Nature Light Photo

Photo of the Week – Bodie Weasel

Mountain Weasel

If you’ve been following me, you know I love Bodie, CA. The ghost town turned into a state park is one of my favorite places to visit at almost any time of year.

I was there last year in the early spring on a full day shoot at the park. I shot from sunrise to sunset. In the middle of the day, this little guy popped out from beneath the snow and started scampering around. He is a mountain weasel (Mustela altaica). It was the first time I’ve ever seen one.

I got this one good shot after working and waiting for over an hour. He would dive down between the snow and the bank and then suddenly appear somewhere else. I sat down behind a small bush, put the camera on the sticks, and waited, sitting fairly still. Eventually, he came out, posed for me, and took off across the field. Never saw him again.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens with 2x teleconverter. The exposure was for 1/800 of a second at f6.3 and an ISO of 200.

Please leave comment and let me know what you think.

Photo of the Week – Bodie Truck with a Lensbaby

Bodie's Blue Truck

This blue truck was taken in the ghost town of Bodie, CA. It is really hard to miss. Most of Bodie is brown, tan, or grey, but this truck just jumps out from the landscape and begs to have it’s picture taken.

The image was taken with a D300 and a Lensbaby Composer. The exposure was 1/8000 of a second at f2 and an ISO of 200. There was no aperture ring in the composer.

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

Photo of the Week – Steel Cable

Steel Cable in Bodie, CA

The State Park of Bodie, CA is a ghost town in “arrested decay”. As you walk around the town, there are artifacts from when the town was a functioning mining town. This is the end of a steel cable used in the mines to lower and raise the miners down the shaft.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 105mm f2.8 macro lens. The exposure was for 1/40 of a second at f8 and an ISO of 200.

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

Details of Bodie

While on a trip to Bodie in October for photographer’s day, I used the mid-day time to shoot some of the details of the town. I was facsinated by the old wood on the buildings.

Being an OLD ghost town, Bodie has some great old buildings and the wood in them is just amazing. Stained, filled with rusty nails, and the patterns of the boards make for some great shots. Using the Nikkor 105 f2.8 to capture smaller details

Here are four six of them. I would love to hear what you think.

Grasses at Mono Lake

On my trip to Bodie last month, I stopped at Mono Lake on Friday evening to shoot the tufas. While there, I turned around and saw these beautifully back-lit grasses. Working with different focus points and depths of field, I tried to capture the beauty that I saw. These are the results.

Also, while I was there, I ran into a Nikonians workshop group under the direction of Michael Mariant. I spent some time talking to him and he offered some much appreciated tips on shooting in the snow at Bodie. It was nice to see some fellow Nikonians out & about. They were nice people.

Eastern Sierra Nevada

I spent a week in the Lee Vining in August of 2009. Here are some of the images from that trip. Bodie-Mono Lake

Please let me know what you think.

Bodie Photographer’s Day 2009

It was an interesting weekend that started out well, got a LOT better, then took a disastrous, almost fatal, turn.

I took a trip up to Bodie State Historical Park last weekend to participate in their last photographer’s day of the year. Photographer’s day is held every third Saturday of the month from April to October. The cost is $50 and for that they open the park up at 6:30am instead of the usual 9:00 and close it at 6:30pm instead of the usual 4:00. Although, I have heard that they don’t really ask you to leave until you are actually done.

I was prepared for snow and bad weather after the week’s storm, but the roads were dry and, yet, there was snow on the ground to give the images more character.

I left SoCal at about 5:30pm Thursday afternoon, staying in Ridgecrest for the night. I got an early start at about eight o’clock and continued up highway 395, stopping in Galen Rowell’s Mountain Light Gallery for my traditional look at his gallery as I pass through Bishop. I am always amazed by his work and the work of the guest artists that are exhibited. I strongly recommend stopping at his gallery to every photographer passing through the Bishop area.

I stopped by Convict Lake in the Lee Vining/Mammoth Lakes area and took some images there. I tried out my new Lensbaby and captured the fall colors around the lake before traveling to Mono Lake and taking some pictures at the South Tufa area.  After that, I checked into the Lee Vining Lake View Lodge. Ok, there is no lake view, but…

Saturday, I got up at 4:45 and was out the door by 5:30, arriving at Bodie by 6:20. Checked in, got to the parking lot, then hiked up the west side of the valley to get the sun rising over the town. After that, I went back into the town and shot pictures of different things in the morning light. By noon, I was mostly shooting macro and using the Lensbaby to while away the time until the afternoon golden hour when I hiked back up the west side of the valley to get the sun setting on the town.

