In 2022, Alan and wife Marty traveled around the U.S. in their 27-foot mobile home. The trip took 156 days and covered 18,602 miles. Alan shot 21,350 photos. This past summer, Alan and Marty decided to go on another trip. While a good portion was spent in Michigan with Marty’s family, the rest was to visit those places the couple missed in 2022 as well as visiting the remainder of the lower 48 states.
This Members’ Forum will show a small number of the more than 8,300 photos Alan shot during the nearly 10,000 miles of Epic Journey 2.0.
A member of NVPS since 2012, Alan has been involved in some way or other with photography for the past 56 years. It all began with a science teacher instructing him on the art of film developing. At that time, he was using a Kodak Brownie. Veering off during his teenage years to using an 8mm movie camera, he returned to still photography during his college years and while working as a reporter for his hometown newspaper.
Bio
Alan was supposed to call in a newspaper photographer for photos, but she lived nearly 30 miles away, so he opted to take photos himself. At first, he used a Polaroid Type 103 for photos since it made instant, crisp pictures. But encouraged by a classmate and photographer, Alan got access to the college’s darkroom, and processed Tri-X each time he had a news event or other photo request. This, plus being a radio disc jockey probably contributed to his less-than-stellar GPA!
After graduating from college, Alan enlisted in the Navy, becoming a Navy Journalist and later a Public Affairs Officer.
His high school girlfriend had a Nikon SLR, and that became Alan’s Holy Grail. As a low-ranking Navy man, Alan scraped up the money and bought his first true SLR — a Minolta SRT-101. As he progressed up the Navy ranks, he upgraded to a Minolta X700.
Fast forward to 2003. Alan’s brother-in-law was getting married, and Alan was the photographer. An acquaintance who was a Nikon rep loaned Alan a D100. It was love at first click! Since then, Alan has had a D100, D200, D300, D800, D810, and for the past seven years, D850.
Alan considers himself an advanced amateur, even though he has made more than five figures making pictures. His biggest job was making progress photos of the deconstruction and reconstruction of the D.C. public library in Georgetown.
Retired from the Navy in 1994 and retired from Civil Service in 2011, Alan is happy to spend his time traveling and making images. He loves photographing just about everything, but really likes night scenes and landscapes. His photos have been used for greeting cards by non-profits, used for proposals by environmental entities, have been used by sports web sites, have appeared in newspapers, and even hang in a gas station.
Alan was the FotoFax editor from 2014 to 2018. Alan says he loves being a member of NVPS. He has gained some great friends, enjoys the camaraderie, and has learned something new at nearly every meeting.
Joshua Tree National Park is named for the abundance of the Joshua trees in the park. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. On August 10, 1936, after Minerva Hoyt and others persuaded the state and federal governments to protect the area, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the power of the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish Joshua Tree National Monument. Today, the park spreads over 1,242.4 square miles, an area slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island. The park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert. The earliest known residents of the land in and around what later became Joshua Tree National Park were the people of the Pinto Culture, who lived and hunted here between 8000 and 4000 BCE. Joshua Tree National Park, San Bernadino County, Calif. 21 September 2023The Lower Tahquamenon Falls. The Tahquamenon Falls are divided into the Upper and Lower Falls and are on the Tahquamenon River shortly before it empties into Lake Superior. They are the largest waterfalls in Michigan, and one of the largest in the eastern half of North America. The water is noticeably brown from the tannins leached from the cedar swamps which the river drains, leading to the nickname “Root Beer Falls”. Tahquamenon Falls State Park, Mich. 15 August 2023An interpreter in the role of a British gunner fires a mortar during an artillery firing demonstration at Fort Michilimackinac. Fort Michilimackinac was an 18th century French, and later British, fort and trading post in the Great Lakes. Built around 1715, and abandoned in 1783 when the British were victorious in the French and Indians Wars, it was located along the southern shore of the strategic Straits of Mackinac connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, at the northern tip of the lower peninsula of the present-day state of Michigan. The site of the fort in present-day Mackinaw City is a National Historic Landmark and is now preserved as an open-air historical museum. Mackinaw City, Michigan. 800 North Huron Ave., Mackinaw City, Mich. 13 August 2023Texas cowhands drive a herd of Texas longhorns down East Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards National Historic District of Fort Worth, Tex. The city of Fort Worth first established the Fort Worth Herd on 12 June 1999 to celebrate Fort Worth’s 150th anniversary by driving a herd of Texas Longhorn cattle from downtown Fort Worth to their home here in historic Fort Worth stockyards. Organizers were very concerned to ensure that the program told an accurate history of the period just after the Civil War, when longhorns were in South Texas and driven along the Chisholm Trail through Fort Worth. The Chisholm Trail was the most important route for cattle drives leading north from the vicinity of Ft. Worth across Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to the railhead at Abilene. The typical drive comprised 1,500–2,500 head of cattle. The era of the cattle drive lasted about 20 years, ending when the building of additional trunk lines of railway south into Texas caused rail shipments to take the place of trail driving of Texas cattle north to market. Fort Worth Stockyards, 131 E Exchange Ave, Fort Worth, Tex. 15 October 2023
