Category: Adventure & Travel

Lightgathering 2021 | Salton Sea

I’ve written before about the group of wise and experienced photographers called Lightgathering that get together on a yearly basis. The same group that has adopted me as one of their own. Unfortunately with Covid, there wasn’t a Lightgathering in 2020, and 2019 was held here in San Diego, and I was playing host more than shooting. Now that we are in a post-ish Covid world, with vaccines, and no more stay-at home orders, we were excited to hold another Lightgathering. This year it was decided to meet at the Salton Sea, despite it only being 2 hours from me, […]

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Bonneville to California

This is #4 in a 4-Parter. Click here for Yesterday’s Bonneville was surely the highlight for me on this trip. And while I was cold, and my back was twisted in shapes it shouldn’t be, there was still so much ground to cover. The next three days I’d travel through a snowy Nevada, have Steve McQueen’s starter go out on me in Tonopah, drive through the Eastern Sierras, see the Tufas of Mono Lake, and finally limp into the driveway at my good friend Teresa K‘s house, where I stayed with her and her family for a couple days. It was […]

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Salt Lake City to Bonneville (I sped of course!)

This is #3 in a 4-Parter. Click here for Yesterday’s. I was out to attempt the ground speed record for “Nissan Xterras with a big ass paddleboard affixed to the roof-rack”. I’m fairly certain there’s a class for that. I also feel it’s important to remind you, dear reader, that I still have not used the paddleboard on my trip. It’s really been nothing more than a conversation starter, and a MPG reducer. So I gunned out of SLC after a big hug from Em. I was determined to get to the Flats with some good light left in the day, […]

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St George to Salt Lake City (via Nevada)

This is #2 in a 4-Parter. Click here for Yesterday’s Everyone from Lightgathering had said their goodbyes Saturday night. So Sunday was “get-outta-town” day. I still had a few errands to run. Primarily to throw away my leaky sieve of a tent, and swiss cheese excuse of an air mattress, in a St George Wendy’s parking lot dumpster. And if you read my last post… You may remember that I never mentioned replacing the passenger side window in Steve McQueen (that’s my Xterra’s name). …That’s because I hadn’t.  But through a parts website, I found that there was a junkyard in […]

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Lightgathering 2018 | St George

Years ago, a photography mentor of mine connected me with a small group of photographers that have been meeting informally once a year since 1973, to photograph, and continue their lifelong friendships. They call themselves Lightgathering, and they’re an old school bunch, with a few having assisted Ansel Adams during his summer workshops. I’ve only been to a couple, with the last being around 2002, but I love going to these, because there’s a tremendous amount of photographic knowledge I get to soak up. And this year, I was committed to getting back. It was held in St George, Utah […]

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Volcanic Eruptions and Chemical Reactions

About a month ago, Bali’s largest volcano publicly burped, and didn’t excuse itself. Causing thousands in Amed, and the surrounding areas of the East coast to have to evacuate. How rude! On top of that, Mt Sinabung is threatening to spew ash, sulfer, fury, and lots and lots of liquid hot magma on the neighboring island of Sumatra as well. After all the Indonesian island chain is squarely in the Ring of Fire, and just doing what it’s done for thousands of years. While I’d like to somehow, seamlessly and brilliantly tie volcanoes and chemical reactions together as my title […]

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Humdrum Attacks of the Saber-tooth

I’m re-reading The Log from the Sea of Cortez by Steinbeck right now, and as always, I’m mentally transported deep into the heat of the Cataviña desert, or to one of the many perfect peeling pointbreaks, or to a sweaty cove on Bahia Concepcion watching the sun rise up over the Mexican mountaintops. Each trip I’ve taken over my 20+ years of South bound sojourns, I’ve always expected adventure. This quote by Steinbeck struck a chord with me. In time of peace in the modern world, if one is thoughtful and careful, it is rather more difficult to be killed […]

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Punta Baja – Echoes of the Indelible Sea

In 2012, while on a surf trip in Baja, at Scorpion Bay I pulled out my camera and was photographing some of the fishermen as they brought in their catch for the day. I was captivated as they cleaned and gutted the fish, and the chaos that ensued around them. Dogs, pelicans, seagulls, etc. And on my way home, I stopped off at a little fishing settlement called Punta Baja to sleep for the night, and in the morning, while the fishermen lit fires before heading out on the water for the day, I photographed the point. When I developed the […]

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What Happens When You Miss the Cave at Ulu Watu?

I was fucked. The sun was gone, and the current kept dragging me around the large rocks next to the cliff. I don’t panic easily, but I knew I wasn’t in a good spot and I had to do something or I would be coming back to the United States in a bodybag. That’s if they even found my body floating somewhere out in the Indian Ocean. An hour before, I lumbered down Ulu Watu’s famed staircase, one of Bali’s most sacred spots. My target was the world class surf spot with the same name, at the bottom of the stairs. This day, […]

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Why I Wrote the Snow Frogs Movie

  Let’s start with, “What the f**k is a Snow Frog?” Well, they don’t really exist. Snow Frogs was an idea I came up with one day while driving up the mountains into Ruidoso, New Mexico. I had just decided to leave my then wife, and felt that a trip out to see my mom in San Diego was in order. It was Christmas time, and hearts were broken. Not only were Heather and I not destined to be with each other, but our 9 year old dog, Moen, had gone through a year of treatments to figure what exactly was […]

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