A few more random shots…
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- Osprey with a fresh catch
What a Day!
So…I picked my son up at the airport on Sunday. I haven’t seen him since he was 2 years old, and he has no conscious memory of me at all. He’s a 21-year-old Army combat veteran, now. We had a 4 hour drive from the airport to the house, and we spent 99% of it talking, laughing, and getting to know each other. It really surprises me how much we have in common, both in terms of things we enjoy, and our personalities…the way we think. We share similar opinions on many subjects, and enjoy many of the same hobbies and activities.
It’s really been a nice couple of days. We went for a walk around the Buttermilk area, looking for snake and lizards, and taking pictures yesterday afternoon…
My son, Kevin, looking for snakes and lizards, camera 'round his neck
We did manage to find a few lizards, but no snakes…
Great Basin Fence Lizard--Sceloporus occidentalis longipes
And a B&W panorama of some of my favorite mountains…
2 shot pano--Paiute Crag to Mt. Humphries
Last night, Kevin and I went road cruising for snakes for a little bit. We didn’t see any snakes, but we did find a Great Basin Spadefoot toad, which is always a welcome and rare treat in Inyo County…
Great Basin Spadefoot--Spea intermontana
It’s been fantastic so far! We are going to pick up Zayne either tonight or tomorrow. These two haven’t met, yet, so I’m pretty excited to get them both together…
Thanks for looking!
HDR from Last Night…
While shooting the sunset last night, I took a chance and shot a 4 exposure HDR, at 1stop intervals. I don’t do HDR very often, but occasionally, it works out…
As the Sun Goes Down...
I also thought I would share a couple of bird shots from yesterday morning. I’m really diggin’ the new 70-300mm lens, but I am already drooling over the Zuiko 2X tele-converter…
Anyhow…bird shots…
Grey bird in the tree...I'm not real good with bird ID's...
Cool looking blackbird with a bright yellow breast and orange head...
That’s it. Just a few more from yesterday. Thanks for looking!
Finally…A Sunset!
FINALLY!! Decent weather, not too cold, decent cloud coverage, and good lighting…I went out for some landscape shots…
Black Mountain
Sierra Sunset
White Mountain Sunset
Not a bad night. Thanks for coming along!
More from yesterday morning…
Just a couple more shots from yesterday morning I felt like sharing…
Bishop Range-Eastern Sierra
Jessica, James, and Little Man
Thanks for stopping by!
Another Gorgeous Morning
So I woke up early, went to get some breakfast with a couple of friends, and went out for photos. I missed the actual sunrise, but it wasn’t spectacular due to too many clouds in the east. But just as the sun crested the peaks of the White Mountains, the clouds began to gather over the Sierras, and it turned into a gorgeous morning…
3-shot pano of The Buttermilks
Checkered Demon, Emmerson Peak, Mt Humphries, Little Peak, and Basin Mountains
Buttermilk Morning--HDR
This last one is virtually the same composition as the panorama above, but it is a single exposure, converted to B&W…
Bishop Range, Sierra Nevada Mountains
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Rare Occasion…
OK, so every once in a while, I get bit by the HDR bug, and decide to play around a little bit. The other night, while out shooting B&W storm clouds, I also shot through some brackets for an HDR merge. This is what I got…
Northern Inyo COunty--HDR
Not too bad. I don’t like super-saturated, over-cooked HDR images. I like them when they are subtle…you wouldn’t really know it’s an HDR unless someone told you. I think this one satisfies that description, but still puts together a nice, wide dynamic range. What do you think?
Thanks for looking!
Spring…In Places…
So, I dropped the girls off for school this morning, and brought my camera bag with me…just in case. On the way back, I couldn’t help but catch the storm over the Sierras, moving in from the west…
Bishop Range--3-shot Panoramic
I decided to try a pano shot this morning. Most of my landscapes are shot at 14-20mm(28-40mm equivalent). This one was taken with 3 shots in portrait orientation, at 42mm(84mmequiv.), stitched in CS4. Below is a single exposure at 21mm…
Bishop Range
Just when it’s starting to look like winter isn’t done with us, yet, I pull in the driveway and find tiny, purple Storksbill flowers blooming everywhere! So here are the first wildflower macros of the season!!
