Blog Update - Winter activities and Spring Plans

February has been a busy month - the busiest month of the year in the RV Park, with numerous activities and plenty to keep me busy taking pics for the Park and updating the Park Blog. I have been remiss in updating my own blog...

So, I decided today was the day to update my activities. The past couple weeks I have been seriously busy trimming down the list of images for the gallery showing on the 24th of April at Nine Muses in Barberton. I am really looking forward to the opportunity and selecting the photos and staying within my budget it a huge challenge. More on that a little later in the post....

Can-Am Challenge- every year there is a golf challenge in the park the Canadians vs the Americans it is a big event and covers 2 days with 4 separate tournaments - 2 each day, morning and afternoon. Last year I struggled with how best to cover this event and this year decided to try something different, even though the golf is important, more important are the people, so I decided to shoot the "Faces" of the tournament. So armed with my new lens I was able to maintain a distance from the subjects and shoot candid portraits without them even knowing they were being shot. It turned out to be a huge success and some fantastic pictures, which I feel captured the fun and camaraderie of the event!

FACES!













Thursday a group of people headed off to Landers, California - 30 minute drive to one of the largest Orchid Farms in the United States - what an amazing collection of Orchids and a wonderful tour. I put on my macro lens for some colorful closeups...









Back to the Gallery Showing...



These are ordered and on their way to Ohio on metal for display!













I have my airline reservations made and tickets purchased - will be in Ohio - arriving on the 17th of April and departing on the 29th. I will be flying from Salt Lake.

When I return to Salt Lake I will head to Montana and put the RV in storage at my buddies house and then get ready to head to Yellowstone for the summer....I am excited to spend my summer among the animals and fish on Yellowstone Lake!

The Adventure Continues Stay Tuned!

Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest and Alaska!

February 6th - King of the Hammers!

Last year while here in 29 Palms I was made aware of a week long event nearby in Johnson Valley, called the King of the Hammers - it is the ultimate Desert Racing / Rock climbing challenge...in fact that is how it got started - the Desert Racers challenged the Rock Climbers to a match race and the King of the Hammers was born!

There is racing all week - motorcycles, side by sides and then the ultimate challenge is the Ultras which was today and I was fortunate to be able to attend. These vehicles are custom built and can reach speed of over a 100 MPH and yet still have the ability to rock climb at 2 or 3 MPH. Amazing to watch!

I left early this morning for the 1 hour drive out into the desert and Johnson Valley. The cars were lined up at 6:00 am and the start was at 8:00 am - tons of traffic and a long line in, but was at my preferred location early enough to back the truck right up to the fence in one of the tougher rock climbing canyons - not early enough to get to one of the higher spots they were all taken, so my view was somewhat limited, but a great spot anyway! The race is 215 miles long and is a combination of flat (still rough sand) open desert and then three or 4 really tough rock climbing areas...and some real steep hill climbs.

It is amazing the "size of the town" that is created called Hammertown! Thousands of RV's tractor trailer and every off road vendor you can imagine!

Part of Hammertown from my viewpoint today!



A few of the spectators where we were!



The big screen in downtown Hammertown!



A few of the Racers!









Plenty of dust and dirt flying!



















Traffic Jam on the rocks!



It was a great day with perfect weather, warm sunny with a cool breeze! These were all taken with my new lens and I love it even more!!!

Stay tuned for more activity with the camera, my fill-in job as manager ends on Monday and I will be out shooting much more while this weather holds!

Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest and Alaska!

Blog Update - February 1st - non-photo info only!

Figured I would explain my absence for the past couple weeks! Two weeks ago while enjoying my coffee and reading emails in the morning - my coffee cup decided to tip over and dump coffee right on my laptop! Needless to say the laptop died a slow miserable death...took it to a local repair shop and they confirmed it would cost more to fix if it was even possible than a new computer.

