MY VACATION

BALANCING FAMILY TIME AND MAKING ART

From inside our tent, the incessant flapping told me that the spring winds were coming up today. It was still dark outside, and I was glad that we were going home and would miss out on the pending sandstorm. My family still slept, and dawn was about to come. For the past three mornings, I arose to photograph the Death Valley sunrise. The trip had been fun for the family, plus I was also very pleased with some new work I had made.

On this morning, I decided to just get up and watch rather than blast off in my vehicle for a serious photo session. Sometimes I like to put the camera aside and just soak in nature’s beauty with all my senses. Besides, I wasn’t jaunting off to one of Death Valley’s prime sunrise locations like Zabriskie Point or Badwater, so I had no expectations photographically.

But then as I sat outside our tent, in spite of my “morning off” plan, some clouds above me began to turn pink. Ah, yes . . . just soak it all in. Time to relax. I lasted about five minutes! The clouds were forming a beautiful pattern and the colors became brighter, so out came my camera. As I photographed the clouds, some ravens performed some antics in the sky above me with the dramatic clouds behind. Now I was awake and energized, and in full “seeing” mode. The ravens and clouds combined wonderfully in my frame.

I wandered away from camp to where I could see the sun come over the mountains. Shafts of light streaked into the sky as the sun reached the horizon. After rising, the sun went behind some clouds above the peaks. Besides their dynamic formations, the clouds were showing luminous rainbow colors in their ice crystals. I was really having fun now, and when opportunity knocks . . . ! As I photographed, my daughter ventured out of our tent and enjoyed the moment with me.

The photograph Sunrise and Clouds, from that morning, was taken with my Canon 1DS Mark II. I stood in a clearing at Furnace Creek, aiming above some buildings and palm trees. This was not exactly a wilderness experience, but a 70–200mm zoom allowed me to isolate a simple composition of mountains and clouds. The exposure was tough, given the contrast range.

Several life lessons occur to me regarding that magic morning in Death Valley. First and foremost is that every day is a gift (yes, I happily confess that I have been reading Dewitt’s columns for a couple of decades now). Such gifts will always come your way, so be ready to accept them. Be grateful for the opportunity to experience and share beauty with others.

Balancing different parts of one’s life is another important lesson to learn. It is a high priority for me to balance photography with my family life. Given that I am not traveling far and wide to photograph these days, these breaks have afforded me time to photograph and spend quality time with the family. I have managed this balance on trips to Big Sur, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite’s high country, Death Valley, and to the East Coast in autumn. Although these were not highly focused photo sessions, I have been very pleased with the results.

A major benefit of my family/photo vacations is that my kids are learning at an early age to appreciate nature, and also, hopefully, about their father’s artistic and environmental passions. By letting our children know our own sense of wonder for nature, the future has a chance of being brighter.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.

– RACHEL CARSON

Seastacks at Sunset | Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington | 2014

On another vacation, we traveled to Olympic National Park. As with many of our trips, my family hung out at the beach near the car while I hiked up the beach for sunset at these spectacular rock formations.

Giant Sequoia and Fir Tree in the Fog | Sequoia National Park, California | 1993