After a good dinner at Whoa Nellie Deli in the Mobil station. (It’s really good food. Honest.) I went to bed and got a good night’s sleep, waking up at seven and getting on the road at about 9:30 after a good breakfast at Nicely’s in Lee Vining. I took a side trip up into Yosemite to see the affect of the snow on Tuolumne Meadows and the high country. Above 9,000 feet there was lots of snow. Below 9,000 feet there was almost nothing. I still got some good shots of small streams and lakes with the mountains and snow in the background.

Finally, I started home. After four hours of driving, I had just past Ridgecrest when some idiot in a white Dodge Ram pick-up tried passing in a no-passing zone forcing me off the road, up an embankment, and into a sign post. Ironically, the sign I drove through was “PASS WITH CARE”.

The X-Terra is probably totaled and the CHP officer said that the only reason I am not dead or busted up is because of my decision to put my car into the dirt and then my skill at keeping it upright. To top it off, the bastard took off, making it a “none collision hit and run” accident. Fortunately, two local kids from Ridgecrest stayed and were witnesses for me to the CHP.

My wife picked me up after a two-and-a-half hour drive from home and we ended up spending the night back in Ridgecrest before driving home Monday morning.

The bottom line: I’m glad to be alive, well, and to have come home with some great pictures. I will be posting a few here over the next few weeks.

Looking Forward to a Busy October

This is going to be a great month. I have three events planned that I am really looking forward to attending.

The first is a photographer’s day at Bodie State Park. I discovered Bodie in late June and fell in love with it. I find the fact that a town of its age and location is still standing. As an environmental science teacher, I like looking at the town and wondering what it must have been like to live there with all of the waste, trash, and other cast-offs created by placing several thousand people in close proximity.

I like wandering around the town and wondering what it must have been like to live there during the height of the boom. The sounds, the smells, the people. It must have been overwhelming in some ways and really difficult in others. I’ve never lived through a winter in the area, but I have heard that they are REALLY hard and demanding. Summers are hot. Life was hard. And there are reminders and remnants of past lives. Everywhere you look there is something that was a part of some one’s life and I always wonder how they used it and how it affected their.

On photographer’s day, for $50, they open the park up at or just before sunrise and close it down at or just after sunset. This allows photographers access to the town and park without a lot of people and at a time that is most advantageous to the golden hour in lighting. I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can get from the situation.

A week after going to Bodie, I am going to the Morro Bay Photo Expo hosted by George Lepp. I heard about this on Twitter and signed up early this year. While there are several social events, I signed up for as many workshop/classes as I could fit into my schedule. I figure that for a relatively cheap price of $75, I was going to get as much photo education as possible, so I skipped the social events and signed up for lots of photography information based workshops.

The weekend culminates with a one day seminar lead by George Lepp. I am REALLY looking forward to this. I have been reading his column in Outdoor Photographer every chance I get and now I have the opportunity to listen to him in person. That should be educational. I’ll be writing more about what I am taking and why later.

Finally, on the 27th, I will be attending Dane Sanders’ REAL TIME COMMUNITY with Dane Sanders, Scott Bourne, and Chris Becker.

I have heard Becker speak before at a SMUG (Smugmug Users Group) and he is very well know for not only his photography, but his business prowess and community building skills.

I first heard of Scott Bourne on a podcast and over the last few years have come to respect Scott Bourne for his knowledge and insight into and about the photography industry. He is one of my favorite Tweeters and ALWAYS has something important and educational to say.

I don’t know Dane Sanders’ work well, but I know he is VERY well respected in the photographic community and I want to hear what he has to say about the photography business.

Of course I will keep you posted as the month progresses.

Bodie/Mono Lake Images

I spent a week in the Lee Vining in August of 2009, visiting Bodie, Devil’s Post Pile, and Mono Lake.

I really like Bodie. It has an infinite possibility for taking pictures. The juxtaposition between the old and nature is amazing. Mono Lake’s tufas are really beautiful in the early morning. The shapes of Devil’s Post Pile are fun to work with also. The first image is of Manzanar detainment camp. It’s kind of an Ansel Adams thing (except in color).

I used Lightroom for the post production work. Mostly just white balance, exposure, and a little cropping.

Here are some of the images from that trip. Click here to view images of Bodie-Mono Lake.