Thanks to my Wife’s parents, we recently took a family vacation to Sayulita, Mexico. While this was a true vacation in every sense of the word, and I spent most of my time lounging, playing on the beach with the kids, surfing and ingesting large quantities of fresh tortillas and Corona beer, I also managed to get myself up at 5 AM most mornings to spend a couple of hours photographing the landscape.

Sayulita was, until the last 15 years or so, a little known and sleepy fishing village on a beautiful sandy bay about 45 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I spoke to a few long time residents who remember when the whole town was nothing but grass palapas. It is now “on the map” for its surfing, sandy beaches, laid back art community and good food. Even with the recent tourist boom and large numbers of gringos living there it is still retains enough of its authenticity, laid back living and small town charm to make it a refreshing and unexpected departure from the scene down around Puerto Vallarta, with its high rise hotels, traffic, shopping malls and golf courses.

The photography opportunities were plentiful within walking distance of town and a bus or taxi ride up the coast provides access to many more beaches and even smaller and more remote coastal towns. It was also a great place for the entire family with plenty of fun hiking, beach activities, music, great food and a fun and active town square.

Photography is my hobby and my job, so it commands a good portion of my attention. Even though it is strictly a hobby, bicycle racing is a close second. One day I hope to travel in Europe during the racing season and be a spectator at some of the classic world-famous races. Until then, I am very glad that the Amgen Tour of California offers a week of professional cycle racing with some of the best riders and teams in the world, just a few hours drive from where I live.

This year, my brother Ian, Owner of Flywheel Bicycles in Talent, Oregon, and I followed all eight days of the Tour, camping in Walmart parking lots, eating burritos, cheering on our favorite riders and just being general bike racing geeks. We also had some fun making very low quality videos which we posted on his website for the southern Oregon cycling community to enjoy. If you want to see what the life of die hard cycling fans is like you can see the videos HERE. The videos are posted in reverse chronological order.

In Just three years, the Tour of California has become the biggest and most prestigious bike race in the US. It draws the biggest European pro tour teams such as Astana, CSC, Rabobank, Gerolsteiner and Credit Agricole, as well as top US teams such as Slipstream Chipotle, Rock Racing and Toyota United. This year’s roster included the Road World Champion, Paolo Bettini and the Time Trial World Champion and Paris Roubaix winner, Fabian Cancellara, as well as many national champions and other top pro riders such as Tom Boonan, Stewart O’Grady, George Hincapie, David Millar and Mario Cipollini. Levi Leipheimer, who was last year’s overall winner and third place finisher in the Tour de France, defended his title with a convincing second win.

I managed to take a few photos of the racers, but someday I’ll have to work on getting a press pass so that I can access the press areas, support cars and photo motorcycles, which is where the best shots come from.

As an outdoor photographer I work in conditions beyond my control. The unpredictable, mysterious and surprising elements of nature are precisely what compel me to spend time outdoors attempting to photograph the landscape at its defining moments.

A trip I took last fall is a great example. Excited by the promise of fall color and dramatic skies, I took a nine day trip to Montana and Idaho. 1,200 miles later I arrived at Glacier National Park on the edge of an approaching storm. Hunkered in my van, I was buffeted by high winds and rain for three days, during which I was able to get out and take photos for an hour or two. Undeterred, I headed south in hopes of better weather. In the Sawtooth range of Idaho, low cloud cover and snow kept the mountains hidden for all but a few minutes of the next three days. During the long stretches of time alone in my van, I read, scouted locations, studied the landscape and weather and got up before dawn so that I’d be ready if something magical happened.

The mountains were still shrouded when my time came to an end. As I drove back across the high desert of eastern Oregon, the skies opened for a brief sunset at the John Day Fossil Beds, but by morning the clouds were back and it was snowing.

The day after returning home, I decided on a whim to make a quick visit to the upper Rogue River, an hour’s drive away. I was completely caught by surprise when one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve experienced illuminated the sky and I rushed to capture the event. For the rest of the day I hiked and photographed brilliant fall foliage along the river at the height of color in perfect soft light. On that single day I created more good images than the previous nine combined, including one of my all time favorites. All of my experiences with nature during those ten days: the cold, the gray, the quiet, the slow, the subtle, the brilliant and the unexpected, they all keep me anticipating what nature will show me next.