A Desert Paradise

It’s been some time since I last updated with an adventure.. largely because there’s several exciting things to note.

1. I have a small display of prints of bird photographs at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, so if you live in the Pasadena area, head over there to go for a walk and check out the images. I’ll be updating them every few months. The Nature Center is open 8-5 every day of the week.

2. I’m producing a 2010 Calendar, which will be available for order in 1-2 months time. I’ll of course make an announcement when it’s ready to ship – but I wanted to share the excitement with you all! It will be a collection of California based images, representing the full spectrum of seasons, with each month featuring a different image accompanied by a short story with content similar to what you find here on the blog.

3. I am participating in a big art show in Pasadena next week. There’s a reception at 7pm on Friday April 24th at 35 S. Raymond, in Old Town pasadena, there should be free nibbles and drinks. The gallery director had the creative control over image choices, so it will be a collection of 8 large prints of abstracts from various southwest canyons. If you’re in the area come out and check out the show, and make sure to introduce yourself to me!

Ok.. now on to the story of the Desert Paradise.

Last time I mentioned I was hoping the desert blooms would hold out for me.. well, they did, at least, at higher elevations they did. These past two weekends I made my way to Anza-Borrego State Park in the very southern reaches of California. The Desert Region of California is a very strange place, by the way. This area includes towns like Palm Springs, Indio, Coachella, and Borrego Springs. To be honest, I have tried to spend as little time as possible in these establishments, but you can get an idea for the culture of the place by listening to the radio… which when averaging 400 miles of driving through Southern California over the weekends, you end up doing a lot. Nowhere else have I heard commercials on the radio for breast augmentation or the local night club. Furthermore, while Anza-Borrego is a State Park, that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter a 24 hour rave in the middle of the desert – literally, not off the dirt road, no no, off trail somewhere in a side canyon. Last weekend I met up with another local LA photographer Steve Sieren and we showed up at this little canyon in the evening to the sound of a faint thumping. To me it sounded like a subwoofer. Then, in the middle of the night Steve ended up talking to some guy coming back from the party, and mentioned there was a full on rave (with generators, amps, glow sticks, etc…), confirming my suspicions. When we were done with our morning shoot around 9am they were still going strong (though we never did find them). Also, leaving or entering the park by way of a dirt road is a bad idea – you end up in a maze of oscillating sand roads swarming with dirt bikes, ATV’s, and four wheel drive golf carts (not dune buggies, they really did look like golf carts, complete with plastic sunroof/roll cage). Clearly this isn’t my culture, and I don’t mean to offend anyone who partakes in these activities, but I was just confused. On more than one occasion I had to spend much longer than I’d have liked negotiating the sandy speed bumps, which had a wavelength of my car, and an amplitude of 3-4 feet (while probably fun on a dirt bike, they are not exactly pleasant in a car).

Ok, now on to the flowers, adventures, and a little bit of geology. The flowers in the lower regions of the park were spent, but at higher elevations they were still going strong. The park puts out a nice list of places with currently blooming flowers (as do the websites mentioned last time). On my first trip with Steve, we spent sunset at the Carrizo Badlands overlook. Before he arrived I spent a few hours exploring the badlands themselves, but couldn’t find any great blooms, and the vistas weren’t hugely inspiring from there. The classically cloudless desert skies didn’t help either. But it’s amazing what lovely little flowers will burst from the sand given sufficient rain and subsequent sun. This little patch of lupines and blooming Ocotillo (the awkward looking cactus with red flowers) seemed to capture the place for me, though I won’t consider it ‘art’, more documentary. Make sure you view the large image to actually see the details.

“Arid Blooms” ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, 2-stop hard GND, tripod
Exposure: iso 400, f/16, 1/25th sec

The following morning we spent at Plum Canyon – near where the rave was thumping. Given the lack of exciting skies, I concentrated on the details of the desert.

Brittlebush ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 24-105mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 400, f/4, 1/800th

Agave ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 24-105mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1/8th
Notes: This is a single exposure, but I took several at different focus settings and am hoping to blend them using some focus stacking software like helicon, but haven’t yet gotten around to that.

During our scouting that morning before sunrise, we stumbled upon a few Beavertail Cacti which were not yet blooming, but loaded with buds. It seemed like they were within a week or so of blooming to me.. so when I saw that there was a clearing storm predicted for friday night last week I decided to head back again in hopes of catching the blooming cacti and a colorful brewing storm. As expected, the LA traffic was terrible. I hardly made it to the park entrance in time for sunset, certainly not enough time to go find those cacti again and try to photograph them (provided they were indeed blooming). Well, I pulled off the road at the canyon, jumped out of the car, and scrambled to find something to shoot! These teddy bear cholla’s caught my attention first, more on the supposedly fuzzy teddy bears (spoiler: they aren’t so fuzzy).

Teddy Bear Sunset ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, 2-stop hard GND, tripod
Exposure: iso 400, f/16, 1/8th

Once those clouds disappeared, it was time to find something looking West, towards where the sunset was happening. I meandered aimlessly through the undulating wash, and suddenly stumbled on this blooming cactus – a king of Hedgehog Cactus I believe. I spent quite some time here, and at one point the clouds broke up to create this dynamic formation.

The Desert Dance ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, 2-stop hard GND, tripod
Exposure: iso 400, f/22, 0.3 sec
Note: for an image like this, where the wind was blowing pretty significantly, using a graduated neutral density makes processing the image significantly easier than trying to blend two exposures where the components may not line up.

Once the show was over I decided it would be prudent to see if the cacti I had come for were actually blooming. This involved a mid night treasure hunt with the GPS, being careful to avoid the spiny teddy bears, the near full moon helped quite a bit, otherwise this would have been a little too adventurous. Another popular name for them is ‘jumping cactus’, which is a surprisingly accurate nickname. As careful as you might be, they will somehow jump out and stab you in the leg.. then you’ve got this spiny ball of cactus digging into your muscle. There’s no hope of pulling it out by hand, that would just get your fingers stabbed too. By grabbing the spine-ball with two rocks I was able to de-cactus myself without breaking any of the offending needles. I got pretty good at this.. Anyways, I found all four of my target cacti, and… none of them were blooming. They had hardly changed at all! I guess it must have been too cold for them the past week. Ok, well, time to go exploring I guess!

For a closer look at those evil little spiny cactus creatures, here’s one at it’s best: backlit by the setting sun.

A Spiny Fella ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, 3-stop reverse GND, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/22, 1/30th sec

After looking at the map for a while, I decided to check out the badlands, and the view from Font’s Point and another nearby spot. The view is quite spectacular, similar to the Grand Canyon in a way, which is kind of ironic from a geological point of view. If you’ve ever looked at the Grand Canyon and wondered, “now where did all that stuff go?!”. Well, the answer is, it went here, to the Anza-Borrego Badlands. While the view was quite spectacular, the clouds had largely dissipated by morning, and I didn’t find anything exceptionally inspiring. Some people like the area so much that they’ve actually gotten married here.. using 4WD limos of course. I guess you can expect anything when you’re within a few hours of LA. On my way out I stumbled across this scene – the quintessential desert wash. For me there was a strong personal connection with this one, probably all the washes my parents took me hiking through as a kid.

Racing Down the Wash ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 24-105mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/16, 1/10th

While Anza-Borrego may be known for it’s wild flowers or maybe the badlands, what it’s really famous for are the desert oases – the Palm trees in the middle of the desert!

Paradise Lost ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 70-200mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/11, 1/4th sec
Notes: this was a 3-exposure panorama, blended with PTGui.

Again, what you’re seeing there is the contents of the Grand Canyon. Miles upon miles of inhospitable piles of mud filling in the cracks between what used to be significant mountains at the edge of an ocean teaming with life. And yet, despite the harsh desert climate, there’s Palm trees! A relic of the prehistoric paradise that must have been here (figuratively speaking). In fact, there are lots of little Oases, some with over 30 Palms, which serve as a home to the many desert animals that make there homes here. The park was originally made a state park for Anza-Borrego’s most famous canyon: Borrego Palm Canyon. The first one and half miles, leading to the primary Oasis, are teaming with tourists. Folks in dress shoes, pretty dresses, and a collection of toddlers make their way up the sandy wash to see the Palm trees in the middle of the desert. With the babbling brook and countless waterfalls, it really is like a little paradise, except for the people. The solution? Keep going! Here it starts to get a bit rough with some rock hopping, stream crossing, route finding etc. That’s what keeps the tourists away. Fortunately due to some recent flash floods over the past decade the vegetation wasn’t too thick, and it was relatively easy getting through as compared to reports from 10 years ago. After every few bends in the canyon another Oasis presents itself. Though smaller than the one the tourists go to, they are more photogenic, pristine, and relaxing. At this point it seems I had made it far enough up the canyon, gaining enough elevation, to actually run into blooming cacti. In fact, an entire hillside of the canyon was covered (well, relatively speaking) with blooming Beavertail Cacti! finding one with enough good blooms (generally only a few flowers open at a time), with a decent view of the canyon and Palm trees was challenging. But as if further consolation for my other cacti, there was one!

