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Aaron Meyers  > Nature > Water
Oceans, Lakes, Waterfalls, and anything water related
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Aaron Meyers > Molten Water Pfeiffer Beach Big Sur, California Every year thousands of photographers flock down to Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur to photograph the light beams through the Pfeiffer Arch (some people call it Keyhole Arch?). During December, January, and a bit into Februray the sun sets at just the right angle that its rays will streak through the hole in the rock. As the sun nears the horizon the light takes an orange hue and water droplets in the air will reflect the lights orange color. My buddy Andy moved up here a couple months ago and has used his new proximity to me as an excuse to get more into photography. He had seen my photo "Spotlight" from last year and demanded that we go down to Pfeiffer this year. Between busy schedules and poor weather/tide conditions it took us until late January to get down. We played hooky with a work, left around 1pm and made our way down the Big Sur coast. It was a beautiful afternoon and we were pretty excited! When we arrived at Pfeiffer we quickly noted how calm the water was. The tide was fairly high, about 3.2ft before sunset, and was supposed to only drop to 3ft by sunset. It seemed a bit high. Without the huge surf there wasn't much splash or spray and the light beam never materialized like it did for me last year. None-the-less I took a number of photos and left feeling somewhat disappointed. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had captured a few nice shots! I especially liked this one because wispy strands of water picked up the setting sun, making it look like it was almost molten! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 70mm, f/16, 0.6 sec, ISO 64
Aaron Meyers > Surprise! Waterfalls at Emerald Pools Zion National Park, Utah Willie, Yan, and I planned on spending 2 days in Zion and then heading to Escalante to find our way to Zebra Canyon. Mama Nature had different plans for us. While hiking The Subway, the previous day, clouds had begun to roll in as we hiked. By the time we were back at our hotel for the night the clouds had gotten thick and rain started to come down. In the morning we woke up to a pretty heavy rain. Zebra Canyon was no longer an option due to flash flood potential. Not knowing what to do we decided to just roam around the park and see if we could find any fall colors that would be evenly lit with the clouds overhead. That's when we noticed waterfalls all over the park! Normally the waterfalls in Zion are a spring occurrence but with the temperature warm enough to be rain and not snow we were in for a treat! After photographing a waterfall near the Temple of Sinawava we decided to see if the waterfalls above Emerald Pools were going. Sure enough, they were raging! The 3 of us practically raced the mile to the pools and couldn't wait to take some shots. A trail leads behind the waterfalls and we carefully, lest we slip and fall, made our way to the other side of the falls. I wish a couple more of the trees still had their yellow leaves but I really liked how the water came pouring over these cliffs. I included the 2 by-standers in the right of this photo to give you a sense of scale. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/14, 0.8 sec, ISO 125
Aaron Meyers > Fit for a Queen Queen's Bath Princeville, Kauai, HI During my first visit to Kauai I never found my way to Queen's Bath. Boy did I miss out! On my second trip to Kauai I wanted to make sure I visited all the things I missed the first time. Queen's Bath was high on my list. We arrived at Queen's Bath one afternoon and found the place pretty easily. The place has become so popular that the island has built a parking lot and a trail down to the lava rocks. Once you get down to the ocean you just turn left and head west until you hit Queen's Bath. Here, the a pool of water collects around lava rock to create a natural swimming pool. The lava rock is high enough in the front that it protects swimmers from the harsh waves of the Pacific Ocean. The back of the pool is open, which allows water and fish to swim in and keep Queen's Bath full. I had an amazing time swimming, snorkeling, checking out the fish, watching crabs crawl around on the bottom, and just enjoying Queen's Bath. After going back to the condo, showering, and getting a little snack, I returned for sunset, hopeful that I could find a decent composition and for a nice colorful sky. As I walked down to Queen's Bath I stopped at a number of waterfalls and took some photos. My friends kept going and were