So I did some shopping online and locally and found a super deal on Amazon for a Lenovo Think Pad with an Intel I-5 processor and room to transfer the extra ram from my old computer...so it was ordered on payday and arrived here in beautiful 29 Palms on Thursday. I spent some of Thursday getting Windows updated there were 188 updates, took most of the evening! Then Friday morning I realized that somehow all the drivers for the wireless and other accessories were missing and not installed. So Friday I took it to the office and hooked up to the hard wire connection and downloaded the drivers and all was well. Then I set about the task of re-installing all my software took all day and into the evening!

Luckily, I managed to get the hard drive out of the old laptop and put it in a USB Case and had access to all my files, which made things much easier.

I am back up and running!!

During this whole mess the manager here at 29 Palms RV Resort decided to make a quick exit and the owners asked me to fill in until a new replacement arrives next week. So I have basically been spending everyday working in the office and chasing down problems (maintenance issues) in the park! I will be filling in this whole next week!

It sure helps with a paycheck to pay for the new computer and other various expenses! Remember the lens purchase that was also out of my government check for this month! So short again for February! All is well now though.

Sadly I have not been out to take any pictures, but now that the computer is back up and running, the next clear night I will be in Joshua Tree National Park shooting some more star trails!

LIKE THIS!



Stay Tuned for more of these!

Last night I made 4 dips from my good friend KIMO'S DIPS! Click HERE they are great! For the Super Bowl Party in the clubhouse today!

This morning I put meatballs in the crock pot with my own special secret sauce and they will be ready by 3!


Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest and Alaska!

Love it when a Plan comes together!

Several years ago I took a trip down from Kalispell towards Salt Lake City and went through Yellowstone, it was late in the season, cold and the park was getting ready to shut down for the winter, I swore then that I needed to come back to this wonderful place and record my adventures with my camera.

Last year I applied for a summer job at Yellowstone as a fishing guide or tour boat guide and all the positions were filled by returning people, which says something for wanting to work there, if people keep returning it must be good! I really wanted to spend last summer there, but it just did not work out. I accepted the position at Lake Powell and we all know that did not work out as planned, instead I had to punt too late to find anything and had a wonderful summer in Kalispell, Montana and some great adventures with my good friend Jim Flinchbaugh!!

My plan for this year was to return to Yes Bay for one more season, however, I had some concerns about another FULL season at the Lodge...and always on the search for different and unique opportunities kept looking. Well, it is the decision time of the year to finalize plans for the upcoming summer. With 99% of the guides returning to Alaska and some major changes going on up there, it was questionable whether there would be a spot.

I dug through some old emails from last year and contacted the person back at Yellowstone, in hopes to contact early enough to hopefully land a spot there as a fishing guide. Yesterday I had a great phone interview and last evening got an email with an offer for a position and I have accepted!

SUMMER 2015 will be in YELLOWSTONE!!!

I will be running a fishing boat on Yellowstone Lake and I am really excited about the opportunity to see a new area and fish for different species and enjoy my summer in a wonderful National Park and put some serious miles on my new camera and lens on the wildlife that abounds there!

There are buffalo! These are pictures from my brief visit in 2012!





I expect traffic jams as this park is heavily visited!



Spending more time at the beautiful Mammoth Hot Springs!



And I intend to Capture Old Faithful many, many times...and plenty of big animal wildlife with my new lens!







So my Spring Schedule is set and it looks something like this!

1. Remain here in 29 Palms until late March - very early April.
2. Depart here and enjoy a leisurely trip to Salt Lake City
3. Park the camper and fly to Ohio for my Gallery showing at 9 Muses Art Gallery in Ohio on the 24th of April - enjoy the opening then head back to Salt Lake and get the truck and trailer.
4. Quick trip in the truck and trailer to Kalispell and put the trailer to bed for the summer.
5. Pack the truck up with fishing gear and stuff to live for the summer in the dorms in Yellowstone and arrive there in early-May!

Stay tuned for more details and a great summer! And my Ohio friends better plan to have their asses at 9 Muses on the 24th of April for the opening!

Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest and Alaska!

Blog Update January 8, 2015 - Living Desert Zoo Palm Springs and THE BREACH!

Time for an update, especially after the wonderful day I had yesterday - Road Trip to Palm Springs!

I bought a ticket to my good friend Mark Titus's documentary film titled The Breach, which as he describes it, is a Love Story with Salmon. Mark is a very close friend of Yes Bay Lodge, he worked most of his 20's at the Lodge as a Fishing Guide, he was the head guide and stayed at the Lodge year round for a couple years, after that he returned to his home in the Seattle area and started August Island Pictures and began his career as a film maker. Mark is the guy who put together out promotional film for the Lodge and he has done tons of Corporate work for clients like Microsoft and many others.

Several years ago he embarked on a quest to document the decline of Wild Salmon and search out the cause. This path led him on a multi year adventure and it is documented in his latest film which had its North American debut here at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. THE BREACH!

My trip to Palm Springs to see the film got me thinking it may be the perfect opportunity to visit the Living Desert and put a few miles on my new lens and show what it was designed to do!

So I got up early and loaded up the truck and drove 70 miles to the Living Desert - spent a couple hours putting some miles on the camera! It is a wonderful place and I certainly could have spent more time there, but did not want to miss the film premier, so left just after noon and headed to the Palm Canyon Theater!

I decided to make the most use of my new lens and the EC-20 tele-extender more on that in a minute! First, the details again on the lens, cause it is the finest piece of glass I have ever used or owned.

The Lens!



For my photography friends - here are the details and an explanation of my system. I specifically chose Olympus when I went digital because the format is what is known as 4/3 and is the only system which was designed from the ground up as a digital system, it has several unique advantages - my primary reason was the sensor size yields a doubling effect - which means - a normal lens for 35mm film cameras is a 50mm lens, on Olympus 4/3rds it is 25mm, which means telephoto lenses can be smaller and yield a much longer "reach". In the example of my new lens it is a 150mm or the equivalent of a 300mm lens in 35mm format! It also happens to be an F-2 lens so very good in low light as it captures a bunch of light. With the addition of a tele-extender which effectively doubles the focal length or Reach the 150 becomes a 300mm F-4 (you lose some light with the addition of the tele-extender. But this would compare with a 600mm lens in a 35mm world, which is a ton of reach and this lens being fast to begin with adding the extender has NO detrimental affect on the image quality. That's enough for the techies....suffice it to say it is an amazing piece of glassand one I am now proud to own and I prmise to make good use of it!

What it does!



This guy was a long way away so I added the doubler!



This is without the doubler!



I love these birds and they really show the clarity of this lens and the reach with the doubler!























I have only found one "down-side" to this lens - with the extender on it becomes very heavy and difficult to hand hold and get clear pictures - but I have found using my monopod solves the problem nicely and enables me to steady the lens for some amazing shots, with great detail and smooth creamy out of focus backgrounds!

Back to The Breach - fish farming, dams and pollution are hindering the wild runs of salmon - if there is NO MARKET for farm raised salmon then the business will die. So my friends DON'T BUY FARM RAISED SALMON! And STOP PEBBLE MINE! Demand your stores and restaurants only serve Wild Caught Salmon!

Wal-Mart has a contract with several Alaska Fish processing companies and sells WILD CAUGHT SALMON - buy your friggin salmon from them and make sure it says WILD CAUGHT! Even if you are not a fan of Wal-Mart - do not buy farm raised salmon from anyone!!!

The Breach is going on a 15 city tour - if it is shown in your area make sure you go see it and support my friend Mark Titus, but more importantly support Wild Caught Salmon!

Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for following along on my life's adventures. I will be posting some email links in the near future to write your congressman and representatives to Stop Pebble Mine and other causes to support Wild Salmon! Eliminate Genetically altered salmon and stop fish farming!

It is my Cause, not a new one but a reinforced effort!!


Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest and Alaska!