The Galapagos offers incredible snorkeling opportunities. Our first underwater experiences were off the black lava beaches of Floreana Island. Although visibility was not the best due to our timing and a strong lunar tide, we still experienced lots of marine life. There were countless giant green sea tortoises and stingray everywhere we looked.

Here Jayme inspects a particularly large sea turtle. As I said, we had cloudy waters, but it still appeared clearer to us than it appears in the photographs.

Our next Galapagos snorkeling experience was in the aquarium-like waters at Los Tuneles off the shores of Isabela Island. This area was incredibly fun to play in, as there are countless lava arches and tunnels to swim in, around, through, and under.

The Los Tuneles area is filled with lava reef that are teeming with fish. I found fish incredibly hard to photograph with the old point and shoot underwater camera! But it was fun trying nonetheless.

The Stoplight Parrotfish is a sex-changing fish. Think about it.

We also went hunting for the seahorse in the mangroves. We didn’t find him, so I just took a picture of mangrove roots so that I didn’t feel like a complete failure.

Hey look, another pair of boobies!

Galapagos penguins. A pelican takes flight. Finally we have a cute little gray bird with a red mouth. I have no idea what he is, and our guide is no longer around to let me know In addition to the terrestrial landscape, Los Tuneles also offers excellent snorkling. Fortunately I brought my underwater camera, so we will be viewing those images in my next post coming tomorrow.

The landscape of the Galapagos is dominated by the volcanos that formed the islands. We traveled from our Red Mangrove Lodge in Puerto Villamil to the upper reaches of the Sierra Negra Volcano for a hike along the volcano’s rim. The tops of the volcanos are usually covered in clouds, so we were prepared for rain and varying visibility. Fortunately, the weather was kind, and we were able to peak out from beneath the clouds to see the coast.

Once we reached the northern edge of the rim, we were impressed by the expansive caldera. Sierra Negra is the second largest caldera in the world at 9.3km across, and quite active as well. The most recent eruption was in October 2005.

After hiking for a while, we enjoyed some lunch under this giant Jaboncillo Tree.

Another lone tree on the horizon, as we descended down into the lava field on the north side of the volcano. Unfortunately, the clouds blocked the view of the two northern volcanos on the island, so we turned around a little early to avoid the impending rain showers.

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped for a tasty lunch at an organic farm called Campo Duro Eco Lodge. I didn’t take too many photos, but I did capture this image of a Galapagos giant tortoise in dramatic lighting. I think he looks quite evil!

Isabela Island is the largest island in the Galapagos, and the third island on our Red Mangrove Galapagos Tour. We are staying the the small town of Puerto Villamil, footsteps away from a white sandy beach on the ocean. Palm trees are not indigenous to the Galapagos, but they help to create that storybook tropical feel.

Once again, the main attraction here is the abundant wildlife. We took a cruise around the bays and inlets created by the ancient lava flows, lookin’ for critters. We were not disappointed, and we soon found some Galapagos penguins.

We visited Islote Tintoreras, which is a nature hike through one of these lava fields. The black lava rock is covered in white lichen, which offers awesome contrast for landscape photos.

A curious sea lion waddled up out of the water and approached our group  as we walked on by.

I’ve already posted lots of marine iguana photos, but here we encountered large groups of juveniles all piled up on top of each other, retaining the day’s heat. It was super funny to watch them climbing all over each other in funny positions.

The Great Blue Heron is not unique to the Galapagos … but still makes for a dramatic nature photo in great light.

Back at our casa on the beach, we watched yet another fabulous sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow we will be climbing the volcano to the second largest active caldera in the world.

After a day on Santa Cruz Island, we took the hour and forty five minute boat ride to Floreana Island. Once leaving the island you can see how the clouds linger over the highland volcanos and taper off over the sea.

At we approached Floreana Island, we could see a rain shower directly over our destination, the town of Puerto Velasco.

You usually don’t have to travel far on the Galapagos to see marine wildlife. Here you can get a feel of how concerned the sea lions are with our presence.