Portrait, in full sunlight
Pretty Pair
It is starting to warm up around here. I imagine it won’t be but a couple of weeks before smaller wildflowers start springing up everywhere. Seems a trip to the Alabama Hills again may be in order…
Thanks for coming along!
Storms From All Around
Took a quick trip out to a spot along the Owens River to take some photos of the gathering clouds to the north…
Northern Whites
Storm Over the Owens River
Just a quick afternoon trip for some cool B&W shots…
Thanks for looking!
Westgard Pass
I took a trip with members of the Eastern Sierra Herpetology Club and the California Department of Fish and Game to do some work maintaining California Black Toad habitat. Coming home, I couldn’t resist stopping for a picture or two…
Big Pine Overlook
Coming Home
There was a ton of hard work, cutting out aquatic vegetation to make improved breeding grounds, but we got it done, and these photos at the end of the day were just the icing on the cake.
Thanks for coming along!
More from The Alabama Hills
Just a few more shots from our trip to The Alabama Hills the other day…
Over The Hills we go...
Squirrel's Eye View
Mt Whitney and The Arch...minus the girls...
Just a quick post with a couple more images. Thanks for looking!
Mt. Whitney for Lunch
So Annette, Rose, and I all headed down to the Alabama Hills for some hiking amid the rocks, and because Annette had never seen any of the natural arch formations. We found the only one I know how to get to…
The Girls, The Arch, and Mt. Whitney
Millions of picture of this arch from this angle floating about, but this is the only one with Annette and Rose… 
Looking North Towards Independence
Sage to Summit
Tunnel View
I love walking around the Alabama Hills. Thanks for coming with me!
The White Mountains in Shades of Grey
I went out just after sunrise this morning, looking for great lighting, awesome clouds, and some B&W landscapes. I was not disappointed…
And of course, morning would not be complete without at least one shot of the Eastern Sierras…
Wheeler Crest
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Revisiting “The Relic”
This is “The Round Valley Relic”. I’ve posted shots of it before. A couple of times, actually. HERE and HERE, if you would care to look. Honestly, I think this morning’s shots were my favorite. Perhaps because I took my friend Rich out there for his first visit…
Revisiting The Relic
I think this will be a place I visit many more times before I wear it out. It’s got a great potential for composition and drama…
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Frozen Lakes and Snow
Anyone that has followed this blog for any length of time, knows that I am not a fan of snow, cold, wind, ice, or winter in general. But they also know that these conditions produce outstanding photographs much of the time, and so, as a willing photographer, I must brave the brutality of Nature in order to capture her beauty.
It’s a fair trade…
Frosty Morning on Mono
Crowley lake, Frozen Over
Yup…I dislike winter. But I LOVE how it transform our local landscapes.
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Re-visiting January
I went back through some of my shots from this month. I didn’t get out very much, and here it is almost February. I only have 3 days of shooting for the whole month, which is pretty sad. But, I got some really nice images, and I had good fun on each outing, so I’m happy.
Here’s a couple more from earlier this month that I overlooked the first time around…
Farmer’s Pond is a favorite location of mine. I visit often. I took this one on a day that I had devoted to B&W, and for some reason, I never even tried processing one of them in color. This one came out decent.
This one was taken on an excellent day, filled with several really good shots, and just got overlooked in processing.
Thanks for stopping by!
Quick Trip to the Pond
Took my girlfriend and the kids to Farmer’s Pond this evening for a couple of quick shots. Zayne left her camera on and killed the battery, Rose and Annette were cold. But Zayne was a good little assistant, and toughed it out by the water’s edge with me for a couple of shots..
Like I said, just a real quick trip. I got the opportunity to explain split neutral density filters and how they work to my daughter, though, so that was great. Not sure she will remember much of the lesson but…she’s 6. I can’t really expect too much…can I?
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Couple “Do-Overs”…
Yup…at it again. Going back in to some of my older files and re-processing is always a fun way to pass time. And sometimes, I even come up with something worth sharing…
Basin Mountain and Mt. Tom from high above the Round Valley floor
Checkered Demon and Emmerson Peak
Paiute Crag to Basin Mountain
Just a few shots I took while visiting the Buttermilks back in November. Thanks for looking!
“The Golden Spiral”
Well, I was recently asked to explain my use of the Fibonacci Spiral in composing complex scenes for landscape photography. This is a very difficult concept to put into words. FAR more difficult to verbalize than utilize, so to save me the words, I will let the Digital Photography School Forums do it for me, with their very clear description of Divine Composition.
