Sometimes you just have to be stupid and irresponsible. And fortunately, I am good at both.
Let me explain. . . .
I have always wanted to see Big Bend National Park in bloom with wildflowers. Unfortunately, it has never really happened when I have been there in the past. A few weeks ago, I got a Google Alert that Big Bend was really starting to bloom and though I was desperate to go, my schedule was full.
Then last week, I came back from leading workshops with some great Texas photographers like Kathy Adams Clark and Larry Ditto at Featherfest in Galveston. Larry Ditto leaned over to me at dinner one night and said “Big Bend is amazing right now and you should really get your butt down there” (or something to that effect). I sighed and said “I really want to, but I am swamped back home and just don’t have the time.”
When I got back home from Featheriest, I got yet another Alert and this time I could not help myself. I begged for patience from a few clients waiting on images and agreements, I juggled my schedule, and I downright ignored other responsibilities (my bad), threw my cameras and sleeping bag into my SUV, and took off. I slept in my SUV, photographed 16 hours a day for 5 days, and then hustled back home just before some meetings I could not figure out how to otherwise shirk.
And now I am desperately trying to get caught up and fairly exhausted.
Was it worth it? Oh yes – Big Bend National Park is heaven for me on any day. Big Bend with wildflowers is a great big photo orgasm.
Here is the view as you roll into the park from the north.
Highway to Chisos Mountains with roadside bluebonnets, Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA. Canon 7D Mark II. 200mm. ISO 1250. 1/400 second at f/16. EV +1 ⅓.
You are responsible to all of us for creating beautiful images from a landscape that only very rarely offers this type of beauty. Seems to me that you are being pretty darn responsible.
Thanks John! You are way too kind, but I like it.