The Art of Chris Froelich

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...