Bisti Mushrooms

Trump

Damn, how I hate writing that name. The fact that 'the Donald' is our next president sits real heavy on my heart. A Narcissist, a real hard core Narcissist, has just been elected to run my country for the next 4, 8 or how many years he chooses. I've been around these types enough in my life to know they are real trouble. Thin-skinned and really quick to retaliate, they can cause so much trouble if given enough rope. And I'm guessing the clowns in congress will give this guy all the rope he wants as long as he goes along with their agenda. I really fear for the future of my country, not only because of him, but because we've lost all sense of direction and are floating around aimlessly, armed to the teeth and with no idea just how dangerous a dying country can be. Will he pick a fight with someone over a slight or a nasty comment? Will he be easily swayed by flattery? Of course. One has to really hope that there are people, somewhere, who can provide a check on his over-sized ego and keep him from doing something really stupid. Of course, maybe his selection is a good thing. Is it better to get a shot to the head or to die of a thousand tiny cuts? The democrats have been using the latter solution but I'm inclined to think the former is better. Get it over with and start anew. I can tell you, from my perspective living outside of the US of A, most people just want our country to go away. They are tired of these clowns in Washington or NYC telling them what to do and then screwing them over when their back is turned. America has little to offer the world anymore. We had our chance and blew it. Time for someone else to have a try at fixing the train wreck.

Bisti Mushrooms

If you're driving along I-40 near Grants, New Mexico, I recommend a hard left (north) onto route NM 371 and a visit to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin wilderness areas. Not as flashy as some national parks or as spectacular as many of the rock formations in the Great Basin, it's still worth the diversion and driving on some not so great dirt roads just for the chance to see some really strange geological formations. I've been to a lot of national parks and seen a load of geography but nothing prepares you for the odd formations you see in Bisti. Just be prepared for the heat and lack of water ... it is really dry there. I walked into Bisti in late May and nearly lost it as the sun, even at 5 pm, was intense. Got really dizzy even with several bottles of water and had to find some shade to recover. I was lucky to find a couple coming out and they told me about these strange rocks that looked like mushrooms. I was able to follow their directions and finally came on the weirdest thing I've ever seen. There they were ... thousands of flat rocks perched precariously on dried mud pedestals. It was almost surreal. I tried to imagine how this came about. The pedestals were mud, not rocks, which seems strange as one would expect the next rain storm to simply wash them away. But there they stood ... and they've been this way for a very long time. I think ... and I don't really know for sure ... but I think this whole area was, a few 100 thousand years ago, inundated with a massive flood that swept mud and all these flat rocks down from a higher elevation. The whole mess then dried. Over the years rains have slowly swept out the mud, leaving these flat rocks exposed. They act as umbrellas, protecting the underlying mud 'stems' from being flushed away. Of course, over long periods the stems do disappear and the flat rocks settle on the surrounding mud so the cycle starts over again. What an amazing sight.

Just a note of caution: wilderness areas are managed by the BLM. They are very serious about the wilderness classification. There are minimal improvements in the designated areas so be very aware of your surroundings. You'll likely not see anyone else (there were 3 cars in the parking area when I arrived and I think all but one were campers) on your travels and 'rangers' are not there to help you out. Although I'm crazy enough to hike alone I strongly suggest against this for most people. If you get hurt, no one is there to help you. People do die in these wilderness locations for lack of rescue resources. Also, have a GPS system so you know where you are. I have an app on my Android tablet that tracks my location so I have a way of finding my way back to my car. It's called 'Backcountry Navagator' and you can buy it from the Google Play store (a few bucks). It uses free Geological Survey maps. You simply tell it to start tracking your location as you hike and then you have a trail to follow on the way out. I used it in Bisti and it was very helpful. Places like Bisti don't have a lot of geological reference points (like a tall mountain) and it's real easy to get disoriented. Especially after the sun goes down it's damn easy to lose your way. In fact, I wanted to stay at the mushrooms for the sunset but chickened out as I was already dizzy from dehydration and was concerned that I might get lost even with my GPS track. I was concerned the tablet battery might run out (GPS is battery intense). I left early to make sure there was still light when I found my truck. It was still touch and go as I got 'lost' and couldn't find the markers (2 bright red hills that disappeared as the sun set) and was forced to trust the GPS track for a while until I reacquired them. There are no paths to follow ... just a lot of random footprints in the soft earth and many shallow washes that can and do force you to traverse left and right until you can find a way across. I strongly recommend having a fully charged backup battery that can be used to recharge your tablet/phone/GPS tracker in the event your battery runs down. They are cheap insurance against a mistake. And carry lots of water/sports drink to keep yourself hydrated. It's amazing how fast you can get in trouble. It really sneaks up on you.

This is a 5 image sequence run through the usual processing (Photomatix and Lightroom). Love the blue sky and clouds. A characteristic of New Mexico that's really nice. Makes for amazing sunsets.

Bisti Mushrooms - 35mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes Sunset

What a terrible year...

It seems this has been a year of tragedy. Every time I turn on the TV there's some new disaster to be explained. All the wars, the terror attacks and even all the airplane crashes. Well today, Christmas day, is no different. We just learned that a Russian military transport plane crashed off the Black Sea coast from Sochi, Russia with 92 passengers aboard. These were not military fighters ... no, they were entertainers, heading for Syria to provide some diversion for the airmen and support personnel involved in the Syria civil war. 65 were members of the world famous Russian Army Choir (including singers, dancers and musicians) while there were crews from 3 different Russian TV stations and others. The greatest tragedy, however, is the death of Doctor Liza (I think that was her nickname), an emergency room physician who has been leading humanitarian rescue missions into both the Donbas, Ukraine, and in Syria. She had just received a humanitarian award from Putin a few weeks ago. She specialized in wounded children and had been a huge contributor to the survival of so may kids injured in these conflicts. Her loss is beyond tragedy. When will all this carnage end?

Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes Sunset

It's hard to take a bad picture in Death Valley. You have to really try to make something ugly. But there are special places and unique times when the images explode with color and amazing structure. This image is one of those special moments. I was at Mesquite Flats, on the sand dunes, waiting for just the perfect moment to snap this image. There were clouds in abundance and I just knew this would be special. I wanted to incorporate the sand dunes into the shot in a way that emphasized how the wind sculpts the sand into the most amazing shapes. I think it came out just the way I intended.

This photo contains a classic photo organization. It has a foreground (the sand), a middle ground (the purple mountains) and a background (the sky). It contains a lot of structure which draws the eye from the bright sky to the shimmering sand to the barely visible scrub brush in the middle ground. You just want to be there, sitting on the sand while the sun slides slowly behind the distant mountains. I didn't want to leave that spot but finally had to pull myself away or get lost on the dunes for the night. The rangers tell me there are sidewinders and lots of scorpions out there and they all come out once the sun goes down. Not an appetizing thought as it gets bitter cold and very, very dark.

This is a 5 image grouping, run through Photomatix to extract as much color as I could and then put into Lightroom for finishing. It was taken on my Canon 6D using the 16-35 f/4 zoom. That lens takes the most amazing pictures. I'm really happy with the combination. It's quickly become my go-to setup. I think this pictures shows why.

Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes - 35mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Kolob Canyon

The Animal Kingdom...

