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5000-Mile Road Trip 2009

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2009-2012

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Another Autumn 
in Zion NP

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 Copyright
© Ellen Homontowski
 2001-2016
All rights reserved.

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While growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I’ve always had an interest in capturing memories on print--usually with a borrowed camera--until I purchased my initial camera in the early ‘90s.  The very first photo I enlarged and framed for my wall was a moment my Kodak preserved of Mirror Lake north of the Madison area during autumn.  Several years later I moved on to the Pentax Zoom, followed by the purchase of an automatic camera I really liked, the Nikon Lite Touch.

After hiking in the Superstition Mountain Wilderness while vacationing in Arizona, I chose to relocate to Scottsdale in July of 1998.  This is really when my amateur photography hobby began.  Everyone said I shot great photos; that I had an “eye” for capturing beautiful places.  Those photos filled up over ten huge photo albums when I finally taught myself Photoshop and FrontPage in May of 2001 and published hikingallery.net (formerly .com with godaddy who sold my domain without warning) scanning in every one of my favorite photos sorted according to the season and/or location each were taken.  Afterwards I realized my images really didn’t display the greatest quality so I invested in a decent digital camera in March of 2004, the Fuji FinePix S7000.  (I shot all my images raw, then convert to tif for printing and jpg for the website.)

In July of 2004 I visited Zion National Park, and the following September found me in Southern Utah.  I hiked all over Zion and began working for a local resort as a hiking guide.  Many photos were taken on hikes in these spectacular areas; hence the ”Canyon Country” section of hikingallery.net.  Currently Hikin’ Gallery holds over 5000 photos. Now since godaddy sold my domain name while I was on vacation (no auto-renew and I was upset), I had to republish to my past host, Doteasy and they were fabulous taking me back. 

Having to carefully choose prints in the fall of 2005 for the first art festival I participated in gave me an idea to publish another website that is not up any longer as of 2015.  And about 10 years ago I had upgraded to the Fuji FinePix S9100/S9600 when my S7000 had an accident with a tree!  I was very happy with the upgrade :) However, it crashed in our q-hut home after taking pics of the wind generator being built :( so some of my latest pics are from my cell phone but purchased a dust-proof/waterproof Fuji which works great on pics and videos.  I don't (saying this again) plan to any more updates after this one in 2016.

After I met my match, Jim, in June of 2008 we were married!  Jim (and his geeky geology side :)) has taken me on more wild hiking adventures and we began creating "The Great Basin/Basin & Range" section launched in 2009 and updated in 2012. Our honeymoon on the Southwater Caye in Belize was fabulous so I had to share the snorkeling and fun in the new Belize section designed in November 2008, and for our 2nd honeymoon we chose to drive over 5000 miles round-trip to Milwaukee from LaVerkin, hiking and photographing along the way; another section published in 2009.

Of course my enthusiasm for hiking and photographing (not as much, nor the art festivals) continues and I am looking forward to many more adventures with my husband Jim, health permitting.  To me it is the ultimate “high” absorbing all of our Creator’s work and doing my best to capture special moments with whatever camera; to be able to reflect on those moments and share them with everyone!  What especially awes me is enlarging the beauty of a small delicate flower and observe the details designed by our Number One Artist.

I need to add that I had foot surgery (bummer) so I haven't been doing too much hiking lately, just walking & enjoying nature for now. My last camera smashed into the wall after the wind generator installation so I had been using dirt/dust-proof cameras lately, but recently purchased a Nikon 600 (Sept 2016) that I am so looking forward to using!

 

 ~Ellen
wiazut@yahoo.com
or hikingallery@gmail.com



Milwaukee's South Shore


Forsyth Canyon in Pine Valley, UT

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