Nature Light Photo

Death Valley, the Hottest Place in North America? NOT!

White Top Mountain Panorama

I spent five days in Death Valley last week. During that time, I took Sandy all over the National Park. I traveled from Furnace Creek to Scotty’s Castle then went west to visit the Racetrack Playa again. I like to take Sandy and follow back country roads just to see where they go.

In this case I was just southeast of Teakettle Junction and saw this road that lead to the east and up into the mountains. Seemed like a good road, so I followed it. I ended up at about 7,000′ near White Top Mountain and it was getting dark. I stopped to camp for the night.

It was cold at five-thirty when I finished my dinner. I cleaned up, set up to sleep in Sandy for the night, and went to bed. I knew it would be a long night, but I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was wrong. I had picked the night that a cold front passed through Southern California and I was on the edge of the storm when I went to bed.

I travel with an indoor/outdoor thermometer, just to amuse myself in the morning as I look at the difference in temperatures in the FJ and outside. It records the lowest and highest temperatures both inside and outside. The low outside was 10. The high was 48. Inside it was a toasty 50. That was the high. The low was 29. Inside.

IT WAS COLD!!!

I travel with three gallon jugs of water which I store in the truck on the floor of the front seat. They froze. Not solid, but about two inches from the sides. All of my drinks outside froze.

IT WAS COLD!!

I was OK until about four in the morning. Then it just started getting colder and colder. Finally, at about six. I decided that it was time to get out of there, so I packed up and left. The sun didn’t come up until after seven and it took until I got back to Furnace Creek before the temperature outside rose above 50 degrees.

So, why is am I telling this tale on a photography blog? Because there are a few lessons to be learned.

One, prepare for the worst. I knew it was going to be cold, but I wasn’t prepared for it to be that cold. The purchase of a new, warmer sleeping bag is in the near future.

Two, because I wasn’t prepared I didn’t take full advantage of the situation in a photographic sense. I should have stayed up and shot around the campsite. There were some great views. I missed them because I wasn’t ready to shoot in that situation.

Three, it might have been cold and I might have been warmer, but I didn’t embrace the situation. I should have tried to enjoy the experience more.

The bottom line is that you need to be prepared for the situation you put yourself into and that even though it might be tough, try to enjoy the present.

The above image was taken as the sun set behind the mountains. It is a nine image panorama. I encourage you to click on the image to the original in my Smugmug gallery. Doing so will allow you to see the details of the image.

Please use the form below to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Road Trip – Central California Coast

I leave tomorrow to visit my dad for Thanksgiving. I’m excited about the trip because I will be spending three-plus days in the Central California Coast area. This is an area I love to visit and shoot. And seeing my family isn’t a bad thing either.

I was inspired by a recent series of posts on a friend’s blog. Peyton Cooke is friend and co-photographer who took a trip up the coast recently and posted some of her images. (You can view them here.)

After looking at her images, I decided that I had to travel up to the Monterey area and shoot some of the sights that I remember from the last time I was up there. I plan on visiting Monterey Bay, Point Lobos, traveling through Big Sur, and spending lots of time in Morro Bay.

I know one of the days will be spent shooting Hearst Castle and the elephant seals on Piedras Blancas beach. I love those seals. They are easy to shoot and offer thousands of different expressions and poses. I plan on spending quite a few hours shooting them.

Here are some of the images I took last time I was up there.

What Are You Looking At?

Hearst Castle

Of course when I get back, I will be posting images and information about my trip here.

You can see more of my images here.

Please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Pre-Sunrise South Tufa Panorama at Mono Lake

Honestly, I have not discovered a better place to be at sunrise than the south tufas at Mono Lake, CA. The light is magical. The formations are inspiring. And the location is remote, yet accessible. I am sure that there are places that are better, but I haven’t discovered them yet.

Because of the situation, it is easy to get a good shot, but difficult to get one that brings you the whole scene. This shot does that. It isn’t a true panorama in the sense that it was taken with a wide angle lens and cropped, but it is still in the panorama format and it shows the birds, both in flight and on the ground.

I took this before the sun was over the horizon, but the birds were still active. I was trying to give a sense of the movement of the birds and used a long shutter speed to blur their movement. Those wispy blurs above the tufas are the birds in flight. By using a long shutter speed and my tripod, the moving birds are blurred, but the rest of the scene is still sharp.  In Lightroom, I tried to bring out the details of the tufas, but leave the dark atmosphere of the time of day present by using fill light to lighten up the tufas just a bit.

The shot was taken with my Nikon D300 and a 18-70 3.5-4.5 lens at 31mm. The camera was set at and ISO of 200 and a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/5 of a second to blur the birds, but the aperture was small (f11) in order to increase the depth of field as much as possible.

Tufa Panorama

You can see more images from Mono Lake by visiting my Mono Lake gallery.

Please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Eastern Sierra Fall Colors – Convict Lake

Two weekends ago I traveled to the Eastern Sierra to shoot the fall colors. Again, the Aspen trees did not disappoint. Using the Sacramento Bee’s website that has an great interactive page that highlights the fall color along that part of 395, I was able to determine the best places to visit in order to maximize my shooting.

On a quick side note about the Sacramento Bee’s website, I had the opportunity to actually meet the author of the website, David Henry, at the Morro Bay Photo Expo. He is also a Canon rep, but we can’t hold that against him. He makes the trip from Sacramento to the Eastern Sierra to visit every one of the spots he reports on and he does it every weekend. He is a very nice guy, if you get the chance to meet him, you are lucky. The photography world needs more people willing to give like Dave.

