Memories of Montana - Annual trip to Montana

jamesl

Hi All,

My wife and I made our almost annual trip up to Montana in early July this year. We spent 2 weeks there, and it was awesome. Great weather, and much cooler temperatures than what I had waiting for me back in Texas (yuck!).

We started our trip in Great Falls, which is where I grew up. My parents still live there. In the summer time, they have almost nightly small thunderstorms come down off the mountains. Here's a shot I got from near the airport, which is on top of a large hill:



A few nights later, I went chasing another small storm right around sunset. I ended up near the little town of Fort Benton, which is in a canyon carved out by the Missouri River. On the way out there, I stopped at Carter's Ferry, a very small town, to get some shots of the grain elevators:





As I arrived in Fort Benton, I could see that the canyon was all lit up by the setting sun. I only had a few minutes, so I climbed to a nearby railroad track to track and get some shots. Unfortunately, the view of Fort Benton was dark by then, but there was still a nice view in the other direction:



Also, the sunset was pretty spectacular:






To Be Continued.....

James Langford
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com

jamesl

Part 2
As I headed back into Great Falls, a small storm broke out up ahead of me. I found a spot to pull of the road, and shot a few frames with my intervalometer:



I'd been itching to do some Star Trail photography, but the weather didn't cooperate much at first. A few days into my trip, we had a nice clear night. I found an interesting spot, and shot for an hour or so:



We had the privalege of being in Great Falls during the 4th of July. The city of Great Falls puts on a pretty good fireworks display, and so does the local baseball park. My wife and I got a really good spot staked out about 3 hours before the fireworks display. We were right on the edge of the river canyon, with the falls on the right, and the baseball stadium on the left. The sunset that night was beautiful:




The shows were staggered, so the city show didn't start till after the baseball park show. I was actually too close to get any pictures of the baseball show, but they were amazing. The sound of the fireworks echoing around in the canyon were awesome. I shot a wide pano of the city before the main fireworks started. I then locked my tripod on where I knew the big fireworks were going to be, and used my intervalometer to fire away during the 1/2 hour the show was going. I layered those shots together, and got this (it's kind of hard to appreciate in the small size):




To Be Continued.....

James Langford
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com[/quote]

jamesl

Part 3
The 5th of July my wife, daughter and I headed up to my uncle's lakehouse up on Flathead Lake, which is near Glacier National Park. Flathead is HUGE, and is very beautiful. Here's the view off the deck of the lakehouse:






The second evening we were there, a decent storm came through right at sunset. I went out on the doc by the lake, and shot the front coming through:



Flathead lake is nestled in a beautiful valley with lots of farmland. There are also lots of picturesque barns around. My wife and I drove around trying to get a nice shot of a barn with the almost full moon in it. This is the best I could do:



On one of the nights we were at the lakehouse, we had a beautiful clear night with an excellent sunset. I decided to setup my camera on the deck and shoot a star trails image. I just left my camera out there all night shooting away. I ended up shooting 4 hours worth of images! Here's the resulting stacked image:



To Be Continued.....

James Langford
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com

jamesl

Part 4 - Finale
The last place we visited on our Montana vacation was Glacier National Park. It's about an hour drive from the lakehouse. The best sunrise pictures happen between 5 and 5:30 am. Yikes! We left for Glacier at 4, and just missed the best sunrise colors. I could see the mountains all lit up in the distance. I was shooting to be at McDonald Lake, but had to settle for this shot of the Flathead river:



The weather was kind of unsettled that day, which made for some very dramatic shots of the sky. I shot this from the shores of Lake McDonald:



The next shot I captured just a few minutes later from further on down the road:



We went on up the Going to the Sun Highway to Logan pass. The visitor center was closed (it was too early), so we walked around taking pictures. The clouds kept blowing up and over the pass, and occassionally the sun would break through:





We decided not to go over to St Marys Lake, and instead headed back down towards McDonald Lake. We stopped at a little hike called Trail of the Cedars. At the end is a nice gorge. This was a tough shot, as my exposure times were 10 or so seconds, and I was shooting from a wooden bridge. There were a lot of people around shaking the bridge. After many tries, I got enough sharp shots to stitch this 5 shot pano:



The one thing I hadn't had much of a chance to do yet on this vacation was Infrared Photography. The next day, I headed back up to Glacier by myself to do just that. Here's a few shots I took from behind the McDonald Lake Lodge:

Mainly



I also shot from the pulloffs on McDonald Creek. Here's a few of my attempts:







My final picture is another infrared. My wife and I took the road that runs along the south side of the park on our way back to Great Falls. I climbed down into the valley a bit to get this shot of the Flathead river with the mountains of East Glacier in the background:



I hope you've enjoyed my little trip report! Thanks for stopping by.

James

James Langford
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com[/quote]

THE TOUCH

WOW! Amazing shots James! Looks like you had a great time. I've always wanted to go to Montana - now I REALLY want to go!!!

Thank you for posting, I enjoyed them all!

ian408

I haven't been to Montana for many years. Seeing the sites at Glacier
was a real treat. Especially those near Going To The Sun. I love that
road.

Thanks for taking us along!

Ian

Jeffro

Very nice job. I need to take a little trip........

System

DAMN!

Amazing pics. Absolutely incredible. thumbthumbclapclap

annnna8888

James, I really enjoyed your photos. They are simply stunning. I can't even start to point out the most beautiful ones as they are all beautiful. Great work!

Ana

bwg

this one is just amazingly beautiful. great series.

jamesl

THE TOUCH wrote:

WOW! Amazing shots James! Looks like you had a great time. I've always wanted to go to Montana - now I REALLY want to go!!!

Thank you for posting, I enjoyed them all!

Thanks! I appreciate it. : It's definately an amazing place to visit. Biggest thing is you have to get up REAL early and go to bed REAL late to get the sunrise and sunset shots.

James

jamesl

ian408 wrote:

I haven't been to Montana for many years. Seeing the sites at Glacier
was a real treat. Especially those near Going To The Sun. I love that
road.

Thanks for taking us along!

Ian

Thanks for traveling with me. Going to the sun was great this year! It's different every time I go up there.

James

jamesl

Jeffro wrote:

Very nice job. I need to take a little trip........

Taking little trips is the spice of life! : My wife and I try to travel several times a year if we can. Hopefully gas doesn't get so expensive that it becomes difficult to do. Thanks!

James

jamesl

truth wrote:

DAMN!

Amazing pics. Absolutely incredible. thumbthumbclapclap

Can you say that on this forum? Thanks a ton! Glad you enjoyed them.

thebigsky

That's a hugely impressive series of shots, well done.

jamesl

annnna8888 wrote:

James, I really enjoyed your photos. They are simply stunning. I can't even start to point out the most beautiful ones as they are all beautiful. Great work!

Ana

Thanks Ana! Glad you enjoyed them. I appreciate your comments.

jamesl

bigwebguy wrote:

this one is just amazingly beautiful. great series.

Thanks! That was one of my favorites too. A lot of times, I don't know exactly how those IR shots are going to turn out. It's kind of a crap shoot. Luckily, the people didn't move too much that were standing on the dock.

jamesl

thebigsky wrote:

That's a hugely impressive series of shots, well done.

Thank you! I sure appreciate it.

grimace

Great looking series James. Love the star trails and barn photos but my favorites are the Glacier NP photos!!

ccheroke

Very Nice
Very nice pictures of different scenes in Montana.

lenseye

jamesl wrote:

Thanks Ana! Glad you enjoyed them. I appreciate your comments.

Good image.