The Ranching Life

As Thanksgiving weekend drew to a close, I got to appreciate fall in yet another way -- by visiting a working cattle ranch up near Cambria. How awesome is that? The mission: photograph a fun-loving extended family, including the family's great grandma and her daughter, Nana, who was visiting from Oklahoma.

First up, a photo with everyone.



Then we let Great Grandma convalesce, as she's still recovering from a recent knee surgery. The rest of us able-bodied folks loaded into a couple of trucks and headed out across the ranch.

It was SUCH a cool and different experience for me. And man, the landscape was pretty.

We did a bunch of group photos with various subsets of the family. Too bad the backdrop stunk, huh?









And these guys were such good sports. Hopefully they won't kill me for posting this, but I just loved this shot. What you don't know is that there's a HUGE dropoff right behind them (it's a waterfall in winter). Don't let the tree behind them fool you: it's one STEEP drop.



Finally, I'm not a landscape phootgrapher by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help snapping a quick shot of some of our surroundings.





Thanks, guys, for a memorable session! I look forward to getting the whole set of photos together for you.