Across the Southwest / Adam Schallau

Things are quiet now on the ExpressJet ramp. The airline ceased branded, scheduled service on September 1st, 2008, citing higher fuel costs as the main factor. According to xjet.com, ExpressJet will continue to provide charter services and will continue flying for Continental Airlines as Continental Express.

My wife and I have flown ExpressJet several times this past year in our trips back to Texas to see friends and family. A lot of them have asked why we don’t drive, after all Texas is the next state over. My answer; because it’s a 12-hour drive if you make ‘good’ time, and sometimes up to 14-hours just to get to San Antonio. Taking ExpressJet still required the 2-hour drive to Albuquerque, but it’s only an hour and 45 minutes by air. Continue Reading »

On my recent river trip down the Rio Grande River through Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park I carried with me my Canon 5D along with 4 lenses, the 17-40mm f/4L, 24-70mm f/2.8L, 70-200mm f/4L IS, and the 300mm f/4L IS. In addition I had numerous filters, extra batteries, and of course memory cards. My biggest concern on the trip was water. I was going to be surrounded by it for three days navigating through rapids and hopefully I wouldn’t capsize the canoe.

The guide service that I hired would be providing dry bags for my clothing, tent, and sleeping bag, but I needed something more to protect my camera gear. I contacted Lowepro and told them what I was going to be doing and they graciously provided my with a DryZone 200 AW camera bag.

If you’re not familiar with the DryZone series of bags let me give you a quick run-down. The DryZone bags are soft sided camera backpacks that feature a waterproof inner compartment known as a drypod that is sealed with a TIZIP™ zipper. This bag will float even when fully loaded! Continue Reading »

…actually we’re back home again after our second trip to Texas in two weeks. This time we made a trip down to Big Bend National Park to start my project on Santa Elena Canyon that is funded through the Luminous Landscape Endowment.

The weather was excellent with highs in the low 80s, the wind was calm, and mother nature provided some nice clouds. On the morning we left Terlingua for the return trip to New Mexico we ran into storms with high-winds and very threatening skies, but as we approached the town of Alpine, Texas the storms began to clear and we were treated to this beautiful rainbow.

I’m excited to announce that I’m one of eight recipients of the 2007/2008 Luminous Landscape Endowment Fund!

About the endowment with text from LuminousLandscape.com:

In August 2007 The Luminous Landscape Inc., created a fund designed to provide financial assistance to photographers to help finance worthwhile photographic projects. A call for submissions was made, with a deadline of Feb 11, 2008.

This fund was financed by readers like you through purchases of our download video tutorials, and also by individual donors and corporate sponsors. In all $20,000 was raised during our initial funding period. (You can read about the program and application process here.)

More than 200 applications were received, and our panel of judges found selecting just a handful of photographers and their projects a most difficult task. The applications selected were, in each case, put forward by at least two of the judges. Continue Reading »

Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo. Canon 5D, 24-70 f/2.8L

I recently visited San Antonio, Texas and made a stop at Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo which is part of the San Antonio Missions Historical Park. Dating to 1720 the mission is the largest in the area and it features beautiful stone and wood work. More photos of Mission San Jose >>