Last Couple from the road trip home.  The Ranch House Cafe was on a stop somewhere past Roswell, NM.  A few buildings and the sign was all that was left of this road stop.  The cafe looked like it was out of commission for the better part of 10-15 years.

The old cabin was along the route home, had to shoot from the car because the wind storm that was coming in was pushing 40mph + winds that made getting out of the car not a hot idea.  Unless I wanted to have my teeth whitened by sand blasting.

Captured with Nikon D700 70-200f2.8 on Lexar digital film.

First place that caught my eye was this abandoned Post Office.  Great part, it still had a working mail slot.

Just down the street was an abandoned motel with and I quote “Lo Low Rates”  Probably why they went out of business.

More from the road trip home tomorrow…

Captured with Nikon D700 24-70f2.8 on Lexar digital film

Yep, you guessed it.  It is a BIG rock in the middle of Texas.  This place was a great stop on the TLS a lot of different scenes all in one place.  The rock formations themselves are wild.  Layer upon layer of rock just bulged up out of the ground and has slowly been eroding back down to earth over the past couple 100K years or so.  To me it looked like I was standing on a pair of Volcanic Cores, but I was schooled in the ways of Texas geography and am better for it now (Thanks Jeff!!)

Captured with D700 24-70f2.8 on Lexar digital film

Captured with Nikon D700 70-200f2.8 w/ Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo filter

Finished in Silver Efex Pro

So they say everything is bigger in Texas, and right now the wildflowers were just going off full tilt.  Jeff took us out to a place that had more wildflowers in a 100′ area than I had seen all year back home.  The varieties were amazing and the colors were great.  I got a chance to take my 105f2.8 VR out for its first trial run and boy did it not disappoint.

Pretty sharp considering the wind was blowing like crazy while we were out there.

This one was hand held at f13 to get the depth of field I wanted.  Hand held in DX mode to get a tighter crop.  ISO 400 to help with the wind.

Captured with D700 105f2.8 VR on Lexar digital film

Amazing place to shoot…

Captured with D700 24-70f2.8 and 70-200f2.8 with the use of a Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo filter on Lexar digital film

So I am hanging out with my buddy Jeff Lynch at his Texas Landscape Safari right now and it is a blast.  The places out here are unreal and if you haven’t been you need to come out here and let Jeff show you around, because if you don’t know where you are going you would never find these places.  There will by more post once I find time to get all these great shots finished (maybe a few by the end of the evening).

The shot above was from the road trip out here, came across this abandoned lot that still had the Motel sign out front.  For some reason I just love these old signs.

Caught these to set of petroglyphs in AZ at the Petrified Forest.  You are not allowed to get near these rocks anymore due to people vandalizing and unstable rock slides in the area so I had to drop the D700 into DX mode to give me a bit more reach.

BTW if my images look funny, my MacBook tool a dive on me on the way out here and I have not been able to color calibrate, so just enjoy the pretty colors

More images to come soon…

Motel – Captured with D700 24-70 f2.8

Petroglyphs – Captured D700 70-200f2.8

On Lexar Digital film

With all these, the motion was captured by just pushing the f-stop between f13 through f22 depending on how much blur I wanted out of the water.  I lucked out that the day was overcast with another storm getting ready to blow through, which made it possible for me to do this without additional filters.  However, if you want to learn the steps in doing this with all the goodies, I highly suggest you sign up for the Safari with Jeff through the link up above.

It was a great time out there and there will be a few more posts this week with other shots form this location.  So keep and eye out.

Images Captured with 1D Mark IIn 70-200f2.8 on Lexar digital media

Main prop on an Avenger.  This was the isolated shot that I was looking for to control the background.

T-28 Trojan Prop

To give you an idea of what the inside of the hanger looked like, below is a wide shot of a P-38 engine and prop. Take a look at the background.

So the car collection at the War Eagles Air Museum is just as impressive as its War Plane Collection. And after playing around a bit with the planes my attention turned to the cars.

Front hood ornament off and Auburn. Once again thinking about background control. About 15 feet behind this car is a TF-51 Mustang, but you would never know it.

With the way the background and ceilings were staying tight and looking for details in the cars and planes paid off.  Had a great time at the Museum.  If you do find yourself there go and take some time to really take in the history, and some fun shots.

Planes Captured with 1 D Mark IIN 70-200f2.8

Cars Captured with 1 D Mark IIN 16-35f2.8 II on lexar digital media

First up the Cattle Rustler’s house.  Funny thing about this shot.  The brick work in the foreground was part of what was left of the town jailhouse.  Funny story behind it is this.  Even though cattle rustling was illegal in those times the rustler never saw the inside of the jailhouse, because he was the source of fresh meat in the town.  What’s that old saying “you don’t bite the hand that feeds you?”

Some of the old water storage tanks that supplied the town with water and supported the mines.

Back of the Cattle Rustler’s house with doors that have almost blending into the walls.

Ok, so this may not be the quintessential  ghost town shot with lazy-e-boy barcaloungers,  but for some reason I had to take this shot.  One of the care takers was telling me the story of this abandoned house and it was pretty amazing.  Not because of the house, but its former owner.  Not to go into a long story but the owner lived hear for close to 94 years is memory server me, and came to the camp when he was 2 and was a valuable source of information about the town and its going on.

Lake Valley is well off the path only getting about 1000 visitors a year.  So if you are in the area look it up and stop by.  The place is great and the caretakers are very nice and are fountains of information.

Captured with 1D Mark IIN 16-35 f2.8 II on Lexar digital media