Snake River - Grand Tetons

Happy New Year

Just want to wish all of you a very happy new year. 2017 was a very eventful and dangerous year and, I fear, 2018 will be even worse. So many things are going wrong around the world and I don't see the political will to fix any of them. Just a lot of puffed up chests and flapping gums with very little comprehension as to the long-term bad effects of all this hot air and ego inflation. How little we learn from history. So this wish is very sincere ... please be safe and try to understand your neighbors and even your enemies. When you get an opportunity, reach out to those who are less fortunate than you and offer them a helping hand. It's called "Pay Forward" and it does work. And those of you who are truly fortunate this year, who have lots of money and power, please remember that your good fortune rests on the shoulders of those below you. Think of all the things you take for granted and how many of them depend on the labor of the working class and the poor. Think what life would be like if you suddenly lost all those things because they were gone. Remember the woman who runs the booth at the local self-serve gas station; the guy who repairs your car and replaces those worn tires; the people who clean the streets and make sure those things you ordered are safely delivered. Believe me, your charmed life would be a whole lot worse if all those people failed to do their part. We all need each other in so many ways.

Snake River - Grand Tetons

I was in Grand Teton NP for 8 days and took over 1000 pictures. There was so much to experience there and every day was an adventure. One day the rangers came through the campgrounds and told us to be very careful because a large grizzly and her cub were nearby and we should be very aware. I'm not usually worried about wild animals because they are, in general, more afraid of me than I am of them but one has to have a lot of respect for a bear and her cub. She is especially aggressive and can attack without warning. It's always the best to be very alert when hiking in the back country and give these creatures wide berth if at all possible. I've certainly been close to bears in the past ... a large female came running out of the trees not 50 yards from me on my last morning in Yellowstone ... and I have a great deal of respect. You should too.

I took this photo from one of the overlooks along the main road that runs north to south through the park. This is a major state highway and is open all year round. There's a secondary road that runs parallel to this road (to the west) but that's only open when there's good weather. That's the "park" road where the visitor's center is and where the campground is located. The tall mountain in the center is "Grand Teton", the park's namesake. It's a beautiful mountain, fairly young by geological standards. There are several glaciers on it's eastern face which are receding as the atmosphere warms. They may be gone soon.

This is a blend of 3 bracketed images. I used HDR this time but want to try doing a true blend to see if I get even more spectacular results. I then used Lightroom to finish off. I really love the colors. The sun is already down and illuminating the clouds from the bottom. What's nice about this area is the mountains create clouds almost every day so there's rarely a dull sunset. There are a lot fewer clouds in the morning so sunset is the best time to get spectacular images. Hope you enjoy.

Snake River, Grand Tetons - 35mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Grand Canyon - Pima Point

Tax cuts ...

It would appear that the Republican tax cuts are going to pass ... what a surprise. The one thing that party can do well is give even more money to the already obscenely rich. Of course, in a few years when the deficits start to swell they will start screaming about how they have to fix that by taking more money away from the other end of the economic spectrum ... the poor and the elderly. They will leave that to the Democrats who are experts at taking things away from those demographics. It's all a scam ... you do understand that, right? It's also very unnecessary. All you need to do is read up on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to see why. In short, taxes do not pay for government expenditures. This is something none of the congress members understands as they are almost all lawyers or doctors. They think a government should be run like a household. But a monetary sovereign (a government that controls it's money supply) doesn't have to work like a household. It prints money! No household does that unless they have an illegal printing press in the basement (but that's another story). Sovereign governments can print as much money as they need. I know ... but what about inflation? Well, excess money doesn't lead to inflation ... the last few years of rampant quantitative easing proves that. A lack of things to buy is what causes inflation. But we are awash in things to buy ... just visit a local WalMart or look at the massive warehouses being built everywhere by Amazon and others. We also have a huge oversupply of autos that are unsold and waiting for someone to find the money to buy them. Inflation won't happen as long as there are things to buy. And we need infrastructure investments ... to the tune of 3+ trillion dollars so that also applies to paying wages and buying things to fix the broken roads and bridges. The government could turn on the presses tomorrow and run them day and night for years without causing any inflation. But they won't because that would rob the bankers of their cut of the very lucrative money market where the government borrows money. We could, literally, eliminate the deficit by printing 20 1 trillion dollar platinum coins and drawing against them to buy back all those government bonds we've sold over the years. Without generating any inflation. But don't hold your breath waiting for our incompetent elected officials to fix the problem. No gona happen ... ever! Too much money to be made.

