View allAll Photos Tagged thewindow
Further perspective on towering limestone cliffs and the broader Paria Valley beyond.. Bryce Canyon National Park, SW Utah. Imaged in Sept. of 2021.
Visitors: Invited to check out my photostream & albums for seasonal pix of wildlife/landscapes/florals.
Rain on Last Day in Big Bend
Rain came pouring down from dark skies above
But there’s a spot of sunshine coming through
Not far from The Window and the Chisos Mountains
The refreshment from those cooling winds
Surrounded by jagged peaks and mountainsides from a volcanic distant past
It’s the wonder of Big Bend in the west Texas desert.
Another work of short poetry or prose to complement the image captured one late afternoon/early evening in Big Bend National Park while watching a rain storm from the Chisos Mountains Lodge area. The view is looking to the northwest in the direction of The Window where one can see the sun shining off in the distance. Composing the image was then just a matter of angling my Nikon SLR camera to capture a sweeping view across the basin area to the brighter area beyond the mountains. I decided to meter the image based on that brighter area, knowing I didn’t want to blow any highlights in that portion.
I chose to work with Aurora HDR Pro to better bring that complete dynamic range present in this setting. I later exported a TIFF image to DxOÊPhotoLab 5 where I did some final adjustments with contrast, saturation and brightness for the final image.
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Toni Duarte Freelance Photographer
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Late in the day before sunset. This group of hikers was having a meeting all together there under the arch.
An image captured on the main Basin road with a view looking to the west and The Windows with the peaks and mountainsides of the Chisos Mountains all around. My thinking in composing this image was to capture a more sweeping view across this West Texas landscape. To do so, I had to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward and bring the mountains higher up into the image. The rest was balancing the setting to include some of the blue skies and clouds above, while minimizing the brightness of the sun in the late afternoon skies.
I chose to work with Aurora HDR Pro to better bring that complete setting in the image. I later exported a TIFF image to DxO PhotoLab 4 where I did some final adjustments with contrast, saturation and brightness for the final image.
Golden Hour Window
The Windows Area
Arches National Park
Moab, Utah
December 2018
As I recall, Calvin Jennings and I were racing around the Windows area of Arches National Park, trying our best to catch the beautiful golden-hour light hitting the rocks and to capture as many different images as we could.
After taking the bulb 30s and then several minutes for the exposures at this location, I pulled off the ND filters, and at f/11, needed 1/2 second for the exposure.
This allowed me to take two quick catures panning just a little thus allowing for this stitch of the two images to get a real nice comp of the North and South Windows. This capture with the clouds not moving is very pretty too, and can be compared to the longer exposures below.
I also chose to leave the lower eyelashes (the people) that were standing in the North Window there to add in the scale of these massive arches that formed there in the desert.
Late-day light glances off the La Sal Mountains and lingers on the gorgeous sandstone sculptures that make up The Windows in Arches National Park, Utah. The lighter, low-slung, peach-colored domes in the foreground toward the right are Navajo sandstone, and this layer also forms the base for the numerous towers, fins, and windows. Sitting on top of the Navajo stone is the much redder, crinkly, almost blocky looking Dewey Bridge member of the Entrada layer. The Slick Rock member of the Entrada forms the more massive, homogeneous layer on top of the Dewey Bridge rock. All that said, I think one word aptly sums up the synthesis of all these geologic elements: sublime.
This photo was taken on Christmas Day after a light dusting of snow. The real storm was to descend two days later on the day we tried to find my godfather's camp in the trackless canyons that can be seen here in the distance at the feet of the La Sals. I previously posted the story of trying to find him to deliver a bottle of rye in the middle of a storm that dropped 8 inches so quickly we could not find our steps on the way back. Thankfully I had traced out a route via GPS and the batteries in the phone held well enough with minimal, careful use. As an epilogue to that story, I recently found out that my godfather did indeed find the rye several weeks later since we left a message where it was stashed with a friend in town who he occasionally calls. We received the rather cryptic missive that he had found the whisky we left at a particularly good time, given the circumstances. I have yet to find out what that really means. Old mountain hermits apparently guard their secrets.
Technical notes: Stitch of 4 horizontal frames; used a tripod for once...
The Windows.
Al centro della foto, leggermente a sinistra, si intravvede la struttura del Double Arch.
The Windows.
In the center of the photo, slightly to the left, you can glimpse the structure of the Double Arch.
