Serene Twilight

I've got just one or two more to share from this current set.  This one was done well after sunset.. in fact, it was getting so dark that I couldn't really compose all that well, but seems like I can never resist milking those last few shots on the way back to my car.  This is where the camera and the human eye really diverge.. as I said, it was hard for me to see much at all, but the remaining little bit of ambient light, combined with a long exposure, reveals a very pleasant, slightly surreal scene.

And the Winner Is?

Just before sunset, a particular lone tree standing in the glassy water caught my attention... and I decided to stay put in this one spot and work with it as many ways as possible in the perfect part of the twilight. This quality of light only lasts for a very short short period, so you don't really have precious minutes to be wandering around looking for subjects.. better to be already committed to it and set up.
I usually stick with one pic per post, but thought I would show two side-by-side here today, because this is a very good example of how the same subject can be interpreted in such different ways by changing lenses, composition, subject emphasis and timing.
I don't really have to choose between these of course; they would both make nice prints (and I actually have two or three other variations too), but if I did, I'm really not sure yet which I would select. I would love to hear your opinions about which one works better to your eye... and even a little bit about why you think so, if someone feels like taking the time to give it some thought. An opinion poll for me and a bit of a creative exercise for you, as it were:)

Sky Watch: Looking Homeward

Number 3 in this current series:  The clouds lit up in a remarkable way for just a few minutes after sunset, as you can see here (and lucky that I was in a spot with the glassy water to mirror it). One of those situations that you can't always anticipate, but when you see a lot of high, thin clouds late in the afternoon, it's more than likely that something good is going to happen.. just have to be ready:)
The large mountain in the distance (45 miles southeast from this spot) is where I live. The smaller, pointy peak far to the right of the whole mount, towards the foreground hills, is Tahquiz Peak and our house would be directly below there on the ridge that crosses in front of it. (A friend from town was hiking up to that peak at exactly the same time I was shooting this, but even with the recent warm weather, there was too much snow and ice to make it all the way to the top, meanwhile, I was quite comfortable here working in a tee shirt.. a true land of contrasts).
I framed this shot specifically to get the view of the mountain prominently into the scene. I have another one from a couple of minutes earlier where the mountain is lit up beautifully by the setting sun, but the sky was more unique at this moment.
Visit the SkyWatch home page each weekend for more great skies from all over the world.

San Jacinto Wildlife Area (#2)

I guess I'll go through a sequence of frames from this location more or less in order, from early to late.. so this one would be next, time-wise, after my previous post. Plein-air painters and watercolorists should have a real field day here.. If I still had the inclination to paint, I could find many days of subject matter in this spot. Very tranquil and almost no people... just a few contented ducks cruising lazily through the water in this scene, if you look carefully.

Fruitful Exploration

We've been having unseasonably warm and clear weather here in Southern California the last few weeks... clear blue skies every day, no recent snow and therefore nothing much of interest to shoot up here in the mountains. My work comes to a complete stop between Christmas and New Year's anyway, so I opened the gallery for a few days during the week, but that got really slow also around mid week and I decided to take Thursday off and go exploring for some new shooting locations.
Using Google Earth (my favorite scouting tool), I noticed this area about 50 miles from where I live that I have never heard of before and it looked like a decent possibility to be the kind of place that I enjoy to shoot, so I decided to take little drive down to the flatlands and check it out. It was the one day of the whole week that I thought I saw a hint of some clouds in the sky, or honestly, I probably wouldn't have bothered to even take a camera with me.
I didn't really expect to do any serious work.. I would have been happy just to look around, take some reference shots and come back at a better time, but the light and sky actually came together nicely in the late afternoon, the place was almost totally deserted (of people, but LOTS of birds), the weather was a pleasant 80°(!) and being winter, there were no bugs, which I suspect are unbearable during the warmer season, seeing as this is a partly natural, partly man-made wetland area...
I ended up staying and working until well after sunset and to my surprise managed to produce some pretty  good stuff.  Definitely a worthwhile find.. if I was just passing by the area and didn't know about it beforehand, there is no way I would ever spot it from the main roads. Nice that there was a still a Fall-ish feel to the place this late in the season, I found quite a bit of color still in the trees as you can see. And, it's definitely a bird watcher's paradise. For those of you in the SoCal area, the San Jacinto Wildlife Area is just NW of Hemet, next to Lake Perris in the town of Lakeview.
BTW, Happy New Year to all the great people who stop by here throughout the year and especially those regulars who always take time to comment.