It is actually quite a task to keep up with the planning, photography, writing, image tagging, blogging, and publishing while in the middle of a busy trip. We are often seen working on our laptops while eating, driving, and boating. This sea lion clearly doesn’t really give a shit whether we are using a Mac or a PC.

Also within a few feet of the dock, are dozens of Marine Iguanas. This particular type of iguana is unique to this island, has bright red and green coloring, and is nicknamed the Christmas Iguana.

Since the male iguanas have no money, they must fight for the most desirable piece of real estate. The ladies seek out the male with the best piece of real estate with Pacific Ocean access, just like in LA.

Our Red Mangrove Floreana Lodge was a short walk from the pier. In a town of 120 people, everything is a short walk!

Our cabins on this remote island were located on the shores of a small bay with a black lava beach. Around the end of the peninsula was La Loberia: the sea lion beach. Look closely and you’ll see some of them napping in the sand close to the shoreline.

A baby sea lion runs to his mother … soooooooo cute!

We also took a ride to the top of a cloud-shrouded hill outside of town. From here you can see the town of Puerto Valesco, and the sea lion peninsula to the left.

Here is a quick shout out to one of our gear sponsors for this trip, Smith and Suncloud sunglasses. We’ve been rocking these glasses with polarized lenses on all of our sunny boat trips and have been loving them.

We enjoyed a brilliant sunset right from the deck of our cabin. The sun is setting on this blog post as well, next we will be traveling to our third and final island, Isabela.

On the Galapagos Islands, the weather varies dramatically from the coast to the volcanic interior. The center of the islands, known as The Highlands, are normally shrouded by misty clouds. We headed into the Highlands to check out some volcanic terrain, as well as to check out some of the famous Galapagos tortoises.

El Rancho Primicias is a privately owned ranch on the edge of the Galapagos National Park lands. Giant tortoises are migratory animals, and naturally pass through the private lands into the park. Since the tortoises became a protected species, the owners of the ranch land switched from being cattle farmers to tortoise caretakers, selling entry, supplies and gifts to tourists, and thereby supporting the tortoise population recovery. Tortoises on the property are also taught to strike cute poses for photographers, which dramatically increases visitation after the images go viral.

Why do the tortoises need to recover? Well, the early Spanish explorers and subsequent pirates were not kind to the tortoise population. Sea goers could stack the tortoises in the hulls by the thousands, exploiting the fact that tortoises can live up to a year without food or water. Word is that they taste like chicken, although these protected gentle giants are no longer found on any menus. Yeah, mankind has been quite barbaric over the years.

Also on the grounds at the ranch, we were horrified to discover the deranged Stevtoise, a half man, half tortoise monster, thought by scientists to never have ever existed.

Nearly blind, we quickly fled the land of the tortoises and sought refuge from the constant mist which made our pants damp. Luckily there is a lava tunnel nearby. It was dark and dripping wet, just the way I like my tunnels.

Way to go Steve, way to turn a perfectly functional and informative blog post into a complete mess. Check back tomorrow when we go somewhere else awesome and I write irreverently about it.

We arrived at our Galapagos host, Red Mangrove Adventure Tours and Lodges. Red Mangrove offers the first land based Galapagos Tours, and they are geared toward adventure types like us. We will be staying at three different Red Mangrove properties on three different islands. We scarfed down a quick lunch and were whisked away to our first afternoon tour of lava strewn El Garrapatero Beach.

OK so I don’t normally do the “animals in nature” photography thing. But, when in the Galapagos, a photographer can’t really help himself. You generally don’t need some giant 600mm lens, since most of the critters are quite fearless and you can walk right up to them. I bought the full frame Nikon 28-300 lens just for this trip, and so far it has been awesome has offered adequate reach. It is the lens that replaces the camera bag.

By far the most colorful animals we have seen have been the Sally Lightfoot Crab. These prolific critters provide brilliant colorful contrast to the dark lava rocks. The juveniles are a camouflaging darker color, but the adults don’t have any real predators, other than their buddies, who can sometimes turn carnivorous.

