Around the Lake

Autumn day, Convict Lake, Eastern Sierra.

Autumn Revival

Evening light on the foliage at Silver Lake, Eastern Sierra.

Fall always seems to remind me that the old blog is still here and I should post something new at least once in a while, so here we go with a few recent images.
This shot is from my first time out in the field with the mirrorless Fujifilm-X digital system, since ditching Nikon.  I'll keep my old Nikon gear to use in my home studio for product work, since it's very adequate for that and so familiar, but I am so far very happy with the smaller size, lightness and quality of the Fuji gear. It is SO much easier to travel and hike with the downsized kit. My medium format gear is gone, too.. I'll use only the 4x5 from now on when I want to shoot film.
I've always thought that shooting RAW is the only way to go, but under normal conditions it hardly seems necessary with the Fuji.. the jpegs right out of the camera are so crazy good.. dynamic range, color and sharpness, that I hardly have to mess with the exposures at all, as I have been in the habit of doing. Fuji of course has lots of experience with film, and their built-in film simulations cover all the classics: Velvia, Provia, ACROS, and a few more...and they do look really good with no fussing.

Slot Canyon Pano

Printing up some new greeting cards for the gallery today and finding a few overlooked shots from last Fall that I kinda like. This one here, a panoramic image from Kanarra Creek slot canyon. I did some experimenting with shooting panos in unlikely, narrow spots on this trip; a few worked out quite nicely. 

Autumn Paradise

The canyon opens up in spots heading upstream. So many perfect little scenes to stop and shoot, you can totally forgot about your wet feet.   Luckily, the water wasn't as cold as I expected and it wasn't a problem. Glad I left a dry pair of shoes and socks back at the beginning of the wet part of the hike, though...

The Big Picture

Aspen covered lava field, southern Utah.
I made a point of shooting a lot of  panoramas on my most recent tour.. trying to literally get a new perspective on some old, familiar subjects. Since our eyes see close to 180°, not in small rectangles, I find that it more closely matches the impression you get standing in an expansive scene. I really like the results even in very narrow spots where you might not think of using a pano.. the effect can be almost surrealistic and much more interesting than a standard rectangular shot.. more coming on that.

Fall: California Style

Can you tell that this scene was taken about 3000 miles from the one in my last post? Maybe if you're familiar with both areas and know your trees:)

Around here at this elevation, about the only native trees that change color much in the fall are the oaks, and they don't get really bright or varied colors, at least compared to the maples back east and aspens, which prefer a slightly higher elevation and don't occur here unless someone deliberately plants them.

This is an almost always deserted road in the forest just below my house where I like to walk in the afternoons after working.. it was especially pretty the other day after a night of heavy rain.
I could go a year and not see a single soul along here, but on this day I ran into a couple of guys in a truck who asked me if I had seen any deer..that reminded me that it's hunting season (this is national forest land) and I'd better stay on the road and not go off track through the woods for a while:)

Fall: New England Style

Pond and Woods, Colrain, Massachusetts
Around October 1, I would normally be heading out to Utah and Arizona for my fall road trip, but this year, it came to my attention that I had not been home to Massachusetts to visit my family and hometown for 11 years!   I've become so western-centric over time that I almost forget that there is some pretty beautiful scenery to be had back in the old country.. anyway, I ended up on a slight detour to New England this year.  I knew, however, that between visiting with family and old friends that I would have very little opportunity to get out alone and do any serious photo work, and that's o.k... I decided before leaving that I wasn't going to worry about it and just go with the flow and be real casual about it. 
We were a little early to catch the real, peak color, but it was still very pretty in spots and it was nice to enjoy the totally different vibes of the northeast for a week. I may or may not get in a belated trip to Utah before the snow flies (although it already did here where we live inCalifornia... 2" on October 10!).. depends on work and weather, etc. Of course, the fall colors will be all done and the national parks are all closed now anyway and who know when they will reopen the way things are going, so maybe a winter trip at the end of the year is more appropriate... we'll see.

Bare Trees

I've captured this grove of aspens in full color several times in other years, but I was surprised with how interesting they still are, just standing there naked... I think it makes for a really interesting effect in this shot. Normally, to get this view, I would have been standing on a rock with cold water rushing all around, but the stream was running really low this year, so I was able to move around freely without worrying about where to step, allowing some different perspectives. My main concern was working quickly between rain showers. The black volcanic rocks, being rather dry this time with no flowing water, were not as attractive as usual, so I let the trees be the main feature. 

Aspens and Lava Rock

This area east of Cedar Breaks is one of the most remarkable I have seen anywhere in the Southwest... huge lava flows all around with thousands of aspens growing up right out of the piled rocks.  In the Fall, it's one of the most unique places I could imagine to enjoy the beautiful foliage. I was fighting the on-and-off rain showers for several days this year and it got frustrating at the time, but the atmosphere in the results that I did manage to get in between the sprinkles were well worth it. Couldn't have asked for a more perfect sky even if I had painted it myself. A lot of spots were already bare of leaves, but I found enough remaining here and there to make it very worthwhile.
Getting into some of my film stuff now.. this was shot on 6x7 format Fuji Velvia 100.