Unlike The Rule of Thirds, the Fibonacci Spiral is something that can be a bit more daunting to utilize in the field. Afterall, it’s fairly easy to visualize your viewfinder cut into equal thirds along both axes. It does, however, take a bit more forethought and practice to utilize the spiral. Don’t fret…with practice, it becomes as much a second-nature instinct as the rule of thirds…
Here is a couple of examples of some of my own photographs, and how the Fibonacci Spiral was applied during composition–
As you can see, it really isn’t as complex and daunting as you might think upon first trying to utilize it. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with ratio and proportions of the spiral while in the comfort and convenience of your computer chair. The more the image of that spiral is engrained in your memory, the easier it will be to visualize in the field. Happy Shooting!!
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- Mono Reflections
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- Artesian Sunset
Why I Live in the Desert
I don’t like the cold. I don’t like the snow. I don’t like the wind. I don’t like ice. But I LOVE taking B&W photos of these conditions. So my friend Rich and I grabbed our gear and headed to the mountains…
60-65mph winds where I am standing are strong enough to blow me back, let alone the tripod. I was forced to hold tight to the tripod legs, and wait for a break in the wind to take a shot. I got pretty lucky, to be perfectly honest…
First Stop--Crowley Lake
You can see the snow plumes coming off the mountains. Rich was trying to capture the snow and ice particles as they were blown across the surface of the ice. I was just trying to wait out the wind gusts, and snap pictures in between. I was actually standing next to a low toy-hauler trailer to block the wind for this one…
Brrr...
Further up we go, looking for great light and wind protection. Mother Nature wasn’t having it…
Man, alive…the winds coming across Convict were even worse than those at Crowley. And with the entire surface of the lake a sheet of ice, it was whipping up ice and snow particles strong enough to sand blast a car, I think. A couple of quick hand-held shots, and we were outta there…
Next Stop--Convict Lake
When we finally arrived at our ultimate destination, the winds had died down, the clouds had broken up, and it turned into a rather pleasant couple of hours…
Reflections at Mono Lake
South Tufa Reflections
Tufa Reflections
Mono was gorgeous. We were hoping to catch the freezing fog, but unfortunately, we got there just in time to watch it pull back off the lake, and break up into to nothing on the northern shore. But the sun was warm, the wind was gone, and a good time was had by all. What else could you ask for?
Thanks for taking the time to look!
First Sunset of 2011
Thick, heavy storm clouds rolling in from the west pretty much blocked any hope of color for the first sunset of the year, but it sure did make for some excellently dramatic B&W opportunities. So I called my buddy James, told him to grab all his gear, and I picked him up for a quick trip to Farmer’s Pond, just outside of Bishop…
- Farmer’s Pond–1/1/11
Driftwood and Ice
It was cold and it was dreary…but it was worth every second!
Thanks for taking the time to look!
Morning Rain
I woke up extra early this morning, anticipating some early cloud coverage and a spectacular sunrise. I was half right… It was pouring down rain and the clouds were so thick you couldn’t even tell sunrise happened until the sun was well above the mountains. But storm fronts are cool whether rain or snow, so I went out and shot for an hour or two before work…
I went straight to work after shooting a few scenics, and took a couple of animal pictures, to round out the day…
Bailey-Blue and Gold Macaw
Nina
Chinchilla Closeup
And an obligatory water-macro-abstract-thing…
Yup...water...
It’s nice to be getting shots, even if they aren’t the ones I had hoped for…
Thanks for taking the time to look!
B&W Sunset
I finally went in and processed a couple of duotone shots from my quick trip to the artesian well the other night. As usual, I got there early, and took quite a few B&W shots before the sun went down and the color came up. These two are my favorites…
Black Mountain Peak
Black Mountain Peak
Thanks for taking the time to look!
A Fine Sunset
So…a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to one of my favorite artesian wells for sunset led to some really nice photos…
I’ve shared photos of this well before, both sunrise and sunset, but I think tonight’s color display was the best by far…
I took close to 100 shots tonight. These two are my favorites of the color ones. I took quite a few B&W before the sun fully set and the color came up. I haven’t processed those yet, but when I do…you’ll be the first to know…
Thanks for looking!
