Cycle #3 is over...
I've been silent now for almost 3 months. I was in America most of the time, doing my normal spring traveling. I had an agenda, as I outlined in previous posts, and most of that when in the garbage. I'll cover, in more detail, most of my trip in future posts but do want to give an overview of the adventure here. I guess the best way to characterize this trip is ... what a mess! Those rains I talked about got me big time and much of the early part of my trip was spent driving in downpours and sitting in parking lots watching water drops run down my truck's windows. It was horrendously bad for the first 6 weeks. There were landslides that closed all of Big Sur and much of the area around Stinson Beach north of San Francisco. There were also closure on the bluffs above the Golden Gate Bridge so it was almost impossible to get any images from that vantage point. I was also snowed out of Crater Lake in Oregon and much of the coast there was so wet it was almost impossible to take pictures. I drove almost 12K miles but got only 8K images to show for all that work. There were days where I didn't even take the cameras out of their bag. It was just so miserable. I had to abandon part of my trip up the coast, leaving at Portland instead of Seattle, because everything was so wet. I'd look at the weather forecast and see 5 days of rain, 2 days of good weather and another 5 days of rain. It was really depressing. So I spent a few days in the Portland area, mostly in the Colombia River Gorge, and then headed south toward places where I knew the weather would be more accommodating. I spent a few days in Yosemite and another few days in Death Valley where I and my gear had a chance to dry out. But even Yosemite was a problem as rt. 120 from the north was closed due to a road collapse. On the good side, the closure cut way back on visitors to the park and I was able to get campsites for all the nights I was there but they had lost all internet access so we had to get up early every day and stand in line to pay for a site. These disruptions were a constant in all the national parks. This year, for some reason, things just didn't seem to be working very well. It was very disruptive not only for my photography but for my communications with my family. I was often out of touch for days at a time which caused my wife and daughter great anxiety. But somehow I persevered and finished the trip on May 30th. Flew from Albuquerque to LA to Moscow to Simferopol in just under 24 hours, arriving late in the evening on the 31st. I've been home for just over a week and am still struggling to acclimate to the 10 hour time change. Flying west to east is really hard, even when you are young and healthy but is brutal for my old bones. I suspect it will be another week before I can sleep through the night and stay awake during the day.
I did meet some interesting people along the way. My wife had advised me to not talk about living in Russia but I didn't think most Americans really cared about my living arrangements. So everyone who asked that basic question ... "Where are you from?" ... got the full details of my life in Crimea. I think only one person was upset by that. Most people thought that was interesting and some even wanted to know more. I spent lots of time talking about America and Trump and what was happening to our country. Can't say I talked to even one Trump supporter. The vast majority thought he was crazy and out of control and couldn't quite understand how we had elected such a clown. They also, almost to a person, had nothing kind to say about Clinton. The universal consensus was both of them were worthless. That gave me some hope for the future but not a great deal.
On the technical side, my gear worked like it was supposed to. I had zero mechanical issues with my cameras and relatively minor issues with the truck. This year was emissions testing time and the truck failed due to it's throwing errors out of the emissions system. That required a trip to the repair shop where they found the EGR system wasn't working right. Turns out a hose had gone brittle and cracked, allowing air to leak into the vacuum system that controlled the valve. Also had an issue with the main drive pulley on the serpentine belt so that had to be replaced. Cost almost $400 but the old gal ran much better afterwards. Also had a punctured tire, probably when I was in Page, AZ, and a slow leak. I had picked up a nail somewhere and it had badly damaged the steel belts so the tire had to be replaced. That was another $79. But considering how much driving I do and some of the miserable places I take that truck, I can't complain about this too loudly. It is 17 years old and some things do wear out unfortunately. I suspect I'll have some major repairs to undertake next year too. All part of the process.
Made some preliminary contacts to begin the commercial side of my business. Found a framing shop/gallery in Albuquerque that has tentatively agreed to sell my stuff. I was going to get that started this trip but other issues (later) got in the way so it has to wait until the spring. Also had an interesting encounter with SmugMug, the image hosting website, that I'll talk about more in another post. It was an interesting experience for sure.
Anyway, that's the trip in a nutshell. There was a great deal of frustration this time, both with the weather and with all the roadblocks that are being thrown up against people who work and live out of their vehicles. Some states are more tolerant of this lifestyle than others and the most draconian will surprise you. I'll devote an entire post to this issue as I think it's important. A lifestyle is being strangled by those who demand conformity.
Joshua Tree Sunset
One of my first stops was in Joshua Tree NP near LA. I'd always planned to stop there but it was just too out of the way to divert for until this year. I made a conscious effort to go there as my cousin raved about the place. After several missed turns and one or two diversions, I arrived at the park. It is a very interesting place for sure. The signature draw is the Joshua Tree, a desert tree that is unusual and very ... ugly. Can't say I find them all that wonderful to photograph directly but I did some experimenting with back lighting at sunset to get some acceptable images. There are also lots of interesting rock formations and, if one looks carefully enough, lots of interesting plants that fly below the radar. Today's image is one of those.
The first day I was there I spent much of the day just wandering around several of the major attractions. I was scoping the place out, looking for interesting angles and images. I though about photographing the rock formations but generally find they don't translate too well into usable images. You need something more organic to generate interest. Anyway, I was wandering around among the rocks and started to notice that many plants were growing in cracks and crevices and created very impressive contrasts between the stone and the green needles. Rocks in Joshua Tree of very strange ... they look like they formed out of shells of dead marine creatures. They were very rough and give an amazing texture that I though would contrast well against some of the plants. This was my idea at that point. I kept wandering around until I found exactly what I was looking for. There was a pinon tree, very old, growing in a large crack in a big rock. It had been bonsai'd, stunted by the lack of water and nutrition, so was quite small and yet very old. The trunk was gnarled and twisted, giving the impression that this was a tree that had some serious history. And yet, it was only a bit larger than my camera and tripod. It was an interesting setup (see below) as the background didn't really contribute
to the image, being composed mostly of scrub brush and dead stuff. I had to get just the right angle so the tree was highlighted against the sky and was framed by the setting sun's yellow light. You can see the lengths I went to setting up the shot. Fortunately, the sun cooperated as did the sky, giving me just enough clouds to get a nice presentation.
I took a long series of bracketed shots as the sun set, looking for just that perfect combination of light and shadow. I probably sat there for an hour waiting for things to come together. And, fortunately, they did. The image below is the final result. I love the contrasts and how shadow and light interplay. My cousins thought the tree was much bigger and were amazed when I sent them the setup picture. There's not a lot of processing here, just HDR in Photomatix and finishing in Lightroom. I may run these images through RayaPro, the suite of actions for Photoshop from Jimmy McIntyre, once I get my feet wet with that process. He shy's away from HDR because of the distortions it creates and uses blending to create some spectacular images. I'll give it try in a few weeks and post the results here for comparison. Anyway, here's "Joshua Tree Sunset" for your viewing pleasure. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it.
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| Joshua Tree Sunset - 23mm,f/18,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