waiting for me at the bottom. They had spread themselves out so they could each get a "personal view" of the incoming sunset. I darted around to a number of different spots, trying to find something that provided an interesting foreground. Each time I would setup the tripod, take a couple photos and then decide this wasn't the spot and move on. I started rushing as I noticed the sky began to get some color. Finally, just as the clouds in the sky started turning pink I settled on this final composition. I noticed that the waves were crashing over some of the rocks on the right and then creating a little waterfall, and combined with the circular inlet shape of the cove, I knew I had my composition! A family enjoyed the sunset from the rocks above me. I thought that they made a nice extra touch to the photo. Early in the day a pair of sea turtles hung out in this little cove and offered some visual entertainment for us. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/20, 2.5 sec, ISO 100 Lee Filter Holder + HiTech 0.9 Soft ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Drenched Cascade Falls Yosemite National Park, CA Last year Willie, Will, and I got our first great moonbow photo while on top of the Upper Yosemite Falls trail. Thanks to some professors in Texas just about anyone can find out when the moon bows in Yosemite will occur. Trying to avoid the hoards of crowds at the Sentinal Bridge parking lot we decided to try to find a more unique moonbow and something different from last year. Willie and I had seen a number of timescape videos, most notably Steve Bumgardner's official video for the Yosemite Conservancy, in which moonbows were photographed at Cascade Falls. We knew we had to try this! I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get to the proper location to shoot a moonbow at Cascade Falls. You need to get high enough and east enough to get around a jut in the rocks (you can see it here, where the water flows over, blocking the top of the falls) to get the proper angle to see the top of the falls, which has a really nice "S" curve to it. I used Google Earth and a number of other peoples images to get a vague idea of what we had to do. We found out that Steve traveled up from the bottom (along highway CA-140) but I thought you might be able to drop in from the top. When I arrived at Yosemite on Saturday I quickly ruled out the top-down approach. I hopped in the car, drove down to the bottom, and started on up. After an hour of completely sweating, super steep climbing, and searching high and low, I gave up on finding "the perfect spot". It was just too dangerous and without proper climbing gear I couldn't see any way to get to the spot that Steve took his photo. Dropping down a bit we found a nice area that gave a beautiful view of the main falls. In the afternoon weather the area was dry and pretty easy to get to. When Willie, Will, and I returned at night we were in for a shock -- the winds had picked up and were spraying mist all over the spot! Not wanting to be drenched for 2 hours we moved back to a safe distance where we go stay both dry and warm. There was a super moon this evening (the largest moon of the year) and we had hoped that its brightness would put on a great moonbow show, but we didn't know when exactly it would start. Every so often I would head back out to the falls to double check on the moonbow. Finally around 9:10pm we saw a faint bow and raced back to get our gear. It was super slippery on the rocks to our spots and we took extra caution not to slip and die. By now it felt like it was raining and we knew we had to be quick to get our shots. Proper planning was key to this. I brought along a rain-shield for my camera to keep my camera dry and attached the hood to the lens helped reduce a small amount of water hitting the lens. I also brought along 5 micro-fiber cloths because I knew I'd be wiping the lens dry quite often and they would get wet fast. I had just enough time to wipe the lens clean and then take a shot before the lens was completely covered. I went through 3 micro-fiber cloths in the 35 minutes that we were out there. Once we finally returned to dry land we realized how *completely* soaked we all were. It wasn't until the sun came up the next day that I was able to fully dry all my equipment! This years moon bows were much more faint than last years. We could just make out a silvery bow with our eyes, compared to last years full blast of color. Additionally, it wasn't until I looked at the LCD later that I realized we caught a small hint of a DOUBLE MOONBOW! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 42mm, f/4, 30 sec, ISO 640