Desert Paradise ~ Anza-Borrego State Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, polarizer
Exposure: iso 200, f/18, 1/30th sec

I can’t remember if I’ve ever taken, let alone posted, a mid-day photo like this. I’m almost certain that’s never happened (save for detail shots that I managed to get in the shade one way or another). I was incredibly lucky to have fluffy drifting clouds both overhead and in the small patch of visible sky. As the clouds moved across the sun they acted as diffusers and reflectors, and here I managed to capture a brief moment right at the transition of shade and sun, creating a low contrast but sunny glow. It’s a bit of a postcard, but it doesn’t get much more desert paradise than that!

This seems to already have turned into a rather lengthy story, but there’s just a few more images to share, for all you bird lovers. Over the course of a few evenings at Eaton Canyon in Pasadena, I came across this California Thrasher. They have an exceptionally curved bill, used for searching the leaf litter for tasty bugs. They spend most of their time hiding in the bushes or on the ground, so getting a clear view with a nice background is challenging to say the least.

California Thrasher ~ Eaton Canyon, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 500mm + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 400, f/5.6, 1/500th sec
Notes: I removed a twig (just one) that was roughly behind the birds head.

While not the most exciting of birds, the lighting and color contrasts made this one worth sharing for me.

Scrub Jay ~ Eaton Canyon, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 500mm + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 800, f/5.6, 1/800th

Rufous-sided Towhee ~ Eaton Canyon, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 500mm + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 1600, f/5.6, 1/250th

Alright, that’s it for now. For any of you local readers, I hope to see you at the reception on friday!

California Blooming

Sorry to all you folks that live in places where spring is still a few months away, but here in California it’s in full swing. Actually, it’s past full swing now, we’re steadily approaching summer! With all the glowing flower reports (for those unaware, check out this wildflower report site), I made sure to take a few days to go enjoy the blooms. This was my first year chasing the wildflowers in California, and while there’s still a few weeks left, I’m already looking forward to next year! The season is surprisingly short, and not always easy to predict when, where, and how good the blooms will be, so it’s always different and exciting. It depends on rain, micro-climates, snow levels, temperature changes, wildfires, etc… lots of variables come into place. I haven’t yet had a chance to make it out to the desert blooms, hopefully they’ll hold out for another week or two. I haven’t had a chance to update in a while, so there’s a lot of images in here (not all will end up/stay on the website, but I figured you’d like to see as many as possible) – I hope you enjoy some, if not all of them!

My first stop was in the California foothills, near Arvin, where the flowers were literally a carpet of color stretching out for miles. I found this spot after I’d passed through the fields of poppies and lupines, a few hundred feet higher – fields of blooming fiddlenecks (basically orange forget-me-nots). My goal was to capture the essence of a warm California afternoon in the blooming spring foothills, among the flowers, granite boulders, and Oak trees. A tall order you might say, but with a clear vision, research, preparation, and perseverance (well, this one was more luck when it came to the light), I think I managed to do just that.

“California Gold” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 24mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/16, 1/25th
Processing: a special recipe to bring out the ‘glow’ in the flowers and woods which doesn’t pass on through the camera.

That rock in the foreground actually had some pretty neat formations in it as well, so I made sure to get one of those as well.

“Blooming Granite” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 17mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/20, 1/8th
Processing: a special recipe to bring out the ‘glow’ in the flowers and woods which doesn’t pass on through the camera.

And lastly, as I was walking back to the car, this scene caught my attention with the perfectly arranged boulders, oak, scattered colors, and faint “path” leading through the meadow.

“California Spring” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 23mm, polarizer, 2-stop hard GND, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/16, 1/5th

After this mini adventure, I met up with my dad at the Pinnacles National Monument, in hopes of catching some of the strange rock formations with the spring blooms. While we encountered patches of flowers here and there, nothing was truly spectacular. This is one of the few places (some of the others being Big Sur and the Vermilion Cliffs area in Arizona), where California Condors have been successfully re-introduced. So, when we went for our afternoon hike, I carried my 500mm f/4 and monopod at the ready, in addition to my landscape equipment. Of course, we didn’t see any, in fact, we hardly saw any birds at all. But just as we were heading down the slope I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk perched with a perfect lookout. While he was way too far away for a classic ‘portrait’ image, it was a perfect opportunity to portray this bird in its natural habitat – something to show the essence of what it must feel like to be a raptor like that.

Red-tailed Hawk ~ Pinnacles National Monument, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 400, f/8, 1/250th

Meanwhile my dad reported to me that the flowers were going crazy out near their home in the foothills of the Sierras East of Fresno. I decided it was worth the 3 hour drive there and back (I had to be in San Jose the following day). But first I spent the morning looking for some more birds, and found this Palm Warbler singing his heart out.

Palm Warbler ~ Pinnacles National Monument, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 1600, f/5.6, 1/320th

After some breakfast I headed out to the waiting flower displays, and was not disappointed. The trouble with the California foothills (and most places these days I guess, but particularly the California foothills) is that most of the land is privately owned ranch land, so access is difficult. While I was frustrated by the ever present barb wire fences blocking my access to some of the glowing orange hills, with enough exploring I still found a few scenes that struck my fancy. California poppies are frustrating to photograph, as they look their best at midday when they open their petals to the sun. Of course, light isn’t exactly ideal then – hence the frustration. In any case, I wanted to capture the incredible spread of color, so pulled off the side of the road and shot this scene at 1000mm – my 500mm lens with two 1.4x teleconverters attached. Upon returning home I discovered, to my dismay, that the image quality was absolutely atrocious, even for the shots where I only used one teleconverter! After some thinking, I realized, it wasn’t the glass, it was in fact the heatwaves that I was shooting through that created this blurry highly diffracted painting like quality. Well, I rolled with it to see where it would take me… it doesn’t work very well as a small web image, but the details and glow surrounding the poppies is really quite something at the full size and it could make for an interesting canvas print or something, we’ll see.

“Poppy Painting” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 + two 1.4x tc’s, tripod
Exposure: iso 50, f/11, 1/40th (no, I don’t know why I used iso 50)
Note: see below for a close up.
Processing: I used a combination of sharpening and the same process to add some glow as I used more subtly in some of the other images. Here it might be a little strong for many people’s tastes, it really doesn’t work as well unless you see the whole thing, but I wanted to give a picture of the scale of the color out there!

Here’s a close up of the above image (100% crop if you click on the image). The strange distortions you see are the result of the heatwaves. I thought the Monet like impressions it left were rather intriguing.

Of course, as soon as the sun hides behind the hills the poppies go to sleep.

“Glowing Poppies” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 70-200mm @ 168mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/4, 1/200th
Processing: a special recipe to bring out the ‘glow’ in the flowers and woods which doesn’t pass on through the camera.

But the other flowers, I’m not sure on an ID for these unfortunately, continue to show themselves off in all their brilliance. Here’s another two that I think really show off the landscape: the fairy like flower speckled Oak woods.

“Fairy Woods” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 24-105mm @ 55mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/18, 0.3 sec
Processing: a special recipe to bring out the ‘glow’ in the flowers and woods which doesn’t pass on through the camera.

“Where Fairies Live” ~ San Joaquin foothills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 70-200mm @ 104mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/14, 0.4 sec
Processing: a special recipe to bring out the ‘glow’ in the flowers and woods which doesn’t pass on through the camera.

As the evening approached, I made my way back to a spot by the King’s river I had scouted out earlier. The hazy heat clouds had dissipated, the moon was new, and everything was set to create a lovely twilight star scene over this patio of round pebbles and lupines. I set up my camera and started the lengthy processing of capturing the essence of the ‘night’.

“Cosmic Patio” ~ Lupines in the King’s river canyon, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 23mm, tripod
Exposure 1: iso 400, f/16, 1.5 min (foreground/hills)
Exposure 2: iso 1600, f/16, 30 sec (sky, 30 min later)
Exposure 3: iso 3200, f/2.8, 15 sec (stars, another 30 min later)
Processing: Rather complicated… if you’re interested in the details stay tuned for an article coming out on NPN in May. I’ll try to post a link when the time comes around.

And since I know many folks have been missing the birds, here’s one more, nothing special… unless you’ve tried photographing bushtits before, and then you might say the fact that it actually stopped moving long enough for me to get a picture is pretty special!

