Mono Lake comes through yet again with a stunning sunset. It's hard to go wrong here!
I've always loved the BLM campground "The Pit" in Bishop. Well, it is a pit, literally, but it's up on a bluff with panoramic views, so the light at dawn is spectacular. For photography it sucks due to some power lines conveniently placed between the campground and the Sierras, but that doesn't stop your brain from catching a nice buzz from the dazzling alpenglow beaming off of the snowy peaks looming just to the West. (I'll post more pics shortly...)
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Bishop to Mono Lake
In Transit: Amboy Crater to Owens Lake
Finding myself so disoriented that I didn't know what day it was, I had visited the Grand Canyon a day early, and was returning to California at such a pace that I was going to get back a day faster than expected... TWO days early!
So I would miss this full moon rise over the Grand Canyon, but I had the opportunity to catch it somewhere around the Southern end of the Sierra Nevada. Since the Owens Valley is 9-10,000 feet deep, I knew I'd have to drive up on the mountains to the East to get a low enough horizon to catch the Full moon with some color as the sun was setting to the West. The sparse Joshua tree forest near the entrance to Death Valley National Park seemed like a good bet.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Tucson Area Parks
This was taken in Tucson Mountain Park, adjacent to Saguaro National Park on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona.
There was a group of people having a memorial service on the hill behind me. At this point they were engaged in an impressive rendition of "Amazing Grace".
Kitts Peak Observatory
Have you ever wanted to take a photo of a nebula? I stopped yesterday at the Kitts Peak Observatory and discovered that they allow photographers to rent their telescope for an entire night. www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/
You can take amazing photographs of many remote features of the universe: www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/mainimages.html
Rental is $525 for an entire night for two photographers plus "room and board' for $75-90 more each, although you may not sleep. You can use their Santa Barbara Instruments ST-6303E CCD camera, but it is only 3072 x 2048 resolution. These 6MP CCD cameras normally need to take exposures using red, green, and blue filters then color and combine the monochrome results later to get color images. You can use your own digital camera, but film cameras can cature images in one exposure without the filters, so that might allow more efficient use of the telescope time: www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/filmprep.html
I wonder how any of those guidelines might change using the newest Canon and Nikon full frame DSLRs shooting at ISO 1600, 3200, or 6400.
One disadvantage is that it takes some time to calibrate the telescope to each DSLR, so it is may be best to use one DSLR for the night (or for two photographers to each take 1/2 of the night): www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/visprep.html
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Organ Pipe National Monument
Poppies in Organ Pipe National Monument, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Saguaro Nat. Park AZ today).
Organ Pipe National Monument in Arizona experienced decent rain this year, but they had freezing temperatures followed by a week of 90+ degree days. The wildflowers don't do well with wild temperature swings, so this year the flowers are scattered or found in small pockets rather than carpeting the desert floor.
When the light gets boring... kill some time with an "I was here" shot! At least get in the shade and use fill flash...
Friday, March 06, 2009
Desert Sunflowers in Anza Borego State Park
Desert Sunflowers (Gernaea canescens), originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Anza Borrego St Pk today).
A ton of people were enjoying field of sunflowers in the town of Borrego Springs, but apparently it wasn't as intense as last year. As one visitor described to her friend over the phone "the Chamber of Commerce must have written the wildflower report on the State Park Web site"!
The hills in the park should get a lot more colorful in a week or two when the brittlebrush gets going.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Return to Joshua Tree
The sun was rising to "boring' clear skies, so o looked for interesting rocks and shadows to focus on.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Desert Wildflower Trip 2009
I'm off on tthe road again! My first stop this time was Antelope State Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, California. There are very few blooms now, the peak is 4-6 weeks away, but it was nice to break up the drive with a photography stop.
Next stop: Joshua Tree National Park.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
National Geographic Adventure!
National Geographic selected this photo of Horsetail Falls in Yosemite to display as their Photo of the Day on their Adventure Web site:
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2009/01/daily-catch/adventure-photography
It's also available on their front page in their "Top Stories" (#2):
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/
Woo hoo!
2011 Calendar Selection
This photo has been selected by a prominent publisher for their 2011 weather calendar. I'll let you know when it comes out!
I currently have two photos in the California State Parks Foundation 2009 calendar:
flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/2427336103/
flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/2197562027/
Friday, February 27, 2009
In Search of Sunset Light on El Capitan
Aftger popping into Starbucks in Coursegold for some Internet time, I continued on to Yosemite Valley just in time for sunset.
This is when the sunset light should have been striking Horsetail Falls as it spilled off or El Capitan, but the waterfall didn't seem to be flowing, and the light didn't reach that spot anyway. The sunset light selectively falling on Horsetail Falls is a rare annual event, so unless the weather forecast for this weekend clears up enough for me to make the trek to check it out, it looks like next Winter may be my next opportunity to catch this incredible natural light show.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Return to Joshua Tree National Park
After a luck break with the weather at the Grand Canyon the evening before, I decided to see if I could get lucky again at Joshua Tree National Park. Obviously, I was not disappointed.