Aaron Meyers > Drifting Natural Bridges State Beach Santa Cruz, California The beginning of May 2012 greeted us with 3 straight days of beautiful sunsets. I almost missed all of them. On this particular morning I checked the weather forecast and saw that it was supposed to be completely clear and decided to leave my camera gear at home, rather than throwing it in the trunk of my car. Later in the evening, when I left work, I looked up to see beautiful clouds. Willie sent me a text message with the same thing: "Lets get to Santa Cruz, NOW!" Oops, I had no camera gear! Willie left for Santa Cruz, I raced home to get my gear, and we decided to meet at Natural Bridges State Beach. The sunset didn't look like it would light up any of the clouds over the typical Natural Bridges composition, the "bridge", but I found a nice piece of drift-wood to use as a foreground and waited for the waves to recede to create beautiful lines. As we waited the sky went from a dull gold, to absolutely beautiful oranges, and lastly some pinks and purples slowly crept in. An explosion of color at Natural Bridges! Both Willie and I went home very happy campers! At the end of the day I had 2 photos that I really liked. I decided to post one right away and saved this one for the archives, to post at a later date when everyone forgot about the first one! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/9, ⅓ sec, ISO 250 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Natural Explosion Natural Bridges State Beach Santa Cruz, California Lately my early morning routine has been wake up, check the weather, shower, eat, and then leave for work … either with or without the camera based on the weather report. On this particular morning I woke up, saw "Clear" skies (0% clouds) and sadly realized today wasn't going to be the day to find a sunset. I was kickin' myself because the sunset the night before was absolutely spectacular and I had my arse glued to my chair editing some portrait photos instead of out somewhere shooting. About to leave for work, I instinctively grabbed my gear, put it on my back, and was about to walk out the door when I remembered today was clear skies and I should just leave my stuff at home. After a full day of working I walked outside and looked up to see some beautiful clouds in the sky. Thinking I better not make the mistake two days in a row I immediately sent Willie a text message. Only … he beat me to it and I already had one waiting for me: "the clouds look awesome." I replied "should we go somewhere?" as I walked into the gym. I was scheduled to meet with a personal trainer to go over a new workout but as I waited for the guy, Willie wrote back "I'm leaving for Natural Bridges in a sec. You in?!" I typed "I'll be there in 10" but before I hit send I realized … I LEFT MY GEAR AT HOME!!! ARGH ::hair pulling:: I decided I'd skip the personal trainer, race home to grab my stuff and meet Willie at Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz. I managed to avoid a bunch of traffic and arrive at Natural Bridges with plenty of time to scout. Looking at the sky it was either going to be glorious or it was going to be awful. Willie and I scouted for a while, trying to find a different composition than the normal "Natural Bridge" that everyone shoots. The sun was setting in the wrong direction to shoot the bridge but if the sky lit up like it had the previous night (see Rich's photo) we might get some color. As the sun dropped I quickly realized I had to point in a different direction and decided I'd use a piece of driftwood as my foreground element. After a couple minutes I wandered away and then I looked back and Willie had picked up on my queue and was back at the driftwood. That's when the sky started lighting up right in my original composition! I raced back to the driftwood and setup, waiting for some big waves to give us some water motion. As we waited the sky went from a dull gold, to absolutely beautiful oranges, and then as the orange faded, the back left of the sky filled with pinks and purples. An explosion of color at Natural Bridges! Both Willie and I went home very happy campers! Color cast removed using D-Breezy's instructions. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/16, ⅓ sec, ISO 100 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Broken Marshall Beach San Francisco, California Willie and I haven't had a good photo shoot in a while. All of our Death Valley shoots were a bust and we hoped that Sunday would change our luck. We watched as Saturday and Sunday morning brought amazing sunsets and sunrises yet we stayed in bed out of laziness. Not wanting to miss another good opportunity we hoped in the car and decided to try our luck at Marshall Beach in San Francisco. Neither of us had been here before and Willie was exhausted after a 10 mile hike the day before so I drove us through traffic as we found our way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Due to unexpected traffic we arrived at Marshall Beach much later than we intended. We raced down the mile long hike to the beach (it's pretty steep, but luckily the city of SF built a bunch of steps to make the trail down nice and easy). We got to the beach and quickly realized there were numerous compositions and we ran back and forth trying to find a good one before the sun got low and started lighting up the sky. Eventually we settled on a spot in the back that gave us a composition with rocks that would direct the incoming waves and provide some nice foreground motion. After finding a spot that I liked I got my Lee filter holder, remote shutter, and filters out and began to setup my tripod…. As I pulled open my tripod legs and went to attach my camera to the tripod my heart skipped a beat …. my bullhead looked strange. It was then that I noticed the knob that turns the quick release head to clamp my camera to the tripod was missing. Not a big deal I thought, I can at least use my fingers to turn the screw. Oh wait …. the clamp that moves in and holds the camera in was gone too!!! Completely missing. I have no idea how the entire thing fell off but it meant that my tripod was useless! I'm hoping that Acratech will replace the bullhead, or at least replace the part, for free. I was forced to hand-hold my shots for this shoot. Knowing that we needed long shutters to provide foreground motion Willie suggested that I use a rock to balance the camera. This was a great idea because it gave me a little extra stability without my tripod but it also meant that my compositions were limited to a couple spots. My thoughts of catching waves crashing over some other rocks were dashed. Despite the lack of tripod I still managed to get a number of shots that came out decent and since I was slightly higher up the beach I also managed to stay more dry than Willie, who took a splash over his new rain boots. Unfortunately for us, Mamma Nature is still mad at us and although there were *perfect* clouds above the Golden Gate Bridge, a bunch of low, thick clouds rolled in at the horizon behind us and blocked the light from reaching anywhere. Oh well, Black and White it is, which turned out kinda neat! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 48mm, f/13, 0.4 sec, ISO 640, "Rock" Tripod (see above) Lee Filter Holder + 0.9 HiTech Soft ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Wave Breaker Hole in the Wall Beach Davenport, California James, Wilie and I headed down to Santa Cruz last Wednesday to capture what we hoped would be a nice sunset. We settled on Panther Beach but quickly got bored of the compositions and James and I went through the hole to Hole in the Wall Beach. We met Lukas and Jim Patterson as we waited for the sun to set (super cool!). I spent a while on the other side of these rocks but as the sun continued to set I followed the color in the sky back around to this side of the rocks that you see in this photo. I really liked how the rock would guide the retreating wave around before splashing back into the ocean. I used a long shutter (2 seconds) to capture the wave action. Luckily I had some big rain boots on and I was able to stand in the water without really getting wet -- which provided the nice water motion that you see in this shot! I managed to get back through the hole in the wall and return to my car without getting swept away this time! Last time I went for an accidental swim, got tossed into the rocks, and ruined my D80, iPhone, blackberry and 50mm f/1.8. Yay for surviving this time with no casualties! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/14, 2 sec, ISO 160 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Holy Sunset, Batman! Hole in the Wall Beach Davenport, California I had a feeling that the skies last week would we worth a trip to the coast and I threw my camera gear into my trunk just in case. Sure enough, James called Willie on Wednesday afternoon and asked if we wanted to leave work early and head to Santa Cruz. I had to wear business attire to work that morning and forgot to bring a change of clothes with me so I forced to head out with suit slacks and a button down shirt on. Once we got to Santa Cruz we decided we'd head to Panther Beach. We arrived and scouted for a while but I quickly realized that most of the good compositions would be under water before the sun set. I decided to head through the hole in the rock and start scouting "Hole in the Wall Beach". A little over a year ago Willie