Bushtit ~ Eaton Canyon, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 800, f/5.6, 1/250th

Well, that’s all for now.. thanks again for stopping and by, I hope you enjoyed the images. And thanks for the kind comments on my last posting – love hearing from you all!

Alone, and in Love

First – some exciting news! I’ve rearranged my print/pricing scheme in a way that should benefit everyone. So if you’ve been waiting to get a print to hang on your empty wall, check out the new and improved pricing scheme Now, on to the adventure:

Watching the sun rise from nearly two vertical miles above the desolate Death Valley on the only snow capped peak for hundreds of miles simply can’t be explained with a photograph. It’s an otherworldly feeling, looking down from Telescope Peak’s 11,043 feet all the way to Earth’s lowest point on land in North America: Badwater at -282 feet. Normally when you’re that high on a snowy mountain you can see other snowy ridges stretching out for miles. From Telescope Peak, however, you’re looking at the largest and most barren landscape in the US: salt flats, dunes, rocky canyons and ridges.

Now, how did I find myself there? Me and pro-landscape photographer Marc Adamus (Marc – you’re getting too much traffic, gotta upgrade that bandwidth limit!) started at the Charcoal Kilns in Death Valley and hiked/snowshoed our way up Telescope peak, gaining about 4,000 feet of elevation over the course of our 10 mile or so trek. We arrived about an hour before sunset and set up camp on the ridge below the summit. Camp consisted of Marc’s one man tent, and a trench I dug out to keep the wind away from my bivy sack. We were both a bit out of shape. Marc had just finished his longest stretch (5 weeks) of being cooped up at home in the past 15 years or something, awaiting the arrival of his new son Galen. Me, well, grad school tends to prevent too many of such excursions. In any case, we made it to the top in time.

Camp. Two miles above death valley (that’s the brown stuff down there), that’s Marc, his fortified one man tent, my trench, bivy, and shadow.

There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, as you can see, which generally isn’t ideal for photography, so we each just took the time to explore the area around our camp a bit. The clear skies weren’t so much of an issue – the point of this adventure wasn’t necessarily photography, rather, it was to go for a great hike and take in the beautiful view. As the sun sank and shed it’s miraculous soft warm light on everything around, these trees suddenly caught my attention. Ignoring the chilling pain in my fingers I set up and captured these lonely lovers in the fading light.

“Alone, and in Love” ~ Limber pines on Telescope peak, Death Valley NP.
The Tech: Canon 5D2, 24-105 @ 55mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/14, 0.3 sec

Meanwhile Marc started on dinner. I love good food, but usually when I’m out backpacking I make do with something easy like ramen and couscous. Marc (having been to cullinary school), however, lives for the challenge of preparing something delicious in the face of extreme conditions – particularly wintery ones. So we enjoyed a pot of spicy shrimp gumbo with fresh broccoli and portobello mushrooms. He’s been known to carry in fresh oysters, king crab legs, and even an 8lb waffle iron! Of course the advantage of the winter months is that you can carry in fresh ingredients without fear of them going bad. That night I got to try out my new feathered friends -10 degree Wigeon sleeping bag, boy was it cozy! The following morning didn’t have any clouds in store for us, but after watching the sun rise, we finished the hike up to the summit of Telescope Peak. What a view from up there! I’m sure I’ll be back to photograph some of the bristlecones that can be found up here. On the way out I stumbled upon this small macro scene, but with the sunny conditions it wasn’t going to work. With the help of our two backpacks, one of my snowshoes, and Marc’s hands to hold it all in place I got enough shade to make the scene ’shootable’.

“Octopus” ~ Sage, Death Valley NP.
The Tech: Canon 5D2, 24-105 @ 32mm, handheld, 2 backpacks, 1 snowshoe, and Marc’s help (to provide shade)
Exposure: iso 400, f/10, 1/125th sec

While that was our Saturday and Sunday, the trip started out on Friday in Bishop around the Buttermilks. Marc showed me his favorite campsite and several areas with great potential. The sunset on friday was quite lovely, but sunset in the Eastern Sierras generally doesn’t provide too many opportunities with the big mountains being to the West of all the foregrounds, and the morning was of course completely clear. In any case, in the twilight light I wandered into this chaotic and jumbled aspen grove. This is perhaps one of the most underrated times of day for photography – excellent soft and cool lighting. Groves like this are notoriously difficult to shoot due to the chaotic distribution of trees and branches. And yet, my search was rewarded with this ghostly forest scene. Unfortunately on the web here you can’t appreciate all the lovely details and spiny plants there in the fore and mid-ground, but they’re there!

“Ghosts” ~ Winter aspen grove, Eastern Sierras, CA.
The Tech: Canon 5D2, 16-35mm mkII @ 28mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure: iso 400, f/16, 30 sec

After our trip up into Telescope Peak we camped near the Alabama Hills, though sunset didn’t hold much in store for us. The following morning we revisited a spot we had stopped by previously on the way to Death Valley. The winter foliage of Owen’s Valley is very special to me – the colors are simply incredible, subtle but so beautiful. I had mentioned this to Marc before, and he took me to some of his favorite spots in the valley for the foliage. There’s so many possibilities here, I could spend days shooting this one little oasis! Unfortunately this morning the winds were blowing the grasses a bit – not enough to try some wind blown abstracts, but enough that I had to jump to iso 800 to freeze the long stems. Of course, with the 5DmkII that didn’t prove to be an issue, and there isn’t a spec of noise in the file. Again, there’s so many details lost in this representation, really a shame.

“Desert Colors” ~ Owen’s River foliage, CA.
The Tech: Canon 5D2, 70-200 @ 100mm, 2-stop hard GND, tripod
Exposure: iso 800, f/22, 1/20th sec

No trip comes without it’s adventure, and before we actually managed to shoot this scene we each had one. First, Marc proved to me that he could take his Subaru places that my Explorer didn’t really want to go. (or rather, he knew how to drive his Subaru places that I didn’t know how to drive my Exporer). Anyways, an hour of moving rocks and shoveling sand and everything ended well. The following morning we woke up an hour early (4:30am) because of the time change, but we ended up needing that time to jump start Marc’s car, which had mysteriously died overnight. It took almost half an hour to clean the contacts on his battery before we managed to get enough juice through. Might be those ocean waves that apparently hit his car a while back…

While every landscape photographer’s dream is to experience an incredible show of light every time they’re out, I learned on this trip that you can have an equally successful and enjoyable time under blue sunny skies. I started doing the whole photography thing because I loved being outside, but as I got more and more into it, the urge to ‘get the shot’ became stronger and stronger. Of course, the internet forum phenomenon doesn’t help this at all. The forums seem to to thrive on iconic scenes with wild light, with photographers each trying to outdo one another. This then breeds more photographers who do the same, and so on. Where is the creativity? Where is the adventure and exploration?! We need to break out of this rut, and each explore his or her own path! Well, you can expect me to continue exploring the world in new and fresh ways of seeing. Much like most of the folks on my ‘inspiration’ list on the right, I see my role as a nature photographer as one of discovery, creativity, and sharing – certainly not copying! This is also largely the reason I decided to change my print sales methodology, which should now make my work as openly available as possible.

Well, that brings us to the end of this adventure. I’ve got lots of Caltech related things to do over the next two weeks, but hopefully there will be a day or two that I can spend looking for birds and wildflowers. Till, next time!

“Beauty”

First, I have a quick request to make.. it’ll take about a minute of your time. I entered into some contest, where if I win I could get $50,000 to photograph a crazy idea I’ve had for a while. What do you need to do? Go here: crazy idea, read about my idea and if you choose to support it (I need to be in the top 20 to be considered) vote for me by hitting the yellow ‘pic it’ button. That’s it! Thanks!! And of course, if you want to be really helpful, send your friends over there too. I’m counting on your help for this, and should I win, you’ll get to hear all the stories first hand right here!

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Since I don’t like spam, and I suppose you don’t either, here’s what you usually come here for: a combination of pretty photographs, adventures, and a few insights into photography. So, this past weekend I finally made it out to the glorious California coast. I must confess, I don’t like photographing the coast as much as many people seem to. The trouble is, you can’t just set up you composition, ponder it for an hour as the light changes, and finally, when everything’s right, trip the shutter. The tides change, waves are always moving, people get in the way, your gear gets wet, etc. Of course, that’s what makes it exciting too.. so I wouldn’t say I don’t have fun, it’s just not nearly as relaxing as a sunset in the mountains. Also, photos from the coast often end up being too stereotypical, they all end up looking the same in one way or another – after all, a large part of the picture is the ocean, and the other part is the sky. That of course means the success of the image will largely depend on the atmospheric conditions you find.

