I've had more than my fair share of eye problems of late and, unfortunately, the issues continue. The biggest problem has been hemorrhaging in both eyes in the last few years. Laser surgery sealed off the leaks but there's serious side effects that continue. I have a lot of debris in both eyes and that makes seeing a big issue. I have "spider webs" in both eyes, collagen webs that hang in my vision and cause distortion. When I was home this last trip I noticed that they seemed to be falling apart and debris is floating all over the place, including near my retinas. So occasionally my vision simply blurs and I can't really distinguish much of anything. Not a good thing when you are a photographer. Usually I can move my eyes and the blurring goes away but it's still a major inconvenience. I'm hoping the problem abates but might take a long time. I still have the webs in my right eye and the surgery was several years ago. The eye doctor assures me they will go away but, at my age, time is fleeting and I don't have years to wait. Not sure what I can do to fix the problem.
Wyoming Sunset
It's funny. Most of the time, to capture the images I put in this blog, I have to work very hard. I have to find the location, often carrying a ton of camera gear on my very broken shoulders, deal with the elements, sometimes risk life and limb to get in a place to make the image, and then hope that the results are worth all the effort. Out of thousands of images I take each cycle I'm lucky if I get 100 that are useful. Of course, some of that bulk is simply due to taking lots of cycles looking for just the right light. It's not unusual to take 50 sets of images to get one final presentation. That's just the nature of the beast.
Then there are the rare occasions when the image comes to me. It literally drops from the sky and hits me square on the head. Such was the case for this photo. I had just left Yellowstone, heading south toward Albuquerque and my trip back to Russia. I was in a rest area on I80, near Laramie, WY. It was located on a hill above the highway so I could see a long way in all directions. It had been cloudy most of the day and was very windy. I was sitting in the truck, feeling it rock as the wind roared up the hillside, reading on my tablet. I was facing east with the sun setting over my shoulder. For some reason I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the beginnings of a spectacular sunset. Everything was perfect. I was really tired, having been up since 4 AM but I knew that I'd really kick myself if I let this event slide. So I grabbed the camera and my tripod and headed out into a field near the parking area. Several people had the same idea I had and we all stood there, our cameras at the ready, watching this majestic sunset unfold. The colors were amazing and the clouds, interacting with the strong winds, created the most spectacular shapes. This was, by far, the best sunset I'd seen on this trip. It was a wonderful way to finish the trip from hell. I guess the gods were feeling sorry for me and decided to give me a little pick-me-up as a going away present. This is the west at its best.
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| Wyoming Sunset - 16mm,f/11,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
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