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Archive for the ‘Sierra Nevada’ Category

I don’t often do B&W. not because I don’t like it, but I just don’t “think” about it. For some reason I rarely do a B&W conversion, but this time I did and I must say, I LOVE the outcome.

There are two processing techniques here. The first is an HDR treatment, using 3 shots at 2 stops apart. I liked the result, but I then started playing with my Lightroom Presets and I really liked the result on this.

As stated in a previous post,, California will be closing Mono Lake State Park next year due to budget cuts. This is what prompted us to go see this lake again.

Hope you like the B&W

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Sadly, Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve is one of the 70 California State parks that will close due to budget cuts. This will happen next year in July. So Linda and and I decided to go and shoot at Mono Lake over the Labor Day weekend and make sure we got shots of this awesome place.

We visited several times and, while nice, there were no clouds and the light was very “blah”. We decided to have one more attempt, on the day we had to leave, and got up at 5am. To our delight the sky was filled with clouds and the whole feel of the place was just amazing. We could not stop shooting!

So here is a shot taken at the South Tufas. It’s an HDR made from 3 shots, two stops apart.

While I am unsure how one closes a lake, it will be sad to see this state park be closed. As you can see, you can walk right up to many of these tufas and I hate to think of them being damaged by vandals. The South Tufas are up to 1000 years old so not something that will “grow back” quickly.

So, if you are a photographer or just someone who wants to see this place, go before July 2012.

I can highly recommend it.

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We visited the White Mountains in California today, where you can find the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. These Bristlecones are the oldest living things in the world and there is one tree that is an alleged 4750 years old!

The tree here is not quite that old and you can see it has struggled. I found this tree up at 11,000 (!) feet elevation after a 12 mile drive on a dirt track. I needed to go into 4-wheel drive mode to navigate the steep trails, quite exhilarating and not something I had done for a long time. To my delight, Linda thought it was just fantastic, never having done this before.

Our drive was rewarded with some of the most spectacular scenic views ever. It is so beautiful up there. I was not kidding on the elevation. The visitor’s center is at 10,500 feet and is where most visitors stop. There is another grove about 12 miles further on and only accessible via that dirt road. It took about 45 minutes to get there.

This tree was still alive even if part of it had died. It clearly struggles to survive in this challenging environment, but very beautiful.

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I received several nice comments about a previous post of Cathedral Rock so thought I’d post this shot which was taken from the same spot, using the same log in the foreground.

El Capitan is of course one of THE dominant features in Yosemite. It is a favorite piece of rock for experienced rock climbers. Rising more than 3,000 feet above the Valley floor, it is the largest monolith of granite in the world. During the summer, you can spot climbers making their way up, but you need to look hard and have a pair of binoculars, the rock face is SO large and the climbers are SO small, it is hard to see them with the naked eye.

About the making of this shot:

> Camera: Canon 5d mark 2 – ISO 100
> Lens: EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17 mm
> 3 bracketed shots, +/- 2 stops
> Initial clean up in Lightroom, exported each exposure as 16 bit TIFF
> Merged to HDR and Tonemapped in Oloneo then exported as 16 Bit TIFF
> Opened in Photoshop CS5 for some additional work including Topaz Adjust and Topaz DeNoise
> Saved as PSD
> Imported back into Lightroom and exported to Zenfolio, Flickr and Facebook

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This beautiful little chapel is the oldest structure in Yosemite Valley and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a representative example of the way early chapels in the Sierra Nevada mountains were constructed.

The chapel is 130 years old and the first services were held there on June 7, 1879.

From a photographer’s point of view, it is a wonderful subject, all year round. This shot was taken in early winter, before any snow, but well after all the fall color. The large tree you see on the right, with the yellowish leaves, turns a bright yellow in fall and makes for some fantastic contrast against the red chapel. Unfortunately, I have not been able to synchronize my trips to Yosemite to coincide with that. Some day I will of course.

I always find it fascinating to learn a bit more about the history behind these old landmarks. It was interesting to learn therefore, that originally this chapel was surrounded by the original village, a cluster of buildings, including a canvas-roofed hotel and by 1900, offices, houses, shops, hotels, photography studios, saloons, and stables lined the wagon road leading to Sentinel Bridge.

Park managers gradually relocated the village to the other side of the river, where Yosemite Village is now. The chapel remained here and now stands all alone among the trees. There are still services held there every week.

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I can’t image there are many things that can be more beautiful than a landscape after freshly fallen snow.

This is a location near South Lake Tahoe. Getting to this location was by pure accident, as we had no idea this even existed. Let me explain.

