Seneca Creek Photography by Allison Pluda

Photos, thoughts, and adventures from a Geologist, Photographer, Climber, Skier, Tenkara Fly Fisher, Backpacker, and enthusiast for Nature, Life, and the Truth Within

Permalink July 2nd Squirrel Creek Fire on Sheep Mountain, WyomingThe fires have finally hit my own backyard and Laramie is entirely shrouded in smoke and bits of ash. I was out to watch the sun rise over the smoke the other morning and took this one of the Squirrel Creek Fire on Sheep Mountain
Permalink Perigee Moon“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” - The Buddha Siddharta
Permalink “There remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.” - Albert Einstein
Permalink Wooden Cowboy Boots, WyomingWhile I was hiking around the open plains on some of the state land outside of town I stumbled across a pile of wood near what could be a nice sheltered camp. Upon closer inspection I noticed it was a pile of wooden cowboy boots! Wyoming is full of surprises!
Permalink Sunset and Moonrise On A Summer Evening over Dubois, Wyoming
Permalink Climbing at Sinks Canyon, Wyoming“One does not climb to attain enlightenment, rather one climbs because he is enlightened.” — Zen Master Futomaki.
Permalink Antelope at Sunset in the Wind River Valley, Dubois, Wyoming“The Western Home” Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play; Where never is heard a discouraging word And the sky is not clouded all day. Oh, give me the gale of the Solomon vale Where life streams with buoyancy flow, On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever Any poisonous herbage doth grow. Oh, give me the land where the bright diamond sand Throws light from the glittering stream; Where glideth along the graceful white swan, Like a maid in her heavenly dreams. I love these wild flowers in this bright land of our; I love, too, the curlew’s wild scream. The bluffs of white rocks and antelope flocks That graze on the hillsides so green. How often at night, when the heavens are bright By the light of the glittering stars, Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed If their beauty exceeds this of ours. The air is so pure, the breezes so light, The zephyrs so balmy at night, I would not exchange my home here to range Forever in azure so bright. Original poem by Brewster Higley
Permalink Split Rock from a Wyoming Road I love driving the long desolate stretches of road in Wyoming. They allow for so much time to think and to ponder the fact that years ago Native Americans roamed this land for hundreds of years before the first Western settlers ever even tried to cross this very same road. But they didn’t have a nice heated car, no, they did this long wind-swept drive sitting in wagons without lumbar support and with wooden wheels on rugged sage brush! This shot is of split rock, a unique formation that pointed the settlers in the right direction for days.  
Permalink Barbed Wire on the Plains, Laramie, WyomingThis photography may look like a nice pleasant sunset out on the plains of Laramie, Wyoming, but photographs don’t capture wind very well (at least not this one!). In Laramie, where the wind is always blowing, my walk across these plains just outside of town was through 40 mph winds that added a significant wind chill and tested the endurance of the warmth of my cheeks. I enjoy following the long stretches of barbed wire fence east across the wide plains until I am forced to turn south. There is a barrenness to these plains that gives them a rugged beauty and its days like these that when I see a fox or jackrabbit on these plains, I stop to give them a little more appreciation for their endurance as I think about getting into my warm sheltered car. “Although love dwells in gorgeous palaces, and sumptuous apartments, more willingly than in miserable and desolate cottages, it cannot be denied but that he sometimes causes his power to be felt in the gloomy recesses of forests, among the most bleak and rugged mountains, and in the dreary caves of a desert.” - GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO (1313—1375)
Permalink The Alternative View: Sunrise on Spring Creek, Laramie, Wyoming “Painting is a blind man’s profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.” - Pablo Picasso I am trying something a little new for me: digital manipulation of my photos. Since I don’t have the gift of painting, I thought that I would digitally manipulate my photos into what I envision. This is a view of a spectacular sunrise from Laramie, Wyoming.