Frigatebirds are the pirates of the air. They don’t have the gland that secretes the oil that waterproofs their feathers like other sea birds, so they cannot dive. Thus they have to resort to other methods of acquiring food. One of their favorite methods is stealing it from other birds like Blue-Footed Boobies, but in this case they were having a battle royal amongst themselves.

We found this pair of marine iguanas lazily chillin’ on the lava rocks. They are the only sea going lizards in the world, and they can only be found on these islands.

That’s all for today, as we spent the remainder of the day eating, editing, and catching up on some much needed sleep. But be sure to check back for tomorrow’s adventure, where we visit a preserve full of giant tortoises.

Happy Monday on the Steve Z Blog! When we last left off I was in San Antonio at the photography convention. After that I headed west across the giant state of Texas en route back to Colorado. My next stop on the Great American Road Trip was to check out Big Bend National Park. I was checking out Google Earth the night before my drive in, and I almost decided not to go. For a guy who lives in Colorado, the landscape didn’t seem too impressive! But, I was so close, so I decided to take the southern detour anyway. There was supposed to be some good mountain biking down there anyway

Sure enough, there really isn’t much going on down there, when you compare it to the national parks of the western states. There is one clump of mountains that pretty much would be on the outside of the real national parks in Utah! Oh well. I did a super quick tour through at high noon and kept on truckin’ on through. So I was trying to get shots in the most difficult time of the day for nature photography. Most of my shots have some sort of sun flare in them to add a compositional element to the big clear blue sky.

I did realize that it was the middle of winter here as well. The plant life was looking quite dead and desolate. I’m sure that it’s a different scene when the desert is in full bloom. This century plant was looking quite stark and wicked, in contrast to what it looks like when blooming with yellow flowers.

One of the few plants that still had color were these colorful purple and orange cacti. It was pretty hard to get shots with them since they tend to grow at the base of scrubby bushes. Overall, it was a good photo challenge to come up with some interesting shots with really harsh mid-day sun.

Next up will be some desert mountain biking in Lajitas!

I took the southern route from Louisiana into Texas, and enjoyed mile after mile of completely desolate highway. There were some amazingly long and flat sections.  Driving the speed limit was pretty much impossible!

On the stretch of highway south of Houma, there is a long canal lined with homes where the shimp boat captains live.  There are all sorts of boats, from plush and expensive looking ones which require large crews, to run down relics that seem barely seaworthy. Here’s an image of a boat that did not weather the storm.

There is a lot of space down there at the bottom of the country.  A random minimalist composition.

More trees and moss.  This one tree was still alive in a grove of death.

I planned my route by using Google Maps on my phone. I didn’t notice that my route required me to take a ferry across a channel in Cameron.  I showed up at the loading area exactly as the ferry was pulling away.  Bummer. But the bright side, is that I had a front row parking spot when I did load. It was a busy spot, and I saw two giant tankers pass through, on their shipping route up into the interior lake system.

This is the end of Louisiana week here at Steve Z Land … join me next week for Texas and New Mexico!

The majority of the house are built on pilings. I saw a funny billboard advertising services to raise homes. It had a picture of one, and said “Bayou Hi-Rise”. Pretty funny!

Speaking of funny signs, I particularly enjoyed this one. “Ring Ring. “Hello, this is Kevin.” “Hey Kevin, sorry to call at 3am, but I’m in need of an emergency mackerel cleaning!”

I traveled south of Houma on Rte 56 and eventually made my way to the end in the town of Cocodrie. There are vacation homes with lots of signs indicating that it’s a Fisherman’s Paradise. This of course explains the need for fish cleaning services.

On the way back I headed on Rte 57 out across the open bayou at about 1 foot above sea level. It was a really cool twisty road lined with tall grasses. The destruction from Hurricane Katrina was revealed in the landscape.

The region has a great expanse of land that is prone to flooding. Other than the stilt houses, other regional evidence is revealed at the cemetery.

