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Italian Dolomites

After 3 wonderful weeks at our shared Chez Mirabel house in Provence, Martha and I drove to Toulouse where she linked up with a 10 day art workshop. And I then drove to northern Italy for 3 weeks of hiking in the Dolomites. The first two days were in Santa Maddalena (aka Santa Magdalena) in the Dolomite’s northeast. I then spent 11 days on a self guided walking tour along the Dolomite’s western edge, arranged through the British company, InnTravel. Finally, I spent 6 days on a central Dolomites photography workshop lead by Erin Babnik. There are photo albums that cover each, together with a Favorites album holding my overall favorite images from the trip.

The trip’s photo albums can be found here: Italian Dolomites Galleries

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Columbia Hills Wildflowers

The balsam root and lupine wildflowers in the Columbia Gorge were remarkable this year. High winds turned my first visit into just a scouting trip. So I watched the weather forecasts and returned two days later when low winds were predicted. Other than the fact that the view of Mt. Hood was obscured, the conditions were perfect for photos – no wind and cloudy skies. I returned yet again four days later to show Martha the amazing display. Since I had already bagged a large number of good images, it was just a good walk and I had no problem with the weekend crowds, bright sun, and moderate wind.

The trip’s photo album can be found here: Columbia Hills Wildflowers Gallery

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India & Myanmar

Bend friend, Andy, and I spent 5 weeks in late January and February exploring India and Myanmar. The impetus was photographer Art Wolfe’s announcement last November of a 9 day tour of India’s Kumbh Mela Hindu festival and Ranthambore tiger reserve. Although India wasn’t at the top of my photography “bucket list”, the Khumb had long intriqued me and I had long admired Art’s work & TV show, “Travels to the Edge”. Furthermore, it had also been quite a while since I had had a photography-centric trip. So we jumped at the opportunity. In addition, Art’s colleague, Gavriel Jecan, was organizing a follow-on trip to eastern central India to photograph indigenous cultures not often seen by westerners and we signed up for that as well. Finally, we added 8 days in Myanmar since that was near the top of my list of places to visit. And since Gavriel had photographed Myanmar many times, we enlisted him to guide us on that portion of the trip as well.

All the trip’s photo albums can be found here: India & Myanmar Galleries

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Broken Top and New 11-24mm Lens

Every year I try to get up to the unnamed lake at the eastern foot of Broken Top to shoot its wildflowers. Peak bloom is usually in late August or early September, but this summer I have found most locations to be at least a month early. So I guessed on early August and hit it about right. There is a scary lack of snow — for example, there is absolutely no ice on the lake which I have never seen before, even in mid-September.

And this was a perfect opportunity to try out my new Canon 11-24mm super wide-angle lens … in the past I have often had to stitch together multiple exposures to fully capture Broken Top looming over wildflowers and the lake!

The photo gallery can be found here: Broken Top Gallery

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