Evening on the Lake

Some tufa formations along the shoreline of Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierras, just as the sun set behind the peaks off to the west. The eastern entrance to Yosemite is just over there past the lake.  These towers are actually mineral deposits that formed as springs bubbled up from underground when this spot was under water, not all that long ago.  A thirsty Los Angeles drained Owens Lake down river from here in it's quest for water earlier last century (if you've seen the classic "Chinatown", that movie is loosely based around the story) and Mono Lake dropped to a fraction of it's former size also.  Efforts are under way now to let it refill to something like it's original size.  A much-photographed location, but you have to have some time in the area or be very lucky to nail an exceptional shot in one visit. This one's o.k. but I hope to get back for another stab at it.

A Geometric Puzzle

I finally decided to take a day off from working around the house and head out for a rare (lately) day shooting some new work. Joshua Tree N.P. is now only 80 miles or so from home (and the most photogenic location in my area), so we drove out there for a quick day trip.
This formation known as the Giant Marbles, is one of the most interesting among so many to be found here.. I had never managed to locate it on previous trips, but it was quite easy to find with some quick directions from a ranger at the visitor center. Molten magma that rose up under the earth eons ago, solidified, cracked and was then exposed when the softer soil eroded away, explains the geometric stacking effect. The soft light on the rocks is just a minute or so before the sun set behind a ridge, casting the whole scene into shadow and killing the color... glad I got the composition I wanted just at the right moment. For a sense of scale, the round "marble" balancing on the top is probably 5-6 ft. diameter.

Back to Work... (soon)

I know, I know, it's been quite a while since my last post. Moving is an all-consuming thing, but finally we are resettled and getting organized again.  Hopefully I can get back to doing some creative work in the next few weeks, although I still have lots of work to do around our new house.  Looking ahead, a big plus of living here, besides how beautiful it is, is going to be that I am now 2 hours closer to my favorite shooting locations in Arizona, Utah and the Sierras.  We're real close.. less that 1 hour.. from Joshua Tree N.P. too, which is going to be great.  Although I've been coming to the mountains where we now live for many years, I've had very little chance to get many good images locally, due to not being here all that much...  but now that we are full time I expect that I can get some interesting results.
My Skywatch scene for today is from last year's trip to Monument Valley in NE Arizona.   Another one of those that I almost passed up because I was dog tired and on my way back to the car to call it a day, but just had to set up one more time to get this gorgeous sky over the red-rock butte.  Never put your camera back in the bag until you're actually at home and it's pitch black dark outside:)
You can view more beautiful skies from all over the world each week here at the SkyWatch home page.  

At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes. - Paul Caponigro

Somewhere I'd Rather Be

Seems like forever since I've been out to do any serious shooting.  What with selling our city home and all that entails: paperwork, inspections, packing, getting rid of old furniture, etc...it's just impossible right now. As for the blog.. it's not that I don't have plenty of work in the can that I could post, it's just that I have been in the habit of at least trying to add some useful information about each piece, rather than just toss it out there with no context or explanation, so bear with me until we get resettled.
This is Calf Creek Falls, found about 3 miles up a canyon in south central Utah.. a very hot hike up a loose, sandy trail in the summer, with the sun beating down and very little breeze, but cool and refreshing when you finally arrive.  I stayed several hours, trying to work around all the waders constantly walking into my frames, while enjoying a bit of the coolness myself in between.