We have a lot of animals in our family. My wife is a real animal lover and she has a hard time keeping the total number of creatures below what is unmanageable. At present we have 4 cats and 2 dogs in our small flat (on top of 3 humans). As I wrote in an earlier post, we lost our beloved Cocker Spaniel earlier this year and there was a gaping hole in our life. Well, this last summer, my wife filled that hole with a new Russian Toy Terrier. A very small dog in stature but with a huge personality. She's quickly becoming the boss of the animal kingdom. She loves to chase the cats and to play with our huge guard dog (the Crimea is a bit lawless at the moment and there are a lot of break ins). It's comical to see this little dog, all of about 5 lbs, 'fighting' with this 150 lb monster. Holly, the big dog, is very gentle with her but still, because of the size difference, occasionally steps on the little guy. As for the cats, well, they seem to be adjusting to being chased constantly by the 'boss' although one cat, Puma, isn't all that enamored with her and tends to give her a whack whenever the chasing gets too aggressive. Sometimes it's like the Keystone Cops with animals flying all over the house as the big game of 'tag' rages around us. One big happy family most of the time but there are days...

Kolob Canyon

There's more to Zion NP than most people realize. I'd say 95% of the visitors confine their visit to the main attractions in the south end of the park but they're missing some really spectacular scenery. The northern park comprises Kolob Canyon and is it ever amazing. There's only one road that winds up into the mountains from the small ranger station. As you climb higher the canyon comes into view and you are treated to these amazing rock formations and butts that soar high above. I would strongly suggest taking the time to drive north up Rt. 15 and visit this wonderful place. You won't be disappointed.

I took this image from the last overlook on the canyon road. It's looking east. There were storms in the area and that always gives dramatic views and amazing colors. This is a 5 image HDR run through Photomatix and finished in Lightroom. I use Photomatix a lot when needed but I've been pulling away from the more dramatic 'grunge' effects as I've become more confident in my photography. These days I limit my adjustments to tweaking the 'black' and 'white' sliders and then moving the 'strength' slider until I get the image I want. The main idea is to let Photomatix combine the various exposures into one tonemapped image and then use Lightroom (and Photoshop if needed) to correct any issues that emerge. This seems to give me the results I really want without introducing unpleasant artifacts that can destroy the photo. As users of HDR already know, it's very easy to go too far and create images that are overblown and unattractive. I'm trying to project the emotions I feel as I look at the landscape ... not to create some surreal alien landscape that offends the viewer. I also am running some image sets directly into Photoshop where I combine them to get the best presentation. This is especially true when I get photos that have a lot of contrast which seems to drive Photomatix crazy. Direct sunlight into the lens (or filtered through the clouds) seems to be a real issue for Photomatix and I'm forced to find different ways to get around this problem. I think it's really an issue with the way tonemapping works so there's no easy way to get around it. It's all part of being a serious photographer.

Kolob Canyon - 35mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Yosemite Valley

Russian Drinking...

I talked about Russian drinking in my last post and just wanted to touch on a ancillary issue that's become a big story in the press here. Last week 48 people died from drinking methanol laced solutions ... all in one town. Turns out the cost of legit (really not legit but at least drinkable) alcohol has gone through the roof lately, mostly due to increases in taxes. The state is trying, laughably, to cut down on the huge issue of alcoholism in this part of the world. Of course, the ever resourceful Russians just move to other 'alcohol' based solutions, some of which are deadly. This latest incident involved bottles of 'skin tonic' which was basically all alcohol. 93% according to the label. In the past the alcohol was ethanol but, for some reason (probably because methanol is cheaper), the maker made a substitution to the toxic alcohol. There were warnings on the label but no one here pays any attention to the warnings. They all 'know' that the contents are safe. For a significantly reduced price people are able to get plastered. But this time it was very fatal. The government is making all the usual huffing noises about regulations and whatnot but the fact is there isn't much they can do. The people who make these elixirs will just move on to some other delivery vehicle. It was reported that people were actually buying 'legit' bottles of Jim Beam and Jack Daniels which were bootleg and made with methanol. Imagine paying a huge price for a bottle of Jack only to have it kill you. That's how bad it's become. Some reports say up to 70% of all the liquor sold in Russia is bootleg and a lot of it is very dangerous. No wonder people load up with alcohol at the duty free shops before heading home. It's just common sense in this place.

Yosemite Valley

If you take the road to Glacier Point, the first stop is Tunnel View, just before you enter the long tunnel heading west. There's a grand view of the valley and the overlook is always crowded with photographers doing their thing. I really was happy this day because the sky was loaded with low storm clouds and the valley was aglow in the most beautiful diffuse light. The clouds were just below the mountain peaks so there was some added mystery to be experienced. I spent several hours at the lookout, taking a huge batch of images. I know I won't use most of them but pictures are cheap these days and I want to have a large selection to choose from.

In this image, I'm looking to the east as the sun gets low in the sky behind me. The bright glow mid-image is the sun hitting some high clouds and reflecting back. To the left, the large granite monolith is El Capitaan while to the right is Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Falls. One thing to notice is the large number of dead pine trees. I heard an estimate that up to 100 million pines are dead in the High Sierras due to the 5 year drought and the number is growing at a frightening pace. Not only are they unsightly but there is a real fire hazard from all the dead wood. Really hope they get some relief this winter or things could get real dicey come summer.

This is a 5 image sequence minimally processed through Photomatix and then finished in Lightroom. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I take back an earlier comment about how Yosemite was better seen as B&W. This is really an amazing image and I wouldn't change a thing.

Yosemite Valley - 35mm, f/6.3,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Yosemite Valley Mystery

The Holidays Cometh...

Living in Russia we don't really celebrate Christmas ... New Years is the big draw in this part of the world. Lots of parties (and drinking) and fireworks (legal up to the biggest bombs you can find) and did I say drinking? Alcoholism is a big problem in this place and almost impossible to address. Kids start drinking at a very early age (especially boys) and it continues throughout their lives. In the summer it's non-stop, especially in the play area outside our building where the teenagers get together every night and drink until 3-4 am. The ground is always littered with discarded beer and vodka bottles. Of course, by the time these kids leave school they are already well on the way to being alcoholics. It's a huge issue but no one has the guts to address it.

On the other hand we don't have the feeding frenzy of buying tons of worthless crap to give to everyone. They do give gifts but most are small and inexpensive. It's the thought that counts, not the size. After years of battling my first wife's family over the obscene level of giving it's really nice to not think about this mess.

Yosemite Valley Mystery

I was in Yosemite early this cycle (end of April) so there were still storms in the area. One morning I spent time in Cook's Meadow near the visitor's center and was fortunate to have low clouds sweeping across the surrounding peaks. I really love how the clouds seems to cradle the rock and isolate it from the rest of the mountain. I was fortunate this trip to have many such encounters with clouds and they completely changed the feel of my images. Very dramatic effects are possible when clouds make an appearance.

This is a 5 image sequence, run through Photomatix and finished in Lightroom. There ss a bit of cropping to really center the image on the vertical rock face but nothing major. I just love these photos ... they give me a great thrill. Hope you feel the same way.

Yosemite Valley - 116mm(1.6 crop),f/11,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Monument Valley

Not much to say...

I'm not usually at a loss for words but today I just can't find anything exciting to write about. Trump is doing his Trump thing, which looks to be a building disaster, and we'll wait to see how the congress reacts. Have no idea how he will govern or even if he gets Republican support so making any predictions is a waste of time. All I can say is we should expect the unexpected from him at every turn. Not sure how the foreign leaders react to him as they like someone who's steady and he's anything but. I do expect he will 'get even' with anyone who crosses him ... that's how a narcissist works. I also expect a lot of churn in his administration as he browbeats everyone (another narcissistic trait unfortunately) and they quit in frustration (or he fires them). We may be nearing the end of the US of A's run as big dog and the fireworks could be spectacular. Don't give Donald much of a chance of a second term as he'll be unable to deliver all the goodies he promised and the electorate will throw him out. He may also grow tired of being president and move on to something else. He seems to have a limited attention span. Won't be surprised by anything he does.