I started out taking a couple test shots in the backyard. There are a couple things that are a little different about infrared shooting. The first thing, is that IR light focuses at a different spot than visible light.  So you need to have your system calibrated, or just shoot at a large aperture.  The second thing, is that if you shoot too wide open, then you get diffraction.  So it’s best just to stop down.  IR looks best in bright sun anyway, so it isn’t much of a problem.

This first shot, is pretty much how the images come straight out of the camera.  As you can see, the colors are a pretty strange orange to green hue.  The main effect from the camera, is that leaves and grass become really bright in relation to what they normally would be. Apparently this is due to the chlorophyll.

This is with the white balance all the way down at 2000K.  You can still adjust the tint, to give you a lovely magenta/blue hue. Fortunately for me, I like weird shit!

Next up, I wanted to see how well the tilt shift works.  Success! You can see why most IR images are converted to black and white! I have now learned that the trick to color IR photography is to bring the images into Photoshop, then use the Channel Mixer to change the colors around.  That way you can get color images, with more pleasing nature tones of blue, white, and yellow as opposed to orange and purple!

My final test was to find out if flash photography works. I had no idea if it was going to work or not, but I was very happy to find out that it does! Here is me, very concerned that the light wasn’t going to show up.  Also interesting is that the strobe adds a third color to the mix; here it’s showing up as more of a purple color compared to the greenish leaves and my orange skin. IR cameras have a way of seeing through your skin a little bit, which makes people appear ghostly, and can negate makeup. Tattoos are extremely vibrant for this reason.

With the testing complete, I headed out for a mountain bike ride at Morris Bridge with the camera in the Camelbak. Unfortunately, the clouds started to roll in mid-ride, and all the images after that point are pretty flat and boring and lack contrast. But I did get a couple shots at the beginning.

Here is a landscape that looks much better on a big screen.

This is my favorite photo of the day without a doubt!

Then I managed a mountain biking self portrait by laying the camera on the ground and using the timer!  The sun had gone down, so the contrast isn’t quite as good as it could be. This shot would have been better with some off camera lighting!  Well, those shots will be coming soon!

In typical Steve Z fashion (times two!), we got a pretty late start. We started out paddling across the open bay waters.  Eventually we headed upstream to the Three Sisters Springs.  This is an area in the mangroves that promises the best photo ops.  It’s a narrow little entrance to get to the springs.

Crystal River is the only place where you are allowed to swim with manatees and interact with them in their own environment.  So I had to give that a try! It was a little chilly, but not too bad.  I swam around under the water, and even petted one.  He was kinda slimy! My dad says that one time one of them came up for air and exhaled in his face.  He said that they have terrible rotten seaweed breath! I took note and didn’t try that one out!

Due to our afternoon start, by the time we got to the Three Sisters Springs, the sun was already down behind the trees.  So there was only a couple small areas where there was direct sun to take a decent photo.  The manatees were mostly bailing out of the area too, since they like to hang out in the sun as well.  So I only got 1 even halfway decent shot of one swimming!  Oh well, next time I know to get up there in the middle of the day in the winter!

One thing that was obvious from viewing all these gentle beasts, is that they have an uphill battle for survival.  Every single one has giant scars on their back from boat props.  The way they float invisibly just under the water is pretty much a recipe for disaster.  Fortunately they are pretty tough, and they seem to be able to survive getting hit many times over the course of their lives.  It is pretty sad thing to see though.  You can’t help but think, “Ouch, that’s gotta hurt!”

But, on a positive note, it was a super fun day, and one that I will definitely remember forever.

There are many things in life that we wish that we could do, or that we could do better. I’ve always wanted to learn to ride a wheelie, ever since I was a little BMX punk in the 80s. Why didn’t I know how? Simple. I never took the time to learn! There are so many things that we could improve in our lives, if we took the time to dedicate, commit, and schedule the time to grow.  The best part about learning new things, is that once we learn them, it usually doesn’t take much time to maintain proficiency. Take the juggling photo that I posted yesterday for example. I learned when I was in high school, and I can still do it, even though I never practice.