Rainy Aspens

I still have more Valley of Fire stuff to go over later, but I feel like moving the subject on up to "color country" in Utah for a while, since that was the original objective of my trip.
I was a little behind the curve as far as the foliage in the higher elevations that I prefer this year, but the lower areas were still great and this area below a small lake that I really love is always beautiful, no matter what stage of the season. This image here is one of my favorites from the whole trip.. I've been trying to get that "perfect" aspen image for years and this might be as close as I ever get. I normally don't judge new work so quickly, but this one just hit me right away so I already have it framed and hanging in the Gallery.
It's just an easy quarter mile walk to get into this spot, but it was raining so I was debating to skip the location this year...ended up thinking that since I had come all this way, I had to give it a try.  I had to walk around holding both camera and umbrella together in one hand for half an hour, and kept busy constantly wiping drops off the lens, but I did catch some nice atmospheric shots, including this one... so glad I did it. You just never know where the good ones are going to come from. I normally go for maximum depth of field, but in this case the soft focus colors in the background just seem to compliment the crispness of the foreground trees really nicely. Maybe I should try some hand-held work more often:)

Rainy Grove

A rather simple one from Utah, and not so many leaves left in this particular spot, but this is more about the random vertical lines of the aspen trees than the leaves anyway.  Once again, I shot this rather quickly between rain showers.  I was glad to put up with a little wetness though, because I love the light and colors you get from this kind of mixed-bag weather.
If predictions are correct, we may very well see our first snow of the season this weekend here in the San Jacinto Mountains area of southern California.  I'm kind of looking forward to it... nothing much more photogenic than fresh snow on a forest of pines and cedars, so maybe a chance to shoot some interesting stuff without having to travel... we'll see. Might be only rain and fog at this elevation where we live; we're often right on the rain/snow line early and late in the season, but either way, won't be long before I have some fantastic winter scenery to work with.

Watercolor Aspens

After driving quite a ways down some rough dirt roads in search of a large stand of bristlecone pines in the Ashdown Gorge area below Cedar Breaks that I had read about, we did actually find the spot, but couldn't go up there because it was raining with thunder and lightening, and didn't seem such a good idea to venture out on an exposed slope with a camera and tripod. We waited a while... but the black cloud kept sitting right there, so decided to turn back and save that location for another time.  I did manage to get in a few setups between showers on the way back up the road, however.  This scene really reminded me of a watercolor painting. 

Warm and Cool

I hope everyone is not too tired of fall scenery yet, because I have a lot of it coming up:) I must say, it's really good to get back to creating some new work after taking most of the year off to deal with moving and resettlement issues.  All that stuff is pretty much set for now, so with luck I can stay on a creative roll for a while.  The weather is finally changing here in the mountains as we get later into the fall and I should be able to find some interesting subjects locally as we move into winter.
We were lucky to pick just the right time and the right area to stay in Utah this year.. I could get up before the sun and drive only a couple of minutes down the road each morning to a great spot for the twilight and first light, then return to the lodge for breakfast, allowing my wife to sleep in and not have to stand around freezing and bored. The colors were absolutely peak perfect everywhere and even the weather cooperated; that's usually the wild card that you can't do anything about, given the narrow time frame of the trees' schedule.  I found a great variety of subjects within this one small area, which is always a convenient and relaxing way to work and bagging some good shots early makes the rest of the day seem more relaxed.. kind of takes off the pressure to get out and find that perfect scene and light.
I decided to leave the slight blue cast of the cold early morning light in the brighter areas of this image.. it makes for such a nice color combination with the yellow of the aspens and the cool green grass; kind of a fantasy look in the soft light.   

Serenity in Blue and Gold

After my last, rather long-winded post I'll try to keep it short and sweet for today.  So enough of the technical talk and back to the pretty pictures:)
While in Utah, we stayed just a mile or so from this peaceful little aspen-rimmed lake, named appropriately enough Aspen Mirror Lake, so I was able to get out there quite easily every morning before dawn and have the whole place to myself for a while, before even the fishermen showed up.
I will just mention that I needed no post-processing at all on this piece.. shot it on Velvia 100 and took it right from the scan, as-is.  Velvia is so naturally vibrant and saturated that you really don't need to do much if you get the exposure right... love it.

Some Magical Light

This little tree resides in the community park near my house, where I walk most days near sunset after hard hours at the computer. Normally, this would be nothing to even turn my head for, but one day a few weeks ago, for a few fleeting moments as I was walking by, this beautiful light from the setting sun illuminated the tree against the colorful, wintery sky. This also was caught with my phone.. I truly regret I didn't have a "real" camera with me.. but hey, I think this is a lot better than nothing, even though it will be forever relegated to greeting card size prints.

Funny how it works.. sometimes you can travel a long distance, wait for hours for something to happen and then maybe it does, maybe it doesn't; other times you're just walking by and see something really incredible.. how often have YOU been in that situation and wanted to kick yourself for being unprepared?

Check out other beautiful skies from around the world or post your own at the SkyWatch home page.

What?... Fall Colors Without Color?

Aspen Trees - Southern Utah

Sure, the leaves were very pretty shades of gold and yellow, but the light at the time was kind of flat and try as I might, I couldn't get any shots from this location to pop as I would like in color, so why not reconsider conventional wisdom and try it in black & white? Aspens seem to be one of those subjects that look great either way... and I am much happier with this now than I ever was with it in color. The thin vertical lines of the trunks and the delicate leaves always give a watercolor painting-like feel that I never get tired of, especially if you can get them against a dark background. Luckily that happens a lot in Utah where the groves tend to line open meadows against the darker evergreens of the forest. I found it interesting when analyzing this scene that I could crop it to almost any section, size or proportion and still end up with a pretty decent composition, so I guess in reality it's a kind of texture study.

Shot one year ago to the day, I came back to this because I'm deciding if I will go foliage hunting this year and where.. it will be more towards the end of the month or into November if I do. And yes, the colors were indeed fantastic.. I will post some color images too:)

"Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your

own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?"

- Ansel Adams