Grand Canyon - Pima Point

As always, my first stop during this last cycle was Grand Canyon. I find that this park sets the tone for my trip and it was certainly true this time. For the first time I found the campground full and was forced to leave the park after only one day. There is no overnight parking except in the established campgrounds so I was forced to leave. They are very strict about this rule. This bad start was an omen that overshadowed my entire trip. I got some very nice images along the way but the trip itself was one bad thing after another. Anyway, to salvage my trip to the canyon I wanted to get one good panorama before I drove south. I took the red line bus out to Pima Point which is about a far west as one can go on established roads and went to setup on the rim. I've never seen an overlook so overrun with people. They were everywhere, even hanging off the rim. I had to elbow my way through so I could get out on the very edge to take my traditional pano. I found a nice rock outcrop where I was alone and, for the most part, out beyond the crowds. I did catch some people in the very edge of the pano but was able to clip them out of the finished image. It was a beautiful evening with just enough clouds to get a nice sunset. What I got is below.

I have one thing that happens at least once during each cycle. I get antsy and finish shooting before the action is finished. If you've watched a lot of sunsets you know that there is a certain process to how the light ebbs. There's the anticipation as the sun approaches the horizon followed by the first big burst of color. Shutters are going like crazy trying to capture this phase.Then there's the inevitable lull where the clouds go gray and the scene gets very boring. That's the time when most people gather up their gear and exit stage left. The patient pro knows there's likely to be more and he waits. Eventually, if the cloud conditions are just right, there's a second, even more spectacular color burst that lasts only a short while. That's when the sun breaks under the clouds and illuminates the bottoms with very intense red light. Over time this fades and you enter the blue period where the sky slowly darkens from light blue to dark blue to black. You can get some very spectacular shots during this second surge but, as I said before, you have to be patient. Well, being the first day of the cycle, I forgot this cardinal rule and broke my setup when the gray period came. And I was horrified to be standing at the bus stop when the sky lit up bright red again. It was too late to run back to the rim and setup so I could only watch as an amazing picture came and went, unrecorded. But this is a time to be very careful, especially around the rim, as accidents can happen when you are flustered and in a hurry. In the rush to setup you can make a mistake and get dead. So I just reminded myself, once again, to wait until the scene if 100% over before breaking my setup. Someday I'll remember this before I make a mistake.

This is a composite picture made from 80 separate images. I took bracketed sequences of 5 images each for a total of 16 blocks. Each block was run through Photomatix to give me an HDR image and then stitched together in Photoshop to produce the final panorama. There's a lot of work in this image as the tonal variation across the HDR blocks was very broad and I had to do a lot of cleanup. Some people think panoramas are easy ... just take your pictures and stitch them together. That's rarely all that happens. Panos can get very messy and it takes a trained eye and a lot of patience to fix all the problems. But the result is truly spectacular ... don't you think?

Pima Point - Grand Canyon 24mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Tower Creek at Tower Falls - Redux

Censorship...

I've been running into a very disturbing issue the last few weeks. I read a lot ... mostly on the Internet. I read from websites across the political spectrum because I want to get a broad understanding of the issues and to remove, as much as I can, political bias from my reading. But something really sad is happening. Because our government is very conservative now, there has been a strong undercurrent to eliminate "fake news". Now, I'm a reasonably smart person and I have no idea how one identifies fake news. I don't think anyone really knows what this is but our president has been humping this idea since his campaign days. He doesn't know what "fake news" is either but, by his definition, it's anything that disagrees with his position (at the moment). Since he tends to be conservative, he thinks anything from a "liberal" or "left wing" website or publication is automatically fake news. That, in itself, is a terrible position for a whole host of reasons. But what makes this much worse is the attempts by social media and search engine companies (mostly Google and Facebook) to translate this desire to eliminate "fake news" into algorithms in their respective online environments. Google, in particular, has made major changes to their search engine and many of the sites I read are reporting that their content has disappeared from searches. Many are afraid they will be forced out of business because they are losing hits and, as a direct result, advertising revenue. If you are a conservative and are cheering this outcome, let me remind you of something ... liberal ideas are all that stands between you and disaster. Think about all the nice things you have in your life ... 8 hour days, holidays, unemployment insurance, workman's comp ... those all came into being because of some "lefty" deciding that workers needed a break. Do you really want to return to the days when Pinkerton detectives gunned down striking workers at Carnegie's steel mills? Now I will admit that liberals do get it wrong sometimes. Welfare was a disaster on many levels. But we need liberal ideas now more than ever. We face problems unlike anything from the past and, I'm sorry, conservatives have no clue how to solve them. Going back to the "good old days" is not an option simply because, first, the good old days weren't all that good for most people and, second, America isn't the same country that it was back at the turn of the 20th century. We absolutely need new ideas and new approaches to get past where we are. And those nasty liberals are the only ones who have the ideas and the new approaches. Sorry, but that's just how it is. Conservatives need to "tolerate" liberal ideas and even give them a chance to succeed. How much success have the conservatives had in solving the health care mess? Anyone? They come up with these disasters that will never work because they are so wound up with their "philosophy" that they are unable to even try new approaches. So we get these twisted train wrecks that will never solve the problem and will kill a lot of people in the process. I'm not a liberal, a lefty or a progressive. I'm not a conservative either. I'm practical ... I want solutions to problems. I don't care where they come from but I do care that they fix whatever is wrong. I hate wasting money chasing stupid ideas and I hate giving money to people who already have too much of it. Fix the damn problems!

