gordon_lukesh1

<p>One or two hints from my trip. Yes, Yellowstone is a Figure 8 and plan on two days, one for each have. Realize that the lower half surrounds a super volcano that erupts every 700,000 years and has for, hmm, has not for 700,000 years. Yellowstone lake bed tipped up 18 inches at the north in 30 years! Real hint: Take any side trip, such as to Virginia Cascade. We stayed in Canyon Village in some rustic cabins w/o TV, not far from The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. You must see the Upper and Lower Falls of the river. The Upper are 90 ft and the Lower about 300 ft and inside the Grand Canyon.<br>

A third loop could take you from Mammoth up to Cody and back (we went to Cody but not back). Cody has a museum that shows Remington's work and others. Stunning. Have lunch in Cooke City on the way.<br>

Great guidebook: Yellowstone and the Grrand Teton National Parks Road Guide by National Geographic. It has maps and hints and is sized for your jacket pocket.<br>

Don't pet the grizzlies! As we were headed to Cooke City and Cody, a park ranger pulled us over. She was shaking. She said "There is a grizzly with a carcass 50 yds off the road. Do not stop until the next pull out!"</p>

<p>Tammy:<br>

Independence Pass east of Aspen closes in the Fall after the first snow and open Memorial Day. It goes over 12,000 ft and is the scariest Pass I have ever driven with no guard rail and 2,000 ft straight down on your side of the road as you head east. We drove it in Auguest a few years ago and as we checked out of the hotel the staff said "How are you getting back to New Mexico?" and I should have noticed how they giggled when I said Independence Pass. Aspen to Taos is 5 hours and high blood pressure, or 8 hours and around thru Glenwood Springs.</p>

<p>From Denver, head to Laramie and find Snowy Range Pass. It should be open by then. About 11,000 ft but no heart stopping drop offs. Laramie isn't far from Denver in western standards and the Pass is not well known. There is a beautiful church almost on the CO/WY border that you will have to photograph. We ate at the McDonalds in Laramie (always Mcs but only when long driving!). It is not hard to find! The great places like Jackson (the area is "Jackson Hole" with the hole referring to being between mountains), the Tetons and Yellowstone are likely too far.</p>

<p>Paris. I have spent many weeks over the past decade in that city and have never had enough. If you folks would pass the hat I'd go back!</p>

<p>In Paris or ahead of time, get yourself a museum card. Once it is signed/dated you simply wave it and walk past an hour of people in line. Go to the Rodin Museum (7 acres) first and buy it there as the crowds are small compared to the Louvre.</p>

<p>If you are rolling in money (who is these days?) get a Leica M6. This is not a "drop in and shoot" camera, so has been remarked by many "Not a good camera to shoot the riot scenes!"<br>

My girlfriend and I, no longer rolling in money, have two M6 bodies and share 21, 50 and 135mm lenses. I bought my M6 body from B&H, it was listed as a "9+" on their scale of 1-10 and original box. I have never found anything wrong with it, not even a blemish. Be aware, Leicas hold their value! We bought the 21mm at the Leica store in Paris. Hanging on the wall was a signed check from Cartier-Bresson, who was still alive! He made it to about 98. I think if someone like HC-B gives you a signed check you frame it and say the heck with the money!<br>

Check out www<dot>vistablackandwhiteoftaos<dot>com for many M6 examples.<br>

Whatever you buy just shoot shoot shoot!</p>

<p>Add Ansel Adams "Examples" to the list that Chris posted. It has detailed discussions on all that he did to make his photos.</p>

<p>I think "style" can change with the subject but we tend to take pictures that reflect our favorite style. Beginners: The great physicist John Wheeler, whom I met because my girlfriend was his graduate student, always taught Physics 101 because he said he always learned from the students. Beginners in all areas make us look at things differently. My girlfriend and I carry Leica M6s, share three lenses (21,50,135) and shoot B&W. We often go to the same place, stand side-by-side and take totally different "style" photos. I look at hers and she looks and mine and we both say "I would not have thought of that..." My style is largely geometric following my math training. I like angles and edges, but I also shoot the outdoors. When I do, such as near the Tetons, I often have an old building framing the shot.</p>

<p>On a shoot I carry my Leica M6 and share three lenses (21, 50 and 180) with my girlfriend. As we shoot B&W film we have astable of filters.<br>

We do carry a Canon digital very small for documentary purposes, like "where are we?" Also very useful for shots to put on Ebay of items for sale.</p>

<p>A place you will have to miss because of the time of year is Valle (Vay-yah) Vidal. If you go north from Taos just before you cross into Colorado there is a turn off with a handy Shell mini-store. The road into VV heads east into 100,000 pristine acres unknown to many. Humorously, extreme environmentalists fought successfully to ban drilling of ant form. But the humor is that the land was "donated" by Pennzoil as part of a tax settlement!<br>

OK, when you drive thru headed for Cimmaron you pass thru 250,000 acres owned by Ted Turner. Ted's plans are to gve the land in perpetuity to the State. He only has a small hunting lodge with few guests. He owns more than a million acres in NM and will give it all away<br>

