I find it very hard to comment on the state of my country. So much violence for a country that is, theoretically, not at war (except in half the world where we're fighting terror but what the hell). Finally we get another terror act in America ... one I've been expecting for quite some time ... and no one seems inclined to do anything about it. Let me say, bluntly, that it's stupid to sell assault rifles, which are designed for only one thing (killing people), and ammunition to anyone. Even the cops don't really need them except as an equalizer against all the crazies who are armored up to the hilt. And all this right-wing crap about protection from the government is just that ... crap. A clown with a gun isn't going to frighten a soldier who's faced hardened fighters in the middle east. Have you seen most of these idiots? Rejects from society and most are so out of shape that they'd probably have a heart attack if they every actually faced off against someone with a gun and it's pointed at their fat head. Let me repeat ... we don't need these guns. For 200+ years we've managed to survive quite nicely with just our standard rifle and shot gun. All this fire power didn't stop a couple (one a woman no less) from shooting up this holiday party in California. It was the cops who finished them off, not civilians. But the carnage was much worse because both of them had semi-automatic assault rifles and lots of high powered ammo. Consider how different it would have been had they been limited to more conventional arms. And maybe, instead of being shot up by all that police armor, maybe they would have been captured alive and could have helped us understand why they did it. But no, they are very dead and we can only assume they were terrorists because they were Muslim. All so worthless and a waste of precious human life. Don't you think it's time to try something else ... really?
Yosemite's Half Dome
Yosemite is, surprisingly, a hard place to photograph. It's beautiful, even breathtaking, but unlike places on the Grand Cascade, rock formations are a unappetizing gray color. That's why, I think, so many pictures of Yosemite are black and white. I took a ton of images while I was there and most of them are OK but few actually got my blood pumping. They are universally bland and only the sky made an impact. I'll put more on this blog as I can but they're not my best works. Also, it was near the end of my trip and my camera was extremely dirty. There were dust particles all over my sensor so my pictures look like they have chicken pox. When I combine multiple panels together for a panorama it takes a lot of work to remove all the smudges and blotches caused by this dirt and, quite frankly, the results are not inspiring. Even my HDR images came out muddy and not all that wonderful. That's why you've not seen any images from Yosemite so far. I keep looking at them and putting off adding them here because they embarrass me.
But, a few days ago I was going through images from Yosemite and came across this one. I was on Glacier Point looking northeast. I took it before the sun touched the horizon so the sky is already turning a wonderful blue but the sun hasn't yet gone to the "golden hour" reds and yellows. The entire image is very 'cool' and has a nice feel about it. One interesting point about this image ... if you look just to the right of the dome you'll see a brown 'streak' in the trees trailing off to the picture's edge. That's dead trees burned by the big forest fire they had 2 summers ago. That's how close the inferno came to half dome. This is an HDR sequence (2 shots) run through Photomatix and Lightroom.
It is really a wonderful place to visit ... but so damn crowded. Impossible to find a parking place or a camp site. I stayed at a forest service campsite 10 miles outside the park and had a 35 mile drive each way every day. Lots of gas wasted going back and forth.
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| Yosemite's Half Dome - 28mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
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