Monument Valley

Last year I stopped by the shops at Monument Valley but couldn't pull the trigger to make a visit. The West is covered with buttes and upheavals in all colors and shapes so paying the entrance fee to see more if the same just didn't get me really excited. This year I decided, what the hell, I'll plunk down the $10 and see what was so special. Found a seriously unimproved dirt road full of ruts and bumps and a lot of dust. And more of the buttes and upheavals I've seen all over the place. It was nice, even pretty in spots, but nothing to get really excited about. Actually spent most of my time talking to a Navajo guy who was selling jewelry. Turns out he was one of those Navajo high-steel walkers but had been forced to retire due to a bad back injury. Talked about that a lot as he was avoiding a visit to a back surgeon and that was not the right thing to do. I think he had some damaged discs and a spinal fusion would work wonders for his mobility. He was in a lot of pain and there are ways to mitigate that. Hope he listened to me.

Anyway, I was waiting for sundown as that and sunrise are the only times one can take really good pictures in the big sky country. The sun is brutal during the day and any attempt to take pictures then is usually a washout. So I hung out on a mesa that overlooked the park, waiting for the sun to get below the horizon. Just around the time the park was slated to close, I got the sky I wanted and took several sweeping panoramas. What I do like about this park is the red sandstone which makes for a really dramatic look. Obviously I'm looking to the north as the sun sets. In the center, you can see the dirt road that is the only access to the park. It's nasty ... almost got stuck climbing the final hill out with all the really loose sand. Being the eternal cynic, I think this is on purpose so most people will leave their cars at the reception center and take the expensive guided tours. I'm not one for tours as I want to go where my mind and eyes take me and work on my own timetable. I was, as always, the last person to leave the park. Always get nasty stares as I wave past the guard gate. Sorry ... I'm a photographer and my schedule is determined by a higher authority ... the sun. He commands and I answer.

This is an HDR panorama. Ran through Photomatix and then into Photoshop to create the merged image. Final touch up in Lightroom. Peaceful, isn't it? Hope you enjoy the view.

Monument Valley - 24mm, f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Sierra Nevada Afterglow

The Election...

It's been almost a week since Trump won the election and it's time for some soul searching and some thoughts. Trump's first picks are not encouraging ... especially Bannon from Breitbart. He's pretty repugnant and his position as the gatekeeper gives one considerable pause about his potential power. He could be a big problem. But I think we all need to consider a few things before panic sets in:

1) Trump is going to pick people he knows and who have been loyal to him during this run. That's always a given for a new administration but is especially true this time as Trump has few political friends and seems to be a big loyalty kind of guy. So he'll pick the few politicians he's done business with (including Rudy and Christy ... his real estate connections) and people who stuck with him during the blizzard of hate he endured after the convention. Don't think he's too thrilled with the Republican leadership who distanced themselves from him and there are few Republican rank-and-file who endorsed his run. That may mean he has few allies in the legislature who will stand with him when it comes time to get things done. He very well might have as difficult a time there as Obama. Somehow I think Hillary would have gotten along with them better. Expect him to rule by executive order if the legislature balks too much.

2) Trump has a history of being very intolerant of games, disloyalty and incompetence. He fired 2 campaign teams because they didn't get the job done. I'm inclined to believe he'll do the same thing if someone doesn't toe the line or isn't effective. He'll start his administration with 'friends' but I expect that will quickly change as those people prove their inability to move the ball forward. Expect a lot of churn in his administration.

3) He'll test the limits of nepotism as he brings several family members into the administration. He'll be talking to his daughter, Ivanka, a lot and may be listening to his son-in-law too. Wonder if anyone will have the courage to bring up these issues with him. Doubt it very much. Expect to see his family providing a lot of support and advice.

4) I have no idea what his agenda is but we can already see major effects just based on his campaign positions. Would appear TPP is now officially dead as are the European equivalents. I'm happy about that and he hasn't even taken office yet. Not real happy about his insistence on withdrawing from the Paris environmental treaty and his potential appointment as head of EPA. But I really think Hillary wouldn't have been much better. Our political culture is very much anti-climate right now. Trump is just making it official so we have a more solid target to campaign against. He'll get an earful from the Europeans and the Japanese about this and maybe, just maybe, he can be persuaded to change his mind. He already flipped on dumping the ACA completely so there's hope on other fronts as well. Also, expect him to blow up most of ACA but keep a few of the better parts. Won't please the insurance companies which is a plus but that means the whole insurance thing in up in the air again. Don't expect to see single payer in this environment even though everyone, including Republicans, know this is what is really needed.

5) Trump has moved the conversation decidedly to the right. That means there's space on the left for a real movement for social justice. A Clinton presidency, like Obama's, would have been difficult to work against as the Democrats are very good at co opting any movements in this direction. But the party is in disarray right now and for a long time. There aren't any strong faces at the moment and, for the first time in 24 years, not a single Clinton to overshadow it all. Maybe Sanders and Warren and a few others can, if they want, grab the dragon by the throat and change the direction. I'm really hoping for a wholesale house cleaning that throws all the old garbage out. The party is really messed up and has it's priorities in the wrong place. It needs to walk away from the bankers and the billionaires who have destroyed it's heart. Sanders showed how to raise a lot of money without kissing up to the elites and that's the way it has to go in the future. One can always hope.

I think we're in for a really difficult time going forward. The world is lurching right in a very dangerous way and there's not much to stop the slide. The left is damaged badly and being threatened by the hatred of the ultra right so I have little hope of a resurgence of left ideas anytime soon. History seems to show that these cycles happen, over and over. One can only hope a major conflict isn't needed to swing the pendulum back to the left but that's what one sees in reading the tea leaves. I don't see Hitler in Trump but I do think that others are waiting in the wings for when he fails. Some of the clowns in the Republican stable are really scary. The future is very cloudy and I fear for my children and the generations to come.

Sierra Nevada Afterglow

I was at Mono Lake during this trip, hoping to get a really spectacular sunset. I was lucky last year and was counting on the late April storms to give me something really special. But it wasn't to be. The clouds rolled in mid-afternoon and by sunset there was nothing. I got some really nice images on the lake as the sun went down and then started driving back toward highway 395 for the tripsouth toward Monmouth Lake and a rest stop. It's about 7 miles from the tufa to the highway and it was well after sunset as I drove through the twilight. It was very cloudy and I could see snow falling heavily in the Sierra mountains. The sky was just amazing ... the sun was well below the horizon and, with some wonderful luck, was coming in under the snow clouds. Must have been clear skies to the west for this to happen. Anyway, the sky was ablaze in this blue light and the mountains simply glowed. I had to stop and take a picture. Fortunately, the road had a large gravel apron so I was able to pull well off the road and set up my gear. The first images I took were OK but something was missing. What I needed was a really long exposure so the clouds smeared out. So I put my 10 stop ND filter on the camera and was able to get an exposure of 178 seconds. That's exactly what I wanted and the results are amazing. This is a single exposure, adjusted in Lightroom but that's it. And I couldn't be happier with the result. Hope you enjoy it too.

Sierra Nevada Afterglow - 14mm, f/11,178 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Mesa Arch

Election Day...

