Our Group Photo Collections

So that is easier to post, below is a link to each of our photo galleries on my SmugMug account. We will work on posting images there daily from our trip to Zion. The pictures below are our individual "mug shots" from the fancy wigs we all adorned at the beginning of the week.

Link to Dave's Photo Gallery

http://su1.smugmug.com/Landscapes/ZionDaves-Pictures/14480408_PkKGu#1074931290_YnUjU

Link to Denise's Photo Gallery
http://su1.smugmug.com/Landscapes/ZionDenise/14480416_emGgF#1074937408_d7kWC

Link to Scott's Photo Gallery

http://su1.smugmug.com/Landscapes/ZionScotts-Pictures/14480402_XtckB#1074948931_6AEMG

Link to Dawn's Photo Gallery

http://su1.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Zion-2010/14479883_deFB2#1074982627_o7DSy

Link to Brenda's Photo Gallery

http://su1.smugmug.com/Landscapes/ZionBrenda/14480811_7bYRW

Happy Halloween

The gang made it to the Zion workshop and it wouldn't be us if we didn't make an entrance. Our fearless leader Dave, adorned us with our favorite colors in the form of a wig. From left to right is Denise, Scott, Dawn, Dave and Brenda.

Today was our first day in the park. We began with breakfast at the Pioneer restaurant where they serve pancakes the size of a dinner plate. Needless to say, we were not able to finish the pancakes, but we all gave it a try. We joined the rest of the class at the Visitor's Center for the shuttle ride to the River Walk Trail along the Virgin River. It was a beautiful morning for our first shoot.

After spending a couple of hours in the park we returned on the shuttle and into the classroom. Later in the afternoon we went back out to photograph the Watchman, one of the iconic sites of the park as the sun began to set.

Hopefully, we can get some photos from every one's submissions for the workshop loaded on the site tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the Halloween photo!

We Made It!

We arrived safely in Page, AZ last night after our 4 hour plane ride, and 4 1/2 hour car ride from Las Vegas to Page. We started our day with a trip to Horseshoe Bend (photos to follow). Sunrise was at 6:45 a.m. this morning, so we left the hotel at 5:30 a.m. (PST) and started the hike to the spot in total darkness. The best part of this hike is if you've never been and you begin to see for the very first time the canyon below it will make your stomach turn. Seeing it for the second time, it did the same thing. We set up our gear and waited for the beauty of Horseshoe Bend to reveal itself to us. We were not disappointed.

Next, the group is packing the car to go to Lower Slot Canyons before we make our way back to Zion. Till then . . .

And So it Begins . . .

The annual trek of the National Sarcastic Photographers 2010 U.S. tour begins. We will start our journey today from Detroit Metro Airport headed to Las Vegas, NV. The flight is scheduled to be 4 hours and 30 minutes. Once we land and claim all of our luggage (yes, there will be lots of luggage) we will grab the "Mystery Van" and make the second stage of our trip to Page, AZ where we will spend our first evening.

John Shaw Photography Workshop

Denise enjoying a few brews at Hofbrauhaus!

We traveled from the metro Detroit area to Cincinnati, OH for the John Shaw Nature & Digitial Photography workshop http://www.photosafaris.com/main/john-shaw-photo-seminars-2010/. The original group was back together again including Seven Layer Lloyd! Glad to have a "gentleman" back in the group, Denise and I appreciate having the doors opened for us and not getting crushed in them.

It wouldn't be an NSPS trip if we didn't talk about the food. Tonight we went to Newport (just over the river from Cincinnati) for some traditional german food and brew at Hofbrauhaus http://hofbrauhausnewport.com/. The food was excellent and we enjoyed some outstanding service from Parker our waiter.

Tomorrow our workshop will be focused on the digital aspsects of photography. Hopefully the room will be a little warmer (yes, the princess was cold!).

Slowly Processing

Finally getting around to processing some of my images from our weekend at Hocking Hills. This one is from the Lower Falls, which I agree with Scott, is a fantastic location. I believe I still like Ash Cave a little better but this place is also high on my list.

Rainy Days and Sundays . . .

We weren't going to let the rain make us sad, so we started out the day heading to Ash Cave which was covered and protected us from the rain. Ash Cave is named after the huge pile of ashes found under the shelter by early settlers. The largest pile was recorded as being 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep. The source of the ashes is unknown, but is believed to be from Indian campfires built up over hundreds of years.

After getting to a point that we could no longer feel our fingers, we decided to head back to the hotel and get dry and warm. The afternoon we headed to Athens for some indoor creativity and visited the Dairy Barn Art Center http://www.dairybarn.org/ and Kennedy Museum of Arts http://www.ohio.edu/museum/ at Ohio University. The Dairy Barn opened a new exhibition on Friday entitled OH +5 which featured artists from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It was a wonderful exhibit and included a variety of media and techniques.

Our day ended with a great and inexpensive meal at Jack's Steakhouse in Logan. Tomorrow we are heading to Lower Falls before returning home.

Hocking Hills State Park

Striking a pose at Upper Falls

Saturday - January 16, 2010 began with a hike from Hocking Hills Welcome Center - Old Man's Cave entrance to Cedar Falls (2.5 miles). During the week before the temperature had been rising which made the trail very icy and muddy which caused unstable footing for us and the 1,000 plus people that were there for the 45th Annual Winter Hike. The state park had continuous starts of people leaving from the visitor's center all morning. Half way through the trail, they provided refreshments and for us shuttle bus returns.

Cedar Falls was a beautiful spot where we spent some time taking in the scenery, snapping some wonderful photographs of the falls and watching people. Many, many people!

After leaving the falls we boarded the oasis of school buses that were waiting to take us back to Old Man's Cave to our car. We were all feeling like old men and women and didn't think we could make the +2.5 mile trek back on the trail. In the summer we probably could have, but with the ice, snow and mud we encountered on the trail every step of the way, we were exhausted. We were never so happy to see those yellow school buses.

After having a great lunch at the Millstone BBQ http://www.millstonebbq.com/ we headed back out to the park to take the trail from the Upper Falls to Old Man's Cave. Upper falls is pictured above with all of us. Below is a picture of the water fall at Old Man's Cave, and our group's "old man" breaking off a chunck by accident from the waterfall. Oops.

This last picture was taken inside one of the caves. We learned a lot about how to take this photo including that you can set the timer on a Canon longer than 10 seconds, unfortunately is was after the photo was taken!