Last year, Convict Lake was the place I went and saw my first real fall colors. Just south of Mammoth, I saw a sign  saying Convict Lake was only 2 miles up a small road and decided to visit. WOW! That was the only thing I could think to say. I went back this year and once again, the mountains with the lake at the base was great, but when you add in the bright yellow colors…

Convict Lake

I spent about two hours there taking pictures along the south shore. While there you are surrounded by fishermen. I tried to use them in some of my shots to show the environment, but this is the only one that I really like.

Fishing Convict Lake

I also tried to get some details of the area. I wanted to show how the leaves look while changing and the damage done to the aspens by woodpeckers or what I assume are woodpeckers.

Changing Leaves

Apsen Holes

The holes created by the woodpeckers also attract insects that want to use the sap for energy.

Five & One

Finally, I liked the details in this image of the Aspens at the far end of the lake.

Convict Lake with Sierra Details

You can view all of the images of the Sierra Nevada from my trip by clicking here: Sierra Nevada

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Morro Bay Photo Expo – A Quick Summary

I spent the weekend in Morro Bay along the central coast of California. There are worse places to spend a weekend.

The reason I was there was to participate in the Morro Bay Photo Expo. I went last year and enjoyed it, but this year passed my expectations by far.

There was a raffle to benefit the Morro Bay High School Photography Club. I put in my $20 for my five tickets and figured it was donation to a good cause. I ended up winning the top two prizes; a Tamarac Aero Speed 75 photo backpack AND I won a signed print from George Lepp. To top it off, I was wait-listed to get into the George Lepp master class. I got in.

If that wasn’t enough, the workshops were much better done than last year. Dean Sullivan talked about shooting as a pro. Mike Baird had a great tour on the water in and out of Morro Bay.  Saturday afternoon/evening Howard Ignatius and crew treated us to a sunset shoot on the Morro Strand State Beach. Ok, the sunset wasn’t that good, but they brought in four horses and riders to photograph on the beach. It was a great opportunity.

One of the lessons I learned was to check your camera between shooting different types of shots. I started Saturday evening shooting five shot bracket for HDR. Then I went to shoot the horses and forgot to take the camera off of bracket mode. The result? I got one good shot, two decent shots, and two unusable shots for every five I took. I couldn’t figure out why my flash wasn’t giving me consistent results and of course blamed the equipment. It wasn’t until later that I realized that, as usual, the equipment was great, but the operator was faulty. Scott Bourne put it best; 99% of the equipment is better than 98% of the photographers.

George Lepp gave a brand new five hour presentation on Saturday and followed it up on Sunday with a phenomenal master class for us lucky 15. We had six hours to pick one of the best photographic minds and discuss a wide variety of subjects including HDR, pano, pano-HDR (or HDR panos), use of a histogram, composition, and lots of other subjects. It was AWESOME!!!

Morro Bay Photo Expo on the Water Shooting

As usual, please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Fossil Falls, CA – The Details

Revisiting my trip to Fossil Falls last weekend, one of the things I tried to do was to capture the small details that a large, landscape/panoramic picture can’t show.

Here are some of those shots.

Grass in Fossil Falls Lava

Water Warn Lava

Clinging to Life

Window Rock

Please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Fossil Falls, CA

I took a trip last weekend to the Eastern Sierra Nevada to shoot the fall colors. My first night was spent in the Fossil Falls campground on 395, just south of Olancha.

Fossil Falls is a lave flow that used to have a river flowing through it. The result is some beautiful, worn lava formations that can be very photogenic.

The only issue with shooting there is that there are huge dynamic range possiblities or problems. The black lava against the blue sky or against clouds can create some metering concerns. Most of the problems, if you have exposed correctly, can be taken care of in post processing by recovering the highlights or adding some fill light.

Fossil Falls Lava Flows

Fossil Falls

Fossil Falls with the Sierra Nevada in the Background

OH! How Time Flies!

I knew I would run out of time today!

Due to a scheduling conflict I am unable to get this week’s 5/5 post out today. I will be posting it up on Sunday afternoon. Thanks for your understanding.

Ok, seriously, I’m in the Eastern Sierras shooting fall color, but…

…until then, here is a shot from Convict Lake from last year.

Convict Lake Fall Colors

Sierra Nevada Fall Color Trip

Next weekend I will be heading north up one of my favorite roads in California, Highway 395 to find some fall color to shoot. I love this time of year up there with it’s crisp mornings, warm days, and cold nights.

I have been checking lots of sites for the best locations for shooting the color I am looking to shoot. Some of the sites I am looking at are The Sacramento Bee’s Fall Color Map and Natural History Wanderings Fall Color Reports. I’m also reading sites for ideas and inspiration. Among my favorites are the G Dan Mitchell Photography website and Ron Bigelow’s website.

Here is an image I took using my Lensbaby from last year.

Eastern Sierra Aspen with Lensbaby

Please feel free to leave a comment below telling me what you think.

Abe in His Hometown

Here is an image of a statue of Abe Lincoln in a park in Springfield, IL across from his museum. I liked the way it looked from this angle with his hand and face in the shot.

This is a great example of looking for an angle of a subject that is different than your first view. I walked around this statue for a few minutes before I found this angle.

Abe Lincoln Statue in Springfield, IL

Please feel free to leave a comment below and tell me what you think.