HLI PhotoNotes Volume 2 Issue 2 Febraury 2004

Published by Hankins-Lawrence Images, LLC of Bethesda, Maryland

http://www.hankinslawrenceimages.com

Table of Contents

1. Visiting Phoenix

2 Tips for Taking Great Photos While Traveling

3. Photo Spot: Needle Vista Viewpoint

4. Subscription Information

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1. Visiting Phoenix

Both articles in this month’s newsletter were inspired by Bill’s & my trip to Arizona at the end of January. We spent four days in Phoenix – Bill had meetings to attend for a couple of days. So I got in four days of photography – while he only had two. We had a great time exploring a new area. I took about 1500 photos – and Bill took about 850. As you can imagine – we’re still sorting and weeding.

One thing we realized – is that it’s definitely worth doing our homework before we go someplace new when we’re planning on taking pictures. We had a list of ideas of what we wanted to shoot – so didn’t have to waste time once we were in Arizona figuring out where to go – and worrying that we’d missed something great.

We did have one near disaster. I spent Saturday morning at the Botanical Garden in Phoenix – had a great time learning about all sorts of cactuses. When I got back to the hotel – and downloaded my photos to the computer – it couldn’t read half the files. My microdrive appeared to have failed. We made an emergency trip to Fry’s electronics for a replacement microdrive. They were out of stock – so I ended up with a 1 GB compact flash card. It’s slower than my microdrive – but a vast improvement over nothing. Once we got home – Bill spent a few hours with the computer, some disk recovery software and the microdrive. He was able to rescue all of my images.

If you ever get out to the Phoenix area – be sure to take a day and drive east of the city to the Superstition Mountains. The Apache Trail heads up into some breath-taking scenery. The road is about 45 miles from Apache Junction to the Roosevelt Dam – with the last 15 miles or so being on packed dirt/unpaved road. We had a small rental car and had no problems driving the unpaved section. After Roosevelt Dam, you return to the paved roads and aren’t far from the Tonto National Monument where there are two sets of Saludo Cliff Dwellings. The Casa Grande Ruins National Monument are about 20 miles southeast of Phonix. This pre-historic Hohokam village is also worth a visit.

Since Phoenix, we’ve been busy stocking our Ebay store. We’ve added more images and now offer two kinds of cards, bookmarks and prints. Please stop and see our work. The store is located http://www.stores.ebay.com/hankinslawrenceimages

Patty

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2) Tips for Taking Great Photos while Traveling

By Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

Taking great photos when you’re in a new place for just a few days (or even a few hours) can be a challenge. But on the other hand, it can also be wonderful – discovering new places and things to photo. We’ve compiled a few tips that may help you get some great photos on your next trip.

Before you leave home – do some research.

1) Ask other photographers. Patty frequently will ask questions on the phototravel group at yahoo (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phototravel/), while Bill tends to ask his questions on the boards at the Luminious Landscape (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/). In either of these sites, and on numerous others on the web, just post a query mentioning that you’re going to be traveling to a specific area and frequently local photographers will suggest some great places to go for photography.

2) Check out a travel guide or two. Visit either a local bookstore or the local library and you’ll find plenty of travel guides for most locations in the U.S. and around the world. Look for the ones with lots of photos – they’re more likely to give you ideas on where and what to photo than guides that focus on restaurants and hotels (unless that’s what you like to photograph). Also, look for the ones that focus on your interests. For example, we tend to go for books that focus on natural areas and wildlife. A couple of travel guide series’ we like are the National Geographic Traveler series and the Insight Guides from the Discovery Channel. Several guides (such as Photosecrets) focus specifically on photographic travel – which is great if they cover where you are going, although the locations for which guides are available are reasonably limited.

3) Search the web. Google the location you’re planning on visiting – and just follow the links. The photos on the sites may give you some great ideas on what there is to photo in the location you’ll be visiting.

