Preface to California's Wildfires

The storm arrived on the California Coast last Friday evening with a few puffy white clouds punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder. Overall it seemed like a very small scale event, with a few light showers that lasted mo more than a few minutes. I even captured a brief rainbow projected onto one of the clouds as sunset approached.

The clouds seemed to grow a little taller as they climbed the Coast Range, with intermittent thunder rolling in the distance. It was an interesting novelty to have rain at all in June, all the more noteworthy with the rare accompaniment of lightning.

By the following morning, the storm had passed from the coast, although thunder could still be heard to the East. What I didn't know at the time was that the lightning has struck over 8000 times, and over 840 fires were burning in the state, at least 90 in Mendocino County alone.

Return to Bowling Ball Beach

I have an obsession. With a beach. I think it's a healthy obsession, but I've never thought of myself as a "beach person". Don't get me wrong, I love the sea, but I'd rather be playing in it or on it than walking or lying beside it.





So this interest in beaches, is it something I've learned, or do I have a "beach gene" that I've somehow overlooked until now? Or is this particular beach attractive specifically for its un-beachly character? What kind of beach is filled with, even named after, a collection of giant rocks? Whatever the case, I returned yet again to Bowling Ball Beach on California's North Coast.

Perhaps I'm just captivated by my own conviction that there are great images to be created at Bowling Ball Beach, while being frustrated by not having caught one yet that fully lives up to my lofty expectations.

So much of photography is the journey... visualizing the concept, preparing, anticipation, enveloping the subject with different angles, perspectives, exposures and filters, then gently teasing out a halfway decent result in postprocessing that might stand some faint chance at fairly representing a unique moment... in time, in place, in your life. The destination, the image itself, typically pales in comparison to the pursuit, but it's all we can offer to those who missed the adventure that led to its creation.

So I'll continue to visit this stretch of coast until the sun, the moon and the planets line up just right and I get the shot that I know will come from there... perhaps with a rising sun with a setting moon, at low tide. In the meantime my exploratory trips there serve as preparation for when I will eventually encounter those few precious moments of precious light that I will have to make the most of.

Back to the Mendocino Coast

With some of my favorite lakes in the High Sierras still under snow, I decided to take my kids up the coast to show them some of my favorite places and to introduce them to abalone diving. First we stopped at Kruse Rhododendron State Park so see if the the flowers were still around. No luck on that count, but the redwoods are always nice, and we found some cute little newts in the creek.

We secured a campsite near the beach at Manchester State Park near Point Arena, and on two evenings we headed down to the beach for sunset. We spent the next couple of days exploring the Point Arena area including Bowling Ball Beach, where we could explore tide pools and interesting rock formations.

Later in the week we moved north to the Mendocino area and camped at Van Damme State Park. We used the fire rings on the beach each night to make s'mores and to toast dinner roll dough over the fire on our marshmallow sticks (great right off the fire, especially if you roll the hot bread on butter).

The cove there is sheltered, so it's a great place to play in the water. We went to a dive shop in nearby Fort Bragg and rented wetsuits so the kids could snorkel around while I looked for abalone. Although we had minus low tides and I did get some abalone when I went out alone, it turned out that the kelp had grown significantly since I had visited in May and it was so thick at low tide that it wasn't practical or safe to bring the kids into the thick floating mats of it in the cove. We had fun swimming around though.

Join Me This Summer or Fall!

So for the past few years I've explored some of the best photographic vista from the West Coast to Montana to Arizona and back. As I travel this Summer and Fall, I'd like to share my site knowledge and my enthusiasm for photographic exploration with other photographers. In person. I love to create, but I love to teach and inspire others to create as well.

Here's what I propose: look at my schedule, and tell me where you might want to join me, and when. If it doesn't match with my current schedule, let's see if I can fit it in. Let me know what accommodation standards you'd prefer (camping/motel/hotel), and the level of adventure you'd prefer: road-accessible areas only, at least trail-accessible only, off-trail and cross-country exploration OK, or "full adventure" (such as guided canyoneering in Zion with 100' rappels into slot canyons).

I'll provide a quote for your custom trip, with the option to keep it private (limited to just your party). I'll even guide you for a few hours if that's all you want; my rates are very reasonable.

Here's my initial outline for the next few months.