IMG20250621165320m
While in the Chisos Mountain Lodge area with a view looking to the west and The Windows from the place I was staying in the national park. My thinking in composing this image was to capture that sweeping view looking down across the trees and plant-life in the Basin area. I wanted to balance that more earth-tones lock with the blue skies and clouds above. I felt both were a color contrast that complemented the other for the image capture.
The Sun Is Set, at Least for the Day
Shadows cast are long gone
And the land has turned dark
I look afar to see some places caught in light
With a warm glow
That a distant sun still has left
We walk in silence, a friend and I
Imagining what a new day might hold
Yes, today is gone and there is a sadness
But tomorrow awaits, and there is a smile.
Another work of short poetry or prose to complement the image captured one early evening while taking in view of The Window in the Chisos Mountains Lodge area of Big Bend National Park. My thinking in composing this image was to have a balanced image with the horizon more or less centered. By metering this setting for the sunset light, I decided to keep the mountains in the Chisos Basin area kept silhouette. That would then bring more of a focus to the lights far off in the distance.
The Expectation is to Stop and Smell the Roses
But in the mountains there are only wildflowers to enjoy
So I will stop to live that moment
No speed involved to my finish line
Just the day, a moment, and a vista like none other
I could always sing and give Julie Andrews a run for the money
I am all alone with only the trees and birds to share my company
So hike your own hike
Speed to adventure, if you must
And explore the planet we all share
You might just find me with my shoes and socks off
And only a smile as I sit and take in a view.
Another work of short poetry or prose to complement the image captured one afternoon in Big Bend National Park at a roadside pullout along the main Basin road. The view is looking to the west across the Chisos Basin area to The Windows off in the distance. Because of the several thousand foot decline in elevation present across this national park landscape, I had to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward to capture a more sweeping view. The more distant peaks and mountains would be pushed higher into the image but leave enough for me to include some of the blue skies and clouds above.
For processing the image, I chose to work with Aurora HDR Pro to better bring that complete setting in the image. I later exported a TIFF image to DxO?PhotoLab 4 where I did some final adjustments with contrast, saturation and brightness for the final image.
A setting looking to the northwest while taking in views across the Chisos basin area to The Windows in Big Bend National Park. While under an awning at the Chisos Mountains Lodge, I wanted to capture this setting of a rain storm that late afternoon and early evening. The overcast skies definitely brought more of a shadowed setting across the basin with only the more distant portions of the national park beyond The window still in sunlight. That was my thinking and composing this image and having the mountain view in silhouette be that focus towards the view beyond. I chose to work with Aurora HDR Pro to better bring that complete setting in this image. I later exported a TIFF image to DxO PhotoLab 5 where I did some final adjustments with contrast, saturation and brightness for the final image.
A setting looking to the east while taking in views across a desert mountain landscape at a parking area overlook along Oak Springs Rd in Big Bend National Park. With this image, I decided to have a more leveled on view with my Nikon SLR camera. By getting down low and then looking across, I felt I was able to create a sweeping view across the landscape in this portion of the national park. Beyond would be the jagged and rugged peaks and ridges of the Chisos Mountains. All earth-tones. Above that would be blue skies and sunshine to be that color contrast to complement the final image.
Rich, afternoon light collides with snow-clouds and creates dramatic shadows in front of the distant peaks of the La Sal Mountains, Arches National Park, Utah. The Windows section of the Park lies in the middle distance on the left, and further out is the Porcupine Rim and the upper reaches of the Mill Creek watershed.
My godfather has a small homestead on public land in a bend of canyon way up Mill Creek. He lives alone in a canvas tent heated by a single wood stove, and his horses are his most constant company. He has a small garden and an apple orchard. He also works an active claim for precious stones and searches for meteor fragments, which he fashions into jewelry that he sells in nearby Moab. For the small mine, he has filed the proper paper-work with the BLM in Denver per requirements laid out in the General Mining Act of 1872. It is via this loophole that he resides year-round with his horses in a place that currently sports a 'Wilderness Study Area' designation. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, the local BLM rangers do not communicate with the Denver office, and they often hassle him about his horses after recreators log complaints about livestock being in their playground.
Until this past spring, I last saw my godfather in 2007 in a chance encounter at the breakfast bar in the Aarchway Inn in Moab. Though I have been to Moab many times since 2007, I failed repeatedly to get in touch with my godfather, as he is a hard man to reach unless one simply walks up the canyon to find him. The trouble is, there is no trail to his homestead that is on any map, although it turns out there is a common use path, most likely primarily established by him and his horses. Several years ago, a mutual friend was able to point to a promising bend in the canyon as we looked at a satellite map of the Mill Creek drainage together. Using the map, we tried to find him in December 2019 and failed after hiking five miles up the canyon into a snow-storm. It snowed over 8 inches before we finally made it back to the car as it was getting dark. We didn't find him but we knew we were close because we met his horses. All six of them gathered round us and nosed in close to investigate if we had any snacks.