4) Look to see if there are any National Parks (http://www.nps.gov/) or National Wildlife Refuges (http://refuges.fws.gov/) in the area. There are usually some spectacular nature and landscape photo opportunities in these protected areas.

Now that you know what you might be shooting – plan what to pack. Of course you’ll be bringing your camera – but what else do you need

5) If you’re planning on doing landscapes, especially at sunrise or sunset, you’ll probably want to bring your tripod along. We usually pack both tripods in one of the suitcases we’re checking – and without fail – if any of our bags gets searched it’s the one with the tripods. So if you’re packing your tripod – don’t put anything in that suitcase that you don’t want TSA to see.

6) Don’t forget things like filters, cable release, compass, flashlight, bubble level and all those other tools that make life easier for a photographer.

7) If you have a laptop computer, Palm Pilot or Pocket PC – be sure to have Ephemeris loaded onto your system. It’s invaluable for figuring out when/where sunrise and sunset are going to occur.

8) If you’re shooting film – be sure to pack enough or know where you can get your preferred film type where you are going to. And don’t forget to take it with you when you’re going out shooting. On our recent trip to Arizona, there were a couple of photographers up at the cliff dwellings in Tonto National Monument – trying to remember where the film was (in the car, ½ mile and 350 ft. vertical drop away) and figuring out what film they had with them.

9) Remember, if you bring unprocessed film with you on a plane, do not put it in the checked luggage. The X-ray machine for checked luggage will ruin the film.

10) If you’re shooting digital – be sure to pack enough storage media – and hopefully something to download your photos on.

And a few final tips

11) Make sure your camera works – and that you know how it works. The same two guys who were having film issues at Tonto – were also reading the camera manual trying to figure out how the camera worked. They had hauled a fair amount of camera gear, tripods, lights, etc – up a steep trail on a hot day – and they didn’t know how it worked. We did have a good chuckle about their predicament when we were hiking back down the trail.

12) Be considerate of other tourists and photographers. You may not be the only one trying for a particular shot. We’ve met some wonderful people and gotten some great ideas on where to do some photography just by being friendly and considerate of others when we’re out shooting.

13) Take lots of pictures. And have fun. We certainly did on our recent trip to Arizona.

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3. Photo Spot: Needle Vista Viewpoint on the Apache Trail in the Tonto National Forest outside of Phoenix, Arizona.

By Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence

According to the travel guides, this viewpoint is the place to see the 4,535 foot pinnacle of rocks that looks like a needle. Yes – you can see the pinnacle from the viewpoint. What the travel guides don’t tell you – is that the parking lot is a fantastic spot for sunrise and sunset photography. You are surrounded on all sides by mountains, rocks, boulders, cliffs, etc.

On our recent trip to Arizona – we spent two sunrises and two sunsets in the parking lot. For the sunrises, we had color covering half the sky each morning at various times. And then we had about 45 minutes where the rocks glowed in the early morning light. In the afternoons – the rock faces that hadn’t been lit in the morning – turned golden in the late afternoon light. And then there’d be beautiful colors along the ridgelines as the sun set.

Bill and I each got some spectacular photos by just setting our tripods up in the parking lot and rotating the camera to the next spectacular view. The other secret to this photo spot – is that the view of the Needle Vista is actually better from the parking lot than from the official “photo spot” at the end of the sidewalk. We also figured out the easiest way to spot the most scenic view in any area along the Apache Trail – it’s the view with the most power lines running through it.

We’ve put some of our images from Needle Vista Viewpoint on the web-based version of this article, available here. Please stop by and take a look.

Directions to the Needle Vista Viewpoint: From Phoenix – Take Highway 60 east from the city. Take the Idaho Street/Apache Trail/US 88 exit into Apache Junction. Follow the signs in town to the Apache Trail/US 88. The Needle Vista Viewpoint is about 5 miles outside of town on the right, not far beyond the entrance to the Lost Dutchman State Park. For more information about the Apache Trail – check out the information on the American Southwest website at http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/apache_trail/

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4. Subscription information

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