Tower Creek at Tower Falls - Redux

Last time I put up a photo of Tower Creek in Yellowstone. It was a clear day and I got one aspect of the creek. This time I give you essentially the same image but with snow! Winter stays late in Yellowstone and, despite it being late May, we had lots of snow. So, 2 days in a row I visited the Tower Falls area and the same spot on the river. This is also a long exposure (121 sec) with my 10 stop ND filter. It was overcast so the image is darker but also very interesting. I love snow because it covers up so many "warts" in an image. All the broken trees evident in the last image are basically gone. This is a single image, worked in Lightroom to bring out the best. I hope you enjoy it.

Tower Creek at Tower Falls - 35mm,f18,121 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

There was this bear...

Yellowstone has been on my wish list since I started this whole process several years ago. Not only is it the oldest national park in the world but it is also among the most spectacular. They've got just about everything ... wild animals, spectacular scenery, geothermal features out the wazoo (over 10,000) ... there's something for everyone. I'd been intending to go there earlier in the trip but was told that the park was mostly closed due to heavy snow so it would have been a waste of time and money to try getting there. But I had time at the end of the trip so I made the 1000 mile drive from Albuquerque to the park in the middle of May. Spent over a week in Grand Teton and Yellowstone and it was worth every minute I invested. I could have easily spent another week and still not visited all the areas. I took almost 3000 images in that week, almost half of all the images I took for the whole trip. It was amazing and made the cycle worth the effort. Had I not gone I would have written off the entire trip as a waste.

One of the attractions is the big animals. They have buffalo, elk, moose, bear, wolves, coyotes ... in abundance. I was in Mammoth Hot Springs for 5 days and almost every day there was a large herd of buffalo living in the center of town. I also ran into them on the road several times, so close I could have rolled down my window and stroked their flanks. Not a good idea of course because buffalo are know for their hair trigger tempers and they can destroy a car in a heartbeat. Also ran into several bears including a mother and her cub that took up residence on the side of the road and disrupted traffic for several days. It's almost comical to watch people when they see bears. They slam on the brakes and pull off the road, oblivious to traffic and anything else around them. They will literally chase a bear with their cameras trying to get a shot. Of course, only an idiot chases a bear and there are "accidents" every year between people and bears ... the bear almost always wins unfortunately. Also, unfortunately, quite a few bears are killed or injured by cars driving too fast on the road. There's a reason why the speed limits are 35-45 mph on roads that look like they can easily handle 60. It's all about the animals.

Anyway, the last day in Yellowstone I wanted to take a sunrise at Yellowstone Lake. That required me to get up really early, like 4 am, and drive down past Old Faithful to a town called West Thumb which is on the lake. Coming down the hill above town I see a good spot to set up my camera so I hang a quick u-turn and park off the road. Set up the tripod and camera and start shooting. After a few minutes I hear loud billowing coming from the valley below but don't think anything off it. Figure it's a moose or buffalo. Keep shooting when suddenly, there's a loud crashing noise and a medium size black bear, probably a female, comes blasting out of the trees not 50 feet from me and goes barreling across the road and down the slope on the other side. Not even sure she saw me but she was definitely in a big hurry to get somewhere. I guess I should have had a "holy shit" moment but I can't say I was really too excited. Heart rate barely changed and other than being startled by all the noise I had almost no reaction. Since the bear was between me and my truck I'm not sure what I could have done other than start yelling like crazy and flapping my coat. I would have used my tripod to keep the bear at bay so I could maneuver to my truck but that would have been the extent of my efforts. Had the bear really wanted to attack me I wouldn't have been able to do much. But man, that was definitely one of the biggest rushes I had. Definitely an interesting way to end my trip. Only wish I'd been able to point the camera and get a picture. Now that would have been something to capture!

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

One of the attractions in Yellowstone is the "Grand Canyon". Not nearly as large as the one in Arizona it is still pretty spectacular. The Yellowstone River has, over millions of years, carved a nice ditch through the soft rock which is several hundred feet deep and very impressive. I was there in the late afternoon and, fortunately, the place was pretty much deserted so I was able to set up my tripod and get a good panorama. I really like the drama it captures, of the darkening sky and the cliffs and the river far below. This is a pretty standard process, HDR in Photomatix, blending in Photoshop and finishing in Lightroom. All I can say if, if you have some extra time on your hands, please make a trip to the Northwest corner of Wyoming and spend some time exploring Grand Teton and Yellowstone. You won't be disappointed.

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone - 24mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Half Dome from a different angle

Oroville...

I'm watching the disaster in northern California with great interest this week. I plan to be on the northern California coast sometime in early April so the impact of this flooding on my plans may be major. If the place is stable I may divert to the dam and see if there are any interesting images.

