Trees in the Clouds

Creek

I've been experimenting a bit with black & white. Although this is a digital conversion, I've been thinking about getting some B&W film for my old 120 camera. With a little bit of equipment and chemicals I could start developing my own film again and scanning the negs. There's something about pinning all your hopes and ideas onto the right mixture of solutions. It's like magic, loading film in the dark and pulling wet images out of a canister a half hour later.

Desolate

I recently had two days off, after working a solid 9 day stint. I knew I had to get into the outdoors, and fast. I had loosely planned a trip to the Mt St Helen's National Monument and the surrounding Gifford Pinchot National Forest. I had decided on my adventure being in the Northwest corner of the park, in the Coldwater Lake area. It was close to Olympia, seemed remote enough to not warrant many crowds, and bordered on National Forest land(free dispersed camping!) I arrived Thursday morning to discover many things, two of the most important being that the forest land in that part of the park is maintained by Weyerhauser and therefore doesn't allow camping, and that all of the Monument's back country sites were all well under snow and down officially closed trails. Devastating. My closest camping option was a state park about 45 minutes back where I came from. On top of this the mountains were covered with quickly moving storms that brought downpours, sunshine, and repeat. Being pretty bummed out, I rationally decided to drive 2 hours to Mt Rainier National Park. If I was going to pay for camping, it might as well be somewhere awesome, not some lame state park near a popular lake for boating. Before taking off I of course checked out a few of the shorter trails, and snapped a few photos. This little gem is of an area that has been left off limits to people since the blast, so that we can study the land as it recovers on its own.

Enjoy
-Tyler Gates
Good life Photography

This is what life is for

George Mallory Said It Best

"What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.”


This was part of George Mallory's many responses to the question of "why climb everest?" I hope it inspires you as much as it does me.

Joshua Tree National Park

It's not all about the trees.

Indian Creek Utah

Indian Creek National Recreation Area is a rock climber's wet dream. The canyon walls surrounding Indian Creek rise up from the ground on all horizons like looming monuments. It is a sight that is unbelievable until you've been on the walls. Hiking up the talus slopes puts you at the base of innumerable cracks that seem to go on forever into the sky. Climber or not, if you've never been there, I highly suggest you put it on your list. At the Southeast corner of the Utah's Canyonlands National Park, it is only about an hour South of Moab and extremely accessible. Get there.

Oak Creek Canyon

Like A Dream

Although I've wanted to live out West for as long as I can remember, it was a trip to the Grand Canyon that really gave me the kick in the butt to get out here. Even with all the crowds and buses right along the South Rim of the National Park, it is still magical. There is nothing like watching the sunset over the Canyon. It's an entire education on light in about a 45 minute period.

This was a quick snap I made as we were running to catch the sunset. It's also one of my favorite shots of the Grand Canyon, despite the lack of canyon in the frame.

Enjoy,
Tyler Gates
Good Life Photography

Reflections

For a long time now, my eye has been drawn to reflections. There's something so natural and yet alien to reflections, a sort of natural photo manipulation. When they're photographed they usually cause the viewer to pause. The image looks normal, and yet there is something that makes you look at it for a second longer. I stumbled upon this beauty when I started shooting underwater. I used the premise for my senior thesis in art school, and my eye has been drawn to it ever since. Some of the images can be seen here.

Santa Catalina Mountains

This is my old backyard. I'll always remember the canyons, pinnacles, saguaro forests, and the miles and miles of rocky unforgiving mind blowingly beautiful trail.

Gates' Pass

Since I haven't really been doing anything with my photography over this past year, I've been really enjoying shooting with my old Ansco Ventura. The camera is from the early 1950's, is completely manual, shoots 120 medium format film, and folds up to fit in my pocket. I love it. In Arizona I probably shot about 10 rolls of film, and scanned the best out of most of them yesterday. Since moving, I've shot about 6, now I just need to get them developed. There will be more of these coming soon.

Enjoy
Tyler Gates
Good Life Photography