Well, it's election day in the US. We get the big choice between the grifter and the clown. Didn't vote this time as it's really a waste of time and energy. I've already spoken about my thoughts on this earlier so I'll not rehash old musings. If Hillary wins, as everyone seems to expect, I'm really concerned with her feelings about Putin and Russia. So far my life here has been OK as few people give me any notice but that could change real quick if the rhetoric between the two leaders gets too heated. I don't want to be thrown out and I live in a very sensitive part of Russia so that's more than a small possibility. I really don't want to become part of an international incident. I'm also leaving here in February for my yearly medical recuperation and photography trip and really don't want to have trouble either leaving or coming back. I really don't have good feelings about where this is going.

Speaking of health, mine isn't. The lung problems are getting worse as winter settles in and I'm already sucking on my rescue inhaler far too much. Even developing some junk in my lungs which is not a good sign this early in the season. Last year I waited too long before leaving so this year I expect I'll be heading home in mid-February and will stay there until mid-May. 3 months this year as I'm sicker than before and need longer to recuperate. Also, last year was just too short at 2 months. I really had to rush my travels and my photography suffered as a result. This year I want to take my time and do it right.

Mesa Arch

Mesa Arch is in Canyonlands NP, just to the east of Bryce Canyon in Utah. I mentioned Mesa Arch a few posts ago ... it's one of the screen saver images found in Windows 7. The best shots come early in the day, around sunrise. I missed that moment (and the big crowds) as I arrived a few minutes too late but it was OK because the clouds were in a cooperative mood and gave my a nice pallet to work from. I was able to catch the sun just as it met the bottom of the arch and there were some nice "God beams" to add interest to the composition. For those who don't know what a God beam is, it's the streak of light that you see when the sun shines through breaks in the clouds. You can see them in the upper center of the image. They always add a nice bit of drama. I love the amazing colors in this photo ... compliments of the beautiful sandstone that is everywhere in this area. So enjoy.

Mesa Arch - 21 mm,f/11,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Antelope Canyon

The sparse offerings...

I do have to apologize for the sparse offerings of late on this blog. I know I promised a photo a day but it's just been too hard to get my head into working on the computer of late. I've not been all that well and the wife has also had some very serious health issues that put her in the hospital for several weeks last month. Not exactly life threatening but damn close. Appears she had a minor stroke or a major epileptic seizure early last month and that left her with some paralysis in her right hand and overall weakness. She's now on some really awful drugs to help with the seizures and to hopefully return some function and energy but they leave her sick and weak. It's been a nasty adventure this last month and I just didn't have the inclination to sit at my computer in the hot sun and try to write blog posts. The weather has turned now so maybe I can be a bit more diligent. I'll be better ... I promise.

Antelope Canyon

The slot canyons on Navajo land near Page, AZ are a must for any serious photographer. They are gorgeous and very interesting. Carved by raging storm waters they have such amazing shapes and colors due to the layered sandstone that is everywhere in that part of the country. As they are on indian land there's a high fee to pay and you must take one of the guided tours so it's really hard to get good photos. They do offer photographer's tours but they happen at the same time as the other tours so you're always fighting the crowds to get good shots. And the special tours are very expensive ... $85 bucks for 2 hours. Maybe next year I'll opt for one of those. I took an early morning tour before the bright sun could penetrate the canyons so there was less light and many of my longer exposures (hand held) were blurred so I didn't get much to work with. But this shot came out very nice. It's HDR to get all the colors and tones. Taken with my new 6D and my 16-35 f/4 wide angle lens. Not a show stopper but nice none the less.

Antelope Canyon - 35mm,f/4,HDR,ISO 800,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Lebec Cloud Formation

Tweedledum or Tweedledee?

I'm not real political as a rule. I hate getting my hands dirty in the shit that passes for discourse these days. In my opinion we've not had a good president since FDR and he was really a great leader by accident. A smart man, something quite lacking in most leaders unfortunately, he realized that in order to save capitalism and the US he had to make major changes in the way the government worked. He put his personal interests aside and did what he felt was right for the country. Such a noble act. His actions brought us back from the depression and guided us through most of the war. But since his time we've had a string of crooks, opportunists, grifters and simpletons. We've seen these clowns take a great nation and make it into the laughing stock of the world. Living in Europe I get to see this up close and personal. But nothing prepared me for what we have now. We get to choose between the ultimate grifter and the buffoon. Between the ultimate insider and an 'outsider' who is more inside than even Hillary. Both so obscenely rich that they are absolutely disconnected from the daily existence of all but the most wealthy. I'm so disgusted with them that I'm not even making the effort to vote. It really doesn't matter anymore who is president. Neither of them will be effective as the real power behind the throne sits in the C-suites of major banks and corporations. Big money and large corporations are in control now. In control, that is, until they run the whole mess off the cliff. The idea that only the investor matters is so corrupt and stupid that it's laughable were it not so tragic. Greed is not a good basis for society ... sorry Gordon Gecko. We all live on this rock ... a small, fragile stone circling a minor sun in a minor galaxy. It's all we have and we're destroying it so a few people can grab even more obscene wealth. But when the wheels come off ... and they will come off pretty soon ... all that money won't be worth anything. Sorry to be so negative but that's our reality.

Lebec Cloud Formation

When I'm in LA, especially in the northern suburbs, I drive north up I-5 to a rest stop near Lebec to spend the night. It's only30 miles but seems light years from the frantic climate in the city. The air is cleaner, there's open sky and I can let my system wind down just a bit. Round trip burns about 4 gallons of gas in my little truck so I save quite a bit over even the cheapest motel and I don't have to take all the gear out of my truck. All in all a good deal.

Anyway, this last trip into LA I was sitting in my truck reading on my tablet. It was just after 8pm. I happened to look up to the north and saw this cloud. It was amazing and the most unusual formation I've ever seen. I grabbed the 60D with the telephoto zoom and walked out into the surrounding brush. I tried to take a timelapse of the cloud but something wasn't right as I found major fluctuations in the exposure levels between shots. Even using my custom deflicker program I was unable to stabilize the footage so, for now, it's going to wait until I can figure out a way to fix the problem. But I did get some excellent stills of the cloud. It had formed over a series of low hills just to the north of my location. I'm not sure of the dynamic but have to assume there was some striation in the upper level winds interacting with the wind deflecting off the hills. The cloud was quite fluid and dissipated over a 40 minute period. The sun was setting to the west (to the left of the frame) and much of the fluctuation, I think, is the amount of light being reflected by the ice crystals in the cloud. The color changed too as the sun set over the coastal mountains. It was an amazing sight for sure. Anyone out there who can offer a reasonable explanation for why this happens?

Lebec Cloud Formation - 70mm(1.6 crop),f/11,1/250sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Mono Lake Tufa

Update

It's been almost 3 months since I came back to Crimea and a few things are becoming clear. The love affair between the folks here and the Russian government is ... let's be blunt ... on the rocks. Prices have gone through the roof so bad that people from Moscow and St. Petersburg are complaining about how much it costs to vacation here. Food prices are obscene and the government keeps raising the costs of utilities and other fees to the point where it's not even funny. People can't afford these prices and so many of our friends are struggling right now. It is now obvious that the crooks are in control of the economy and much of the life here. We have an election coming up in September but no one expects anything to change as the ruling party ... Russian Unity ... will not allow anyone else to gain power. I'm not sure where this goes but it has to improve or some serious conflicts are almost a given.