I’d heard about this somewhat secluded beach called El Matador some time ago (as secluded as a beach about 30 min from LA can be), and without looking at the tide charts or anything, my girlfriend Ali and I decided to just go out there and check it out. I did of course make sure it was going to be partly cloudy and during a change of weather systems: a recipe for potentially good light. But overall, contrary to my normal style where I’ve already got the image planned out, I just went and rolled with the waves.

“Ocean’s Sentinel” ~ El Matador Beach, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DII, 16-35mm mkII @ 16mm, tripod, polarizer, 3-stop ND, 2-stop hard GND
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 13 sec
Note: When you combine lots of neutral density, the pinks and purples, particularly in the sky, really get enhanced. But often this results in the reds, like that on the sea stacks, to be too intense. I actually took a shot with and without all the neutral density and blended some natural color back into the sea stack to keep it just a little more natural looking.

It turned out the tide was low, which is usually a good thing when it comes to coastal photography. As the sun started to set, the tide slowly began to rise again, giving me exactly the kind of waves I wanted. The sun peaked out under some hazy clouds and produced a beautiful glow on the rocks scattered about the beach. Soon those hazy clouds started to catch the sunlight, and the magic started to happen. I’d already picked out a spot for this part of the evening’s show, so fortunately I could concentrate on that rather than run around trying to find something to go with the beautiful evolving colors!

“Salty Watercolors” ~ El Matador Beach, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DII, 16-35mm mkII @17mm, 2-stop hard GND, polarizer, tripod
Exposure 1: iso 200, f/16, 2.5 sec
Exposure 2: iso 200, f/16, 8 sec
Processing: I used the second exposure to bring some detail back into the dark sea stacks, while keeping them dark enough for the scene to stay realistic.

Given the success of this trip, I worked hard over the weekend to give myself enough time to get out once more. To give you some insight into where my interest in complex compositions and sensual abstract curves comes from.. here’s an example of what I do when I’m not out photographing (that would be being a grad student at Caltech). Here’s a movie of the ‘flow map’ of a time dependent pendulum. It’s rather complicated to explain, so to most of you it might just be a jumble of pretty swirling colors, which is fine, that’s kind of what it is. But among those colors are some really neat structures called Lagrangian Coherent Structures, which are important features in the ‘flow’. Essentially things that start inside the red shape stay inside, and things that start outside, stay outside as time evolves. If I’ve peaked your interest, and you’re brave enough to try to understand what I just said, you can take a look at this: LCS. Anyways, I successfully made the below movie, which meant I could get out to the beach once again.

Lagrangian Coherent Structures in a time dependent pendulum, pretty colors for most of you. I tried to embed a video, but it wouldn’t let me make it automatically repeat, and without that it doesn’t really work, but you can still see it here.

Rather than head to the same beach, I went to Corona del Mar this time, which is a little less secluded. In fact, there were tons of people, too many people really (especially for the 1st of March!). Anyways, after exploring the area I stumbled across some amazing rocks left out by the low tide. The light hazy cloud cover provided some lovely soft glow. Now, it might become clear why I like things like this given the movie you just saw above.

“Tidal Forms” ~ Rocks at Corona del Mar, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DII, 16-35mm mkII @ 35mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1.6 sec

As the sun continued down the horizon, I found this neat little cove. It’s hard to find interesting mid-grounds along the coast here, compared to the giant tree studded sea stacks you can find along the Oregon and Washington coastlines. But, if you look hard enough, there’s some neat castle like formations. While the sunset wasn’t nearly as brilliant as the last one, I find the subtlety in the colors lets you appreciate and explore the interesting foreground more easily.

“Sea Castle” ~ Corona del Mar, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DII, 16-35mm mkII @ 20mm, polarizer, tripod
Exposure 1: iso 400, f/18, 20 sec
Exposure 2: iso 400, f/18, 3.2 sec
Processing: carefully blended the two exposures.

This last point, that about subtlety vs. amazing sunset colors brings up an interesting topic actually. One that I think deserves some thought. It seems that these days with the internet playing such a large role in image dissemination, certain types of images get more attention than others. The fast paced and small format of computer based viewing naturally favors simple compositions with vivid and brilliant colors – those are the images that grab you immediately and work at a small size. But what about 10 minutes later, or a few days later? Would you still be enthralled by something that relies solely on the magic of color? I would argue that you wouldn’t. It’s like candy – eye candy. You feed your eyes some sugar, they get all excited, but eventually they lose interest and move on to the next one. The images that will have a longer lasting impact, in my opinion, are those with more subtle features, complicated and thoughtful compositions (yet still approachable), images that make you think about something or take you to some other place or memory, or ones that evoke a strong emotion other than ‘wow!’. So this is a reminder to me, and to everyone else, to take the time to give these kinds of images the appreciation they deserve, albeit hard to do when we’re presented with such a tiny web format image. And above all, look for these scenes. They are much more difficult to photograph, yet the result, if successful, can be much more rewarding than a beautiful sunset over an iconic location. This doesn’t mean the two can’t be combined, but generally the colors will overpower the delicate details, which are then lost upon the viewer.

“Angry Sands” ~ Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DII, 16-35mm mkII @ 23mm, polarizer (for protection), tripod, lots of sand
Exposure: iso 800, f/16, 1/30th
Notes: This is from my trip to death valley last time, you may recognize it.. I decided it was worth working the image to get the full experience out of it.
Processing: I needed a lot of curves adjustments to pull this much texture out of the gray sky, but I find it gives the mood of what it was really like standing there getting pelted by sand. To increase the separation between sand and sky I also painted in some of the appropriate sand color into the blowing sand (the texture was there, the color had been washed out).

Here is an example of such an image, one I took back in December in Owen’s Valley during a snow storm. I did everything ‘wrong’ in taking this image from a technical standpoint, but it’s quickly growing on me, and I think I might soon hang it on my own wall. It doesn’t have the brilliant colors of a once in a lifetime sunset or sunrise, but there’s a deeper kind of beauty here, one that will have me continually exploring the image. Just something to think about as you view or take pictures.

“Cotton Dreams” ~ Cottonwoods in Owen’s Valley, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 24-105mm IS @ 105mm, handheld
Exposure: iso 3200, f/11, 1/60th
Notes: At the time I didn’t think this would really work out, otherwise I would have shot it on the tripod. I would have used the same exposure settings, however. I needed to freeze the snow to get the effect I was after, so light was a limiting factor. Given that the image is very flat and I exposed it all the way ‘to the right’, there is hardly any noise – I should be able to print this guy very big! Please click on the image to see a much bigger version to appreciate the details!

I know several of you will be unhappy that there are no birds here.. please blame that on the beautiful Cooper’s Hawk I ran into the other day, he just didn’t feel like sitting still. Or that little hummingbird… sometimes they just don’t cooperate, sorry!! Glad everyone seems to be enjoying these stories. If you ever have any questions or requests let me know! And if you got too excited to see the pictures and put off clicking the link to my crazy idea above, don’t forget to do that, thanks!!

Sensational Sandstorms

I just returned from a brief weekend trip to Death Valley, in hopes of catching some exciting storm light over the sandy dunes. Noah predicted a clearing storm friday evening over death valley, but you never know where the actual front of the storm is going to be, or the character of the clouds. My friend Julia and I arrived at one of Death Valley’s many remote dunes on Friday afternoon in a gray drizzle. There was some structure in the clouds, so it looked like I might be able to get something interesting. Unfortunately the sky to the Southwest (where the sun would set) looked completely overcast and gray. We hiked out to the dunes, and soon the wind and rain picked up. Standing on the crest of the dunes we were pelted by stinging sand and rain. I tried to find a composition that captured the experience, but it wasn’t working out – it’s hard to compose when you can hardly keep your eyes open because of the sand! That and the clouds turned into a flat gray ceiling. In any case, here’s what it look like..

Sand and rain storm in the dunes, doesn’t look like much of a chance for a sunset does it?

We wandered around the dunes for about an hour and a half, looking for a nice composition in case Zeus wanted to clear out a patch of the clouds and shine some light on my over sized sandbox. Well, about 15 minutes before the sun went down, a hole suddenly opened in the West, and golden light streamed through! It was one of the most incredible transformations in conditions I’ve ever seen.

“Don’t Stare at the Sun!” ~ Dunes in Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 24mm, tripod, polarizer (for lens protection from the sand mostly)
Exposure: iso 100, f/22, 1.3 sec
Processing: I had to clone out some flare from the sun, fortunately it wasn’t so bad as to ruin the image!

With raging storm clouds over head, and a clear view to the sun, it was clear the sunset would do something special.. and it did. The colors were everywhere. I frantically searched for what I thought would be the best composition, and ended up with these two.