You have to be careful when shooting under these conditions. People often discover the arms from these cacti hitching a ride on their clothes, resulting in the name "Jumping Cholla". It's almost as if they jump up onto you!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Grand Canyon Sunset
I couldn't make it to the Grand Canyon from the Page, Arizona area the night before; I had to pull over at a "truck safety" turnout, apparently a resta rea without restrooms. Fortunately someone pulled up behnind me at something like 4am, shining their headlights to fill the van with light. I bolted upright, thinking that I had slept in. No such luck.
I did notice however that I might be able to make it to the Grand Canyon in time for sunrise. A couple of hours later I was racing the rising sun to the turnouts and viewpoints along the Canyon rim. The clouds started to show some nice red color before I made it to one of the better views, but I hopped out and snapped a few shots because I knew I'd most likely lose the light befoer the next stop.
At the next stop I noticed that my camera was telling me that I ahd no CompactFlash installed. It had been happily pretending to capture images, even displaying them on the back LCD like everything was normal. Apparently it saw how excited I was and didn't want to ruin the moment to break any bad news to me. What a nice "feature"! Thank you, Canon!
Anyway, I had a couple of minutes with the last glimpse of color, then there was literally seconds where the sun broke through and lit the canyon. I think this was captured during the last few moments of that light.
That pattern played out several times during the day. You saw a great shot, and If you didn't act immediately, it was gone. Forget setting up a tripod or changing lenses. You had to be anticipating where the moving light would hit next, and have a long lnes ready to grab the moment when it happened.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Grand Canyon Dawn
The day arrived mostly cloudy, and progressed to deliver a lot of rain in the afternoon, but a few moments came where the sun broke through and revealed the canyon's color and depth. I'm glad I stuck it out though... I'm looking outside, and the sun may break free for a few moments at sunset yet!
Bryce Canyon with Snow
I successfully missed an elk driving in the night before, and got up early enough for a mostly cloudy dawn, The light stayed flat most of the morning, but a few occasional spots of sun enabled me to catch a few shots with decent contrast and color. The snow offered some interesting opportunities.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Golden Light in Zion National Park
Whenever I'm posting photos from Zion I feel like I should be making some kind of clever reference to The Matrix, but at the moment my metaphor glass is empty... Well, now it is.
ZZYZX!
"The last word in health"... a former health spa, now a desert research station in the Mojave Desert.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Join Me in Yosemite Feb 28
Given current economic concerns, I'm going to try a novel concept for an upcoming workshop on Feb 28... attendee-specified pricing. We'll shoot Winter scenes around Yosemite Saturday 1-6pm, and hopefull catch Horsetail Falls backlit by the setting sun. Afterwards, you decide if it was valuable to you and consider a voluntary contribution proportional to what you felt you received.
For full details, to RSVP and to arrange carpools, see the event listing on Meetup.com.
Representative shots of Yosemite Valley and Horsetail Falls that we might find are included in my Yosemite gallery here.
I hope this concept works out. I'd love to offer a series of seminars like this as I travel around the Western United States this Spring, Summer and Fall!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse While the Full Moon Sets
With the middle of the eclipse forecast for 6:38am, the exact full moon time at 6:50 and sunrise time of 7:03, this was promising to be one of the easiest and most colorful eclipses to cover in a long time. The only challenge was the weather. Rain the night before caused me to give up trying to catch the moonrise or moonset in the Bay Area, and when I looked outside at 6:30am it looked like gray clouds were still dominating the skies in Auburn as well.
I decided to head to a nearby viewpoint anyway in case by some miracle there was a hole in the clouds that I could catch the moon through, and there it was, fully visible! More often than not when I take a chance on weather, it pays off handsomely.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco
This is one of my first shots taken with my new camera, the Canon 5D mark II. I was running around shooting in San Francisco at night without a flash, with the camera set at ISO 6400 and my lens set at f/4.0. I was also exposure bracketing, which sometimes resulted in surprisingly fast exposures. This one was 1/800th of a second!
The Chinese New Year parade crosses a cable car line in San Francisco. The shiny metal in the foreground leading to the parade is the metal cover over the cable moving under the street. The rails the cars run on are the thinner shiny lines leading into the picture.
For this shot to reveal the motion and brighten up the scene I boosted exposure compensation to +2/3 EV and dropped ISO sensitivity from 6400 to 1600, resulting in longer exposure times (1/3 second here).
Mono Lake Sunset
I couldn't resist planning my return to place me at Mono Lake for sunset... my fourth visit in December and January. When they're consistently this good, can you blame me?
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Return to Whitney Portal
Whitney Portal in the Alabama Hills offers arches, boulders, and stunning views of the Sierra Nevada range, including Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States. The light is particularly good at dawn.
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