Adding to this irritation is the ever worsening asthma. Despite using a very strong steroid inhaler I'm still chronically short of breath. This leads to fatigue and a lack of desire to really do anything. Anyone who has asthma knows what I mean. I'm sleeping 10 hours a night and exhausted by early afternoon after only a few hours of exertion. Not sure what I can do ... can't afford the obscene prices the vulture drug companies are charging for some of their more exotic inhalers ... even here in Russia where the government controls prices to some extent. I'm really concerned about what happens once the summer is over and the fall allergens start popping up. Last year my problems started in the fall and got progressively worse into the winter but this year I'm already beyond where I was last year. Contemplating an early exit from Crimea (maybe as early as October) and not returning until late in the spring next year (if ever but that's another story for another time).

Mono Lake Tufa

Mono Lake is such an interesting place. I've written about it before so I won't rehash all that. This year it was very stormy around the Sierra Nevada Mountains so I got a very different look. I once again visited the south tufa field and spent a whole day wandering around the various structures looking for some new and interesting compositions. Much of the day was clear but in the afternoon storm clouds came rolling over the mountains to the west and it really looked like we might get some serious rain or even snow. I'd hoped to do some astro photography that night using the tufa as my foreground element but it soon became clear that wasn't in the cards. Hard to see the Milky Way when the sky is full of clouds. But I didn't want to go empty-handed. So I set up the camera and took some interesting pictures of the tufa and the storm clouds. Didn't have any big expectations for the shoot but I've come to understand that sometimes the camera sees things that your eyes don't. This is one of those cases. The colors and shading in the clouds are a perfect complement to the green waters of the lake and the snow covered mountains in the background. And if you look very carefully you'll see the sunset far in the distance ... a subtle hint of red on the clouds. That was the extent of the sunset but still, isn't the sky amazing? Taken with the Sanyang 14mm f/2.8 lens I bought this year. Takes very reasonable picture on the whole, don't you think?

Mono Lake Tufa - 14mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Upheaval Crater

Olympics...

When I was a young lad I really loved the Olympics. Would sit by the TV for hours, watching the most obtuse and weird sports and really, really enjoying it. Even went to the winter Olympics in Lake Placid. It was such a rush. Fast forward to the present and what a difference. I just can't gin up any enthusiasm for the games. Not interested at all, even in the sports I might have some connection with. Why? I think it has to do with all the controversy around the whole process, from the greed and corruption of the various committees to the professionalism of so many of the sports. Do I really want to watch basketball superstars who make millions go through the motions of playing the game? I enjoyed it when they required amateurs to play. Same goes for tennis and a whole host of other groups. Take track and field where there are very rich superstars ... most of them so doped up on performance drugs it's hard to see the human anymore. And who can overlook the politics these days ... the Russian doping situation for example. Why, I wonder, did the Olympic committee see fit to not punish the Russian athletes who are most likely guilty but throw the book at the para-Olympic team? Think maybe money had something to do with it? Just maybe? So I'm avoiding any Olympic coverage. Why would I be interested in Michael Phelps and his 21st gold medal? Been there, done that a long time ago. It just gets so uninteresting after a while. Quite frankly, it's much more interesting to watch the Russian Tank Olympics. Don't know what that is? Think big tanks and teams from various countries and obstacle courses and shooting at targets and ... you get the idea. It's really interesting to watch a huge tank going 60 mph while literally jumping into a huge tank filled with water. Some make it ... others don't. Now that's cool!

Upheaval Crater

Canyonlands National Park is one of those obscure parks that gets far too little attention. It's quite large and has some major attractions but I doubt most people have even heard of it. But I would guess you've probably seen pictures from there. Anyone who has Windows on their computer and uses the included landscape images as their screen's wall paper has probably seen the picture looking through an arch at the distant scenery. That's Mesa Arch in Canyonlands. I've been there and have some amazing pictures I'll show you later. It's definitely worth visiting if you're in the area. Just 'across the street' from Arches NP so do stop by.

One of the more interesting features there is called 'Upheaval Crater'. As one would expect, it's a big hole in the ground but that's where the similarity to any other similar feature stops. It's such an unusual shape and has such a strange composition that even the best geologists can't get a handle on how it formed. There are several craters, one inside another. The outer crater looks sort of like an impact hole but the edges are highly polished and smooth ... like one would expect to see in a water erosion canyon. That doesn't fit with an impact crater. Then there's the inner crater which appears to be blasted out of very hard bedrock. But there's very little blast debris to be found. It's not a volcano. It's really strange and mysterious. But, it's amazingly beautiful. I was lucky to get there on a day when the sky was unsettled and bad weather was threatened. I like those times. I get the most interesting images. The wind was blowing so hard I couldn't stand on the edge. Had to sit low with the tripod spread out so the camera wouldn't blow over. And the colors are really striking ... we're at the top of the grand cascade in Utah so we have lots of pink and red sandstone to work with. It's really an interesting place. I'd recommend it to anyone. Definitely add it to your bucket list!

Upheaval Crater - 24mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Old Woman and the Night Sky

Windows 10...

I've been holding off on upgrading my big workstation to Windows 10 because, quite frankly, I don't want to be constantly fighting with software and my operating system when I'm trying to do my images. It's hard enough getting everything right under the best of circumstances so adding in a balky new OS only makes things even more difficult. And, up until now, Windows 10 has been balky and strange. So I held off, staying with Windows 7 until the last moment. Well, yesterday was the moment. I really like Windows 7 but am not too enthused by the idea of spending $129 to upgrade to 10 after July 29th. It's always a toss up ... do I stay with what I have and am comfortable with or do I take the plunge and upgrade to the unknown. The real problem is compatibility ... I have tons of software that is really happy with 7 and much of it can't be simply upgraded without some serious expense or other issues (Adobe and the cloud SAAS they've foisted on everyone is one example). But I also don't want the headaches associated with an old, out of date OS either. The only redeeming policy from Microsoft is they made provision for going back to the old OS if I wanted to. That clinched the deal. So yesterday, after an overnight download of the install package, I bit the bullet and installed 10. No big issues with the install and I'm running on it as I type this post. It seems to be OK and all my software, so far, seems to be OK with it. I'll upgrade to the big bug release coming next month and see how everything is working. If there aren't any major issues I'll stay with 10 but still have a separate solid state drive with 7 just in case. This constant churn in technology drives me to distraction. Some of it is OK but the need to always come out with something new is really wearing over time.

Old Woman and the Night Sky

I was in Death Valley twice this trip. In mid-April I was on the salt taking sunsets but the full moon made it impossible to get any reasonable star photos so I went down toward LA for a few weeks and came back in early May. I spent a night on the salt and got some really spectacular Milky Way shots (including a long sequence of 268 images for an eventual time lapse clip).

There's a problem however. 268 shots of the salt are really boring. They had serious floods in Death Valley last fall and the old, interesting salt formations were all washed away. What's there now is really new and really white but there aren't any really fascinating shapes yet. Those will come over time if more flooding isn't in the works. And, to be really honest, a really nice time lapse of the Milky Way doesn't impress anyone anymore. What's needed (and demanded) is an interesting composition of the stars and a really impressive foreground structure. That's a wonderful idea, of course, but out on the salt there really aren't any cool foreground structures at the moment with the new, monotonous (did I say white ... really white) salt stretching out as far as the eye can see. So, enter the old woman.