Learning balance is also metaphoric in our lives. The scariest part of learning the wheelie is overcoming the fear that you are going to go over the back and wind up on your ass! So the key, is really to spend time in the uncomfortable zone, the place that is the scariest.  By spending time in areas that make us uncomfortable, we eventually adapt.  We learn that we can go over the edge, and recover, and that we can do so without injury. How do you know where the balance point is, if you never go past it?

In order to ride the wheelie, you really need to center your mind, and discard thoughts of negativity. Embracing a positive outlook, learning balance, and overcoming fear are all unexpected side effects that I’ve realized as a result of a simple attempt to learn a frivolous trick. The practice has become a meditation. Yes, there is the side bonus wheelies are a great way to get looks of confusion from your neighbors, and smiles from the neighborhood kids!

Happy 2011! I’m looking forward to a new year of learning and growth, love and gratitude, wheelies and whatever new adventures appear along the way. Thanks for reading and your support. I hope you continue to enjoy the images and the words.

**Addition to this post!**

I was riding down a paved bike path, and I was riding a particularly long wheelie. I could see a small group of riders coming around a small bend. So I’m riding along mid-wheelie, and lo and behold, THERE WAS ANOTHER RIDER RIDING MID-WHEELIE TOWARDS ME! I was absolutely shocked! We both rode by each other, and neither of us put the wheel down while we were in sight. All I had time to say was, “Well you don’t see that every day!”, as we passed.

I’ve been a bike fanatic almost my whole life, and I rarely (if ever) see a random person riding a long wheelie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in 10 years of living in Boulder, which is a bike-crazy town. But on New Years Day, 1-1-11, I simultaneously encountered another guy riding a wheelie at the exact same time as me. Right after I published a blog story about riding wheelies! I call that a very auspicious start to a New Year.

I believe in some crazy ideas about the world around us. Things that science nor religion nor conventional thinking can explain. I believe, that we can make things happen merely by thinking them. It’s called the Law of Attraction. The naysayers can say it can’t be proven, it’s a cult, The Secret was a crappy book . . . whatever. You could say that the wheelie thing is just a minor coincidence that doesn’t mean anything. But that would just be pessimism. Embrace the big picture. If you open your mind to the world around us, then you will start to see, our thoughts shape our lives in ways that we can’t even imagine. Some call these things miracles, some call them God, or Allah, or the Universe, or Magic, or Karma . . . but no matter what you call it . . . it’s really there.

I haven’t always been a positive dude. I was actually voted “most pessimistic” in high school! But that kind of thinking . . . has taught me something. It’s made me see how I’ve been holding myself back by thoughts of “it won’t work for me”, “you have to work hard for money”, “you have to pay your dues”, etc. have been holding me back. I know this. I know you need to think positive. Everyone does. But it’s really freakin’ hard to remember to keep that chin up when you are confronted with a seemingly tragic event. But you have to. Everything happens exactly as it’s supposed to. And sometimes things get hard to teach you a lesson. If you pay close attention, and learn the lesson . . . then you open yourself to the great things that can come your way . . . if you clear your mind of the negative chatter . . . and allow the space for the great things to come to you.

There is an entire world of possibility out there! There are incredible things happening all the time if you open your eyes to them! The images on the TV screen are not designed to expand your mind, they are designed to entice your ego into wanting more and into buying all the crap they are selling! Read more inspiring books! Eat good food! Get out there and learn to ride wheelies like you are 10 years old!!!

Let’s have 3 cheers for 2011! Here’s to positive thoughts, positive thinking, dreaming big, and making 2011 the biggest goal-reaching, joy-feeling, soul-finding year ever!

Aw. A sunset. Isn’t that special? Well, it was pretty schweet.  I took these photos from the deck of a shirtless tattooed dude. He offered us snow peas that were growing on the deck along with a lot of tomatoes. He showed us the shelves where he started them in March. He says that he has a computer full of sunset photos from that deck. It didn’t make me feel all that special. Apparently the supermarket has a compressor that changes speeds and makes it really hard to sleep there. But the sunsets are mega fabulous.