This past year a paradigm shift occurred that allowed us to get in touch with my godfather in real-time (more or less), and to coordinate a visit. He is 78 years old, and his older sister who is 82 worries he might die alone in the desert. Because there is actually a modicum of cell service within a reasonable proximity to his cabin-tent, she recently gave him his first smartphone. I think my godfather knows he will die alone in the desert, and this pleases him; nonetheless, he enjoys connecting with people via his new portal to the outside world, and we were thus able to tell him that we would be visiting and that we wanted to find him.
He instructed us to take the Sand Flats road out of town and to pull off onto a four-wheel drive road at a certain mile post. We parked the EuroVan and walked down the road, and when we passed a small drainage, we were instructed to leave the road and find the canyon rim before the road began to descend significantly. At this point, he told us, we would notice an old rusted out bulldozer that was tossed over the cliff in the 1970s during a rowdy moment of the Sagebrush Rebellion. Here, we would find the trail into a lovely grotto at the confluence of two desert streams. We would find him at the confluence: An eight-mile round trip walk for him and a four-mile journey for us (my 71-year-old mother was also with us).
His wrinkled, bearded face, now missing some teeth, seemed to be filled with delight when we finally saw each other. He didn't want to hug because he was afraid of getting Covid, a reasonable fear since no vaccines were available at that point. I brought a bottle of cider I made to share with him, and he remarked that it tasted "like heaven in a bottle." My wife and I foraged all the fruit two years ago from trees growing near our home. We stayed and talked with him in the afternoon sun until the light began to fade and he needed to turn back to camp before it got too dark and cold. As we gained the canyon rim and stopped near the old dozer, I could see him moving purposefully through the pinyon and juniper over a mile away, his faded Carhartt jacket blending easily into the landscape.
A reprocessing of this older capture with the reliable Canon 60D ...with my new 4K monitor and contrasts there, I find the very little post processing makes for some fine results. Did way too much 'cooking' of the images 5 years ago.
This was a glorious moment there in Arches National Park.
Now that I'm pretty much bunkered down at home due to covid-19, I'm processing or reprocessing old images that have eluded my attention in the past. This image of a feature known as The Window in Arizona's Canyon de Chelly National Monument is one such example. This arch has a spectacular view of the Chinle Wash as it snakes through the canyon and catching it during the peak of fall color was an awesome bonus.
From a roadside pull off on the Basin Road leading into the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park. The view is looking down and across the Basin area to the peaks and ridges called The Window off in the distance. It's a several thousand feet elevation change from this road down to the end of The Window hiking trail. So my thinking in composing this image was to take advantage of the high point I was on and angle my Nikon SLR camera such that I could capture a sweeping view across this national park landscape and bring up the the surrounding mountains higher into the image and have feeling of height all around.
A gusting north wind lifted tons of dust into the air creating a hazy view through the Window as seen from the top of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park.
The Windows.
Al centro della foto, leggermente a sinistra, si intravvede la struttura del Double Arch.
The Windows.
In the center of the photo, slightly to the left, you can glimpse the structure of the Double Arch.
IMG20250621165555mm
While walking The Window Trail one afternoon in Big Bend National Park. The view was looking to the northwest and down the Chisos Basin area with an elevation change of about 1000 feet. From an overlook point, I was able to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward and create a more sweeping view to the more distant ridges and peaks. I did some initial post-processing work making adjustments to contrast, brightness and saturation while playing around as I learned how to work with DxO PhotoLab 5. I then exported a TIFF image to Nik Color Efex Pro 4 where I added a Polarization and Pro Contrast filter for that last effect on the image captured.
Rollei, you are one crazy mofo of a kitteh, but when you're still and not running around Matrix style, damn you photograph well :)
A setting looking to the west-northwest as the sun just starting setting behind the Chisos Mountains from an overlook along the Window View Trail in Big Bend National Park. My thinking in composing this image was to capture the varied landscape leading up to the peaks and ridges present in the basin and mountains. I closed down on the aperture so that I could create more of a starburst effect with the sun and light.
Some editing was required in Photoshop to minimize the lens artifacts created from the sun. I later did a conversion to black & white using Silver Efex Pro 3 where I made some adjustments to color filters to bring out a much richer tonal contrast for the final image.