Jim pic 47

This is the last of the trip photos of Jim’s that I’m going to feature, though there’s actually one other image that will appear shortly. For now, we’ll take a look at this rather critically.

First off, I doubt that Jim is considering this his strongest composition so I don’t feel bad featuring it in this manner, but let me ask you: What do you think read more

Jim pic 46


This is a variation of the previous Jim pic, and I searched in vain for anything to provide scale. I could guess how tall these hills are, but I’m just going to let Jim pop in here and tell us, under the stipulation that he do so in furlongs. It’s my blog, I make the rules…

In the meantime, dig the colors, and textures, and layers, and the faintly surreal aspect of it all.

Jim pic 45


This has been a largely missing week for me – I’ve had the time to do stuff, but not the inclination. Ah well.

On the previous Jim pic, Jim himself stated, in a cameo, that he liked the “upcoming images” better, and so I had to delay posting them for a while, because. But I’m not in total disagreement, either – the odd colors for a hillside are rather compelling read more

Jim pic 44


This is probably my favorite of Jim’s Badlands shots, because of the light quality and the clouds in the sky – most of his other shots show skies that are brilliantly blue yet bare, in need of something to offset the solid color. Here, however, the color has softened, and not just in the sky – everything has a pastel appearance that comes very close to making this read more

Jim pic 43


Jim told me that, standing up on top of the hills where he took this pic, he could hear the desperate cry of hikers that had ventured down to the valley floors and gotten lost in the natural rock maze. Plus the occasional scream as one would get eaten by a Griffindor…

Okay, I lie, Jim would pay no attention to anyone that idiotic. But I did finally look up the geologic history of the Badlands, read more

Jim pic 42


I am almost positive this is facing in the opposite direction as the previous Jim pics, the view from the top of the trail up those curious hills. The landscape is actually a little enigmatic, since it appears to be the result of erosion yet is amazingly flat for such circumstances, and the rock that looks soft and crumbly is likely much, much harder than the ‘bedrock’ read more

Not daily Jim pics 41


While these are pretty similar to the previous couple of images from Jim, I’m featuring them for a particular reason. The scale of the first image is almost indeterminable, and it would be easy to believe that the hills stand reasonably tall – not mountains, of course, but a pretty impressive barrier at least. Until you look closely.

Did you see the footpath leading not just to the hills, read more

Daily Jim pics 40

Okay, so, part of the idea of doing a ‘routine’ on your blog is to goad yourself towards making regular posts, which helps visitors find something new nearly every time they come by. And one of the hazards of this is that you’re obligated to be creating new content, even when you might not necessarily have something strong to post. A lot of sites suffer from this now, putting up read more

Daily Jim pic 37


I don’t care how the stupid song goes, this is not an antelope – there are no antelopes in North America. This is a pronghorn (Antilocapra americana,) more closely related to giraffes than antelopes. I expect you never to make that mistake again (or suffer the wrath of a nature photographer – you know how we get.)

Meanwhile, Jim’s got this thing about his subjects facing right. read more

Daily Jim pic 36


This, and the last few days worth of Jim pics, were all from Custer State Park, where apparently there are a lot of wild donkeys or burros. Something vaguely horselike, anyway. I’m guessing there’s not a lot of white ones, which makes this pair notable at least, but seriously, most of my attempts at elaborating on these images are going to be wrong to some degree, so read more

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