Road Trip 2012

Index - Road Trip 2012

In August of 2012 I did a motorcycle camping trip from my home near Whitehorse to British Columbia's Okanagan region for a visit with relatives. The timing was about ideal for my mode of travel, with sunny and hot weather almost the entire time ... actually too hot some days for this cold adapted northerner and there were times when I would have traded my faired adventure touring bike for the air-conditioned cocoon of a car or at least a motorcycle without any wind protection. But overall the riding was wonderful and the camping was as idyllic as anyone hopes for.

Photography was by no means the main purpose of my trip but of course it was a part of it and unfamiliar surroundings away from home tend to induce fresh photographic vision. This is a collection of images I took while I was away. It is not a travelogue ... I am disinclined to follow a documentary approach to photography and I shoot erratically, when inspiration strikes and it fits into my itinerary. On the road I seldom take the time and trouble to stop whenever I encounter a picturesque scene or landmark, find a safe and secure spot to park, remove my helmet and other gear, extract my camera equipment from my luggage and then reverse the whole procedure, all for what is likely to be just another average travel pic in unexceptional light. It takes something special to make me stop unless the time and place are right for me to take a break anyway. Camping on the other hand can often lead to stimulation of my artistic vision with distraction free time to become absorbed in my subjects and it coincides with the sweet light that occurs at the ends of the day. Many of the photos in this gallery are not uniquely distinctive of the places where they were shot but collectively I think they capture part of the essence of my vacation.

Note that many of these photos contain GPS location data. Watch for the globe icon in the lower left of the lightbox window and click on it to view the location in Google Maps.

Please click on the "Whitehorse to Okanagan" thumbnail to view the gallery from the beginning.