and I went down to Hole in the Wall Beach, crossed through the hole and had a very boring sunset. What I didn't realize was that the tide had come in and when we went to go back through the hole to return to our car I mistimed things, got swept in a wave, taken partially out to sea, thrown against the rocks, and then finally managed to swim back to the beach and get out. While my camera bag stayed mostly dry I lost a D80, a 50mm f/1.8, my iPhone, and my work blackberry (thankfully Apple replaced my iPhone for free!) Fast forward to Wednesday and again, the tide was low when we arrived and coming into a 3ft high tide. James, Willie, and I crossed the hole and scouted out some locations. I decided to stay close to the hole and shoot some of the rock outcroppings. Lukas Wenger passed us as we scouted around and later Jim Patterson and Kendra walked by and I managed a quick "Hi!" before they continued on to the south part of the beach (personally, I found) it pretty neat to run into a famous photographer like Jim!) Wearing tall rain boots ended up being a true blessing. As the tide came in the spot where I had setup my tripod quickly filled with incoming waves; the boots kept me dry while I was able to take photographs as water came in and then retreated. I tried to find some movement of the water around the rocks. As the sun continued to set the sky filled up with more and more color. Turned out to be quite a nice sunset! And I was able to successfully return to my car without getting swept away! I've now successfully conquered Hole in the Wall beach!! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/18, 1.3 sec, ISO 125 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Skyrocket "Cripps Beach" Davenport, California Yesterday I checked the weather forecast and it looked like there were some nice clouds rolling in. I asked Willie if I should head home, grab my gear, and then hit the coast. Willie had been watching the weather satellite all day and it looked like the clouds disappeared as they hit Santa Cruz and he thought it wouldn't be a good day to go shoot. Instead of grabbing my gear I went to the gym and when I walked out of the gym at 5:30pm and looked up at the sky it was *on fire* with some amazing/blazing color. I banged my head against my car for a couple minutes as I watched the beautiful sunset die out. Today, determined not to make the same mistake again I packed up all my camera gear and threw it in the car … just in case the weather would hold out today and we'd get a nice sunset. Sure enough, at 2:30pm Willie tells me "I'm meeting James Wang at 2:50. Come if you want!" Of course! So I ditch work, hop in my car, and the 3 of us drive down to Santa Cruz. It was supposed to be high tide and James recommends we head on over to Cripps Beach (popular name because Joshua Cripps/Jim Patterson seem to be the first to photograph it). After parking, walking to the beach, and then climbing down the cliff (there was a rope attached to help out) we scouted around for a while. We walked along the beach for a while and Willie and I eventually found a nice little cove that had some interesting water currents rolling over the rocks. We setup and waited. Unfortunately the tide came in quicker than the sun set and our composition quickly became under water! Doh! Willie and I both left our spot and began to scout new locations. Willie stopped along a beach, and not wanting to take the same photo as Willie, I kept going. I had seen this little inlet earlier and now that the tide had risen a bit the composition looked much nicer than 30 minutes earlier. I noticed that there were some clouds further to the west so I moved south to face them. Sure enough 10 minutes after the sun had set the sky lit up! I wished the clouds had been a little bit closer to give us more color but there was some beautiful stuff going on along the horizon and for a minute or two the sky above me lit up as well. While snapping away I noticed a small plume of smoke rising out of the ocean. As I kept watching the sea I noticed that the plume was rising, and rising, and rising, until it eventually pitched and rolled and continued on an upward trajectory. A rocket!!! I just witnessed a rocket launch! I was pretty excited … especially since I work in a similar industry. When I got home I tried to look up what the launch was (I assumed it was from Vandenburg Airforce Base) but I couldn't find any rocket launches scheduled. Must have been some kind of missile test? Who knows. You can see the rocket in the photo, about ⅔ of the way to the right in this image, just above the horizon. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 19mm, f/13, 3 sec, ISO 200 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad + HiTech 0.6 Soft Grad ND
