Visited the Railroad Museum in Laws, CA on Saturday. Lots of memorabilia from the old movie-westerns, and lots of fun! Details galore. As I walked around the site, I imagined life during those times. Maybe romantically, because it was a rough and tumble lifestyle and only the hardiest survived. The idea of riding hours in a wagon over bumpy trails seems downright painful!

These wagon wheels were leaned up against a wooden shack. Things last quite a while in the desiccating dryness of the desert. The bleached, split wooden wheels were bound by iron, now rusted and yet still holding things together. Do things we make today last as long? Hmmm…

Processed this image using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro. The original was lacking strong color but the contrast of the scene was strong and I could previsualize it as a monochromatic image.  I liked the overlap of the wheel on the right but composed to keep the two from dividing the frame equally.

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Traveling back from our Instructional tour of Death Valley, through the back side of the Sierra. Not much snow so far this year, but enough to dust the peaks a bit. Clear morning, and four of us tried to squeeze into position to capture the arch. Not easy to get variations on your theme that way – and we had two more people show up just before sunrise that we politely tried to fit in…it was fun, though, and the light was pretty. Did an HDR series on this and used Nik’s HDR Efex Pro to produce the final results, keeping it natural looking.

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This is a test post to see if the picture on this blog post gets included. Still trying to resolve my problem with the post image not showing anymore.

It was almost 70 in my home town, and it felt good to be outside. OK, some might call me a ‘woos’, because northern California typically doesn’t get that cold, certainly not like other areas of the country! But it’s still winter with bare trees, vines, and chilling, damp nights. So when Spring begins to show it’s signs of coming, it’s thrilling! Something about the re-emergence of life, – the tiny shoots that I spotted on my roses today, the catkins dangling from trees next door, the mustard popping up in between vineyard rows – quickens my pulse.

I didn’t make these pictures today. The top one is in Sonoma County, CA, the bottom one from the Palouse area of WA in spring. It’s interesting how similar the views can be with barns,  and rolling hills, etc. We’ll be leading our tour in early June in the Palouse (see schedule page). Join us for a great time there! But first, we’ll get to celebrate Spring in the wine country here in northern California. There’s a ton of natural areas to explore and we’re looking forward to that.

Took a break from organizing the new office yesterday to visit the coast with Jed and our friend Paul Luscher. Of course we took our cameras – but agreed that even just getting out in the salty, fresh air and hearing the ocean would have been enough if the light wasn’t good. In the end, it wasn’t bad – not a spectacular sunset, but pretty enough, and we worked slow shutter speeds with the rolling waves. Ocean was pretty quiet but there were enough rolling swells to work with, that with 20-30 second exposures, we created the ghosting effect we wanted. Canon 24-105mm, at 50mm, f13 at 15.0 seconds with 3 stop grad (soft edge) for sky.

Salt Point is an unusual park with a high concentration of tafoni formations. Tafoni is an Italian word for cave and the formations are like tiny caves, eroded from sand and wind. The rocks develop a pocked surface, and it’s really cool stuff! See inset photo below. It’s not easy to photograph in color in full sun; the sunlight is what helps to give the formations form and texture, but that produces a higher contrast that is often unacceptable in color. But in black and white, you can work with that contrast to really show the formations.

Sorry I haven’t been ‘around’ the past month. Buried in boxes, something had to give…It got to the point when there was just too much going on, too many things I was trying to manage, and something had to give. I had a book manuscript edit, final field workshops, a big move of the business and house all happening in November-December and I needed a break. The summer, heck, the entire year had been wonderfully busy with workshops and tours and more, but I always look forward to my late Fall break – and that didn’t happen this time.

We are generally settled in our new place in Santa Rosa, CA, and honestly enjoying ‘decorating’ and sorting out the accumulations of 14 years in one place. It’s cleansing to organize and sort and eliminate clutter – just so you can make room for more ‘stuff’!

Didn’t really use the big camera much the past month – used the phone a few times, but mostly it was all about the move. But now, it’s back to real business – keeping ideas flowing here and sharing pictures again and getting going on our workshop/tour program for 2012.

