The Art of Chris Froelich

River Ice Abstract , originally uploaded by photo_griz . Just a few more months, but it is agonizing. Here are some winter river snapshots. I was hoping to get something with color at dawn, but drizzly skies prevented anything neat from transpiring in that arena. However, I did remember a spot on the Clark Fork that tends to have ice back up so I stopped by on the way home. The grey sky made the water almost black for a nice contrast. River Ice

I did not expect this when I heard of this endeavor. The thought "what substance will they find in the uploaded narcissism of a self indulged generation" would have come into my mind if I had the time to compose my thoughts they way I do a blog entry. That was, however, the general drift of my opinion. I did not expect to be captured for ninety plus minutes, caught off guard, by a movie about....I don't know what. I guess about life.

Is there anywhere good to eat? I suddenly miss big cities! My brother called yesterday and asked if the Red Iguana would be a good choice in Salt Lake City. YES it would. I ate there a couple times when I was staying with Renn in Provo. I also liked Squatters. I was trying to see if there was any good restaurants in Carson City and was reading good reviews and thinking to myself "wow, there is lots of good restaurants in Carson City and South Tahoe" then I came across the Applebee's reviews. They were like 4.2 stars! Crap, that is what I have to compare good restaurants to? It is not like the Applebee's in Tahoe is any better than any other Applebee's. They are all exactly the same. So according to trip advisor, the world famous steakhouse in Truckee (rating 4.3) is nearly imperceptibly better than Applebee's. The sad thing is that might be true. Every chinese restaurant in Montana has the same supplier/jobber. It is creatively named "Asian Foods...

Well, I received my first official written offer. I had seven interviews and I felt really good about six of them. The one that went bad...Walgreens. That was surprising and disappointing because I have been counting on an offer from Walgreens in Wenatchee for the last couple years. Also, it was my first interview so my internal dialog went right down the crapper. But the interviews kept getting progressively better and by my last interview things were looking up. I expected someone to set the hook, but not within a couple of days. My first official offer is from a highly reputable national chain in Carson City, NV. Carson City is the closest (big) city to Lake Tahoe and the Desolation Wilderness. My commute limit is 20 minutes. That means a 30 minute drive to Heavenly and 15 minutes to the lake. I have to admit that Carson City was not my first choice, but not because it isn't awesome. Mostly because there never seems to be openings close to Tahoe, so I never really looked in...

Not knowing where we will be next year is starting to take its toll. On me, on my family, probably on my performance at work.  I obsess about it. "Where do we want to live?" I have my list. My goal is to find a community that maximizes the number of things on that list. Polly has a list, but it is much shorter, or contains secret elements that I don't know. Her list, as far as I can tell is: 1. Access to grandbabies. 2. Church members in adequate numbers that we don't practice our faith on an island, or in a fishbowl. That is a short list. My list is more complicated. It has lots of items, and the those items change in relative importance as the seasons of the year, and my life, change. I like the outdoors- that has always been and will always be true. I find that I get depressed fairly quickly if my senses are deprived of the outdoors. The sound of the wind through the trees, the smell of woodsmoke and pine, the simultaneous sensation of a warm sun on my bac...

Around Missoula I had big plans. Peak autumn color in Jackson WY is usually the last week in September or first week in October, so I arranged a three day weekend to bask in the grandeur of the Tetons. I would drive home through Yellowstone and capture bison challenging each other for dominance of the heard. But alas, plans don't always work out, especially when you plan in a vacuum. I did use the weekend to toole around the local area to get in a quick fix.  An old barn in the Mission Valley. I love old barns. This winter, when the Mission Range is snow covered I am going to come back with a large format camera and Fuji Velvia and take panoramas from this spot at sunset. I'm so excited. This is an old bridge that burned down a long time ago. I don't know why this looks do dark on Blogger. It looks really cool on my monitor before I upload it.   Some cows enjoying the good life in the warm October sun down in the Bitterroot. Sometimes I miss my Dad even ...

Glacier National Park Work has been great, but busy so I haven't had a lot of time for to get out and take pictures. I could have taken some time when in Minnesota, but I was more interested in relaxing, visiting with friends and family, and laying around. I've definitely had the bug lately so on Saturday afternoon I threw a half packed bag of stuff in the trunk of the car and drove up to Glacier for about 36 hours. The weather was terrible (terrific for most people -blue skies, breezy, hot) for photographers. I slept in my car, hiding from the rangers so I wouldn't get a ticket. Even though Glacier is huge, it is hard to hide in a car since there is basically one road that goes through the park and the fuzz is pretty adamant about keeping freeloaders from staying overnight without paying a camping fee.  Anyone who goes on photography trips will tell you ---they are not relaxing.  Up a couple hours before dawn and in bed after midnight. I probably hiked about 15 m...

USA Pro Cycling XC Mountain Bike Championship, Missoula MT On July 23, 2011 Missoula hosted is first ever US Professional XC mountain bike championship at Marshall Mountain.  The course was grueling, but the day was perfect. I had to work until 5:30 and the race started at 6:00 so I was a little late in getting the the race and had to "run" up the mountain to get to a good location. After my heart exploded and my lungs popped like a walleye's that's been brought up from the deep too fast, the oxygen delivery to my brain suffered the equivalent of a mild stroke. I just set the ol' Rebel to auto, and jockeyed spots that gave me good comps.  The race leaders. It was close through the first 4 laps. They are coming up about a 5-10% grade here and going faster than I can go on flat ground. I don't normally take pictures of moving people or things but this was an opportunity to get really close to world class athletes. Winner and Local favorite Sam Schulz. ...