“Dune Storm” ~ Dunes in Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 24mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure 1: iso 200, f/16, 2.5 sec
Exposure 2: iso 200, f/16, 0.6 sec
Processing: Manually blended exposures for the sky and sand dunes

“Sandy Treasures” ~ Dunes in Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 24mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure 1: iso 200, f/16, 5 sec
Exposure 2: iso 200, f/16, 1 sec
Processing: Manually blended exposures for the sky and sand dunes
Notes: In the heat of the moment I forgot to turn the polarizer 90 degrees from the last shot, though it wouldn’t have changed much.

After the colors faded we started the trek back to the car, and came across another lovely scene. The clouds still retained some glow, even though this was about 15 min or so after the peak color.

“Sandy Dreams” ~ Dunes in Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 24mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure: iso 800, f/16, 20 sec
Notes: I didn’t want too much movement in the clouds (or foreground sand, which was still blowing around). Thus I opted for iso 800 to get just a hint of movement.

As we made our way back to the car, we noticed a light in the direction we were walking. Could another car be out here? That seemed unlikely.. then we realized it was our car, we had left the lights on! Fortunately one of my headlights is dead (apparently, didn’t know that till now), so the car started no problem. If both had been working who knows how long we might have been there! We made our way to a spot to camp for the night. We had another two days to spend, but after a sunset like the one we just had, it’s hard to be inspired by anything less until the magic wears off. Add to that that most of Death Valley is so iconofied by photographers, that it’s difficult to find something new, unique, and that’s also interesting of course. We woke up at 4:30am to try our luck at the famous Mesquite Flat Dunes, but the sky wasn’t exciting and I wasn’t being inspired. We spent the rest of the day roaming some of the many slot canyons in the park. It’s impossible to beat the colors and curves of the sandstone slots in Utah, but the conglomerate and marble formations in the rough canyons in Death Valley have an appeal of their own.

“Nature’s Mosaic” ~ Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 24mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure: iso 100, f/18, 0.8 sec

We spent the following sunset wandering the main dunes, but the clouds weren’t cooperative this time, so it was time to turn to the abstract side of things.

“Punctured Brains” ~ Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 30mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1/25th sec

It’s too bad the clouds didn’t cooperate, since I’d found an interesting and new take on these dunes.. oh well, another day. The following morning (5:20am wake up call) we went out to a spot near Badwater I had scouted out the day before. You’ve probably all seen the classic take on badwater, it’s pretty neat as you can see from the lowest point on land (282 feet below sea level) all the way up to Telescope Peak (11,043 feet), and these strange polygonal salt formations stretch on for miles. I had already spent my creativity from there with this image you may remember. But there’s a lot of potential there for other takes, especially after it has recently rained. And what do you know, the weekend before we went there was a huge rainstorm in the valley that dumped almost 2 inches over the arid desert. Now, a week later, strange salty slugs and rifts began to emerge from the moist salty plains. Not sexy or beautiful in the classical sense (unless you’re a slug), but I thought it was a rather interesting and strange scene worthy of a photo.

“Salt Slugs” ~ Salt Flats, Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm mkII @ 16mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure 1: iso 200, f/22, 1.3 sec
Exposure 2: iso 200, f/22, 0.3 sec
Processing: blended the two exposures and selectively warmed and saturated the clouds to how they impacted my in the field.
Notes: To get this unique perspective I had to get real low – so low that I had to reverse the center column on my spiffy new Gitzo 2542L tripod.. which got a good breaking in at the dunes! Thank goodness for Live view, otherwise this would’ve been a nightmare to compose with my head between the camera and the tripod legs, and my nose in the muddy salt.

With problem sets awaiting us, we decided to head home on Sunday, but made a few adventures to lesser visited spots along the way. One of which took us through a small paradise of a canyon, through the cottonwoods and willows, along a babbling creek, over some boulders and scree slopes, and finally, after much scrambling, to an absolutely incredible location. No photo can do this spot justice, it’s one of those places that you need to experience to understand and appreciate. I spent probably 2 hours trying to find a composition that did justice to this little paradise, and this is what I eventually settled on. Meanwhile Julia took a nap. I don’t blame her, I probably could have too.

“Desert Water” ~ Death Valley National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 24-105mm @ 67mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 0.4 sec
Notes: Usually water scenes call for a polarizer, but there wasn’t much water here other than the falls, so no need to break that one out. Also, I just happened to luck out with the light – the cloudy skies provided wonderful even lighting, and the shutter speed my iso and aperture choices gave an ideal shutter speed (to retain some texture, but have a nice sensual flow as well), so no need for the ND filters.
Processing: A fair amount of curves adjustments to get the exposure evened out throughout the scene.

And that brings this journey to a close, unfortunately. I’m probably going to have to take the next two weekends off, maybe I’ll find some time to go birding, but I’ve got to get some studying time in. In three weeks time I’ll be meeting Marc Adamus in the Eastern Sierras for some shooting. Marc is an incredibly talented and creative landscape photographer, and he actually does this for a living. Needless to say I’m really looking forward to hanging out with him in one of the best places around, hopefully I can learn a few things about the business world of fine art landscape photography as well. Speaking of Marc, you may notice I’ve added a list of some of the photographers that continue to inspire me. There’s a lot of good work out there, but these photographers are out there pushing the limits in style, composition, vision, and processing. Of course Galen is no longer with us, but his influence lives on.

By the way – for any of you on flickr – I’ve recently started posting my images there under florisvb.
I also have restarted posting on photo.net under floris.
Feel free to add me as a contact to keep up to date on my work, and whether you feel qualified or not, let me know which images strike your fancy! (hey, you’re reading this, so you probably like my pictures.. that makes you qualified)

Now I’m going to go dig out some more sand from my ears and scalp (you know, I bet some of those hollywood folks actually pay for facial treatments like the one I got for free from that storm), followed by learning about Lie algebras and groups, take care!

Spring Showers

For many of you it’s probably still winter, but here in Southern California, where there isn’t really a winter, it’s already the beginning of spring. In fact, the seasons here don’t make any sense at all. Last November there were flowering trees on Caltech’s campus, and now the desert blooms are slowly starting to awaken. In mid January it was 85 degrees.. but of course this morning it hailed, so who knows what the season is. Up until this past weekend it had been an unusually dry start to the year, but that all changed on friday. A big storm rolled in and proceeded to dump rain everywhere, and of course snow at the higher elevations. Death Valley got about 2 inches of rain over the weekend, shutting down many roads in the process. While you’d think that would suggest a good wildflower season, rangers are saying the rain might actually have washed away all the seeds! Now if we can find out where they all went… I can’t wait to see what happens a few weeks from now!

I had been watching the weather reports, and given this news, along with the chance of it clearing over last Saturday night, I made a dash for Joshua Tree National Park to try to catch some interesting light. I arrived on Saturday in the pouring rain, but it’s a desert, so storms like this often come in short bursts. An hour before sunset the clouds started to break, and the resulting light was nothing short of beautiful. Last time I was here there was not a single cloud in sight, and I discovered an area ripe with compositional potential. Unfortunately most of these scenes were sunrise locations.

Don’t forget to click on the image to see the big version… these little ones just don’t even come close.

“Desert Zen Garden” ~ Joshua Tree NP, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII @19mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1/4th sec
Processing: lots of curves layers and burning/dodging to get the exposure evened out.

The previous rains had really brought out the colors in the plant life around, and I had noticed a bunch of plants with bright red stems (biologists/plant lovers… any ID’s?). Well, as I wandered back to the car after the cloud show was over (I’m still undecided on those images), I stumbled across this scene. The Joshua Tree, red stemmed plants, rocks, and moon all came together.

“Desert Moonlight” ~ Joshua Tree NP, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII @18mm, tripod
Exposure 1: iso 400, f/14, 3 min
Exposure 2: iso 400, f/14, 30 sec
Processing: I blended the two exposures to get even lighting for the sky and foreground.

At this point it was time to turn in for the night (yes, around 7pm.. time to sleep!). After filling my stomach with a can of chili, I curled up in my sleeping bag in the back of the car and tried to ignore the full moon. I awoke at 5:30 (I keep my watch on summer time, so it felt like 6:30am), gave the door a good few whacks to loosen the ice that had frozen it shut over night, and head out to await the morning glow. Most of the clouds had dissipated, and I was afraid I wouldn’t get the image I had come for. As I ran around to find another scene that could use the available clouds, suddenly a wispy puff willed itself into existence, as if it could read my mind! I raced back to the spot, carefully set up my composition, and caught the moment just in time! While I originally had hoped for more clouds, the more I look at this one, the more I like the minimal sky – it brings out the foreground textures and light more, which is what this scene is really about. Sensual granite foreground rocks like this are hard to find in the park, so I’m going to milk this spot for all it’s got.