Aaron Meyers > Spotlight Pfeiffer Beach Big Sur, California One of the coolest shots along the CA coast-line occurs during December/January every year: the sun just happens to set at just the right spot that a light-beam peeks through Pfeiffer Arch at Pfeiffer State Beach in Big Sur, CA. If the light beam happens to hit a splash of water it can also light up the spray. Willie, Celina, and I arrived about 2.5 hours prior to sunset to get the prime location. We heard a rumor that a workshop would be there and we wanted to beat them to the good spots. We were the firsts to arrive, picked the best composition that we could find and waited. About 45 minutes before sunset the light beam started to show up. At first it was just a faint beam but about 20 minutes before sunset it really started to glow orange and red. We waited for a large wave to come through the arch and create a lot of mist and spray which would catch in the light and make the beam visible. Luckily for us there was a strong surf and about 15 minutes before sunset the light beam just lit up like crazy. I snapped away as fast as I could to make sure I captured it. About 15 seconds later this large beam was gone. There continued to be beams all the way until about sunset but they were never as big as this one. Despite the fact that the D700 is supposed to have slightly better dynamic range than the Canon 5D Mark II, Willie kept getting great exposures all in 1 shot while I couldn't seem to avoid clipping if I exposed the rocks properly. In order to get this shot I had to expose one photo for the light beam and then a much darker exposure to capture the suns reflection off the splashes. I also blended a 3rd image in to keep the foreground rocks a bit sharper than the f/9 original exposure produced. My apologies to the people behind us who were hoping to get a shot of the entire Pfeiffer Arch (wide angle). We setup early so we could get our shot and we knew that the light would only get better and didn't want to lose our spot by moving. I guess it worked out because a bunch of other photographers ended up moving close to us and at that point there was no way the guy who wanted to shoot wide was going to get his shot :( Sorry again! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 62mm, f/9, 1/10 sec, ISO 160, Tripod No filters, NOT an HDR
Aaron Meyers > Christmas Sunrise SF Bay Bridge San Francisco, California For the past couple of years my buddy Zack and I have woken up early and driven to San Francisco for sunrise on Christmas morning. Being Jewish and not celebrating Christmas we're both usually away from our family, our friends are with their family, and the city is completely dead, which is perfect for photos. Unfortunately for us we left my apartment a little bit later than planned and got to Pier 14 just as the light was started to get good. I raced to try to setup my camera, figure out the framing, and start snapping away … then realized I wanted some filters and had to race to put on the Lee Filter holder and filters. All in all - I didn't really get a chance to figure out my composition, how many pylons I wanted, which pylons were the best to include, etc. It happened to be low tide (mostly low) so we got a good amount of the pylons showing, and there was enough cloud coverage to provide some color, but it was totally hazy/foggy and made the scene a bit eery. In fact, the light reflections from Oakland didn't come through at all, and I think I didn't get setup in time to capture the light reflections from the bridge. There were a bunch of seagulls flying around the scene too, and you can just make out a seagull on the left-most pylon who happened to sit there for a good majority of the ~6 minute exposure! I'm not in love with this photo but I wanted to make sure to capture something from pier 14 before the America's Cup comes to SF and the renovations remove these classic pylons. This is one of the most photographed spot in SF and it will become a thing of the past soon :( Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 32mm, f/9, 376 sec, ISO 640 Lee Big Stopper + HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Perfect Falls Lower Bridealveil Falls Yosemite National Park, CA For anyone who's followed my photos for a while this photo may be familiar. I took a very very similar shot about 2-3 years ago. 2 years ago I discovered (as did many others) that when the falls are barely trickling you can walk into the rocks and towards the granite rock face behind Bridalveil. When you get closer all of a sudden this gorgeous little waterfall opens up (I'll call it Lower Bridalveil Falls). I originally took this on a