July 9 - 10 Portland, Waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge, OR
July 11-14 Seattle, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA
July 15-16 Hoh Rain Forest, Second Beach, Ruby Beach, Olympic Peninsula, WA
July 17-20 Backpack: Shi Shi Beach, Point of Arches, Olympic Peninsula, WA
July 21-24 Portland, Oregon Coast: Cannon Beach, etc.
July 26-Aug 3 Lake Tahoe and Hot Air Balloons, CA
Aug 6-10 Backpack to site of Ansel Adams' "Frozen Lake and Cliffs", Kings Canyon
Aug 12-17 Eastern Sierra: Bishop/Bristlecone Pines/Alabama Hills
Aug 20-24 Eastern Sierra: Mono Lake/Bodie/Mammoth Lakes
Aug 23-Sep 4 Eastern Sierra backpacking?

Sep 5-7 Lake Tahoe area, Reno Balloon Races
Sep 10-15 Glacier National Park, MT
Sep 15-22 Yellowstone National Park & Grand Teton National Park, WY
Sep 23-30 Colorado Fall Colors: Maroon Bells, Dallas Divide, etc. CO

Oct 1-3 Great Sand Dune National Park, CO, Taos Pueblo, NM
Oct 4-12 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, White Sands National Park, NM
Oct 13-15 Full moon rise & set shots TBD
Oct 16-24 Open in the UT/CO/AZ/NM region (Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, The Wave?)
Oct 25-28 Bryce Canyon National Park
Oct 28-Nov 2 Zion National Park: The Subway

Nov 3-6 Death Valley & Eastern Sierra
Nov 8-9 Lake Tahoe area
Nov 10-14 Sacramento area
Nov 16+ Open

Dec: Re-shoot Ansel Adams' "Moon and Half Dome" in Yosemite National Park

Where would you like to join me, or have me adjust my itinerary or schedule to meet you?

Three "Photo of the Month" Awards on MyParkPhotos.com!

For the month of May my photos were honored in 3 of the 13 categories in the photo contest at MyParkPhotos.com:

Plant life: Baby Waterfall © Jeff Sullivan
Seasonal: Yosemite Falls Reflection at Night © Jeff Sullivan
Waterscapes: Moonbows in Lower Yosemite Falls © Jeff Sullivan

I'm particularly pleased when my photos are recognized there, as the site has 1000 members taking quality photos in the same places I do. Here are my photos that have been selected picture of the day, month, or year there: MyParkParkPhotos.com.

Sierra Spring Storm at Mono Lake

I accidentally woke up around 4:30am, so it was easy to drive the rest of the way here in time for a very early dawn. There was new snow on the ground down by June Lakes, but it hadn't stuck to the road so driving wassn't an issue. At the South Tufa access to Mono Lake, nothing to speak of happened at sunrise, it was very gray and featureless, but then the storm started to break...

Mount Dana, at over 13,000 feet, always makes a nice subject to contrast with the exotic limestone tufa towers at Mono Lake.

This grass is green in the Mono Basin for only a few weeks. What a nice contrast to have the fresh snow on the peaks in the distance! The roads towards the right side provide a nice sense of the scale here (click on these photos to view larger copies).

Tioga Pass had just opened, and with the periodic distings of snow over the past few days, the vernal pools in Tuolumne Meadows contained plenty of water.

Quick Overnight to Death Valley

What do you do when you've been looking forward to camping on Memorial Day weekend for weeks, and you're in in the Tahoe Basin looking at a forecast for a couple of days of thundershowers as far south as Bishop? You drive to Death Valley of course! Especially if you fail to check the mileage and assume that it might only be a 5 hour drive. Eight hours later you'll know you were wrong, but you're almost there, so you might as well enjoy the trip!

Well after dark on Saturday night I pulled into Stovepipe Wells, only to find that the campground was closed. I had continue on to Furnace Creek, which turned out to be about an hour away due to road construction. Being that far south, it made sense the next morning to go a little more south to visit Badwater.
The salt flats at Badwater go for miles, dwarfing anything that ventures out onto their flat surface.
Distances are very difficult to judge on the salt flats. I had already been walking for about 10 minutes across the uneven surface of the dirt-soiled salt before taking this picture towards the fresher, whiter salt deposits ahead. I had expected to reach the white surface in less than half that time.

Now being a zillion miles from Sacramento halfway through the weekend, it was time to head back! Of course I had to stop at the Stovepipe Wells dune field. Few things go as well togther as nine year olds and miles of sand. Given the choice, he'd still be there, trying to roll down every dune face out there. He exists in a state of motion blur. For scale, look at the people on the large dune in the background. It's about 2 miles away. The world is your sandbox; go play!

