John W Jacobsen Photography

We woke up early this morning – far too early for a vacation day – and headed up to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I’ve been there five or six times in the last year and have always gotten some good images, but today was by far the best.

We started out at Sprague Lake. I’m addicted to the reflection of the peaks on the smooth water. Today was no exception as we were able to get several images from many different locations and angles.

On the way back from the lake, we went on the Fern Lake Road and were treated to three herds of elk. There were hundreds of them. They weren’t very close to our shooting location, but I managed to get a couple of shots of a solitary buck trying to win some female companionship. As we continued down the road, Tara screamed “Coyote!”. Wow! I’ve seen coyote before but never this close in the wild. Spectacular.

We meandered through the park some more and my mom screamed “Deer!”. Sure enough, there was a buck laying down no more than three feet off the side of the road! We turned the car around and hopped out to take pictures of the regal deer. He was not at all intimidated by us and was quite content to let us photograph him.

So yeah, a pretty good day at Rocky Mountain National Park!

I’ve been on vacation all week. For the most part, I’ve done a whole lot of nothing! Well, that’s not entirely true, it seems like the days have flown by and it has been quite eventful around our house.

The week started off with our terminally ill beagle Sidney getting drastically worse. We knew that he had pancreatic cancer and we suspect his pancreas burst on late Saturday afternoon. There really isn’t much that can be done to cure this particular form of cancer. So while we were somewhat prepared for his imminent passing, it came far too quickly for both myself and Tara. On Sunday morning, we brought the little guy to the vet for the last time. R.I.P. little dude!

I spent quite a bit of the week working on both this website as well as learning, practicing and honing my small flash photography skills. An invaluable resource during this time was Kelby Training. Some people I know have used this and recommended it in the past, but being stubborn, I didn’t really pay attention. I wanted to beef up my Photoshop skills so I thought I would give Kelby Training a try and wouldn’t you know, I’ve spent over 10 hours learning about photography and off camera flash from the likes of Joe McNally! Kelby Training definitely rocks and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about photography or photo processing.

With the week winding down, I’ve also whittled my “to-do” list down as well, including raking all the leaves. I decided I better get some “fall” pictures or my wife would never forgive me. Some of these photos aren’t typical fall foliage orange, red and yellow, but I think they represent how I feel about fall. I love the change of season, especially in fall as it gets cooler out.

Still plenty to do this weekend as well. We’re planning to make a short trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow morning and then I have a date with my friends Rachel and Greg. They purchased a great old farmhouse on the outskirts of town and they are letting me (cajoling me?) play in their barn for the afternoon! This could be trouble!