Photo Essay: Big Bend National Park, Texas

Photography © John Baker, Travel Images

This photo essay represents the typical range of subjects on a Travel Images photo tour, and are selected in the knowledge that every client is able to obtain similar images. That is the goal for each of my clients.

This is a 'no click' zone! . . . just scroll on down . . .

Week of January 6th: Please excuse the mess while this photo essay is completed!

Our photo tour to Big Bend National Park starts and finishes in San Antonio, but we'll save the Alamo and so on for last. Among the stops as we travel west is Bandera, the 'Cowboy capital of the world.' where we are on the look-out for friendly Cowboys such as this fella.
	Or we can point our cameras at a Cowboy street musician playing for the fun of it.
We start in Big Bend National Park with a series of sunrise images. The more unusual the light the better, as with this fog-shrouded sun.


Again the fog is an asset in subduing the bright sun. The silhouettes are of the gangly Ocotillo Cactus.

More Ocotillo Cactus, but from closer in for more impact.
	Softer light for this Prickly Pear Cactus foreground and Chisos mountain peak. It's a wide-angle shot, and I'm right over the cactus using f.22. so it's sharp from front to back.


There's not much impact about this one, but I went for the wide view to capture the essence of the Chisos Peaks, and the mood of the morning moment.

	It's a bit of a scramble to get to this balanced rock at the end of the Grapevine Hills trail, but worth the effort.
Nearby was this formation in the local stone.
	And on the Grapevine Trail were these two shots of cacti. This first one is 'us and our shadows.'
The second is something not immediately recognizable. It is in fact the 'skeleton' of a cactus, and provides an abstract mosaic.
	There are sixteen species of Prickly Pear, Opuntia, in this Trans-Pecos area of Texas, and this is my favorite. This is because of it's coloration, and the fact that it's less likely to 'bite' than all the others!
A study taken in the Tuff Canyon region of Big Bend. There is plenty of color, rock formations and cacti to play with in this region.


	Ocotillo cactus




Ocotillo cactus

The tall Yucca cacti and a Chisos Mountain peak near Dugout Wells.
	Ocotillo cactus near Oak Creek. Not a lot of skill involved with this one as long as I focused on the Ocotillo, and positioned everything in the frame where it was the most pleasing to the eye.





	In Big Bend Ranch State Park stands the Contrabando movie set, and was the . . . . The church is fake, but makes for good photography
Then a fake cross on a fake church, placed in front of some genuine, God-made, red rock!








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