It turns out tracks in the sand that look like snakes with feet are made by desert iguanas up to 16" long. They're munching away on the leaves of the bushes, ignoring the steady stream of people passing by a few feet away. This one needs to floss; he still has a leaf caught between his teeth.

Chasing Ansel Adams

Many of us enjoy standing where famous photographers stood in the past, seeing what they saw, and sometimes we even aspire to capture something evocative of their work, an artistic echo in time.

Fortunately with enough information we can determine the shooting position and even duplicate celestial events such as sun and moon position to recreate the lighting of the shot, so if we want to witness for example Ansel Adams' "Moon and Half Dome" image live, we can arrive for the same lunar and sun shadow alignment that Ansel saw in 1960. That won't happen again for almost a decade from now, but there will be a time later this year when the sun and moon position will be awfully close.

More on this later...

Chasing Moonbows in Yosemite Valley at Night

Several times per year the moon is bright enough and at the right angle to create a night rainbow, a "moonbow", in the mist created by Lower Yosemite Falls.  Many people think that this phenomenon can only be seen and photographed from the bridge below the falls.  While that is the most common place for people to gather and photograph the moonbows, you can see moonbows in waterfall mist whenever the angles are right, so it can pay off to explore other shooting positions.  Even with Lower Yosemite Falls I often find moonbows in the waterfall's mist as I hike in towards the bridge.  Give it a try once or twice as you hike in and  and as you hike out.

As a starting point for predicting the best times to catch a moonbow in Yosemite, Don Olson of Texas State University has calculated the best times to look for a moonbow from the bridge below Lower Yosemite Falls:
http://uweb.txstate.edu/~do01/

If you go to the bridge to photograph the moonbows, please don't use headlamps, as they throw light uncontrollably all over the other photographers' shots.  And red lights are the worst, the most inconsiderate for you to use... very difficult to edit out of shots later.  This isn't astronomy, you're not in a darkroom.  Please have the simple courtesy to leave the red lights at home.  For seeing your camera controls without destroying your night vision, hold your (dimmed) phone display on top of your camera, facing back at yourself.  Any light of any kind that you sine back at the front of your camera, to see if there is water on the filter for example, will probably appear in the shot of the people next to you.

You can also catch the North Star directly at the top of Yosemite Falls, with the Big Dipper above.  It you have enough patience you can shoot a star trails sequence here, but you'll probably also catch a lot of flashlights and headlamps as people hike in and out.  Note that moonbows are most typically seen under a nearly-full moon, so if you simply give your eyes a few minutes to adjust, you probably don't need a headlamp or flashlight to walk in and out on this paved path.  You'll probably see much more with night-adjusted vision and no light than you would with poorly adjusted vision and a tiny spot of light.  That can even be true under the light of the stars only if you're in an open enough area for the starlight to shine on the ground around you.


I also found a moonbow in Lower Yosemite Falls (click to enlarge) from the Illouette Falls viewpoint and Four Mile Trail trail head a couple of days earlier at midnight.  No crowds and foreground-destroying red lights here!  There's virtually no limit to where you can shoot Yosemite moonbows from, if you do a little searching.

There were also many reflection opportunities in vernal pools in Cook's Meadow.  This pool does not exist or it is too low after winters with too little snow, such as 2014.

I hope that I've provided some useful information on Yosemite's moonbows so you can pursue some interesting and unique shots.

If you'd like to join me in Yosemite sometime, you can find my Yosemite photography workshop schedule on a dedicated page accessible from the top page of this blog (I'm currently working out the dates for 2014, so you might have to check back or get on my mailing list to hear when they're released): 
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/yosemite-national-park-photography-workshops/

Return to the North Coast

Greenwood State Beach
Point Arena Lighthouse

Schooner Gulch State Beach
Russian Gulch State Park
Van Damme State Park

Kruse Rhododendron State Park

Spring in Yosemite Valley

Big Sur

McWay Falls
Pfeiffer Beach

California Coast

Point Dume State Beach
Montana De Oro State Park
Morro Rock
Ant on a cactus blossom

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve

"This State Reserve, nestled in the Antelope Buttes 15 miles west of Lancaster, California, is located on California's most consistent poppy-bearing land. Other wildflowers: owl's clover, lupine, goldfield, cream cups, and coreopsis, to name a few, share the desert grassland to produce a mosaic of color and fragrance each spring. As unpredictable as nature - the intensity and duration of the wildflower bloom varies yearly."

The poppies are approximately at peak bloom the weekend of April 19/20, but should be worth visiting for a couple more weeks at least.

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve