Yellowstone National Park - Enduring Trees

The interesting colors do not come from a filter but from nature.  This image is from the same trip that I took to Yellowstone during the fire.  These particular trees have seen fire in their past.  You can see the old growth on top that wasn't reach by the fire and the new growth coming up from the forest floor.  I found this to be an interesting juxtaposition of new and old.

Yellowstone National Park - Fire

Driving through Yellowstone National Park at the end of it's busy season we found ourselves slowed down by traffic.  Usually large crowds of visitors to the park would slow down travel, but on this particular day a lightning started fire was slowing down our progress through the park- named the Arnica Fire.  Lightning started fires in the park generally extinguish on their own.  Yellowstone is a fire-adapted ecosystem, and fire plays a major role in maintaing the health of the area's wildlife and vegetation by clearing old underbrush and allowing for new growth - Mother Nature's way of cleaning!

This photograph was taken off the road near a grove right before Yellowstone Lake came into view.  The sun was shining beautifully on the landscape while the smoke was diffusing it.

Tyler - Photo Session

This handsome man is my cousin Tyler.  He recently asked me to take some professional photos of him for an upcoming television show he is going to be apart of.  These are a few of my favorites from the session we had.  He's a natural in front of the camera and I hope these help his days of fame.  Best wishes Tyler!

Cathedral of Junk - Austin, TX

One of the inside stairwells 

Outside view 

Inside view looking down from one of the levels

With a couple of close friends visiting Austin I wanted to take them to something that was unique to Austin and tells of its character.  The Cathedral of Junk stands quietly in the backyard of a small house on a suburban street on the south side of Austin, TX.  The conditions were perfect to explore this eye catching building size sculpture.  We all spread out into various directions exploring, each of us yelling out to each other of all the great finds.  Within this sculpture there is families of birds, various vine plants that have been living harmoniously amongst the junk and layers of junk that allow you to climb safely above ground.  There was a spectacle of objects of every shape, size and color.  We easily spent an hour there and I know I will be back to explore some more.    

Montana Winter

I recently re-located myself to Austin, TX - we've been here a little over two weeks and are enjoying it so far.  I am in search of a better job market for the arts, a change of pace and different climate - Austin had all of that to offer!

With the move my blog updates have been really lacking (actually non-existant).  So with 2010 here, one of my resolutions is to continue to blog new photos weekly.

I thought I'd put this picture up because it reminds me of why I love Montana and also why I was ready for a change of climate.  This picture was taken the day after a storm had come through Bozeman - dumping multiple feet of snow on our community.  Although this snow did not stop daily activity from going on it did slow down the town.  I really enjoyed the contrast of the truck and blue skies against the piles of snow.  Plus these old trucks are always fun to photograph and generally have a story of their own.