First of all, it was by on a whim, and by pure chance, that we decided to turn off Interstate 50, a highway that runs along the Southern shores of Lake Tahoe. We had picked a small road that lead us into an area with some vacation homes nestled in a forested area covered in freshly fallen snow. After parking the car and wondering off among the trees, we heard, rather than saw, water rushing. Following the sound, we stumbled upon this scene of almost unimaginable beauty. Furthermore, someone had been there with a snow mobile and had created a track of compressed snow. This allowed us to actually walk up to the creek as the compressed snow prevented us from sinking into the fresh stuff which was at least 2 feet deep.

Needless to say we had a ball wondering around this area and capturing the beauty of it all from every angle possible.

If you have even been in a forest after a snow storm you know how quiet it can be. The snow acts as a thick blanket and absorbs sound, making the surroundings even more magical due to the silence. It’s just you and nature and humbles you in the majesty of it all.

It was one of these days when everything turned out right. We picked the right road to turn off, did the right thing by checking out the sound of rushing water and by luck, someone had created a trail for us to walk on. Yes, it was a good day.

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It’s been a long time since I posted here. All thanks to me moving house. Some advice, and trust me on this, if you ever move house, make sure you do not do that around the Christmas holidays! Anyway, I am now fully moved in and while there is still a lot to do, I have found some time to go process some pictures from various photo shoots.

This is the famous Cathedral Rock, taken from the valley floor. I walked into this meadow to get that fallen tree in the foreground. Hope you like it.

Last year (sounds strange to say that, the new year is barely a week old) Linda and I visited Yosemite several times. This picture was taken in October, when we went to see if we could catch some fall color. Turns out there was not a lot of it to be found at that time, but that didn’t bother us one bit. Yosemite is so beautiful, there is always something nice to shoot, regardless of time of year or weather. As you can see we had fabulous skies and two days of great shooting.

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Linda and I went on a photo outing with the Placer Photo Club thanks to an invitation from Mike Schumacher, their president. We went looking for some fall color, but found that a lot of the trees were still green. We did find some Aspens that had turned yellow, but for most of the foliage, we were a bit too early.

However, we had a wonderful time. Met some fellow photographers and after breakfast toured up Hwy 80 towards Truckee and took Hwy 89 north to Henness Pass Rd.

Today’s shot is taken on the shores of Independence Lake. A wonderful secluded lake tucked away in the Sierra Nevada foothills and one that is only accessible via a windy and bumpy dirt road. Not the kind of road you want to be found on in wet weather – unless you have a 4×4 of course in which case it would be a lot of fun!

As you can see, the weather was just beautiful. Warm, blue skies with some clouds. This is an HDR of course, 3 shots taken 2 stops apart and blended in the all new Photomatix 4. This new version of Photomatix has finally addressed the issue of noise, which was mainly the reason I hardly ever used that application. It is now much, MUCH better.

I just love what the HDR process does to the look of those rocks.

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The more I look at this picture, the more I love it. I shot it through the glass of an old door in Bodie, a ghost town on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada (but still in California).

Looking at the details I see a lot of beauty. Check out the patterns of the wall, the wood ceilings with crown molding or the wooden wainscoting. But my favorite is the detail in the lion shaped legs of the pool table. Magnificent!

However, I cannot but wonder about what violence took place here. Bodie was notorious for being a “bad place”. There were no less that 65 saloons on Main Street, which was only a mile long (you read that correct – sixty five). Murders, shootouts, barroom brawls and stagecoach holdups were apparently very regular occurrences! Sounds like a genuine spaghetti Western, but this was real. So, I wonder what kind of activity this saloon has seen?

I can just imagine walking into this place, colt slung to my hip, walking over to the bar with all eyes focused on me and saying “gimme a whisky” and the barman says, as he pours me a shot, “what brings you to town, cowboy?” I answer “I hear there’s gold in them thar hills”.  And all the folk in the saloon sigh and relax and go back to whatever they were doing. Just another prospector, like all the rest, no bounty hunter looking for some outlaw.

he he he . . .

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Spent a day nosing around the Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, in the Sierra Nevada foothills in California. You might be interested to know that this is the site of the USA’s very first environmental law, it was issued by the federal government.

Malakoff Diggins was home to the country’s largest hydraulic gold mining operation. Using high pressure jets, huge sections of the country side were literally washed away, in an effort to get at the gold. The subsequent release of the mud, gravel and debris clogged streams and major rivers all the way from these foothills to the San Francisco Bay! Sacramento farmers complained and filed a law suit and in 1884 a law was passed declaring hydraulic mining to be illegal. Today, there is a mighty big “hole” in the cliffs, which has, thankfully, been reclaimed by Mother Nature.

Malakoff Diggins can lay claim to another first. In 1880, electric lights were installed in the mine and the world’s first long distance telephone line was developed to service the mine.

What you see in today’s picture is one of the few buildings left of the old town. It is the main office of the Historic Park.

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