching - I

Today my geocaching buddy and I went out in search of my first finds in Arizona. We successfully located the three caches that we attempted. I have some notes from each of them.

Senda De Tonto - GCED - N 33° 30.573 W 111° 40.946: Easy hike in, though we broke trail to get there. New to the area so we didn't know the location of the trail head for the mountain bike, or the hiking trails that we found for the hike out.

Nice hiding spot for the cache...was a fun find.

The Noble Hound Pub - GCJHQK - N 33° 31.100 W 111° 40.448: Second cache of the day for us. Easy walk in. Nice and shady place. Good overhead cover on the way to our next cache, Hagrid's Forest. Picked up Blaze Bear (Travel Bug) hitchhiker and decided he needed to cool down in the A/C. We'll place him soon.

Hagrid's Forest - GCJH1A - N 33° 31.209 W 111° 40.446: Was surprised to find this cache so near the Noble Hound Pub cache, but it was a fun last find of the day, nonetheless. Other than the stick I took to the top of my bald head, of course. Nice walk in, and our only regret is that we forgot trash bags to pick up some trash on the way out. There is plenty.

West from Yavapai Point

Mather Point

One of the most photographed vistas at the Grand Canyon National Monument is Mather Point. It is a view which has been placed in the photo albums of countless visitors to the canyon. I hope this interpretation is pleasing to the eyes of anyone stopping by. ...

Superstition Mountains

The Superstition, Goldfield, and Usery Mountains are now my backyard. I've been out taking some photos already but the Canon 5D seems to have some problems in high temps with really bad artifacts in the final photo output. That has led to a dearth of photo posts even though these mountains present such a beautiful pose for photos.

Two mornings ago I decided to try and change that by leaving early in the morning instead of trying to get the afternoon/evening shots. This led to a good, but not great bit of photo shooting on the Lost Dutchman State Park's Treasure Loop (Trail 56). Unfortunately, bad planning on my part led to a later than perfect arrival time in the mountains. Nevertheless, the photos still turned out okay.

I'll post a few photos over the next few days.

Right now, here's the first....