I love the national parks. And one of my all time favourites is Big Bend National Park in Texas. But right next door is another, even more secluded, gem: Big Bend Ranch State Park.
In the remote State park, there are over 275 thousand acres of Chihuahuan desert to explore. It’s the largest state park in Texas! But you don’t have to go deep into the backcountry for photography — you can see some incredible vistas only a few steps from the road.
In addition to photographing the stunning wildflower display in spring, photography opportunities are abundant as the rugged terrain makes its way along the Rio Grande, which marks the border between the USA and Mexico.
The first time we visited this park, it was just a day trip to the Contrabando movie set. There was so much to see along the way that we made it a top priority for our next trip to Texas and of course we were not disappointed.
The best part about our time in the park was the changing weather conditions which caused all kinds of dramatic clouds. I love dramatic clouds!
This proved to be one of the best “off the beaten path” locations with plenty of photography opportunities to keep me happy, and busy, the entire time 🙂
I made all of these images with my Sony NEX6, which I love for landscape photography because it is small and lightweight making it easy to carry around. For these images, I wanted to convey a sense of depth and have everything from the foreground to the background in focus, so I used a small aperture between f/11 and f/18. They are all single exposures with only minimal processing.
They all draw you right in. Wanted more. Beautiful country our Lord created.
Thank you very much Deedee, I appreciate that.
Hola Anne. Great post as usual. Guess that is what they mean by pro consistency. Don`t remember Ray covering this park on his Vlog but maybe I missed it. Some of his vids provide an interesting back story to your images – would be neat to cross reference them on each others posts.
Hola Carlton! The thing is that Ray is always totally current with his posts and I am always behind in my photo processing, so my posts often come out way later than his. These photos are actually from a year ago!! Ray did a video which you can see here if you are interested: http://www.loveyourrv.com/rving-big-bend-ranch-state-park-in-texas/
Thanks for your visit and comments, always appreciated.
So tell him to slow down! Still, a link to his overview vid of the area where your images were taken would/maybe of interest to your viewers and would bump up his view count – more is better, right. Okay, I’ll shut up now.
Good job Anne. Your work actually gave me goose bumps (seriously). You are truly a gifted artist. bmw
Wow, thank you so much Bob, that means a lot to me 🙂
Wow, what a gorgeous park! Due to some health concerns, I’m not able to travel very far from home, so I very much appreciate “traveling” to a variety of locations through your blog posts and beautiful photographs. Thank you!
Hi Suzy, sorry to hear you are not able to travel far right now, but I am glad that you can experience some of these beautiful places through my blog. It’s comments like these that really keep my going. Thanks for taking the time to write.
They draw you in as if all you need do is step into the photo and take a stroll down the path to the river……. The first photo with the sliver of evening light (I know it must be sunset as you said mornings can be though mtivation) is simply breathtaking. The colors of the sky and rocks complementing the wild flowers. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much Bill. That first photo is my favourite too and yes, that’s sunset 🙂
Beautiful images of the Texas countryside. Love #2 & 4.
Fantastic shots as per usual, I especially love the 1st and 2nd ones. Quick question, are the 10mm and 18mm exposures from a zoom lens or prime lenses?
I wasn’t aware of this park and you captured it beautifully, Anne. So often the state parks do provide a nice alternative to their national counterparts.
I agree Russ, some of the state parks are fantastic and they are often much less visited making them even quieter and more peaceful than the national parks. Although I think Big Bend National Park is one of the less visited of the national parks. This whole area is gorgeous!