I did want to inject my take on what is happening. California has always had swings in the climate but nothing like this. 5 years of extreme drought followed by biblical rains is not how things are supposed to be. I know many of you don't believe in global warming but this is what one can expect as the atmosphere warms up. Warmer air means more moisture and water is the engine driving the climate and weather. More water means more damaging and extreme events and Oroville is just the tip of a huge problem. How can humanity plan for even more extremes? I don't know. This dam is already huge (the largest in North America) and yet it is being overwhelmed by so much rain. The only way to cope with this is to open the flood gates and then deal with all the damage downstream. I don't know how they deal with this as the rain isn't finished yet and there's almost historic levels of snow in the mountains which has to melt in the spring. They'll be lucky to save the dam and the damage just to the spillways is going to cost a lot of money to fix. And this is just one of many dams in the West. I'll be interested to see how the Colorado River is doing and how the big dams there are handling the water. Should be an interesting spring for sure.

Half Dome from a different angle

If you head south out of Yosemite on the El Portal Road (RT. 140), there's an overlook that provides stunning views of the Foresta Valley and Half Dome in the distance. I was fortunate to be on that road at dusk and to have the opportunity to get some amazing sunset shots. My visit last year came during a stormy period and I had several days of low clouds and rain ... my favorite type of weather for getting really dramatic shots. I had both cameras going, taking both wide angle images of the valley and telephoto shots of the dome shrouded in clouds. This image was captured just as the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the dome which was skirted by a beautiful layer of clouds. An amazing shot for sure.

Half Dome - 200mm(1.6 crop),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

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

Crater Lake Moss

Update on the Trip

It's been just over a month since my eye blew out so it seems appropriate to fill in the empty spaces left with the postponement. Eye is good but still has some floating debris that will, over time, disappear. It's well enough I can drive and read so that's a huge improvement. No residual pain or distortions which could impact my ability to take my pictures (whewwww ... what a relief). So that part is good.

Just went through my yearly re-certification here in Crimea which was a stressful event. You are required to fill out a form that basically gives up all your secrets ... or at least it feels that way. How many trips out of the country did you take? Where did you go? How long were you gone? Who did you talk to (a few thousand in my case during the 3 months). How much money did you make and what were the sources? It's pretty intense. Even the wife was more than a bit nervous about this but the guy we worked with (same guy we used last year to get the permanent residency papers) was very quick. We waited for him for about an hour and then it was over in 7 minutes. So I'm good for another year in this wonderful place. And I'm now cleared to leave once again. So, I'll be making plans this weekend for the trip home. Expect I'll be out of here during the month of March and will return around June 1. Need to make all the flight arrangements and get balls rolling for everything else. About time!

Crater Lake Moss...

They get a lot of rain at Crater Lake. Guess it's because it's really the first major mountain range the weather hits once it leaves the coast. We had rain several days I was there last spring along with some snow. And it's mighty damp. So, one shouldn't be surprised to see lots of moss and other wet weather stuff growing on the trees. We're not too far south of the Colombia River Gorge and it gets lots of rain and has trees covered in this stuff. Oregon is a wet place...

I was stuck at the visitor's center during a very heavy rain storm and, being the resourceful type, I started casting around for some interesting scenery to photograph. Across the road from the center the cliffs rise very quickly and are prone to develop fog and mist. I fitted the 70-200 on my camera and started shooting. Got some nice mist shots and then found these cedars all covered in the brightest green moss and lichen. They literally glowed even without the bright sun. And the cliffs weren't too shabby either. This is a 3 image set, run through Photomatix and then finished (including a severe crop from landscape to portrait orientation) in Lightroom.

Crater Lake Moss - 200mm(1.6 crop),f/11,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point

Some Ideas for Cycle #2

I'm in the planning stage for cycle #2 which starts, unofficially, around the end of January. I'm intending to spend all of February in and around LA, shooting timelapse and video for my project and taking pictures for my portfolio. I expect lots of rain as El Nino is building to a historic level so plan to see lots of wet views and images. Hopefully I won't get too sick while there but who knows. I'm also looking at visiting as many parks in CA as I can, depending on the snow load and how well they are kept open. I'll then spend some time in AZ/UT, visiting places I went during cycle #2, including Zion, Vermilion Cliffs, Grand Canyon and maybe a few more. Depends on how much snow they have and how much time I have. I'm considering applying for a permit to hike into "the wave" which is something I really want to do given time and a favorable outcome of my application. I'll finish up with a few locations in NM. Expect to return around the end of April although that could adjust depending on how much I still want to do and how much energy I have. I'm hoping I can take upwards of 3-4 terabytes of data which should keep me busy for the rest of the year. It should be an exciting trip.

Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point

One afternoon, about the middle of my stay in Yosemite, I took the long drive up to Glacier Point. From this overlook one can see the entire valley and the view is spectacular. Most of the park is visible from this high vantage point and there is so much to see. Of course, you can see half dome and the waterfall but you also see the high Sierra mountains. The view really does take your breath away.

