Wente Vineyards

Lately, I've been reorganizing my photo archives to make them more user friendly and to convert my backup files to DNG.  In doing so, I've been coming across photos that I haven't looked at in a loooong time, and I'm falling in love with them all over again!

To that point, here's one from an impromptu shoot at Wente Vineyards one morning in October.

New fine art photography website!

Back in December, I announced Wedded Bliss Images, my new wedding, engagement, family and pet portrait site.  And today, it's with great pleasure that I'm announcing the official launch of my new fine art and travel photography site, Twisted Rock Photography!

I'll be adding new albums to the site, so check the "recently updated" section often!  It's a surefire cure for your case of the "Mundays!"

Scotty's Castle - Death Valley

To say the least, Scotty's Castle is unexpected.  It's a canyon oasis, with a Spanish-style mansion, bath house, palm trees along open flowing water, and one of the most innovative power plants of it's time, all in the middle of a dryer-than-dry desert.

In the early 1900s, a prospector named Walter Scott, better known as Death Valley Scotty, was making a fortune conning far-away businessmen to invest heavily in his fictitious Death Valley mining operations.  One of these men was Albert Johnson, a Chicago insurance magnate and millionaire.  By 1906, however, two years after his initial investment in Scotty's mysterious gold mine, Johnson was noticing a distinct lack of return on his investment, and, with a few other investors, decided to make a visit to Death Valley to check out the mine.

Now, Death Valley Scotty was a very clever fellow, and staged a fake shoot-out to happen while he and his brother were taking their investors to see the mine, so that the city folk would decide it was too dangerous and turn around.  Unfortunately, in all the excitement, Scotty's brother actually did get shot, and Scotty called the whole thing off.  With the ruse exposed, the investors realized they were being conned and pulled out.  Johnson, however, developed a love for the desert and the adventure that always surrounded Scotty, and became close friends with Scotty, forgiving him for his fraudulent behavior.  To that end, he made many trips with his wife Bessie out to the desert, eventually building the oasis that is Scotty's Castle, which even includes a suite built just for Scotty!

Death Valley National Park offers tours of Scotty's Castle year-round.  Now, the pictures!

The mansion is guarded by two gargoyles perched atop a fantastic bright red gate.

Ornate lanterns adorn the mansion.

I just loved all the color-- reds and oranges everywhere, and that unbelievably blue California sky!

I fully admit, I, too, own red dishes-- these, however, are Albert and Bessie Johnson's.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Psychological suspense meets suburban noir

I recently discovered that a friend of mine writes psychological thriller fiction.  Cathryn Grant's stories are about the situations and circumstances that can push an otherwise normal person to madness.  She's been published in several magazines, and is preparing to publish her first book!  A number of Cathryn's short stories and "flash fiction" pieces are posted on her website, www.cathryngrant.com, and, if you like suspense, I highly recommend them for a quick read when you need a break from the every day grind!

And, because every post is better with a picture, here's a teaser from tomorrow's post about Scotty's Castle!

Happy Thursday, folks!

Jack and Arnie - Pet Portraits

Jack and Arnie are my "dog-in-laws"-- they live in Chicago with my husband's parents.  Arnie made his internet debut back in June, and I decided it was high time Jack got a little love on my blog, too.

If you're in the Bay Area and would like an on-location portrait session with your pets, drop me a line!

Redwall Canyon - Death Valley National Park

Redwall Canyon is located in Death Valley's colorful Grapevine Mountains.  Just north of the popular Fall Canyon, Redwall is guarded by a slick, two-level 20-foot dry fall just past the mouth of the canyon.  If you can climb past the fall, you're greeted with serpentine narrows painted in brilliant reds and oranges, with deep undercuts and impressively straight walls.

Little Bridge Canyon - Death Valley National Park

If you've followed my blog for any amount of time, you know that I love love love Death Valley.  It's one of my favorite places on earth, and somehow, though we didn't plan it, we ended up there on our honeymoon.  This time around, though, we started exploring some of the more difficult to get to canyons, as well as a few that weren't in the guidebooks or named on the maps.  Little Bridge Canyon was the first on our list.  Simply getting to the mouth of the canyon requires a couple hour walk across the alluvial fans of Tucki Mountain.  Once you get in the canyon, though, you realize it's totally worth it.  The natural bridge the canyon is named after isn't as impressive as the bridges in some of Death Valley's other canyons, but the colors are fantastic!  Reds, yellows, golds and purples.  And complete solitude as well....

