Top 10 Travel Photos: 2012

Mid-October, 2012, about a week before a storm dropped 3 feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada.

I was out camping to catch the Lyrid meteor shower in April, and this storm started as I was cooking dinner on the campfire!

Continuing the retrospective look at my last decade of travel and landscape photography, 2006 - 2015.  Here are some of my favorites from 2012. My second full year covering Southern California for my guidebook "Photographing California Vol. 2 - South, A guide to the natural landmarks of the Golden State", I still had an absurd amount of ground to cover for the book.

I pursued a lot of astrophotography in 2012, including many moon-landmark alignments, which change every year

These fishermen didn't even see the coyote on the beach behind them!

In 2012 I started my night photography workshops in the authentic Wild West "ghost town" of Bodie. Join us this year!

This alignment I anticipated weeks in advance was photographed from over a dozen miles away.

Sometimes the soft  light of twilight can be better then the adjacent sunrise or sunset!  Mono Lake.

Lake Tahoe in sunrise light

Bodie during golden hour, after the park visitors have left and we have the place entirely to ourselves!

Everyone was going to shoot Venus crossing in front of the sun, but I added earth to the composition as well!

This was a selection of a few of my favorites from an album of over 50 photos from 2012, so there are many more that you might prefer over these. To see more of them, click on the link or album photo below.

More of my favorite photos from 2012:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/sets/72157651147837112

Fall Colors Progress in the Mono Basin Area

Using digital photos I've taken in the Sierra Nevada over the past 8 years, I'm working on a project to examine how Fall colors progress in various sub-regions of the Eastern Sierra. The area centered in this album is centered around the Mono Basin

I'm collecting in an album images taken during the Fall in that general area, from Mammoth Lakes through Bridgeport. This is a work in progress; I'll gradually add photos from other years/dates, but follow this link to see what I have so far:

https://plus.google.com/photos/107459220492917008623/albums/5789566211029414833

I've include other photos from the area in October because photography in this area is never just about one thing, even during Fall color season!

So far it looks like the images are mainly centered around the October 6-22 period.  

For the latest conditions in 2012, here are some links to Fall colors reports:

Mono Lake Committee Fall Colors Report
http://www.monolake.org/today/2012/09/26/late-september-fall-color-update/

Parcher's Resort Fall Colors Report
http://parchersresort.net/fallcolor.htm

California Fall Color
http://www.californiafallcolor.com/?p=2027

So far it looks like June Lake hasn't really started turning much yet, so we may need until that Oct 13-21 timeframe before this area gets really good.  Bear in mine that storms can wreak havoc on the leaves, so it's better to be a little early than too late!

Night Workshops at Bodie State Historic Park

Whether your interest is moonlit portraits of the old buildings, light painting, star trails, Milky Way images or night timelapse photography, we can cover a lot in the space of a few hours!

We will meet in Bridgeport for an early dinner (no host) before we head out to Bodie. Dinner will be around 4:00 pm Saturday to allow us time to meet, eat and drive to the ghost town.  We will be greeted at the gate by our guides for the evening.  After a brief introduction from the Bodie Foundation, we will start our evening of photography from about 6:30 p.m. on, with a departure time of 1:00 a.m..

These are the last night workshops we'll schedule for 2012, and registration will be accepted on a first come, first-served basis.  Credit cards can be used to register through the PayPal links in the right column, or if you'd prefer to mail a check, contact me.

September 22nd  

Workshop Fee:    SOLD OUT!

October 6^th

Workshop Fee:   SOLD OUT!

Although our planned night photography workshops for Bodie this year are full, if you have a group of several people eager to go, contact me and perhaps we can schedule a new date.