“The Granite Sensation II” ~ Joshua Tree NP, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII @20mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1.6 sec
Processing: I actually took two exposures, one for the color in the clouds, then another just a minute or two later for the light gracing the top of the rocks. By that point the cloud had dissipated already, so blending the two I was able to capture my vision.
Note: While I have no ethical problem blending two images taken from the exact same scene within a very short period of time, I would never mix skies and landscapes from different places or significantly different times.

Mostly satisfied with how my quick adventure turned out, I started to head home to get back to learning various things pertaining to control and dynamics and such. But… on my way out the clouds just looked too good. So I hoped out and went out to find an interesting scene. The trouble with much of Joshua Tree is that I prefer compositions with interesting and curvy foregrounds, and those can be hard to find. Much of the park is a collection of these amazing looking trees, but little opportunity to make the image ‘mine’. Well.. I stumbled on this egg, a nest of eggs rather. And together with the clouds and stream of light the scene came together.

“The Egg” ~ Joshua Tree NP, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII @16mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1/40th sec
Processing: Again I actually took two exposures, one for the cloud forms and another for the light on the rocks, which only lasted about a second or so!
Note: see previous image.

If these storms keep coming as they’re predicted to do, I’m bound to make another trip to some desert this weekend.. maybe the dunes, I miss playing with sand. While the rangers said the wildflower seeds may have all washed away, I’m keeping my hopes up for a spectacular display this year! Of course, nothing is going to compare to the lush and diverse explosion of spring that I had in Ithaca last year. I recently went digging through some old folders, and much to my surprise found this file, which had been neglected in favor of other less qualified ones. In any case, it was discovered, and now it’s here for your viewing pleasure. And this little web file doesn’t compare to the detail that’s there – you can see little rain drops on those azalea flowers! It’s not often that nature arranges such a complex scene with such perfection (of course, aided by several hours of trying various compositions). While this might look like paradise, it was hell to get, a zenlike hell though. I spent hours wading through knee deep swamp water, being bitten by flocks of mosquitoes (yes flocks), and somehow managed to keep the camera dry from the drizzle. I returned 5 times before I found the right composition and light, but I consider this one of my very best compositions to date, so the effort was definitely worth it! Photographing a marsh like this is incredibly challenging, but also most rewarding.

“The Spring Explosion” ~ Sapsucker Woods, Ithaca NY
The Tech: Canon 5D, 17-40mm @ 19mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure: iso 200, f/16, 1/4th sec
Processing: In addition to the usual burn/dodge and local contrast adjustments I do, I applied a slight diffuse glow to bring out the magic and humid nature of the place – not Orton, but something of my own devising, a trade secret if you will

And just for fun, here’s a bird for you bird lovers… probably the most handsome Rufous Hummingbird I’ve ever encountered, a feisty one too.

Rufous Hummingbird ~ Pasadena, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 3200, f/5.6, 1/125th
Processing: cropped to 12 MPix, and with iso 3200.. look at that detail! I did do a bit of noise reduction on the background, but boy are these files gorgeous!

And don’t forget all of these images are available as limited edition fine art prints… and the detail and colors you see in those make these pale in comparison. Proceeds go towards funding more adventures, and hence more material for you to enjoy, and perhaps eventually a book, can you think of a better cause?!

Also, for those of you who use flickr, I’ve started posting my images there, so feel free to look me up.. of course that will ruin the suspense of these posts, but you’ll have to come here for the stories! This is me: florisvb.

Okay.. time to study again so I can run off next weekend.. can’t wait to play in the desert sandbox!

Sandy Sinews

While the slot canyons in Southern Utah are a bit too far of a drive from my home in Pasadena for a day trip, fortunately California’s Southern deserts have their own version of these incredible places. Last friday Ali, my girlfriend, and I drove out to the Mecca Hills Wilderness, across the valley from Palm Springs. This place is an incredible wasteland of sand and stone that has been carved into eerie and sensational shapes over thousands of years by the occasional rainstorm. I wasn’t feeling great on the way down, and woke up with a slight fever, but what was I to do, drive home without even going for a short hike?! Fortunately the ibuprofen helped make me feel a bit better, and Ali and I went out to do the short ladder canyon/black canyon loop off the end of painted canyon road. I would have thought such a place would be relatively devoid of other people, but to our astonishment there were over 20 cars parked in the lot when we left around noon! Ladder canyon gets its name from the many ladders that have been put into place to facilitate hiking; without them you would need a good deal of technical equipment to make it through.

Me on the larger of the ladders in the canyon, photo by Ali.

Shortly after the main dryfall the narrows started in earnest. The canyon was about 3-4 feet wide and about 50-100 feet deep, so a respectable slot even by Utah standards! The walls were rough and sandy with interesting twists, carvings, and stones cemented in – very different from the smooth sandstone canyons I was used to from Utah. As the sun started to strike the walls near the entrance and exit of the slot, reflected light created incredible and bizarre hues and color transitions, moving from warm tones to cool blues in the shadows deeper in the canyon. I added very little saturation to these images, and while it may be hard to believe, those bizarre colors are natural!

“Conglomerate Passageway” ~ Mecca Hills Wilderness, CA.
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/16, 1 sec

“Sandy Sinews” ~ Mecca Hills Wilderness, CA.
The Tech: Canon 5D mkII, 16-35mm mkII, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, f/18, 4 sec

I certainly plan to return to this place, hopefully before it gets too hot! There are bound to be more strange canyons and weird shapes that are waiting to be discovered (without the company of 20 car loads of people). That’s it for now.. back to making myself feel better and learning differential geometry..

Local Adventures

I’m making an effort to do some more traveling over the weekends this quarter, after all, there are lots of exciting places nearby that I can explore. This is a bit of a random collection of recent adventures, but I’m afraid that if I split it up I’ll get too far behind, so after this you should be all caught up with my adventures!

The Monarchs

Every winter thousands upon thousands of Monarch butterflies come to the coast of Southern California and Northern Mexico to roost over the winter. They particularly seem to like the eucalyptus trees along the California Coast, and one of the best places to see them is next to Pismo Beach (about an hour north of Santa Barbara). About two weeks ago I made the trip up there with two friends to check out the butterflies, and test out my new camera (the Canon 5D mkII). Yes, I got myself a new camera, and so far, it has been completely worth it! We got the butterfly area about an hour before sunset. There was a big group of butterflies hanging out relatively low to the ground (about 15 feet up), which made it possible to get some good views of them.

“The Monarchs” ~ Pismo Beach, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 L IS, 1.4x tc, tripod/sidekick
Exposure: iso 3200, f/5.6, 1/60th second
Processing: I used some ‘Orton’ processing on this one to bring out the feeling of movement and glow of these butterflies.
Notes: I needed to go up to a very high iso to at least freeze some of the motion of the butterflies, but with the new camera, that proved to be at very little cost to the image quality – truly outstanding high iso capabilities!

According to the Pismo Beach butterfly caretakers, there were about 26,000 of them there at the time! If you’re looking to get out to see them yourself, you don’t have long for this year, but check out the places mentioned in this guide.

Land of Boulders

Last weekend I made the trip to Joshua Tree National Park, just about a 2.5 hour drive from home (if there’s no traffic…). The forecast was for sunny blue skies, but I had two shots in mind that could use that normally boring light. My main interest in Joshua Tree isn’t necessarily the Joshua Trees – which are pretty strange indeed – but rather the awesome boulder formations. There’s weird smooth and cracked rocks everywhere, but some of the more interesting ones are by the Jumbo Rocks area. The granite here has been eroded into some really neat round shapes, occasionally leaving near perfect marbles in place.

“The Marbles” ~ Joshua Tree National Park, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 24-105mm f/4 L IS, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1/10th
Notes: One of the 5DmkII’s best new features is live view, which basically means you can use the LCD to compose your shot. While that may sound rather silly, it’s an SLR after all, it is incredibly useful! The reason being that you can turn on live view with exposure simulation (so it shows you what the image should look like after you take it), and then you can use depth of field preview to see what the focus will actually be at say f/16. This makes it much easier to optimize aperture and focus settings in the field, rather than relying on hyperfocal distance charts and guess and check.

While the Joshua Trees are strange, the California Junipers can form some pretty strange shapes too. I’m sure I’ll be back at some point to catch the Joshua Trees, though I’ve got to come up with a unique way of portraying them first – there’s too many pictures of them already! Anyways, with the clear blue skies, and the quarter moon (rising after midnight), I was able to give the new camera (and new lens!) a good workout.