If you head up the road from Badwater (and the salt) to Furnace Creek and keep going for a few more miles up 190 toward Stovepipe Wells you'll get to Mesquite Flat sand dunes. When you hit the parking lot you'll notice a small stand of dead trees, preserved by the extremely dry air and in amazing shape. One of those trees, the one most to the west, is the most interesting. Stand to the east and look at the tree and you'll see an old woman, her arms held out as if welcoming you to her embrace. She's truly a wonderful sight. I studied that tree for a long time, trying to find a way of incorporating it into a Milky Way sequence but I just couldn't see any angle that worked. First, to see the old woman you have to be facing west and everyone knows the Milky Way only shows due south so that's not going to work. On top of that, Tucki Mountain is due south of the dunes, cutting off any view of the rising galaxy. So I thought about all this for a while and realized that the only way I'd get the old woman and the Milky Way was to take shots of each one separately and then combine them in Photoshop. It took 3 days to make that happen. Mostly it was the building of the mask ... the black and white image that separates the tree from the background ... that took all the time. I had to break the process up into 8 separate areas because the bright background is too much like the tree to get a really strong contrast. The only way to get what I wanted was to work in individual areas and play with the contrast until I got enough separation to pick out the tree from the bright sky. There was a great deal of repair work even with all this isolation so it took 3 days to get everything right. But WOW, the result is really nice, don't you think? So I give you the old woman and the night sky. Isn't she spectacular?

Old Woman and the Night Sky - composite image, license CC BY-NC 4.0

Griffith Observatory Sunset

What Is Happening to my Country?

This has been a horrible week in America. Two senseless shootings by cops and then, yesterday, 5 cops died in Dallas due to snipers. Can someone please tell me what the hell is happening? Are we at war with ourselves? Can't we find a way to get along? Is the divide between us so deep that only more bloodshed is our future? Where are our elites ... don't answer as I already know where they are. AWOL! We haven't had a statesman in our country in most of my lifetime. Just greedy, corrupt politicians who sell their votes for money. What a bunch of crooks. And the current presidential candidates ... I hesitate to even say that word ... are atrocious. I'm now of the opinion that America is lost, falling fast into the abyss. We may very well be beyond redemption. Might it be time to just pull the plug and start over?

Griffith Park Observatory Sunset

I spent 2 evenings at Griffith Park Observatory. It's a really wonderful place and the views of LA are overwhelming. I highly recommend the place to anyone who's visiting the city. The view will blow your socks off.

Anyway, the second evening I had an agenda to do timelapse of the city but I wanted to wait until the sun was completely down. I had some time and could see that a really nice sunset was in the making. After you've done this for a while you get a sense of the clouds and the possibilities for a good sky. It seemed there was a nice display coming so I scouted around the place to see if I could incorporate the building into the sunset. I was lucky that there was a corner on the sidewalk where I could set up my camera and take a series of pictures without having to worry about people tripping over my rig. I had my 16-35 f/4 on the 6D (a really nice combination as you can see) so I set up the intervalometer and let the camera do the rest. I took 384 images over about an hour and the result was really nice. I'm incorporating the sequence in my video but thought it would be nice to show you one frame. This is really a composite of 2 shots, one at peak sky and one when it was dark enough so the lighting on the building stood out. I blended the two images in Photoshop and then used the NIK software suite (now free from Google) to fine tune the result. Then went back into Lightroom and tweaked the image until it was perfect. This is LA at it best ... a very beautiful location and the sky very near perfect. Enjoy!

Griffith Observatory - 25mm,f/11,1/4 sec,ISO 1600,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Death Valley from a different perspective

Update again...

It's taken almost a month but I'm finally able to get through the day without falling asleep. Not sure what was wrong but it seems to have passed. I'm working on my images (and videos) and learning a whole lot of new stuff. I've got a ton of new software which is both a help and a hindrance to getting things finished. I now have 3 new packages dedicated to video ... DaVinci Resolve, Fusion and Nuke ... and they are lots of fun and a huge challenge. I've been working especially with Fusion which is a high-end compositing program for making really impressive sequences. The first project was to take the Point Vicente Lighthouse in LA and combine it with a sunset taken at the same location to get a really stunning sunset behind the lighthouse. It took me over a week to get everything as I wanted since I had zero experience with the software and not much experience with compositing. It was a lot of work to get everything finished. I had to make a series of masks in Photoshop that isolated the lighthouse and a palm tree from the sky background ... 136 to be exact ... one at a time. That took 3 days of careful work. I also had to work around some limitations in the free version of the software. They limited 'output' to UHD (3840 x 2160) but I was working with DSLR frames that were much bigger. Despite trying to output UHD at the end, the software kept refusing to render the final images because at intermediate stages in the node processor the image size was much bigger. So I had to downsize my base images to UHD and even then had to do some fancy footwork to get the final images to output. Forcing me to downsize my initial images is really a bummer for me as I want to work with maximum resolution up to the very end. I'm not the only person upset by this and there's some griping on the forums about this limitation. I'm sure they will eventually change as getting this software into the hands of many amateurs who will say good things about it is important for them to compete against Nuke, the current standard.

Anyway, that sequence is almost done. I'm just tweaking things a bit to get the best video I can. I want it to be spectacular as it will be one of the lead sequences in my video. Only the best make it as I'm hoping this is a showcase for my work.

Death Valley from a different perspective

I was in Death Valley twice this trip. First time, in April, I wanted to take some astro sequences but the moon was full and not many stars appeared. To get the best star shots you need absolute dark and a full moon isn't going to get you there so I left and went on to LA. A few weeks later I came back to a new moon and things were much better. I spent a few days in the valley, sleeping in my truck and letting my camera run unattended. Not too many people wandering around in the desert at night although the hazards aren't all that bad so the equipment is very safe. No big, nasty animals out on the salt where I took my milky way shots. I did see a small coyote in Furnace Creek (he was walking down the main road in the morning, just ambling along at his own pace and didn't give me a second glance as he walked by) and a small red fox out near Bad Water but he was too hot to give a damn about me. Biggest problems are on the sand dunes with sidewinders and scorpions at night.

Last night in the valley I wanted to get a panorama of the entire valley from Dante's Overlook. You basically leave the park heading east toward Vegas until you see signs for the overlook to the right. Take a narrow, twisting, steep road 13 miles or so, passing several commercial mining operations and a very steep final climb of 15 degrees, until you get to the overlook. The whole valley is spread out below including the salt flats. It's a very impressive sight. As usual I waited until near sunset and then found a good spot for my pano. The sky had some interesting clouds but it was pretty obvious a red sunset was not in the offing. So I did what I could and took several sequences at different locations. This particular image shows the north end of the valley, from the salt flat to the sand dunes. It was a blue evening so what you see is what I saw. I could have warmed the image a bit but that's not true to the colors that were present and it looked fake.

Death Valley - 24mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Capitol Reef

Starting but...

I've been home 2 weeks now and, surprisingly, am still plagued by exhaustion. I'm sleeping a lot more than I should, much to the consternation of my wife and daughter. I just can't seem to get back on Moscow time no matter what I do. I've probably had one night of good sleep so far but most I get maybe 4 hours and wake up just as the sun comes up. Really not sure what's causing this but it's a major headache. I've been using a new asthma inhaler which sort of works but I still find myself short of breath much of the time. Maybe that's the issue ... the new med may be making me sleepy and I may be chronically short of oxygen. Oh well...