I took this as the sun slid below the horizon and only half dome and the high mountains are still illuminated. Yosemite village is in the valley below, to the left of the picture. At the center bottom you can just see the parking lot for one of the hotels. Yosemite Valley is straight ahead, to the left of half dome. This is a glacial valley, it's sides polished smooth by the massive glaciers from the last ice age as they slowly slid down the valley and then melted. It has the classic "U" shape although the bottom has been filled in over the years with wash and landslides so the valley is flat but scientific studies (using oil exploration rigs) found the rounded bottom a glacial polished valley must have. This is an HDR panorama shot from the extreme corner of the overlook facing to the northeast.

As I pointed out in a previous entry, it's difficult to get really stunning color photos in Yosemite because the granite is all gray. Compare this with my pictures from Zion or Bryce and you see what I mean. The iron rich sandstone from the Great Basin gives the whole area a very warm and inviting hue that is lacking in Yosemite. Only the amazing rock formations and the high mountains make Yosemite really special. And it's close proximity to LA and SF guarantees a steady stream of visitors.

For comparison, I've included both a color and B&W image. You can see why so many iconic images from Yosemite are done without color. By removing all color you're forced to see the amazing shapes and contours that define the valley. Maybe I should leave this image B&W. What do you think?

Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point - 16mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point(B&W) - 16mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Bryce Canyon Splendor

Cycle #2

With my breathing getting really bad my wife finally broached the subject of going back to America last night. I always wait for her to bring this up as it then seems to be her idea and she can't get too irate as she's the one who suggested it. Last night was a pivotal moment as I finally crossed that threshold where even she couldn't deny that I was in trouble. I was so hoarse I was having trouble talking and I started sounding like Brando in the Godfather. And today I've started seeing junk when I cough which is not a good sign as it means I'm accumulating stuff in my lungs. So it's time to start planning the trip home. I've already done some stuff but there's lots more to do before I leave. Looks like I'll travel in mid to late January and stay for 3 months (mid-April). So look for more planning ideas from me in the next month and a final itinerary by year's end.

Bryce Canyon Splendor

I love Bryce Canyon. An amazingly beautiful place far removed from large cities and not so popular that it's ruined by all the people. Even with all the bad weather I suffered through it was still one of the high points of my trip. I got around to working through all the pictures I took there and many made it into my portfolio and "On the Fence" collections. What's so nice about the place is it's almost impossible to take a bad picture. Once you've got your camera adjusted just point and shoot. The colors are so amazing and the rock formations are truly out of this world.

Anyway, this image was taken after the big snowstorm my last night there. It was brutally cold and the wind howled all night long. I huddled in my bag and tried to get some sleep but really didn't do very well. In the morning I was dead tired but had hope (realized) that Zion, my next stop, would be much better. I broke camp and made my way to the canyon for one more session. I took several major panoramas and also some impressive shots of the better formations. This is one of them. Actually, I was driving the road that runs south from the main canyon and this was taken from an overlook. I really like this image because of the depth. You can see for miles and get the sense of 3D by the way the distant features fade into the haze. I think I'm looking to the east. It was just after noon so the sun is high but behind the clouds so I'm not fighting any glare. I'm at f/22 which is supposed to be a no-no as it creates diffraction (and blurring) but I don't see much and stopping down helped me get great depth-of-field. And the colors ... well, I'll let you decide on that.

Bryce Canyon Splendor - 16mm(1.6 crop),f22,1/25 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Yosemite's Half Dome

Shootings...

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.

Yosemite's Half Dome - 28mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Rest Stop Redwoods

The Rains have Started...

The autumn rains have started here in Crimea. We go from not a drop in 3 months to daily downpours and the shock is major. My lungs, on schedule, have started to get really bad as the raw, damp weather soaks them to the core. I'm sucking on my inhaler in a somewhat wasted effort to keep thing working but it's only partially effective. If I keep to plan, in a month or so I'll start coughing up globs of goo and it'll be time to start seriously planning the next trip home.

Speaking of which ... I'm hoping to spend more than a month in LA trying to get enough footing for 2 videos. One will be dedicated to timelapse and hyperlapse where I'll really work on my technique and on covering as much of the city as I can. I'm creating a long list of venues where I hope I can shoot. I'm hoping to get enough footage for 8+ minutes which is a big deal for such a short time. The other project is my animation study and I'll be shooting more raw videos with the new Canon 5D mk 3 I'm buying. I'll use the Magic Lantern hack to get 14 bit color at 24p. The videos I've seen are amazing so I'm looking forward to testing that out. I'll also use some of the footage from the other project so I won't need nearly as much work but it's still a big undertaking. Along the way I'll also be shooting my photos so there'll be lots of raw material for my return in the spring. Should be an exhausting but exhilarating 3 months.

Rest Stop Redwoods

My last stop in California was at a rest stop near the Oregon border. It was an interesting stay for sure. I arrived late in the afternoon and spent the night. Now, I've pointed out before the restrictions on stays in California rest stops. They have an '8 hour' rule which means you are only allowed to stay for 8 hours in a single day. I planned on staying a bit longer as I wanted to eat some dinner and catch a good night's rest and take a few hours to get breakfast and fire up my computer to transfer a ton of images from my camera into safe storage. It was more like 14 hours but who's counting? Well, the guy who cleans the rest stop for one. As I was setting up my computer he wandered over and reminded me of the 8 hour rule. After a few moments to consider what he said, I told him I had no intention of 'living' in his rest stop and was just doing a few housekeeping chores before heading down the road. Also reminded him that it wasn't his responsibility or part of his job description to be telling me that ... he was, after all, the janitor. That put him off just enough for me to finish my work and leave. Arrogant little prick.

I digress ... what was unique about this rest stop was hidden behind thick hedges and trees. I followed a path through the trees to discover this absolutely amazing grove of mature redwoods and a world that couldn't have been more different from the asphalt and dirt of the rest area that most travelers saw. The colors were spectacular. So, being the photographer, I set up my gear and took some pictures. What a peaceful and amazing place this was. And the moss cover on the sidewalk was just icing on this marvelous cake.

Rest Stop Redwoods - 18 mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Grand Canyon Sunset from Desert View

The New Cameras...

It's been a big year for some of the camera manufacturers. They've been busy pushing the envelop with new sensors and new bodies plus more than a few new and exciting lenses. Canon fired the first shot with the 5DS(R) cameras containing a mind boggling 50 megapixel sensor. The photos are amazing and I think many serious Canon shooters have already made the transition. However, the sensor does have some serious noise issues (as do all Canon sensors) and the files are very large. This is a tripod only camera for in-studio use and for dedicated landscape photographers who are comfortable with that. Not good for action and, seriously, only outputs HD video ... when many in the world are already shooting 4K resolution. Hope that's just a software issue and not a limitation on the hardware because Canon, who really pioneered video from DSLR cameras, is now behind the 8 ball on that score. Then came Sigma ... yes, Sigma ... who are creating a whole new line of lenses called the ART series and these are really good glass. I think they just introduced a new zoom but the primes are truly amazing. I'm looking at the 24mm f/1.4 for astro work and it's as good as the much more expensive Canon offering. At less than $900 it's a real bargain. On my wish list as I write this. Then Sony came out with the new A7R ii and it too is an amazing camera. A forest of new features including 5-axis in-camera stabilization, 399 cross focus points so the camera can track action, a new back-lit sensor that is very low noise and sensitive and has 42 megapixels and 14 stops of dynamic range at low ISO. Almost ... and I say that with great hesitation ... almost a perfect camera. But there are increasing reports of overheating when recording 4K in-camera video (4.2.0 which isn't great but a first for a mirrorless camera none the less and 4.2.2 to an external recorder). Not a good thing if you plan to use this camera as a backup or primary when recording interviews or other long time sequences. Seems the problem is so bad the camera shuts down after 15-20 minutes even in a cool environment. If I was primarily planning to shoot video I'd bypass this camera but I'm not ... I'm shooting high resolution, high dynamic range stills mostly so I don't think this is an issue for me. So, as I type this the A7R ii is on my wish list too. It's not cheap ... only a few hundred below the Canon 5DS so I'll be selecting based on performance and how clean the images are. Oh ... and Sony has a lossless compression in the mix so that's also an issue. Why, I wonder, would they go to all the trouble of developing this amazing sensor and then crap all over it with a lousy compression algorithm? Rumor has it they've been listening to the wailing and are working on a new software fix to give users the option of getting the 14 bit RAW right from the sensor as an option. I hope so. Even if it slows down the shooting speed a bit. Please, give us the RAW data ... we can handle it.

Grand Canyon Sunset from Desert View

As you enter the south rim of the Grand Canyon on Rt. 64 there's a campground called Desert View. In the early days they constructed an observation tower on the rim so you could see the Colorado River deep in the canyon. It's a much quieter place than Grand Canyon City further to the west and the views are even more spectacular. I spent several days there, capturing sunsets and the amazing beauty of the canyon. This image was taken from a vantage point to the east of the tower and shows the river and red bluffs in beautiful detail. This is, of course, an HDR panorama. If you haven't been to Desert View, I strongly encourage you to make a stop the next time you're in the area. You won't be disappointed.

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

Humboldt Redwood Renewal

From the Bit to the Small...

It's often amazing the diversity of images I get involved with. Most of the time I'm shooting the big, even colossal works of nature. Take the Grand Canyon, certainly among the biggest of features one finds on this planet. I've made dozens of panoramas of the canyon, a few which I've already shown you (with more to come over the next few months). Or Yosemite or Bryce or Crater Lake ... they are all massive in scale. They are usually the images that get the most attention when posted on 500px or Flikr. That's because they are grand and impressive and have a major WOW factor. That's how it should be.

But I also shoot the small. You've seen a few ... raindrops on my truck's window or the Spruce cones would be another example. I love those shots because they show the beauty in the simplest of nature's many offerings. To not shoot them is to overlook a majority of the beauty around us. To not stop and admire the new growth on a Redwood tree would be a shame as it can be and often is amazing. So, next time you're somewhere spectacular, turn your eye toward the small and see the beauty that's all around you. It makes the greater beauty even more magnificent.

Humboldt Redwood Renewal

It was early summer when I hit the Humboldt Redwoods in northern California. But at the altitude where these majestic trees grow it was still spring and new growth was everywhere. It's almost iridescent against the dark green of the mature trees. You really have to be blind to miss it. I was wandering through these huge stands of trees and this bright green was all around me. So it was only natural that I'd turn my lens onto these little jewels and start shooting. I love this one because the light, softened by the shallow depth of field at f/4, frames the growth perfectly. A pristine gem on the smallest of scales.

Renewal - 35mm(1.6 crop),f/4,1/20 sec, ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Lassen Seed Cones

Early Thoughts on the Next Cycle...

I've only been in Crimea for a few weeks but I'm already thinking about the next cycle of my travels. I can't deal with all the driving ... almost 10K miles last time ... so I want to limit my wandering a bit. Also, many of the places I visited will be closed due to snow in the winter so I need to seriously change my tactics in future visits. Right now I'm thinking about several ideas ... one has me spending a month or more in Southern California, visiting LA for several weeks and Joshua Tree plus Death Valley for a week each. It should be a nice time then with moderate temperatures. I want to really get into the Valley as there are some spectacular areas that are really off limits in the summer's searing heat. I'm interested in sunrise/sunset sessions on the extensive salt flats plus the sand dunes and even the race track if I'm willing to brave a dirt road again. I also want to get a good, fast prime lens and get serious about astro photography. I'm a big fan of Tom Lowe and his TimeScapes work. And finishing the work on my video of LA is hanging out there so there's lots to be done.

There's also a more extensive visiting of coastal lighthouses ... I only saw a few ... with the aim of producing a book sometime in the future. The amazing image from Point Arena has me salivating to find and shoot more stunning panoramas that show off the majesty of these guardians and their charges. I'll be more diligent this time and do my homework before leaving.

I'm also contemplating an expansion of my hardware. I really need another camera body so I can dedicate each of my two major lenses (the Canon wide angle and telephoto) to a body and avoid all the dust problems that plagued me last time. I don't mind changing once in a while but I was often going back and forth in a single session and my camera was heavily contaminated because of it. Then there's that fast prime ... maybe the new Sigma 24mm f/1.4 which is getting such rave reviews. I may also buy a new, fast Apple MacBook Pro as an alternative to lugging a big desktop computer around. I could hook my ViewSonic 23" to that little laptop and edit my photos much easier and have more room in my truck as a nice benefit. I hate carrying all my computer parts back and forth, risking their destruction or theft as I lug them through security and customs. I've already had my briefcase unpacked once by TSA and that's enough ... thank you very much. Those clowns have no legal liability should they destroy my gear (or 'confiscate' it as contraband if they so desire). They went through my suitcase on the trip home and created the potential for a major disaster because they didn't put any of the stuff back together, just stuffed everything in the bag and left their little notice absolving themselves of any liability should something happen. I had two large bottles of BBQ sauce in there and they tore open the plastic bag I had them in, then left both bottles on top of my clothes waiting for something to crush them so they would explode. Very unprofessional and stupid. I need to simplify as much as possible the transportation of gear between Russia and America. It's heavy and fragile ... not a good combination when traveling half way around the world.

Lassen Seed Cones

I've already written about what a special place Lassen Volcanic National Park is. I want to get back there someday to explore further the amazing things in that place. But, for now, I'll just show a very small part of why it's so special. I was exploring the debris field to the north of the volcano which is extremely interesting. They left the field untouched ... no cleanup whatsoever ... after the 1915 eruption. They wanted to see how the surrounding forests recovered. So there's a lot of new growth (relatively speaking) and many new spruce and other trees have taken root in the rich volcanic soil. As I strolled around the area I came across a lot of new growth and started shooting up close with my wide angle. This image is just one of many I have and I may post others if I can. It's a single shot, simply washed through the Develop module of Lightroom. I love the colors and the contrast. And the sharpness of that lens just keeps me amazed. Sometimes it's the little things that we overlook that are truly the most beautiful and intriguing.

Spruce Cones - 29mm(1.6 crop),f/4.0,1/2000 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

Crater Lake Storm

Contrails and other human detritus

I tend to be a landscape photographer ... that means I'm a photographer of natural formations. Natural implies an absence of man and his artifacts and his lame attempts to tame the unruliness of that world. Anyone who's visited a national park or any wilderness area knows that it's almost impossible to erase the human influence. There's always garbage and scars and destruction no matter how far from 'civilization' you run. Surprisingly (or maybe not), the most visible impact is in the sky. I'm always having to deal with jet contrails ... the white lines left by the hot exhaust from jet engines at altitude. This is a major problem in the California parks due to the high traffic flowing into LA. Imagine how jarring that is ... a magnificent image marred by one or more basically straight lines drawn across the sky. And, they are surprisingly hard to remove. It's not like you can just erase them. Of course, both Photoshop and Lightroom have tools for removing unwanted features from an image but they can only do so much. Contrails, being large and obtrusive, often don't lend themselves to this type of surgery so one has to be creative. But it's extremely hard to deal with and getting worse. In Yosemite it's almost impossible to find shots that don't have some type of human artifact in them.

Crater Lake Storm

I was in Crater Lake for 4 days. Three of them brought rain and bad weather. I started feeling a bit waterlogged and then the snow came. But the old saying goes ... when life gives you lemons make lemonade ... and that's what I did. I'd watch the weather from my campsite and, if the sky started to clear, I'd drive the 7 miles to the crater's rim and hopefully find interesting and challenging views. Sometimes I'd not even get to the rim before the fog closed in and forced me to retreat. It's not a good idea to drive the twisting and somewhat dangerous roads leading to the crater when you can't see the road. But several evenings I was lucky and the sky gave me just enough clearance to let the late afternoon sun break through. Those were dramatic images.

Crater Lake Storm- 16mm(1.6 crop),f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0

This image was very challenging. Not because of the weather but because of the jet contrails. The open area to the west was almost obliterated by contrails. There must have been a dozen or more. I'm not sure where those planes were going but flying in and around Crater Lake seemed to be on everyone's agenda. I was also forced to redo the entire process several times as there was an added problem with popcorn size noise coming out of Photomatix. I think it has problems with nearly saturated pixels and deciding how to show them in the final image. Whatever it decides, it doesn't work too well. So, to get around the issue I was forced to use Noiseware on the images going into Photomatix and on the HDR images coming out. This seems to knock the noise out but does some serious damage to the sharpness. I like my images sharp and it bothers me that I have to sacrifice even a bit because of this noise amplification coming out of Photomatix. I've sent them emails asking for help but they are silent so far. Fortunately, because Noiseware is so good at obliterating noise I was able to use very aggressive sharpening in Lightroom which brought back at least some of the definition. But I'm still looking for a solution to this problem.

Anyway, once I had the panorama I went to work with Lightroom's content aware fill to see how much of the contrail mess I could fix. It took a while and a lot of retries but I think I did a pretty good job overall. There's a bit of fluff left over but it looks natural enough that I just left it. Hopefully it doesn't do too much damage to the final image. I'll let you be the judge.

Humboldt Redwoods

The Black Sea ... someday

One of the reasons for returning to Crimea, beyond wanting to see my family, was the desire to get to the Black Sea. It's about an hour from our flat by bus. A local company runs buses twice a day and, for a reasonable fee of 200 rubles per person, we are taken to Nova Federovka, a beach town on the western shore of the peninsula. It's not much of a beach town ... the services are third rate and the beach is ... well, the beach isn't something to write home about. It's not well maintained and the water, as the summer advances, gets progressively worse. As I noted yesterday, people here are selfish and greedy and that translates to the water as well. They go to the bathroom in it, throw their garbage in it and treat it like it's their personal sewer. It's not too bad in June and July but by August the water is almost impossible to use. And, we get massive jellyfish blooms as the water warms which makes it even less inviting. So July is our month and, so far, it's been a big bust. The weather isn't cooperating at all. We've not been all that warm so far and it's been windy ... a nasty on-shore wind that stirs up the water (and the dirt) and creates large waves. Not conducive to swimming. So we wind up sitting on the beach and freezing. We've only been once so far and that wasn't pleasant.We wanted to go yesterday but it was very cold and windy and today is the same. We're hoping next week gets warmer but we're fast losing confidence. This may be a bad summer for the beach ... that happens sometimes.

Humboldt Redwoods

They are the most majestic of trees. Not as large as the Sequoia but much more beautiful. Their habitat is limited to a few places along the California coast where the air is misty and cool. They like altitude and the strong sun. They have few enemies other than man and his greed. Fortunately, the remaining groves are protected ... for now.

I found this marvelous specimen in the Humboldt forest in Northern California. You can drive through the forest on state route 254, the Avenue of the Giants. There are several thousand large trees there but this one stood out. It was on the road and easy to find but what made it special are these massive burls. They tell of a life of insult ... of attacks large and small and of the tree's defense. Burls form around damage, protecting the tree from further harm. So this tree has withstood some serious assaults but it's still standing, proud and defiant. It must be very old, maybe 600 years, judging from it's size. And beautiful in it's majesty. I'm glad I made it's acquaintance and hope to visit again in the future.

Humboldt Redwoods - 16mm(1.6 crop),f/11,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0