“Cosmic Balance” ~ Joshua Tree National Park, CA
Click on the image to see the bigger version, this small size does terrible things to the image!
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm f/2.8 L mkII, tripod
Exposure 1: iso 100, f/11, 5 sec
Exposure 2: iso 3200, f/2.8, 13 sec
Processing: I layered the two exposures in lighten blend mode to bring out the stars, and used some additional layer adjustments to even out the lighting the way I wanted. The web is robbing me of some of the detail in the blacks, you’ll have to see a print for the real deal!
Notes: The combination of this camera and lens give me effectively 2-3 stops more usable range than my previous set up, that’s 8 times more light! I’ve got a number of other such shots planned, so I hope you like it.

Ever since shooting “The Twilight Blues”, I’ve grown rather fond of this time of day. The moment that the stars come out, yet the land still holds some detail. Capturing this moment is rather difficult, and I’ve found it’s best done by combining exposures from the twilight light with another shot for the stars about an hour later (without moving the camera of course!). Then some careful blending to bring the two together. For images like this, where the darkness contains lots of subtle details, it’s important to view the larger image. Though this still isn’t quite accurate, since the web seems to rob me of a level of blacks.. so you’ll have to see a print under some good lighting to really appreciate it!

The following day I did some scouting, and found at least two interesting spots, and a little less iconic than these spots (which I’d seen in photographs before). I can’t wait to get back there with some clouds to do my discoveries justice! My next destination for the weekend was the Salton Sea, where I was hoping to find some Burrowing Owls.

Burrowing Owls

Amid the farmland, artificial salty lake of Salton Sea, geothermal powerplants and hunting hides, lives a good sized population of burrowing owls. I’m going to go light on the details here, as I hope to have an article coming out in Living Bird detailing the trip – you’ll be sure to hear about it if/when it happens! In any case, I found these silly birds alongside the road and spent the better part of the afternoon with them.

Burrowing Owl ~ Salton Sea, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 L IS, 1.4x tc, tripod/sidekick
Exposure: iso 200, f/8, 1/400th
Processing: I had to clone some color from the left to the right on the bottom to fix some odd blue hues that got in there somehow.

Burrowing Owl ~ Salton Sea, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 L IS, 1.4x tc, tripod/sidekick
Exposure: iso 200, f/8, 1/320th

So the predictions may have said clear and sunny, but the clouds were moving in, and pretty soon I was standing under a rather magnificent sunset! The pink light reflected off just about every surface, including the pair of owls huddling behind a bush.

Burrowing Owl Pair ~ Salton Sea, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 L IS, 1.4x tc, tripod/sidekick
Exposure: iso 1600, f/5.6, 1/125th
Note: This is a heavy crop from the 5DmkII, but it’s still over 9 megapixels – I love this camera for the freedom in post capture cropping it offers, rather than being forced to do so in camera as I was with the 20D. The 5DmkII and 20D have the same pixel density, so I’m not losing any resolution.

As the sunset wound down, I figured I’d shoot the sunset, despite the man-made landscape that I generally avoid. What you see here is some kind of farm, and a geothermal power plant in the back.

“Food and Power” ~ Salton Sea, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 16-35mm f/2.8 L mkII, tripod, 2-stop hard GND
Exposure: iso 800, f/16, 20 sec
Notes: The 16-35 produces much nicer flares off bright light sources than the 17-40 ever did, another advantage of this lens. Despite shooting at iso 800, the image quality is spectacular!

Some Pasadena Birds

I’ll start out with what will likely be my last image taken on my 20D, which I’ve now retired (though it’s still around for backup). I’ve been exploring out of focus foregrounds on occasion (as seen in some of the burrowing owl images), and here I tried to go for a dreamy effect around the bird.

Black Phoebe ~ Eaton Canyon, CA
The Tech: Canon 20D, 500mm f/4 L IS + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 800, f/5.6, 1/400th

It might come as no surprise to those that live in Pasadena, or even some other areas of California and the rest of the country, but there’s a rather large population of wild parrots that live here. The rumored story goes that some pet shop on Colorado Blvd burned down in 1959, releasing the birds into lush Pasadena, and they’ve managed to do quite well since then. There’s a number of species around, from little parakeets to rather large Amazons. Usually they’re pretty high up, but yesterday they came down to within range. Incidentally it also rained, which is rather rare here.. it was nice to see some clouds again!

Mitred Parakeet ~ Caltech Campus, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 L IS + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 400, f/5.6, 1/400th

Red-Masked Parakeet ~ Caltech Campus, CA
The Tech: Canon 5DmkII, 500mm f/4 L IS + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 800, f/8, 1/400th

Well, that’s about all the adventures thus far.. hopefully it won’t be too long before I get to share some more!

An Alien World

I gravitate towards weird places. Mono lake is one of those places. So on my trip to the Eastern Sierra, I made sure to stop by there. In fact, I was incredibly lucky with the conditions I encountered. The story starts on christmas morning, when I awoke in my car (probably illegally parked) off the side of the road near the Owen’s river to find an inch or so of snow on the desert vegetation. I tried to find an interesting scene with these unique conditions, but it eluded me. Then I started my trek up north along highway 395 through the driving snow and winds towards mammoth to pick up my skis for an Avalanche Course through Sierra Mountain Guides (more on that later). After getting the skis I holed up in a cafe (fortunately it was open, most things were closed since it was christmas, and blizzarding! Even the ski lifts at mammoth were closed because of the winds!). Well, ‘noah’ said the storm was supposed to be clearing by Mono lake, so I decided to make a play for it, assuming it would make for a nice sunrise. Well, upon arriving about two hours before sunset I found myself making the first tracks through 4 inches of fresh powder under a clearing and dynamic sky, life couldn’t be better!

Photographing Mono lake is a lot like shooting a forest. It is a complex scene with lots of chaotic vertical components, and somehow you have to make sense of it all. I spent the whole evening in a small section of Tufas – the most pointy and vertical ones along the lake. As the sun slid behind the bank of clouds still hovering over the Sierras, I captured this bizarre scene.

“Alien Forest” ~ Tufas at Mono Lake, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4 L @ 17mm, tripod, 2x 3-stop ND filters
Exposure: iso 50, f/16, 4 seconds
Notes: The ND filters were needed to create a long enough exposure to smooth out the lake’s surface to eliminate distracting and competing textures. This also created a nasty magenta cast, which prompted me to try a B&W conversion (I’m glad I did!).
Processing: This was an incredibly difficult conversion. The original didn’t have nearly this much contrast, but I felt it really brought out the strangeness of the place. I use a B&W conversions in photoshop, and about 12 contrast adjustment layers to selectively tweak the contrasts in various parts to pull apart the tones.

The entire area is volcanic, and there are a number of interesting cinder cone type volcanoes nearby (which I’ll explore further some other day). The lake is incredibly salty, and provides a unique and very productive ecosystem home to lots of birds and other creatures. If you ever pass by here in the summer I recommend going for a swim – it’s surprisingly difficult since you float so well that it’s hard to keep your arms and legs under the water to propel you forward! You’re better off just lying on your back and reading a book. You’ll be in dire need for a shower after though!

This fragile place was put in serious peril when L.A. started to divert water from the lake to quench the growing populations’ thirst. (Also of note is that L.A. county actually owns a large portion of the Owen’s River, notably the area where I photographed those birds from my last post). As Mono’s water level dropped, strange formations called Tufas emerged from the lake, and important bird nesting areas were made accessible to predation. Since the 1970’s significant efforts have been made to restore the water level, and it now rests about 10 meters below the recorded level from 1941 (likely where it will stay). In all honesty, however, I can’t complain too much, as it’s those Tufa’s that make the lake so interesting to me. They are formed exclusively under water, as springs rich in calcium bubble up into the carbonate rich lake water, forming a precipitate also known as limestone. Then as the water levels dropped, these alien towers were revealed.

Continuing from the previous image, I watched the skies as the clouds moved further east, leaving the frame of my original composition. After much searching, I found another composition I liked that included the incredible colors.

“Alien Skyscrapers” ~ Tufas at Mono Lake, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4 L @ 21mm, tripod, 2-stop hard GND, 3-stop ND
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 3.2 seconds
Processing: I exposed twice, actually, once with the 2-stop GND and once without (same exposure). Then through an excruciatingly painful post processing session I corrected the GND line created by the filter. This involved going in at pixel level to fix the edges of the tufas.

The color lasted for quite some time, and I managed to shoot another composition (I rarely get more than one per sunrise/sunset).

“Snowy Seas” ~ Mono Lake, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4 L @ 24mm, tripod, 2-stop hard GND, 3-stop ND
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 6 seconds
Processing: much less painful than the other two.