As for my processing, it's proceeding slowly. As I feared, many of my images are not all that impressive. I knew I had an issue with holding steady ... I've discovered that my sense of balance isn't what it used to be and that really messes with holding still during longer exposures. Even with stabilization turned on I find too many images are blurred and worthless. Add to that I wasn't really able to get in a groove with the new camera and too many of my images are not in focus or the exposures are wrong. Not sure yet what the problem was/is but I need to figure it out by next year. Probably just need to get time with the instrument so I can learn it's sweet spots. Really hope it's not the camera.

Photomatix & chromatic aberrations

Chromatic aberrations (CA) are the bane of  every photographer's work. They are a fact of life, an issue with every lens ever made. Because glass bends different colors of light at different angles, there are always issues with color fringing. This is especially an issue when an image goes from bright to dark. I'm sure you've seen them if you look at your pictures close enough. Photomatix, the HDR software, has the ability to remove CA but there's a problem. In some images, especially when there is a very strong transition from bright sun to heavy shade and it's very sharp, you tend to get bleeding from the bright area into the dark. This is an acute issue at higher f-numbers. Because of the way Photomatix works, it merges and tone-maps the various exposures before attempting to remove CA and that's an issue. If you have any of this bleeding in your brighter exposures, the resulting merged image has a very messy transition between light and dark and the CA algorithm can't handle the transition. That means you have an ugly fringe along the transition and it's really noticeable. You can't really fix this after the merge. So, to remove the issue you need to run a CA pass on the photos BEFORE putting them into Photomatix. I use the excellent CA in Lightroom which is available in the Develop module under "Lens Corrections". If you do this first and then use Photomatix the problem disappears. Check out the light/dark transition in today's image ... middle of the photo on the left side. No CA to be found but boy was there an ugly mess there without correction.

Capitol Reef

I had never heard of this national park until I saw it on the Utah map. It's been around for a long time but gets very little attention. It's really a hiker's park as there aren't a lot of things to see from the road. I also didn't have a lot of time there as the campground was full and there weren't a lot of places to pull off and sleep. All parks discourage your sleeping in the observation areas although I do on occasion break this rule in some of the larger parks. I even get a 'wink' from the rangers as they tell me it's not allowed. But Capital Reef was very adamant that I couldn't sleep in the park. So I decided to find a good spot for a sunset shoot and then move on. Little did I know that 'moving on' would entail driving for several hours on very dark mountain roads to find a rest area. Saw way too many large elk standing at the road's edge ... all it would have taken was for one to jump out in my path and I would have been ... literally ... roadkill. Driving at night in the mountains is not a good idea.

After driving up and down the only major park road I found a spot just south of the campground. These huge vertical walls just screamed out to be part of the image and the road had just the right curve to make it an interesting compositional element. I was fortunate that the sky cooperated with a massive, dark cloud bank in just the right spot. And the sky was completely open to the west so the sun could make it's contribution to the overall look. I parked and waited. As the show progressed I kept taking 5 image sequences, spaced 1 ev apart. It took a while but was worth it. The resulting image is the essence of Capitol Reef ... wild and utterly amazing.

Capitol Reef Sunset - 16mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,copyright CC BY-NC 4.0

Very Large Array, Socorro, New Mexico

The Trip from Hell

Sometimes it's just ordained that a trip doesn't work out. It can be weather or an accident or a personal situation ... anything can happen to take the wind out of your sails. Unfortunately, this trip home had pretty much all of these. You already know about my troubles with the US government and my investment advisor. After a week of fighting and angry words I finally freed up my funds and put them in another financial institution. Because of all the trouble my residency in Crimea caused I'll not be telling them about my plans anymore. They just know I'm in Europe and will be in touch when I return.

I'm back in Crimea now, the trip over. I didn't add to this blog as I was too angry and too distracted to actually write anything coherent. Also, I made a conscious decision to not process many of my images as I've found the whole hassle of doing that is just too hard and the results too unpredictable to be of any use. All I did was fire up my computer when I could and download all the images I'd taken so there was at the very least 2 of every photo. I processed a few images just to make sure I had something usable and to check out the new Canon 6D and the Samyang 14 mm, f/2.8 lens. Both are fine and take some really nice pictures. Now that I'm home I've started cataloging and arranging what I have and am developing a plan to work through them. I've found some really great images and more than a few that are not worth keeping. More on this in later blogs.

Back to the trip. It rained a lot more this time due to El Nino. I love rainy days but only the beginning and the end of the storms. It's then that I see the most dramatic skies and the most spectacular sunsets. But cloudy skies for days on end don't produce nice images and rain isn't really all that good for the equipment. So I spent far too many days sitting in my truck watching rain drops slide down my windshield. I also had an accident ... not the truck but my body ... and that limited my mobility somewhat. I twisted my knee (and probably tore a ligament) so I'm now wearing a knee brace which helps somewhat but I'm not a mobile as I'd like. Add to that the wet weather kept my asthma from really getting better meaning I had difficulty hiking any great distances or tackling difficult terrain. Unfortunately, much of the really impressive geography in the Southwest is only accessible by hiking.

But the biggest detriment to my trip was my attitude. After the war with my investment adviser and the horrible start to my trip I just couldn't gin up the enthusiasm needed to really do a first rate job. My first stop, LA, didn't help very much as I spent far too much time driving from one place to another and then struggling to find a place to park the truck where it would be left alone. Too much of LA is either pay to park (and very expensive) or no parking so I had to drive around to find a place where I felt the truck was not at risk. Instead of the 3-4 weeks I'd intended to spend I split after only 6 days. Once I was on the road it became an issue of dealing with large crowds everywhere. This year is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service and they are pushing very aggressively to get people into the parks. It's working unfortunately. I often found the campgrounds filled and the parks overflowing with humanity. It's hard to shoot landscapes when they are overrun with bodies. I'll be spending far too much time this winter removing humans from my images. Not what I expected and a far cry from last year. So, by the half way point I was basically on autopilot, drifting from one park to the next without much enthusiasm. I wanted to go home with several weeks left. Not the way to make award winning images I'm afraid. But maybe I can save the effort with some really creative post work.  We'll see.

Anyway, the trip ended up on June 3rd with a very long trip back to Crimea. That, at least, was reasonably uneventful. I've got my equipment back in running condition and will start working on images in a few days, once I'm over the horrible jet lag. I've been home for 4 days and am still unable to function very well. Guess old age is catching up with me at last. Once I'm OK, I have 13,868 photos to look at. Many are timelapse sequences and I've got a lot of work to get them ready. As I didn't spend as much time in LA as I'd planned, I'm not going to do an exclusively LA video but will weave in all my best photos and the timelapse into a 'best hits' show. Probably will call it 'Wonderous...' and there are some amazing images to put there. Will take a while to get that together and hopefully have something ready by the year's end. Wish me luck.

Very Large Array

If you take I-25 south from Albuquerque to Socorro and take rt. 60 west about 50 miles you'll get to the Very Large Array (VLA), a massive radio telescope. It's an amazing place with these huge radio dishes arranged in a 3-pointed star spread out across the desert. I spent several hours talking to the senior engineer for the facility and hope, next year, to be given permission to spend a night photographing the array against the milky way. I did a timelapse of the main array and one of the dishes as they twisted and turned to track a target billions of light years away. I'll certainly include the video in my best hits show. What's so interesting about the array is it's sensitivity. The engineer told me the system could detect a cellphone signal from Jupiter. Now that's sensitive! They are currently studying black holes and other radio sources and doing some really interesting science. Turns out the radio frequency bands are extremely important to see things that are obscured by dust at most other frequencies.