Ruby Beach part 2 Here are some more pictures of Ruby Beach, WA.  As per request, I put shooting information in the caption of the photos and how they were processed. These were from the second night I was at this beach and I had a pretty good idea of the picture I wanted to make, but didn't know if I knew how to pull it off technically. I was pretty happy with what I got, it looks just like I wanted it to within the limitations of my equipment, with the most notable limitation being my ultra-wide lens doesn't seem to be tack sharp - ever. It is an off brand, but I expected it to be better at its reported sweetspot. Maybe I have a bad copy. I should send it in and have it looked at. Ruby Beach Sunset - Canon Rebel T1. Tamron 10-24mm lens.  17mm  f/11 2.5 second exposure. Circular polarizer. 2 stop hard grad filter. Raw conversion with IPhoto and cropped to 8x10 ratio. This picture rocks for me for a number of reasons. First - its cool. Second - it is what I tried t...

Ruby Beach, WA  Some more photos from my trip back in May. I spent two nights in Olympic National Park along the coast. I hadn't planned on going that far North along the coast, but I got rained out of the Gorge and I just didn't fall in love with Cannon Beach like I thought I was going to. Since I didn't know where I was going, and I don't have a tourist guide for the Olympic Peninsula, and none of the ranger stations or campgrounds were "open", AND the entire area seemed like it was deserted, I was pretty much flying blind on where to get good photos.  I was basically driving down HWY 101 pulling over every few miles and walking out to the beach to see if there was anything cool going on. It was actually pretty relaxing and the weather was finally nice (cool but sunny).   I was intrigued by a roadside sign that read "Large Cedar Tree - 1 Mile" I thought, "Wow, that must be some tree if they have a sign out by the road. I better go check tha...

I took a trip down the Bitterroot looking for old barns. Barnwood is loved by photographers because of its pleasing tones and its ability to look great in any conversion. I especially like the way it turns out in HDR treatments. The seed-heads of the grass take on a glow when photographed in diffuse but strong light and that effect is enhanced from the HDR process. The sky looks menacing and the truth is that it has been raining for months. As sick of it as I am, I count my blessings that I am not one of the unfortunate families forced out by the floods in Missoula.  Bitterroot Barn With all that rain has come the most incredible spring wildflowers since we've been here. I've got a few photos of the flowers before, but I took some more thinking about Michael Orton. MO developed a technique of photography using slide film. He would take two photographs, both overexposed but one would be sharp and the other would be intentionally out of focus. He would then combine the t...

As I have done photography over the years, I've come to the realization that I like to do landscapes because I control everything. I like methodical, slow, and measured. For those of you who know me best, that may be surprising since that is not how I really go about my life day-to-day. Maybe it is therapeutic so I can avoid Focusyn. Additionally, no flowers have ever had their special day ruined by my bad pictures, so I don't ever feel any pressure. This is one of the reasons I don't really want to do wedding photos for money. Yesterday though, I got to take pictures of one of our friend's wedding. It was nice because I really had no pressure and it was easy because they are gorgeous. It is easy to take nice looking pictures of beautiful people. I wonder why digital cameras all shoot in the 4 x 6 aspect ratio. The more I shoot, the more 4 x 5 appeals to me. The composition is more pleasing to my eye. I need to start keeping that in mind when I shoot on a more con...

Haystack T&S Study Haystack After Sunset Normally when I shoot photos, everything is sharp, saturated, and uses the entire dynamic range of the camera. I don't want to pigeonhole my creativity, so I went for something different on my last night in Cannon Beach. It was a full moon, or maybe one day before, so I waited around after the sun set for another hour until the moon came up behind me. With the twilight and the moonlight, I had a really flat light that worked well. Not a lot of color, and I slightly desaturated even further. The grainy look is because I shot this at 800 ISO and my Rebel is no 5D. I hope you like this because I froze my buns of to get it. It was 40 degrees and very windy and I was soaked.

Portland's Japanese Garden While driving through Portland, I saw signs that read "zoo" and I thought "eh, that could be o.k. but I'm on my way to the beach." The zoo isn't worth losing valuable wave staring time so I was going to pass on through. Then when I was nearly to the exit for the zoo, the signs got more specific. Now when I arboretum on the sign, I nearly ran others into the ditch so I could make the turn in time.  As I started driving around the zoo grounds looking for the arboretum, there was a sign for the Japanese Garden. I got very excited. This little 2 hour detour was one of the highlights of my trips and I could have spent a whole weekend there learning how to photograph plants, garden vignettes, and take macro shots. As you look at these, your going to say "photoshop". Well, I don't even have photoshop on this computer. I did run one through an HDR processor and I have before and after pictures for that one. Foot Br...

More from Palouse and McAll Preserve in the Columbia Gorge Some more morning shots from Palouse. I hope when I go back I get some more interesting light. Really clear  and calm days with no atmospheric haze are best for color, or stormy clouds coming in over the plains. Something cool anyway. Chocolate Palouse - This one makes me want pots-de-creme. Palouse Creek  Cloud formation of Palouse - does anyone know what these clouds are called? I really did battle the weather for the first half of my trip. Tom McAll Preserve near Hood River was gorgeous, but it was also very windy and overcast with blah skies. Also rattlesnakes were in the grass so I was nervous about tromping around to get the composition I wanted. Wildflowers in Tom McAll preserve.