I went a few weeks back to Bermuda for a weekend to see some friends, and as fortune would have it, my camera broke during a shoot less than one week before I was scheduled to depart. As my camera is still covered under warranty, I sent it along to Canon – they did a great job of fixing it, no hassle – but it would have been impossible to get it back in time for my trip.

Which was a bit of a pity, since I was going to a beautiful island nation in the middle of pristine waters.

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Anyone with a full-time job knows it can be pretty hard to get through a travel checklist. Those few weeks of vacation every year are likely to be spent on a 1-2 week family jaunt, with anything left over going to housework or the odd three-day weekend.

I have always found that one of the best ways to get the most photographic variety out of a long weekend city trip is to rent a car and head out of town to the nearest nature-focused destination. This will provide a strong contrast to the urban nature of the rest of your weekend, and take advantage of the fact that nearly any major city in the USA – including New York and Los Angeles – is within a reasonable day-trip distance of some pretty beautiful scenery.

In the case of Portland, Oregon, you can get that scenery right from a park in the city itself. But for a quick drive, you can get a whole lot more.

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I have been fond for years of taking any opportunity I could get to spend some time driving around this country, and the most rewarding trips have been out in the American West, where my love of nature is rewarded with extraordinary vistas, while the number of people you meet is so fewer than most other places that you often get more out of the experience.

One of the situations I will often find myself in is the conundrum of coming into town for a night right around sundown. This usually happens when I wake up in a given destination, spend the morning shooting it, and then shoot along the way of a 150+ mile drive to my next major spot. Every time this happens, I have to fly by the seat of my pants and try to take advantage of the natural beauty that occurs when dying light and farm equipment get together.

On my recent trip to Idaho, I found myself following pure instinct as I decided which farm roads to turn down, which highways to follow, and how much time to spend at a given spot, knowing that a better spot might be a mile or two down the road – with the light dying fast. I think common sense teaches outdoor photographers to photograph in such a way where they can maximize the light, so I often find myself chasing towards the lightest areas with the hopes of getting another few shots off before it gets too dark for my style of shooting.

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