This photo is a panorama I took at sunset. I was as close to the antennas as possible (the camera's electronics can do a real number on the receivers). It was a gorgeous sunset and the antenna were pointed in just the right direction. I've already printed a hard copy of this image and it's spectacular. Hope to frame it later this year. So, here's hoping ET phones home...

Very Large Array - 35mm(ff),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Grand Canyon Yaki Point Storm

It's Been a Wonderful Trip ... NOT

As most of you know by now, I spend part of my year in Crimea. A few years ago, just after the Maidan disaster in Ukraine and after the corrupt president, Viktor Yanukovitch left the country, Russia came to Crimea and basically took us from Ukraine. There was a referendum but no one the west accepted the result. Despite this contention, Russia annexed Crimea in the spring of 2014. The west responded with crippling sanctions that cut the Crimea off from all international banking including Visa/MasterCard, Western Union and SWIFT. But, until this last trip I was always able to access my accounts in my financial advisor (who shall remain hidden as I don't want any trouble). Not so this time. I found I was locked out from all my accounts, unable to use my ATM card even for purchases in the US and unable to do anything in my IRA. I got home with a few bucks in my pocket and a big itch in my trigger finger. I went to my advisor's local office and they told me that due to my being in Crimea and actually "living" there they had the right to essentially confiscate my money and there was nothing I could do about it. The conditions for returning the money were horrendous to say the least and a circular firing squad with no resolution.

The big instigator of this problem is a little known US office called the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC for short). OFAC monitors and enforces all the sanctions on all the countries presently in the US doghouse. That includes North Korea, Cuba (still), half the Middle East, other assorted bad boys and Crimea. OFAC sets the rules for any financial transactions that transpire between the US and the sanctioned country. No two situations are the same. But, and it's a big but, my financial advisor wanted to apply the same rules to all sanctions and wanted to apply the most draconian rules to all of them. Now I know, from personal experience, that the OFAC sanctions on Crimea allow me access to my money when I'm not in Crimea and also allow me to transfer money to my family for personal expenses. Only business and 'charitable contributions' are not allowed. I tried, for 4 days, to get this across to my advisor but he refused to comply or even talk to OFAC for guidance. He held that it was within his right to enforce rules that were more stringent than the OFAC guidelines and there was nothing I could do. His instructions were so ludicrous that I won't even repeat them here but the essence was my wife and daughter had to leave Crimea. Not going to happen in my lifetime so the money was trapped. In desperation, I sent an email to OFAC explaining the situation and requesting their help in solving the problem. They came back with the same stipulations I outlined above. I gave this email to my advisor and waited. It took 2 days for them to get in touch with OFAC and get told, rather forcefully I'm understand, to cut out the crap and give me access to my money. That they did and I'm in the process of moving all my assets to another location. So pox on my financial advisor for being a total jerk. If you're nice to me I might even tell you who it was. One of the big boys I'm afraid.

Grand Canyon Yaki Point Storm

After 5 days of beating my head against a brick wall I finally got my money. I was exhausted and needed someplace that would lift my spirits. That place is and will always be the Grand Canyon. I have a few friends there and I love the beauty and serenity of the canyon. So I packed up all my gear and headed west. Due to the El Nino warming, the weather in the West has been a lot wetter and somewhat colder. Last year it was very dry but this trip we had lots of rain and cold winds. Didn't matter really. It was just great to be there. I visited some old photo sites and found a whole new look due to the clouds. One such place was Yaki Point, a few miles to the east of the main encampment. This is a beautiful overlook and the heavy clouds gave it a very different feel. I shot this during the daytime but the image is still very dramatic because the sun is being filtered by all the cover. I like it very much and hope you do too.

Grand Canyon Yaki Point - 16mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

North Rim Sunrise

New Gear for the Trip

I have a fairly short list for the new gear I'm getting this time out. I've decided I really need a second camera body as I spent $200 getting my sensor cleaned twice during cycle #1 due to the dirt that got inside during lens changes. Even being very careful it's almost impossible to keep dirt from entering the body. Images taken during the last few weeks of my trip looked like they had chicken pox with all the black shadows. It's very time consuming to fix them (in Lightroom) and I always worry about degrading my images while trying to fix the problem.

Anyway, I found a great deal on a Canon 6D at B&H which combines the camera body with a Canon Pixma 100 photo printer at a price less then the camera body alone. I'm not really too excited about the printer yet (it's the razor while the blades ... ink and paper ... are the real cost items) but it'll come in handy if I want to print some small (12x18 is max size I think) samples for proofing my processing and for handing out to prospective clients for my much larger prints. I actually save $250 with the combination which is almost 20%. I'm also getting a super wide fast lens (Rokinon 14mm f/2.8) for astrophotography and some miscellaneous items for my computer. Not a lot of money but will help me get the job done.

North Rim Sunrise

I spent 2 days on the Grand Canyon's north rim at the end of Cycle #1. Slept in my truck in the parking lot of the lodge as there was no room and it's very expensive. Not even a campground site could be found. The north rim is only open during the summer (starting May 15th) and early fall. Too bad as I suspect the canyon is amazingly beautiful when it snows there. There are ways around the closure but they entail a very dangerous dirt road which I'm not inclined to attempt with my little Nissan pickup.

I wanted to get a sunrise shot so managed to drag my nearly dead body out and wandered to an overlook near the lodge. I was the first person there but soon others managed to make the trek to see the sun break on the canyon's eastern edge. As I've stated before, sunrises are spiritually different than sunsets. The air is dead calm and cool. The birds put on a great show, singing to greet the new day. It's such a wonderful feeling to wait and watch the world come alive.

Grand Canyon NR sunrise - 16mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Bryce Canyon Overlook

Trip Finalized...

Finally have the trip finalized. I leave Crimea on March 31st and return on June 4th. Fly from Simferopol to Moscow where I catch an Aeroflot flight to Paris (ahhh ... so close and yet so far away), then Atlanta and finally Albuquerque. Return trip is the reverse. I'll stay in ABQ for a few days to get things ready and to make some arrangements for medical testing to see what's up with my blood chemistry and then head west. Plan now is to hit a few parks (maybe Grand Canyon if there's snow and Death Valley before it gets too hot) and then on to LA and a few weeks of shooting at night. After that I'll hit a few more national parks and monuments before making my way back to ABQ and home. Need to sit down and really plan out the trip which I hope to do in the coming days.

I'll be working on astrophotography for much of this trip along with the time lapse for the LA video. Expect to be working from sundown to sunrise for most of the trip and sleeping during the day. That may help with finding places to crash as cops aren't as worried about a truck parked in the daytime. Was a real hassle finding places to sleep at night with all the prohibitions on 'overnight camping'. Put a lot of extra mileage on the truck looking for places to park. Especially a problem in CA where they really don't want you overnighting anywhere.

Bryce Canyon Overlook

If you take the road south from the main canyon there are a series of overlooks that highlight various parts of the park. There's an arch and lots of hoodoos to see. This photo was taken at one of those overlooks. I wanted to show something different, beyond the actual sight and this overlook was really interesting. I was lucky that no people were standing there (I had to wait for a small group to leave) so the image is all about what you see. As you can tell, I'm not really keen on taking pictures of people in natural settings. Sometimes they can add to the image but not usually. They're rarely solemn enough and who wants someone taking a selfie to appear in their landscape pictures?

Anyway, this image is really nice. I like the composition and the wonderful sky with some residual storm clouds. Everything is wet so the colors are deep and rich. This is a single image, run through Lightroom and that's it. Enjoy.

Bryce Canyon Overlook - 35mm(1.6 crop),f/18, 1/125 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0