For the past several years now I've liked to start my new year off with a substantial hike, & this year was no different. Within the first cold week of January I decided to take Hanna to the Steele Creek Overlook on a portion of the BRT in Ponca, AR. This is one of the most popular camp-sites on the Buffalo National River, but not many visitors take the 2.5 mile rt hike up to the overlook!

I packed my 35mm Canon AE-1 camera packed with my first roll of Portra 400 film. As soon as I got the film scans back from this roll I knew Portra 400 is going to become my favorite film stock! 

We made our way up the trail just near the end of the day & were able to catch the last of daylight over the bend in the Buffalo River just as we made it to the marked overlook. We were able to explore this portion of the trail for a good hour into twilight before hiking down by headlamps.

I was having so much fun shooting film & using the new 24mm f2.8 lens that Hanna got me for Christmas that I forgot to shoot much digital at all! That's perfectly okay with me. Hikes like this with no photo-mission in mind really allows my creativity to flow more freely rather than planned or forced. We got to spend a chilly evening with each other in creation & couldn't have asked for more! Here are a couple of digital shots I did pull off.