Satisfied with my captures from Mono, I headed to June Lake for dinner and to find a place to park my car for the night. Clear skies made for a cold night, and I needed my comforter, sleeping bag, and quilt to keep warm. All my water froze solid, and I even christened a spare container as my pee bottle (not only was it too cold to get out of the car, but I couldn’t exactly pee in the parking lot!). The next morning, with a lot of effort, I managed to break the frost holding the door shut, and made my way to the avalanche course meeting room. Unfortunately the heater was broken, so I didn’t get to warm up (they fixed it the next day). The course was 3 days, and we learned about avalanche terrain, unstable snow, and how to avoid such places (and how to recognize the human elements that are 95% or more of the cause of avalanches involving people), and how to rescue people using beacons, probes, and shovels. The short story is that any slope you would want to ski is avalanche terrain. Whether or not an avalanche is likely depends on the snow pack and weather history, as well as the presence of triggers – something to set off the avalanche. The reason I took the course is because I really want to get out into the Sierras in the winter to do some backcountry winter mountain photography, and would rather not be buried by snow. If you’re at all interested in learning about avalanches, snow, etc., I highly recommend the course I took.

This was a particularly interesting year to take the course, as the snow was incredibly unstable. Avalanches were happening all over the place – some skiers/snowboarders even died in bounds at various resorts like Squaw Valley, CA, and Snowbird, UT. At Mammoth they set off an avalanche with a 12 ft crown with artificial explosives (no one injured). That’s huge! The reason for all the sliding snow was that in november there was a storm where it rained up to 11,000 feet, creating a nice smooth and hard ice layer. In subsequent days small amounts of snow fell, and formed facets (little ice crystals) that act like ball bearings. Pile a few feet of compressed powder on that and you’ve got bricks of snow rolling on ball bearings on a layer of ice, no wonder everything was moving!

On my way out, I made a few stops before getting back home. The first was a location I picked out for the view of Mt. Tom, next to Bishop. The sunrise proved quite spectacular, but the clouds were everywhere except where I wanted them! Such is life. But they were so spectacular, that despite not liking silhouettes, or simple ‘picture of a cloud’ photos, I couldn’t help myself. These were the most sensual and serene clouds I’ve seen – the Sierra Wave it’s called, long drawn out lenticular clouds which often form over Owen’s valley due to the westerly winds and high peaks of the Sierras.

“Good Morning” ~ Owen’s Valley, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 70-200mm f/4 L @ 131mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 400, f/8, 13 seconds

And as the sun rose, it created beautiful soft pink light stretching across the snowy desert.

“Snowed In” ~ Owen’s Valley, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 70-200mm f/4 L @ 81mm, tripod
Exposure: iso 100, f/16, 1/5th second

With the clear skies predicted throughout the area, I decided to make one more stop on my way home. I had this vision for the Badwater salt flats in Death Valley, and given the moon rise time (ie. no moon) and clear skies, I figured it was worth a try. Also, my parents were hanging out in the wash thereabouts, so it gave me a chance to bring them some oliebollen (yes, that’s an english wikipedia entry on a dutch new years delicacy!) from the dutch baker in Bishop. With compass and camera gear in hand, and warm clothes and some food and water in my pack, I found a nice spot, and started my intricate process of capturing star trails. Almost 3 hours later, I headed back to the wash where my parents had dinner waiting! In addition to snow, the great thing about winter is that even if you stay up for four hours after sunset, it’s still around dinner time). I’m considering submitting an article to various magazines about shooting star trails, as well as static stars (from a landscape photographers perspective), as there’s a lot that goes into one of these. In fact, I even had to invent a new processing and blending method to combine the 30 or so sequential images I took to remove all the gaps that occur if you use methods available on the web. If you’re interested in the details send me an email.

“Geometry of Motion” ~ Badwater Salt Flats, Death Valley NP, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 15mm Sigma fisheye lens, tripod, TC-80N3 remote (I use that for everything, but here it was specifically critical)
Exposure: iso 400, f/5.6, 5 minutes… thirty-two of ‘em
Processing: complicated. Essentially the idea is to stack all the images in lighten mode in photoshop, which keeps the sky and foreground from the brightest (first) exposure, and the stars from all the subsequent ones come through. But this leaves you with gaps, so there’s some little tricks to fix those (the gaps are a result of the blending method, not the multiple exposures). Also, I corrected for the distortion from the fisheye to some extent.

The title references both the stars, of course, as well as the salt flats themselves. Those weird cracks and lines are the result of continuous change in the salt flats. Occasional rain brings life to the place, sometimes creating a shallow lake (and not long ago one deep enough you could kayak in for a short time!). As the water evaporates, new salt crystals form, and as they expand they create interesting lines and fractures, strangely hexagonal in nature, in the salt plains. After that, I headed back home to study for some exams. But have no fear, I already have a pile of images lined up for the next story!

Westward, Ho!

On the edge of the Eastern Sierra, at the foot of Mt. Whitney (the highest point in the contiguous US at 14,505 feet), lies a fascinating collection of boulders, arches, and desert scenery, known as the Alabama Hills, just outside Lone Pine, CA. This place hasn’t escaped the attention of the world, and has been featured in countless movies, particularly Westerns (one of John Wayne’s favorite spots), but even more ‘recent’ films like Gladiator have scenes that used this rugged terrain as a back drop. There’s literally boulders everywhere of all shapes and sizes – a true natural playground. The rock is very soft and crumbly, and due to spheroidal weathering many of the boulders are shaped into round potato like structures. The area is particularly famous for its arches, which by now aren’t much of a secret anymore – in fact you can get the GPS coordinates for the most striking ones pretty easily. The most popular one is Möbius Arch, made famous by the late Galen Rowell (sometimes it is even referred to as Galen’s Arch). In the early winter morning, soon after the sun kisses the granite arch, a shadow forms on the base of the arch, completing the circle and forming a shape reminiscent of a möbius strip, hence the name. With the snowy Sierras in the background, it can hardly be any more picturesque.

“The Granite Sensation” ~ Möbius Arch, Alabama Hills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4 L @ 28mm, tripod, polarizer
Exposure: iso 200, f/16, 20 sec
Processing: Because of the polarizer I had to even out the sky a bit.

The night after I arrived it actually snowed about an inch in the Hills, which doesn’t happen too often. Unfortunately the sunrise was a bit too cloudy to capture anything then, and within a few hours most of the snow had melted (this is a desert, after all). The following morning is when I captured the above photo, in addition to one I had scouted out during the day. I wanted to find a scene that invited the viewer to come in and explore all these crazy boulders, but that turned out to be quite challenging! I found it similar to photographing a forest, in a way, but this time with a background. So I spent many hours wandering through the boulders, looking for a cohesive and interesting scene. During my explorations I came across some petroglyphs as well – clearly the Native Americans liked this place too! I’m not sure if this species still exists, but I think of it as a cross between a cat and a scorpion, perhaps they just had a really good imagination..

The Scorpion-Cat, I suppose the natives either had a great imagination, or knew of some creature I’ve never seen. If you happen to know anything about the age/genuineness of something like this, let me know!

Eventually I found my composition, and after shooting the arch in the predawn glow, I quickly made my way to the spot. The clouds were cooperating perfectly, and turned the brightest pink I’ve ever seen, it was an incredibly beautiful view.

“Westward, Ho!” ~ Alabama Hills, CA
The Tech: Canon 5D, 17-40mm f/4 L @ 24mm, tripod, single axis panorama head, 2-stop hard GND
Exposure: iso 200, f/11, 1.3 sec
Note: Sometimes the internet plays with colors a little, the blues in the sky aren’t quite so ‘nuclear’ in the full rez file.

After exploring these hills for some time I went out into Owen’s Valley around Bishop (after eating some delicious dutch Oliebollen from the ‘dutch’ baker Eric Schat). The winter foliage is really quite beautiful in the valley, lots of bright yet soft oranges, reds, and magentas. I went out scouting for a spot to photograph the Sierras from along the banks of the Owen’s River, and brought along my big lens in case I came across any birds along the way. Within minutes I lucked out and found a Sora, a rather elusive bird creeping through the reeds on the edge of the river.

Sora ~ Owen’s River, CA
The Tech: Canon 20D, 500mm f/4 L IS + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 800, f/5.6, 1/200th

There were a surprising number of birds out for the chilly gray day that it was. I was really hoping to catch a picture of a kingfisher that kept calling from his perches among the beautiful red tinted bushes along the river, but every time I got within visual contact (and still way too far for a photo) he would take off again! As consolation, on my way back to the car, I spotted a Loggerhead Shrike posing in a beautiful collection of dried plants in front of those red bushes, and he was more than cooperative!

Loggerhead Shrike ~ Owen’s Valley, CA
The Tech: Canon 20D, 500mm f/4 L IS + 1.4x tc, monopod
Exposure: iso 800, f/5.6, 1/200th

There’s more to come.. this was quite a successful trip, and I gathered a number of images I’d been hoping for, so check back soon!