TomJustTom

My friend Chuck who runs the most excellent Thai Restaurant the Bangkok Wok had me come photograph the restaurant’s 20th anniversary celebration. The celebration consisted of a prayer service and blessing by Thai monks after which they received a food offering. The service was interesting to watch with chanting prayers that were beautiful to listen to. After the “service” portion which was in the restaurant the activities moved to another part of the strip mall that is currently vacant and was setup with chairs and a stage for the entertainment. There was traditional Thai music and a number of traditional Thai dances were performed as well as a kickboxing demonstration. All in all it was a lot of fun and interesting to photograph.

The day ended with the transmission going out in my car. I guess 12,049 miles did it in. At least I wasn’t on the other side of the country when it happened…

The final stop on my way home was with my mom’s cousin Ned (which I’m told makes him my first cousin once removed) in Kentucky outside of Cincinnati. We got in late and while the plan was to leave the next morning, we decided to stick around and make a day of it and spend another night. It was a really good decision. The kids had a lot of fun and it broke up the drive nicely for them  (and me). After a morning in the pool at his condo we went into Newport, Kentucky with Ned’s girlfriend Maria acting as tour guide. Apparently Newport used to be a hotbed for mob activity. Who’d have thought the mob would be a big thing in Kentucky? After a brief tour of the town we went to the Newport Aquarium where we all had a great time. Trey was spellbound and Emma pet a shark and fed a bird. We followed it up with dinner at the Haufbrauhaus which is one of a few American Haufbrauhaus franchises based on the legendary establishment in Munich, Germany. Finally, we grabbed the requisite ice cream from historic Graeter’s Confectionary.

The next day we stopped off in Columbus, Ohio around lunch time. It was a Saturday and the city was very quiet. After driving up and down some of the main streets trying to find a place to eat we saw a crowd of people standing in front of a place called Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace. This was definitely the right place. A hot dog joint that was packed. What more could you want? I had a Hot Bollywood with spicy mango chutney (which was quite good). And the photo is of Trey’s Octodog.

Finally Saturday night we arrived home. The final reading on the odometer was 12,049 in total miles over 61 days covering 22 states ad one province. All in all a very successful journey. Stay posted for more to come though…

Traveling back North brought me back through St. Louis where my previous host Laurie had laid out an array of fun kid things in the Gateway to the West (or Gateway to the East in our case). After waiting for Emma to get going we finally arrived at her #1 recommendation, the City Museum around noon. After trying a few times already to explain what the City Museum is all about, I’ve realized what a difficult task it is. Lets just say it is a living, breathing, climb-all-over-me piece of art. It was fantastically amazing. Tubes of metal spirals led up and around all through an amazing labyrinth of rooms, ceilings and outdoor free flowing sculpture. Old airplanes sailed four stories high with tangled pathways leading in and out. If you are visiting St. Louis with kids you should definitely check this out. We ended up spending all afternoon there until 5:00 when it closed and I would be surprised if any one of us was through even half of the maze. In addition, they had a circus school and a performance by the students that was really quite good. Trapeze, juggling, humor. It was very entertaining.

After the city museum checked out the Gateway Arch and then we went looking for somewhere to cool off. We didn’t really find anywhere but did make a stop at Forest Park where we saw the egret pictured below. So we headed back to Laurie’s and hit her pool for a while. Kids were happy!

Those who have been following my trip intently may have noticed that my itinerary had somewhat evolved. Most specifically I was heading further south than initially planned. This was because some plans had changed and I needed to pick up my kids on the way back home rather than making a separate trip later. So a detour to Little Rock Arkansas brought me a reunion with my children Emma and Trey. After picking them up we went to the Little Rock’s Peabody Hotel to watch their world famous ducks enter the fountain.

We then went on a trolley ride around town before grabbing lunch (and a milkshake) at The Hop Diner and then starting our drive north.

I can’t say just how great it is to be back with my kids. Homeward bound!

The drive to Kansas City across Kansas was not the most interesting drive of my trip, but I kind of expected that going in. I was surprised to come across as many sunflower fields as I did rather than just corn.

Kansas City impressed me as a city on its way up. It seems like there is a lot of money being spent on redevelopment. I rode my bike around and checked out some of the various downtown areas including a ride over to the Jazz District at 18th & Vine. The first four building images below are from the Sprint Center. From there I rode over to the Crown Center and came across the fountains. This is one of those zero-level open-air type fountains. It was plenty hot (I wasn’t missing the West Coast’s lack of humidity) so I thought it would be a fun picture and feel good to ride my bike through. It took several tries with the self-timer before I got a shot I was happy with. Just as I was viewing the final photo I was approached by a security guard. “You are not allowed to ride bikes in the fountain… in fact there is no bike riding in this whole concourse.” “Really? I didn’t see any signs.” “No, that’s why I’m here. And what are you taking pictures of?” “Me riding my bike through the fountain.” “Oh.”

I don’t usually take photographs of other people’s art. So, while I’ve seen many great murals (and Kansas City has more than its fair share of really nice ones) they generally are not my subject matter. The Michael Jackson mural however was just so well done that I thought I’d share it. What you can’t see from this image is that his sun glasses are made of mirrors and a semi-reflective metallic tin-foil-like material. It really set off the whole piece.

The spice photos are from the City Market. A scoop of spices was only $1.00 so I had to pick up a scoop or two from Katie & Maggie who were fun to talk with. I did some internet research on where to get some Bar-B-Q and was recommended to try LC’s Bar-B-Q located at 5800 Blue Parkway. The sandwich doesn’t look like much to write home about, but man was it good. The beef practically melts in your mouth and the sauce is to die for. When I finished I said some brief words to a gentleman a table over. It turned out to be LC himself and we got to talking. I got the impression that he could talk days about Bar-B-Q and cooking in general. He even popped into the DVD player an episode of Bar-B-Q with Bobby Flay that aired on the Food Network. He was A LOT of fun to talk with and his laugh was nothing short of infectious. What a great way to end my stay in KC.

The drive to Denver was really beautiful. Not the kind of drive that instigated a lot of pictures, but rather just a really nice drive. I stopped off in Vail on way the as well as a few other towns. Vail was quite amazing. You could almost smell the money in this bustling tourist town. I can only imagine what it must be like during ski season. The town itself is very reminiscent of a Alpine ski village in Switzerland or Austria. My favorite attribute is that the whole town center is closed off to vehicular traffic.

Further along the way I pulled over to the No Name rest area outside of Glenwood Springs, Colorodo. As it turned out this rest area was also a jump off point to enter the local bike trail. I considered going for a ride, but instead decided to continue on in the car. In hindsight I will consider that to be one of my bigger mistakes of the trip. As I drove on in the car the views were spectacular with the rapids of the Colorado and the white water rafters taking on its challenge. I would definitely recommend (without actually doing it myself) that anyone traveling this stretch of road with a bike plan for the time to pull over and try this trail out. I wanted to just watch the scenery, but wasn’t able to as intently as I could have if I were biking while driving some 70 or so MPH.

The morning brought biking around Denver and taking in the city. There are 3 things that I found surprising about Denver. 1) It is flat. Denver was one of the flattest cities that I’ve biked in. 2) The mountains are barely visible and don’t play a significant role in the downtown cityscape. 3) That I didn’t see a single cowboy-ish looking person. So with my new found understanding of what Denver was I ended up doing a lot of abstract architectural photography. I was then heading back to my car when I saw the signage on the City Grille. It was only 11:00AM (10:55 actually as I had to wait for them to open) and I wasn’t that hungry, but some signs just cannot be ignored. I was not disappointed.

From Moab I also went to check out Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands wasn’t quite as interesting as Arches, but still a worthwhile trip. My first stop was Mesa Arch where I met a number of different people (photographer types) and showed them some tips on off-camera flash photography. This has been an ongoing theme through this trip which has made me feel that there is some real need out there for some education. The view from Mesa Arch was quite spectacular with the canyon floor below in the background. The rest of the day was driving around Canyonlands and checking out the various vistas and taking a hike or two. One of the hikes was to a crater known as Upheaval Dome. The signs around the crater supported the two theories as to the formation of the crater, but according to Wikipedia a single theory seems to have garnered overall acceptance.  I didn’t find the crater all that interesting photographically and took few photographs while there and posted fewer to this blog (none). What I did find interesting was a phenomenon that I now had experienced for a second time. I noticed how oddly colored my skin was after taking this hike. I had “turned” greenish. Being a photographer I am keenly aware of white balance and the effect of color casts in light. In short, different light sources emit different color light. An incandescent bulb is much more yellow than the sun and a florescent is much more green for example. Your brain adjusts your perception automatically in a way that you often don’t discern the difference when walking from one light source to another. By walking around in the “red” of the landscape my brain adjusted my perception to make “red” more “normal”. As a result my skin tone became perceived to me as green. Very strange phenomenon indeed. You can read more here if this interests you. Lastly, I don’t normally shoot clouds for the sake of purely shooting the clouds, but these two formations were just so different. The first was just so odd with the huge arrow-like appearance. The second just looked too much like a poodle on its stomach.