Nikon D40x, handheld, since i had decided to leave my camera/tripod in the car (oops!). I've been wanting to take a better (high quality) photo ever since. Willie, Will, and I only had about 40 minutes before we wanted to hit the road so we ran super fast to the start of the little river where I knew this waterfall would be. We had to slow down when we got to the rocks because they were REALLY slippery and it was fairly complicated making our way through the maze of rocks over to Lower Bridalveil. We got there, setup our tripods as best we could, clicked away, and then raced back. Unfortunately Willie slipped at one point and bumped his shin a bit. He could still walk but it was uncomfortable. I'm not sure I like my new photo better but it was taken with a better camera, with better glass, and with a tripod, so yea. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 27mm, f/10, 0.4 sec, ISO 200, Tripod B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer. Can't remember if I used ND Grad's
Aaron Meyers > Double Moonbow Yosemite Falls Trail Yosemite National Park, CA My photo buddy, Willie, has been waiting for about a year to capture another moonbow over Yosemite Falls and this week turned out to be the moonbow week! We decided to take half a day off from work and left after lunch on Tuesday and drove up to Yosemite. We grabbed dinner, packed our gear and started hiking up the Upper Yosemite Falls Trail. It's a grueling 2 mile hike up 1,000 feet to the first "Yosemite Falls Lookout" and we got to the lookout with plenty of time to spare. Apparently we weren't the only ones to have this idea as there were several other photographers already there and several more arrived after us. About 30 seconds before I took out my tripod another photographer grabbed the spot I wanted! Doh! I ended up finding another spot, up on top of a small rock cliff that worked decently enough. I had some trees to contend with but got a decent enough composition without any trees. My spot was also much drier than where my friends were shooting from. The wind picked up at night and was blowing water from the falls all over us. I constantly had use my micro-fiber cloth to dry the front of my lens. The battery of my wireless shutter release also happened to die just as the moonbow was starting. Trying to hand hold on BULB mode didn't work so I had to limit my exposures to 30 seconds :( It turned out to work decently as my D300s performed nicely even at ISO 500 and even up to ISO 640. I didn't even notice there was a double rainbow in this until I got home! The moonbow was REALLY bright -- you could even start to see the color with the naked eye (which is usually impossible due to the structure of our eye failing to see color at night). Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 28mm, f/5, 30 sec, ISO 500, Tripod No HDR, no saturation increase, minor edits
Aaron Meyers > Purple Bliss Bonsai Rock Lake Tahoe, Nevada [Update on 8/29/11] I decided to re-edit this image since it's one of my favorites. I pulled up the brightness in the rock and un-cropped the photo to get more of the reflections. Thoughts? A bunch of months ago I saw a local photographer and one of my good Flickr friends, David Shield (http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidshield/), post a photo from "Bonsai Rock" in Lake Tahoe. Bonsai Rock is located on the north-east side of the lake, about 45 minutes from South Lake Tahoe. If you stand on the east shore you can get spectacular sunset photos with the rock in the foreground and the sunset in the background. Ever since I saw his photo this place was on my list of things I wanted to photograph! I attempted this photo a couple weekends ago but a storm rolled in and there was no color in the sky. I didn't even bother leaving our ski cabin to go shoot. Finally this last weekend the weather looked great and I had a chance to drive up to the north-east shore and find Bonsai Rock. I've read a lot of blogs and viewed a lot of photos of Bonsai Rock but it was 1) harder to find and 2) harder to photograph than I expected. I spent over an hour trying to find the right location to setup the tripod and take the photo. We had a gorgeous sunset (at one point the sunset over the mountains made it look like the mountains were on FIRE!) with some great color but I couldn't keep the photo simple enough to my liking -- there were just too many rocks in the photo. I didn't realize that the water level of Lake Tahoe rises and falls. This was a medium height: some of the rocks that many other photographs show (and lead the eye into Bonsai Rock) were covered up, but a lot of the rocks behind Bonsai Rock were completely uncovered and distracted from the