Grand America Tour

molested_cow · Sep 23, 2011

So the trip has concluded and I finally have left the country for good. My camera scored more than 5000 clicks in this month-long trip, most if used for HDR bracketing.
The route I took was, I left from Ft Lauderdale, FL, stopped at Panama City Beach, New Orleans, Austin, El Paso, Scottsdale, Grand Canyon (South Rim), Hurricane, Zion, Kanab, Grand Canyon North Rim, Page, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Moab, Arches National Park, Salt Lake City, Bonneville Salt Flat, Biose, Yellowstone, back to Boise, Cannon Beach, Neah Bay, Cape Flattery and finally Seattle. I was at Key West earlier this year so I wanted to to the tip to tip trip.

I officially crossed 12 states + Florida ( Montana and Wyoming was brief cus I was in Yellowstone), managed to take photos of the state signs except Wyoming, it was almost unnoticeable.

I know people will get annoyed if I post too many photos, so I will post just a few here and you can click on the link to see more.

New Orleans

Bastrop TX

El Paso, TX

Zion

Antelope Canyon

Monument Valley

Bonneville Salt Flat

(Yes that's me, and DO NOT do this with your own car unless you want to spend the rest of the week cleaning salt off )

Yellowstone

Neah Bay

Cape Flattery (meh)

and finally, Seattle

( Taken at Pike Market )

Photo album:
Grand American Tour 2011 pictures by molested_cow - Photobucket
Use the menu on the right side of the page to go to specific locations.

Blog:
Cowing Around
Stories and photos and personal accounts.

Feel free to link any photo you want to talk about. Crits are welcome although this is more of show and tell.

On a side note, I started using Photomatrix Pro recently and absolutely love it, so you will see a lot of tone mapped images. They are probably over done, but I am still learning the software.

D-B-J · Sep 23, 2011

Some well done shots there. Looks like it was fun! Is that a brothel in the first image? Haha

Derrel · Sep 23, 2011

Some nice stuff!!! You have a good eye and a great spirit. I like the starscape at Zion, and I THOUGHT I HAD MY FILL FOR LIFE of Antelope Canyon photos, but, you know, YOURS is the first new,exciting, interesting shot of it I have seen in a year or more....it's just been DONE TO DEATH, but your rendering of the colors and the textures is very exciting visually! Making an exciting shot of such a shopworn, cliched place as Antelope Canyon is really an accomplishment to be proud of!

molested_cow · Sep 23, 2011

Hi Derrel, thanks for the comments. Have you been to Antelope Canyon? It's like a battle field!!! Had to fight with other tourists and photographers for the spot. Every shot is almost a lucky shot. Also, very dangerous place for cameras because of sand. I was using AF-D 35-70mm lens for second part of the tour and sand started raining from above and got into the lens. It got so bad at one point that I pretty much lost auto focus because the motor couldn't move the sand clogged lens. It's much better now though. Tripod suffered badly as well.

The first one is at the French Quarter in New Orleans. There are also other brands, like Barely Legal, Penthouse, Hustler etc.