The rare and elusive Double Ply

With the hysteria surrounding the Corona Virus and the subsequent run on toilet paper (and too much time on my hands to be honest) I envisioned this photograph as a subtle way to poke fun at the way we humans react in time of panic. Honestly, in my lifetime, I’ve never seen our country react to a virus in this manner. Some people are super scared, some don’t care at all and some are taking a cautious view.

The fact that toilet paper has become the face of the virus in some respects is why I created this photo. That toilet paper has become rare, of all things people could be purchasing, is beyond me. But different people have different ways to help them cope. This post is meant to be fun and should be viewed that way.

The official “Press Release”

The Rare and Elusive "Double-Ply"
I have had the rare and exciting opportunity to photograph the Double Ply in a studio setting. After much hunting I was able to bag a roll after fighting off hoards of other hunters.
I have gone to great pains to immortalize this roll for future generations, rather than have it wiped from existence.

Copyright Mike Waller/Waller Images

Because of the sudden rareness of the species, "Bottumus Wipus" and the incredible fondness apparently felt for said species, I am offering these photos at great cost (95% of profits to charity) starting at $10,000 for a 24”x36”. A small price to pay for something that has become so dear to so many and can no longer be found in it's natural habitat.

For those who love and esteem the Double Ply, who are willing to fight for it, now is your chance to own, forever, your own roll that will never run out. This framed art will fit perfectly right over your toilet.

You will never have to hunt and fight for one again. This is the perfect homage to the simple and humble roll of toilet paper.

Get your limited edition $10,000 print today!! Click here to order. 95% of all profits to charity.

OR

Click here to order for yourself, family or friend at much lower price. (15% of profits to charity)

More beautiful art here: WallerImages/shop

Golden hour photography

With the sun below the horizon, there was still plenty of light in the sky for a great photograph out in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.

For soft light, wonderful colors and fewer folks shooting during the golden hours of the day yields awesome rewards.

I love to shoot an hour before and after both sunrise and sunset. These are far and away my favorite times of the day for landscape photography. (Also great for portraits)

The sun was super low in the sky and turned this cloud a wonderful pink as it hovered over Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

Oftentimes, at dawn you’ll have the area you want to photograph all to yourself, and depending on the location, same at sunset. But I’ve found if the spot is an easy drive up and a short walk, you might have some competition - especially in the national parks. For both of these photos I had to walk a half mile to a mile and there was no one else around.

You will definitely want to carry a tripod with you for shooting in the low light times of day. Of course, you can up the ISO (or use a rock like I did for the photo of Canyonlands) or rely on image stabilizing but a tripod is worth the weight and effort.

A few filters like a polarizer or graduated neutral density filter are also easy to put in a pocket and will improve photos immensely. Try getting out early in the day to your favorite outdoor location to see what you can find to photograph.

Happy shooting!!

Great Sand Dunes

From Zion National Park we headed back through Page, AZ then sorta backtracked across northern Arizona to get to Colorado so that we could get to Great Sand Dunes NM. We’d driven this route in reverse through Colorado a few years earlier when we got within 20 miles of Great Sand Dunes only to have to skip the park to avoid getting stuck in a blizzard. So needless to say, I was keen to get to the park this time around.

We had to go through Wolf Creek Pass (?), which is more than 10,000 ft above sea level. And just like the last time we drove through, it snowed. Living in the South we get snow once or twice a year (maybe), but usually nothing major. And since the whole state of Alabama shuts down, and we have ample warning (usually) and I am hunkered down at the house with a fire blazing in the fireplace, not driving through snow. While it was insanely beautiful, I was still pretty tense about driving through the snow on BIG mountains in the dark. And you could easily tell I was a newbie as I was passed by cars and trucks with Colorado plates whizzing by.

But we went slow and made it through safely. We found a motel and sacked out for the night.

The next morning’s weather forecast wasn’t looking good - cloudy skies, high winds and a very good chance of a snow storm later in the day. But I was determined that we’d at least get into the park this time. With a quick prayer for the skies to clear, we ate breakfast and headed out.

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The clouds cleared out, and the sky was a beautiful blue with plenty of clouds to add interest and depth to my photos.

As we drove through the gate to get into the park, the clouds cleared out and the sun shone brightly - it was totally awesome!

One thing I hadn’t realized about actually getting to the dunes was that you have to walk across a creek. Somehow in all the literature I read this wasn’t made clear or I neglected to internalize it. So take heed: I am officially telling you that you must walk across a creek to get to the dunes!

The creek isn’t deep, only maybe 6” at most when we were there, but the problem is that my hiking boots were only 5” tall. Oh well, time to suck it up and cross the snow melt creek.

Amy took a photo of me walking on the dunes. This gives a sense of the scale of this park. But even this doesn’t do it justice because you can’t see the snow capped mountains that dwarf the dunes.

The creek itself is pretty awesome in that unlike most creeks that just flow, this one surges. You have to time it but the water will ebb and flow so that it will be an inch or two deep, then several seconds later a surge of water 2-4 inches high will rush down, then it will recede back to an inch or two again.

We made it across and hit the base of the dunes. The distance and scale of the dunes is deceptive until you see these little moving dots and realize that those moving dots are people!

In my haste, I did indeed pray for the weather to clear and for the sun to shine, and I am exceedingly grateful that it did. However, I did NOT pray for the wind to subside. I don’t know if you’ve ever been battered by wind driven sand that’s blowing at 40 mph but it’s brutal! But since it was still cold we were pretty well bundled up except for our faces.

We drove nearly 400 miles to come to this park only to spend an hour on the dunes. But, it was awesome! I loved it. Bad weather often makes for great photos, and I made several. It was well worth the drive and time to get here.

We tip-toed back across the creek to get back to the parking lot, emptied out our shoes of sand, put on dry socks and went to the visitor center for the last sticker of our trip to put on the truck. The ranger at the center said a possible snow storm would be rolling in later in the afternoon, so we drove to town, ate a hearty late breakfast of pancakes and all the trimmings and headed south to both avoid the storm that was coming and to drop by White Sands one more time before we officially headed home.

Heading to Zion

I remember singing an old hymn in church, “We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion…..” and that is how I felt as it seemed we slowly made our way to Zion National Park. Don’t get me wrong, the areas we drove through and photographed were incredible. But Zion was our last bit of westward travel, after visiting here for a few days we had to start driving SLOWLY back home. So as much as I looked forward to visiting the park, exploring some new areas, climbing Angels Landing and meeting up with Amy’s folks in St. George, arriving there was rather bittersweet - I love the park, but in just a few days we were heading home and that would be the end of our epic trip.

BUT we still had some great times ahead.

An easy walk in the early morning led us to the lower Emerald Pool waterfall. We’d had so much rain that the falls were running nicely. The sun lit up the falls in an amazing display. Beautiful.

Amy about to head up to the top of Angels Landing. Note the chains.

The one thing Amy wanted to do on this visit to Zion was hike Angels Landing. It was an amazing hike. Yes it was tough, but awesome. We had perfect weather and timed it right by being on the first bus to the drop off point.

You can find Amy’s blog here on the climb.

The classic view of the Watchman from the bridge over the rain swollen Virgin River.