Cable Mountain - Zion National Park

Zion National Park is a fantastically beautiful place.  We find ourselves there at least once a year to hike, climb and photograph like crazy.  Zion is characterized by colorful sandstone cliffs in reds, oranges, yellows and even purple.  On our honeymoon trip to the park, we decided to try a few new hikes off the usual beaten paths, which led us to Cable Mountain.  Back in the early 1900s, a sawmill was operated on the rim, and a cable car was built atop Cable Mountain to transport the lumber down to the canyon floor.  The original cable system was hit by lightning and burned down in 1911, only to be rebuilt and operated until about 1930, when it was abandoned due to a lack of lumber supply.  The ruins of the cable structure still stand on the top of Cable Mountain today.

The view across the canyon on the way up to Cable Mountain, seen on the left.

The ruins of the cable system still stand precariously on the very edge of the canyon rim.

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

Horseshoe Bend

Horseshoe Bend is a horseshoe-shaped meander in the Colorado River near the Arizona-Utah border. We stopped by on a rainy travel day from the Grand Canyon up to Zion. It's a short hike from Highway 89 up sandy slopes and sandstone to the lookout point, and well worth it!

Happy Monday, folks!

We're moving!

You may have noticed a few changes here on the blog. Since we got married back in October, and I'm no longer Erin Lang, I'm now doing all the paperwork and account updating to change everything to my new name, Erin Filliater.  It's not all set up yet, but starting very soon, I'll have separate sites for weddings and fine art photography, and my blog is moving to http://www.erinfilliater.blogspot.com.

In the meantime, check out my new wedding site, Wedded Bliss Images:

Happy Wednesday!

Winter at the Grand Canyon

On our way out of the Grand Canyon, it snowed, rained, and sleeted.  For most people, this means staying inside and curling up on the sofa with a good book or at least a good DVD.  For me, it means moody, interesting photographs, and of course, a lot of running around in the rain and snow.  Many props to my driver/assistant/wonderful husband, who makes last-minute left-hand turns, carries gear, and shelters me and my camera while I change filters and lenses-- you're the best!

Bright Angel Trail and Plateau Point

The Bright Angel Trail is one of two main thoroughfares into the Grand Canyon from the South Rim Village. The trail itself is wide, nicely graded and well-maintained, and sees hundreds of visitors and a couple mule trains each day, even in the off-season. It passes through colorful cliff bands, ranging in hue from white and grey to pink, coral, orange, and purple. Along the way, there are two rest houses and a campground. The Indian Garden Campground, at 4.5 miles from the top, is the day hike turn-around point for most people, though we decided to go a bit further out to Plateau Point, where you can finally see the Colorado River meandering through the Inner Gorge.

The trail picks its way through cliff bands, then down to the bottom of the Garden Creek Canyon.

Bamboo grows alongside Garden Creek.

Grand Canyon

When I was 16 years old, my parents took me and my four siblings on the summer vacation that I like to call the "Whirlwind Tour of the West." Seven of us packed ourselves into the old Chevy Astro van, hitched up the little pop-up camper, and spent two weeks driving across the western US. We stopped at national parks along the way, managed to somehow find a preserved sod house off the highway in Iowa (which also featured an anatomically-correct buffalo sculptured from barbed wire), and ended up at the end of the first week at the Grand Canyon. We did the usual tourist attractions in the South Rim Village, and then one day, we hiked a little way down the Bright Angel Trail into the canyon. And that's when I was hooked. The ranger told us the trail kept going, all the way to the bottom of the canyon, and I just knew I had to get there.

Ten years later, my husband and I bought a tent, sleeping bags and enough freeze-dried food to feed a small army and took up backpacking for the simple reason that I had to camp at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And we did, at the Bright Angel Campground, for two nights. We had such a good time, that we decided to go back on our honeymoon, where we learned a lot of new things about backpacking in the canyon... Especially in regards to water. But enough reminiscing, here's the photos!

 This was the view from our very-briefly-occupied campsite as the sun went down.

After we came back up from our backpack, we took a rest day and walked the Rim Trail, where the bighorn sheep like to eat in the winter. This one wasn't bothered by the camera at all.

More from the Bright Angel Trail on Monday! Happy weekend!

Back from Vacationland

Well, we're back from our fantastic adventure-filled honeymoon, and now I have tons of photos to sort through! Our travels took us to the Grand Canyon, up through southeastern Utah, and then, unexpectedly, back over to Death Valley (we just couldn't stay away!).

Here's a teaser from the Grand Canyon-- more photos to come as I get through them.  Enjoy!

Honeymooning!

We'll be out on our honeymoon (finally!) for the remainder of November.  Check back for photos from the Grand Canyon, Zion, and eastern Utah in December!

Happy Thanksgiving in advance!