Oh, Ted allows drilling for natural gas and you would never know it. Even the grizzly 50 yds from the road seemed quite happy! <br>

If you drive that way, perhaps to the Great Sand Dunes in CO, ask at the Shell; they will know the roads.</p>

<p>Sissel:<br>

Your English is fine!<br>

I speak about 12 phrases in Russian, French and Spanish and a bit of Greek. But I can not compare to your ability!<br>

Gordon</p>

<p>A comment about "aging". We have a saying here in the Rockies:<br>

"You don't stop doing things because you get old; you get old because you stop doing things."<br>

We have a ski instructor at Taos who retired as an anesthesiologist when he was about 60. That's 24 years ago and he has turn away crowds lined up for his classes.</p>

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I've been told that if you venture out on to one of the observation decks part way down, wear a rain coat! The spray is fierce. Protect your gear.

We have a small table-top tripod. Unfortunately when it is folded and put into the leather case, it has the shape of a hand gun. Needless to say it attracted attention from TSA after 9/11, to the point of guns being drawn as I opened the case! Not TSA's fault, they were doing their job! My stupidity for trying it in carry-on, but I bet it would have attracted attention in checked.

Adams primarily did landscapes but also shots of O'Keeffe (yes, it is spelled that way) and Steiglitz. But, Dan, you are correct.

If you have a PC, look for Windows Movie Maker. You can mix in video, perhaps of you cutting mats, together with stills, uploaded easily. My girlfriend found it almost by mistake (it is free and under Programs!) and showed it to me. The next morning I sat down at 8:00 and ten minutes later I had a house guest come see. I had loaded three pictures, added titles and transitions (like dissolves). I got it up to about 40 images, a copyright statement, web site, e-mail, even an "oops!" shot of a torn up photo. Music and voice over can be added (I haven't done that).

 

The 40 or so pix each stay up about 5 seconds (longer and people get bored), with shorter transitions. Titles maybe 7 seconds. After it was made, I burned a DVD (actually about 30).

 

All the elements are there and it is FREE!

 

There seems to be one quirk: I can't make it have all the pix stay up for, say, 6 secs, in one step. I could just be stupid.

I'll "suck up"to Josh: Photo.net is not only the best for all photo related questions, answers etc., it is one of the best, if not THE BEST websites of all I have ever seen. Very well moderated; I got correctly and politely dinged for getting on the dig/film bandwagon. That seems to be the "third rail" of photo sites!

 

And politics was kept to a minimum.

 

How about a forum on "What to cook while in the dark room"?

 

And thanks, Josh, for moving the Adorama ad a bit away

May I seriously recommend "Examples" by Ansel Adams. Full descriptions of every step for about 40 of his classics. Paperback and the photos don't rquire a magnifying glass!

"Most pictures are digital anyway"

 

May I respectfully disagree? I can walk into a photo gallery and with 100% accuracy say "digital" or "film". All I ask of sellers is that they identify for everyone which is whcih.

I generally use Office Picture Manager (I shoot film so these are not for printing). I can do a custom size and make, for example, about a 300dpi image. This ends up being around 30Kbytes, perfect for e-mail etc.

I agree 100% with Paul De Ley. I have seen many folks with very expensive totally automatic cameras (usually digital but that is not the issue here) have photos ruined when taking exactly what Paul described: A animal nicely framed by tree branches, but the AF chooses the branches not the animal. These folks (as we all do!) "forget" their user guides. And the AF noise (and SLR mirror) often scare the animals; I have also heard that the infrared used for distance can bother them as well. We carry Leica M6 rangefinders, so quiet I think the CIA could use them!. Almost completely manual, however I rarely lose a shot. Bright high altitude day in Northern New Mexico, orange filter (we shoot B&W) and f/8 at 1/500 usually does the trick.

 

My girlfriend went to Namibia and usually had to be the first to shoot before the AFs scared the critters away. She does have a series of four shots of an elephant charging the vehicle. The AF weren't going to scare this guy away! She had the camera set at f/8 1/500 (good depth of field!) and despite her hands shaking from fear she got all the shots, and a "butt shot" as it walked away. The elephant could have easily tipped the Rover over! I guess he decided it wasn't "cute enough". She called me from Namibia after the adventure and said "I really hope these came out!"

 

We were in Yellowstone a year ago (if you get to the west you must go - single car entry was about $25 for a week and good at both Yellowstone and the Tetons with unlimited "in and out". I was standing by a road on the way into Montana and she said "look behind you!" and snapped a shot as a 1500lb Bison sauntered past me about 15 feet away. On tarmac and totally silent. The Leica didn't phase him.

 

I am not against AF. Perfect for busy crowd scenes (such as riots!).

Consider using something like Windows Movie Maker to put a subset on DVDs for the jury to look at back in the jury room. Movie Maker is trivial to use.

 

I served on a murder jury five years ago; too many pictures will make the jury lose attention. Show a dozen key ones in court and try to get the DVD introduced as evidence?