jeff@sluderphotography.com
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This series of photographs was taken during travels though out my home state of New Hampshire. In recording these images, I want to celebrate not only the beauty of our unique mountains and forests but also the beauty of everyday “wild land” in this state. While swamps, abandoned gravestones or even mushrooms might not be considered extra-ordinary, they convey a mood, a forgotten history or an overlooked jewel in our landscape.

Much of the unique character of New Hampshire is defined not just by the White Mountains and the Lake Region but also by the strings of undeveloped forest land that thread their way throughout the state connecting townships, providing us with opportunities to commune with nature in our own back yards. With the explosive growth of the southern part of the state in particular, any open land that is not conserved in the next ten years will probably be developed. I hope you agree with me that it would be a great loss for all of us if this happens.

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My wife and I have spent some of our most memorable vacations hiking in our country’s national parks. The photographs in this gallery are a sampling of shoots taken in Glacier National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Banff National Park in Canada, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Each of these parks has their own unique personalities.

Glacier National Park has vertical, jagged mountains with deep valleys, and an abundance of waterfalls and lakes. Rocky Mountain National Park located near Denver, Colorado is the most accessible by car. The main road winds up above timberline and offers fabulous roadside views.

Located in the Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park is scattered with electric blue lakes located below imposing rock-faced mountains sheared long ago by the glaciers. It is high, cold, and beautiful. The weather is highly changeable and it can snow any month of the year. The growing season is often less than 2 months so trees take centuries to reach maturity. In modern times, the area was developed by railroad men looking to exploit the natural resources of the area. The beauty of Banff National Park is the equal of any mountain park that I have been to in the United States.

Yellowstone is perhaps one of the best-known parks. It has one of the most unique geologies of any place on earth. Its hot springs, geysers and prismatic pools made up of colorful microbial mats are easily accessible to the visitor. The Grand Tetons are just next door, and while less volcanic, they offer snow capped mountain ranges, crystal clear lakes, and miles of wildflowers and sagebrush.

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Yosemite National Park is a wild area of California’s High Sierras made famous by John Muir and photographers such as Ansel Adams. The valley with Yosemite Village is on the western side, very popular, and very well photographed. For that reason I have chosen pictures from other areas of the park.

Mono Lake is located on the Nevada side of the High Sierras near the town of Lee Vining. The lake has “tufas” that are the petrified remains of ancient springs that have deposited minerals over time creating stone spires. The lake’s fresh water streams have been dammed and diverted to provide water of the Los Angeles area. As a result, the lake is slowly evaporating and very saline. After law suits and much heated debate an agreement was put in place to never let the lake drop more than it is now and, over time, to slowly raise the water levels.

Olympic National Park, located in Washington State, is made up of two very diverse eco-systems. One section is a stretch of nearly endless, undeveloped beach buffered from the rest of the world by a rain forest. The second part is composed of a landlocked section of mountain ranges and lakes.

Part of Washington State’s Cascade Range, Mount Rainier is an extinct volcano that is covered with glaciers. At 14,410 it is one of the most prominent peaks in the area.

Crater Lake, located in Oregon, is what remains of another extinct volcano. The cauldron has long since filled with rainwater forming the deepest lake in North America at 1,943 feet deep.

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Slot canyons are small, narrow versions of larger canyons and are formed over millions of years by the abrasive action of fast moving water loaded with sand and debris. The geological formations inside the canyons are naturally spotlighted by narrow bands of light emanating from the top. creating surrealistic patterns of colors and shapes.

This gallery includes images from Antelope Canyon and Buckskin Gulch located near Page, Arizona and some smaller canyons around Kanab, Utah. They include Red Canyon, Canyon V, and Peek-a-boo Canyon. Antelope Canyon is probably the most recognizable slot canyons in the west. Buckskin Gulch is one of the longest and deepest.

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These photographs are taken in parks in Utah and Arizona. The vastness of the Grand Canyon, the intimacy of Bryce Canyon, and the lesser known Waterholes Canyon and Wauweap Towers are all spectacular and worth a visit.

Waterholes Canyon, located near Page, Arizona is technically a slot canyon, but the most photographically interesting part is an area in the surface called "The Fins". As the sun sets, the unevenly eroded rock creates strong shadow lines or "fins" in the low angled light.

Wauweap Towers or White Towers is a set of formations along a river bed located in Bureau of Land Management property north of Page. The formation consists of a thick, soft chalky white rock with a harder brown top layer. Over time, the top layer cracked into pieces that provided protection to the softer layer directly underneath it but allowed the rest of the rock to erode away. The resulting formations of tall white stone with heads of brown rock give you the illusion of standing in a crowd of aliens. A knowledgeable guide with a four-wheel drive vehicle is a must for this visiting this site.

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Eastern Canada holds a special place for me. My father used to take me fishing there when I was a child. My wife was born in Montreal and still has family there.

The photographs shown here are from sections of Nova Scotia and Quebec. It is a land of lakes and woods and a long history that is intertwined with America’s history (we tried to conquer them.) The economy is based largely on natural resources (mining, logging, and fishing.) Although the area has its own distinct personality, in many ways it reminds me of Maine.

Nova Scotia historically had a tourism and fishing based economy. Populated by French, Scottish, English, Tory American, and German settlers, each village or area has its own story. They even have their own equivalent to the Mayflower called the Hector anchored in Pictou. Although Halifax is a substantial city, most of the province is very rural. I have included two pictures from Burntcoat Head on the Bay of Fundy. It was here that the highest tides were ever recorded (57 ft.) These photographs were taken about three hours after low tide. At high tide during certain times of the year, you can only see the trees. As the tide comes in some of the local rivers run backwards.

The pictures of the Saguenay River are from an area located about 3 hours north of Quebec City. Near there the river actually forms a fjord.

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