The end of another year is upon us, and I stand in awe of how quickly time flies.  Hopefully your holiday season is filled with happiness and satisfaction when you look back on 2011.  Our house is filled with family right now, and a 3-year-old who is very excited about having Grandma and Grandpa here for a visit, so I’ll probably be pretty quiet on the blog until after the new year.  Looking back, though, I am very grateful for this blog, because of all the repeated visitors who have become good friends, and the new visitors, who I hope will become friends in 2012.

Some posts on this blog generated some great discussion in 2011:

• (Re)alignment
• An Honest Silence
• In Memoriam
• The Need for Wilderness
• Little Mentors
• Make Your Own Tripod Tracks, an essay by David Leland Hyde

To end 2011 on a very happy note, I received word the other day that one of my images (below) was accepted to Yosemite Renaissance 27, a juried exhibit that will be on display in Yosemite Valley from February 24-May 6.  Mine was one of 48 pieces selected for the exhibit out of almost 700 entries–I’m very proud and happy to have my work displayed in this exhibit.

High Sierra Reflection, September 2010

I sincerely hope you have a great holiday season, and a wonderful start to 2012!  I am looking forward to seeing where the new year takes us…

A vernal pool is a seasonal pool that fills up during the winter rains, and dries out slowly over spring and summer, not refilling until the following winter.  In California, Riverside County has 14 vernal pools; 13 are protected within the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve.  When I think of this place, I think of its crown jewel–the vernal pools.

The third, and final, image I have in the Plateau’s annual art show this year is of the vernal pools:

Vernal Pools, Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve, 2009

Fairy shrimp, frogs, toads, snakes, and migrating waterfowl are just a small group of animals that call the pools home, but also rely on them to breed.

The show begins tonight, and runs through September 20.

So little time to write.  So many things to write about.

• Last night the Riverside Arts Walk was a huge success.  It was great to see so many members of the community out enjoying a beautiful summer evening of art, music and culture.  Thank you all who stopped by to look at my photographs!

Studio 39 before the masses descended.

• I’m published!  Well, sort of.  Patagonia’s blog, The Cleanest Line, invited guest submissions on their theme “Backyard Adventures.”  You can read my submission here.  Very exciting, and a pretty cute kid to boot (he gets all those genes from his Mom).
• At his blog, Guy Tal has a fantastic commentary on other photographer’s work.  He argues that instead of feeling threatened when other photographers produce beautiful work, perhaps we should be thankful for the inspiration.  I know, for my part, I feel very grateful for the beautiful photographs I see every day, and their work inspires me to produce better art work.  Visit my links page to see some of my inspiration.
• Jay Goodrich was a guest columnist at Darwin Wiggett’s blog, with a great commentary on the use of Photoshop in photography.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

This week is shaping up to be very busy for Alpenglow Images.  In the past I’ve entered photos in online contests, but have never shown a photo in real life, save for the ones we have hanging in our house, or ones I’ve given as gifts.  This week, I’m in two shows, which is very exciting.

Tonight, I’m participating in my first Riverside Arts Walk in downtown Riverside, and will be showing 13 photos.  Tomorrow, I’ll try to post an update with photos.  If you’re in Riverside tonight, I’d love to have you come by; my photos will be in the Life Arts Center, studio 39 (map).

The other show I’m participating in is at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve, near Temecula, California.  The show is one of their annual fundraisers, and this year’s theme is “A Quarter Century of Conservation and Inspiration,” to celebrate their 25th anniversary.  The Plateau is one of our favorite places to hike, because it provides a quick escape on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and it is very unique ecologically.  Fifty-nine “sensitive” species call the Plateau home, and it house one of the best preserved bunchgrass prairie ecosystems in California.  

I have three photos in this year’s show.  The first one I want to share with you are California’s state flower: the California poppy.

California poppies, Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve, 2009

The show runs from this Saturday, August 8 through September 20.  

A few months ago, my friend Nikki over at Golden West College in Huntington Beach contacted me about using one of my images on the cover of their introductory biology lab manual.  The manual is finally done, and I couldn’t be any happier with the result:

I was very happy to have an image appear on this lab manual, but I’m also very happy with Nikki’s choice of photos.  I’ve been living in southern California for almost 7 years and the Brown Pelican has been one of my favorite birds since I moved out here.  To watch them fly is to watch pure grace.  The way they skim the water, just inches from its glassy surface is–to me–poetry.  As a photographer, I’ve spent many mornings standing on the bridge at Bolsa Chica Wetlands with Pelicans fishing all around me.  Its sometimes very satisfying to put my camera down, enjoying the moment.  The Pelican you see on the cover of the lab manual was photographed at La Jolla Caves in La Jolla, CA–a location well-known to bird photographers.

We’re lucky to see these magnificent birds at all.  In the early 1970s, pesticides like DDT severely threatened the future of these birds.  Fortunately, conservation measures were able to bring them back from the brink of disaster.