Shenandoah Valley Motorcycle Travel Photographer Writer Author
"Mother Nature can be the source of a motorcyclist’s greatest pleasure. When she is at her finest she can overwhelm you with sensations one never encounters in any other form of travel. Every input is a total sensory experience. A change of one or two degrees in temperature is felt on the surface of your skin. The fragrance of fresh grass clippings or blooming lilac can bring you to rapture. (Conversely the smell of manure or roadkill has the complete opposite effect on one’s olfactory mechanisms)."
-Excerpt from "Road Work: Images and Insights of a Modern Day Explorer"
To this day I can still remember the sensory experience when this photograph was taken. In a word: HOT! This image was captured on a day that saw the mercury rise to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia where my BMW motorcycle is pictured. There is a saying among motorcyclists that there is no such thing as bad weather…only bad gear; but I’m here to tell you: I was hot…even wearing my appropriate summer season Alpinestars protective motorcycle suit. A few miles earlier I got caught in a minor traffic jam and was basically standing still for about 10 minutes. Ten minutes in direct sunlight on a motorcycle, straddling a hot engine when it is 100+ degrees out is hot. Once moving again the motor, and my overheating body, cooled off a bit and I rode a few miles to cool off with the breeze created while motoring along this scenic road. Off in the distance beyond the bike is the Shenandoah Mountain Range and Skyline Drive. I’ve ridden Skyline Drive many times in my life and don’t know why I chose not to do so on this day. It certainly would have been a lot cooler in the higher altitudes of the mountains than it was down in this sun-baked valley. Nonetheless it was a beautiful scenic ride through farmlands and quaint little Virginia towns on this second day of a long distance motorcycle road trip. The previous day I had ridden from my home on Long Island to a friend’s place in Frederick, MD. Today I was heading south towards another friend in Tennessee. By the time this trip ended I would travel through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina before heading back home along an Atlantic coastal route including Myrtle Beach, The Outer Banks (OBX), The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, The Delmarva Penninsula and The Jersey Shore. The excerpt quoted above is from my Amazon #1 best selling road travel book which is available in paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon as well as on Apple Books. The photograph you are looking at was captured using a Nikon mirrorless camera and a Nikkor zoom lens which I carry everywhere in the top case of my BMW motorcycle. The digital image was processed in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop software on my Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer, which also travels everywhere with me. As a photographer, author, writer and adventurer I am blessed to travel the United States and Canada in the saddle of my motorcycle. My photographic images have graced the pages of many magazines and online resources in the photographic, motorcycle, motorsports, travel and hospitality industries. The images you see here on my web site are just a small sample of my stock photography library (all of which is available for sale or lease) and I am available to discuss and undertake any creative project assignment that you may have in mind. Give me a call..