With that in mind, this image is one I made on my phone just the other day while setting up the outside plants in the yard. We collect a lot of natural things and this skull traveled with us to the new place. Ironically we have a stucco wall so it was a perfect fit! But it’s a white wall, so I ran it through some apps to give the wall a warmer hue and layered a texture on the file and a rough border. Used Snapseed for basic adjustments and cropping, and Blender to combine the layers.

Celebrating the Day!

This image sums up the wonder-filled and wonder-ful year I’ve had. Good light, weather, wonderful scenes, cultural experiences, and I’ve met so many wonderful new photographers. It was terrific! So today’s picture is a celebration of all of that. We were in a field in the Palouse, and one of the participants walked into the field. The scale of her against the field and the great sky above was exciting enough. We photographed her looking around with camera, and then we asked her to reach her hands up towards the sky. It was, after all, a moment of celebration that we had this incredible sky above us while photographing!

On other news, I received notice of Think Tank’s new products yesterday:

Think Tank Photo Releases Completely Redesigned Modular Rotation System 

“Santa Rosa, Calif. — In response to customer feedback, Think Tank Photo’s has completely redesigned its Modular Rotation System to provide additional features and benefits, including easier photography gear retrieval, better equipment fit, and an updated/inclusive style.  The Modular Rotation System consists of three product groupings:  Lens Cases, Gear Pouches, and the Modular Component Set V2.0… ”

I’ve been using the Think Tank Modular System for over 2 years, both the Skin set and the Modular, more padded set. Each of them have performed superbly, and while I lean towards the Skin set as it’s less padding which means easier packing, etc., they are both excellent.

The new items are available at their website. This is an affiliate link, and your support is appreciate by both me and Think Tank, should you decide to purchase something. Spend over $49.50 and get a small free gift from them. No matter how you buy it, it’s worth having if you use a modular system. I used the Skin set in Guatemala, Morocco, and Bhutan this year and loved them.  I still prefer a belt or backpack for most my nature photography, but for travel, editorial and photojournalism/event photography this system rocks!!

Bristlecone Pine and Star Trails, California

Jim M. Goldstein, a colleague, has just published a new e-book on the 4th dimension in photography – time. In this easy-to-read-book, he discusses long exposures, light painting, and compositing images of star trails, along with creating sequences and doing time lapse photography. Jim also writes about mixing motion with still imagery and using stroboscopic flash. It’s a comprehensive collection of information in a well-organized e-book, complete with tips and tricks and charts to help you make your own great images. Illustrated with Jim’s stunning photographs, book gives you valuable information on the essentials – from the right gear all the way through the right technique in-camera and in post-production, where needed.

I’ve done long exposures for a long time, and his information is spot-on.  I’ve also been doing night star photography for a while, but I learned a few things to improve my own results in with digital exposures.

Check out the book at InspiredExposure.com. It’s a great gift idea too for fellow photographer friends!

It’s that time of year, when I finally get to slow down a bit and have some fun – with holiday cards, and some holiday ‘cheer’ – no not that kind of cheer, well, maybe a little nip here or there…

This image was made, believe it or not, with an iphone App called Trigonscope. It creates kaleidoscopic patterns as you point the lens at whatever interests you, and it’s ‘trippy’ and fun! I’ve made several that look like they should be wrapping paper – and may become just that – ha ha. Not high res, sadly, but still fun to play with.

It’s been a wonderful year full of good times, surprises, changes, and new projects. We’ve met and made many new friends, wonderful photographers on our tours and workshops, and we are grateful for the opportunity to bring you all together in places that we love to share our ideas and passion for photography and creative expression.

Jed and I hope that your year was wonder-filled, and that the coming season and year ahead will be prosperous, joyful, and yes, challenging – in a good way! Keep finding and sharing the beauty of this world through your lens as only you can see and express it!

(This sounds like a final note for the month but it’s not – we are in the process of moving and so it’s a very busy time right in the midst of holiday stuff. You’ll hear from me again soon!)

Kids learn early on about the festivals, rituals and dances, and this little guy was really fascinated with the dancing monks. The masks, and colors of their costumes no doubt attracted him. He stood for the longest while just watching, and here, he shifted his position just slightly as if he was about to lift his leg, too, but he never did. But the moment was still worth recording!

Out of hundreds of images of dancing monks, this is one of my favorites because of the little boy. It’s ironic that he’s dressed in western style clothing – will he one day become a dancer, or will he move into a different realm, as times change there? Hard to know.