I went for a hike out to the Double O arch. The total distance was listed as 4 miles round trip. At the trail head there was a sign that recommended I believe a liter of water per person. So I headed out with my 12 oz. bottle of water figuring I’d be ok. The one thing I noticed as I was making this trip was that there was no one else on the trail. It was hot… and I was sweating… but I felt perfectly fine. What felt like miles down the trail but was probably about a mile and a half I did finally run into my first (and only) group of 10 or so hikers. They all looked at me like I was crazy being out alone and urged me to turn back as it was still quite far to go as they scoffed at my water supply (which admittedly was now at a scoffable 1/4 bottle). After 10 minutes of their urges we each traveled on in our own directions. I only went a few more hundred yards before their pleadings started making sense and I turned around. When I got back I still had half the water they had seen me with and could have gone a lot further. Oh well… common sense:1 – Tom:0 on that one.

The weather was also starting to turn. What had been a perfectly clear day was giving way to a rather unsettled day. Clouds prevailed and distant storms threatened. Regardless as sunset approached I headed out to what is billed as the world’s most famous arch, Delicate Arch (which is supposed to be best photographed at sunset). The map indicated a 1 1/2 mile walk each way. It felt substantially longer but it was a very interesting walk none-the-less.  Delicate arch is on the edge of a large bowl formation that had a steep long pitch into the center of the “bowl”. I treaded carefully on the outer rim of the bowl while a 7 year old scooted along close to the steeper part. Then he dropped his water bottle which made a quick descent into the center. He almost followed. It would have been bad. Very bad. Just about when I had had enough of photographing the Delicate Arch the storm clouds were becoming more threatening and the lightning strikes appeared to be getting closer. I made a hasty return to my car seeing as how my tripod shared all too many similarities to a lightning rod and there were many large open high spaces that I had to transgress to get back to my car. I made it. Unstruck by lightning. Again, danger averted. I grabbed some quick shots of the Wolfe Ranch and faked a sunset to give it a little more zing.

On the way back from Delicate Arch one of the far off thunderstorms was kicking up over the Fiery Furnace. I had to stop and take a series of pictures capturing lightning strikes over the formation. My favorite of the batch is posted (though there were several cool ones), which also may be my favorite from the whole Arches collection. Again… it goes back to the uniqueness thing. No other image is exactly like this one and in fact there would be relatively few that are even similar.

The images of Marceau are of the one other person who was at the same location as I was to photograph the sunrise. He was from Zurich, Switzerland. And finally, Tom was a tour guide with another group. He was just so interesting looking that I had to ask if I could take his picture.

I am putting some consideration into offering some photo workshops. Specifically there are two different ideas bouncing around in my head.

The first would be an “Intro to Photography” workshop that would cover the basics of making a better photograph, be it with a nice DSLR, a point and shoot camera, an IPhone, on Film, whatever you choose. The basics of taking a better photograph are basically the same no matter what camera you are shooting with. Higher-end cameras do offer additional versatility in setup, however composition (which typically supersedes everything else) is consistent with all formats.

The second possibility would be “Using a Single Off-Camera Light to Augment Your Creativity”. As the name would suggest it would be using off-camera remote flashes to create more dynamic looking lighting. The images below are just some examples of times I have used an off camera light during this trip to make a more compelling shot.

I would likely be doing these workshops in the Harrisburg area but would be open to traveling if the circumstances were right. I can be contacted through the comment box below or at tom(at)tomwenger.com if you have any interest in either of these workshops.

After leaving Flaming Gorge I headed to Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah. Arches was high on my list of must see places and it really did not disappoint. It is hard though to find unique shots. In my post ‘A Little More About My Photos‘ I discussed the wide variety of subjects I shoot. What I didn’t talk about was how hard it is for me to sometimes shoot these subjects. When I am confronted with something that has been shot hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands if not millions of times as in the case of these arches it is hard for me to even bother framing the image if I am not able to find something that is unique to my photograph to the masses of images that are out there. Sometimes I force myself to do it anyhow, just because it is s0 important in a documentary sense and I even post them here. Sometimes I don’t and just let it go. My images from Arches show some of both. Some images that I was able to bring a little extra and other images where while they are good images, are not much different from thousands of other images. But this is one reason I am driven to night photography when the subject lends itself to it. Just by being out there at night I have cut out 99% of the other people shooting. Being there for sunrise cuts out a lot also, but still leaves 3% of them or so (these are not scientifically derived numbers, but rather guess-timates from my experience). There were signs around warning of the mountain lions. So I was looking over my shoulders the whole time I was out at night and the mornings. They suggested not going out alone… but it was either go out alone or don’t go out. Obviously I chose to go out…