background. Just as I was about to leave and call it a disappointing failure I thought about taking this one last, simple, composition zooming in on the rock. The sun had set about 15 minutes earlier but the color in the sky all of a sudden lit up further west than it had earlier and a long exposure (2.5 minutes) got the silky smooth water and brought out the color in the sky! I'm quite happy with how this came out! To find Bonsai Rock park at 39.183690 , -119.927088 and then climb down the side of the hill to 39.184844, -119.927727. More detailed directions if you're trying to find it: The parking location is about 6.7 miles north of the highway 28/highway 50 junction. There's a small turn-out on the side of the road (on the left side of the road if you're heading from S. Lake Tahoe. If you get to what looks like a highway rest stop on the right you've gone too far. If you're coming from North Lake, it's on the right, just past Sand Harbor after the rest-stop thing on your left). If you want to throw in your GPS coordinates the parking spot is pretty much exactly at 39.183690 , -119.927088. Once you park you have to hike down a steep hill slightly north of where you park. A lot of people mentioned that it was a "steep hike" but I never realized that it was about a 200 foot climb down to the water. It wasn't extremely difficult to get down, but we did have to hold onto some trees/roots/rocks to make sure we didn't slip and tumble into an injury. Getting back up after the shoot was a decent workout (note: if you're going at sunset, I recommend that you DON'T forget to bring a flashlight). Bonsai Rock itself is located at 39.184844, -119.927727. Mike Wiacek (http://www.mikewiacek.com/blog/2009/08/bonsai-rock-formation-lake-tahoe/) has been so kind as to create a custom Google Maps for Bonsai Rock. Check it out at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=117078272024675730991.000471c9db1839af7e9e6. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 35mm, f/11, 2.5 minutes, ISO 100, Tripod Lee Foundation Kit Filter Holder B+W F-Pro Circular Polarizer, HiTech 0.9 Graduated ND, Hitech 0.9 ND Soft, and 0.6 ND Soft. No HDR!
Holy Sunset, Batman!
Hole in the Wall Beach
Davenport, California

I had a feeling that the skies last week would we worth a trip to the coast and I threw my camera gear into my trunk just in case. Sure enough, James called Willie on Wednesday afternoon and asked if we wanted to leave work early and head to Santa Cruz. I had to wear business attire to work that morning and forgot to bring a change of clothes with me so I forced to head out with suit slacks and a button down shirt on. Once we got to Santa Cruz we decided we'd head to Panther Beach. We arrived and scouted for a while but I quickly realized that most of the good compositions would be under water before the sun set. I decided to head through the hole in the rock and start scouting "Hole in the Wall Beach".

A little over a year ago Willie and I went down to Hole in the Wall Beach, crossed through the hole and had a very boring sunset. What I didn't realize was that the tide had come in and when we went to go back through the hole to return to our car I mistimed things, got swept in a wave, taken partially out to sea, thrown against the rocks, and then finally managed to swim back to the beach and get out. While my camera bag stayed mostly dry I lost a D80, a 50mm f/1.8, my iPhone, and my work blackberry (thankfully Apple replaced my iPhone for free!)

Fast forward to Wednesday and again, the tide was low when we arrived and coming into a 3ft high tide. James, Willie, and I crossed the hole and scouted out some locations. I decided to stay close to the hole and shoot some of the rock outcroppings. Lukas Wenger passed us as we scouted around and later Jim Patterson and Kendra walked by and I managed a quick "Hi!" before they continued on to the south part of the beach (personally, I found) it pretty neat to run into a famous photographer like Jim!)

Wearing tall rain boots ended up being a true blessing. As the tide came in the spot where I had setup my tripod quickly filled with incoming waves; the boots kept me dry while I was able to take photographs as water came in and then retreated. I tried to find some movement of the water around the rocks. As the sun continued to set the sky filled up with more and more color. Turned out to be quite a nice sunset! And I was able to successfully return to my car without getting swept away! I've now successfully conquered Hole in the Wall beach!!

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/18, 1.3 sec, ISO 125
HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Aaron Meyers > Holy Sunset, Batman! Hole in the Wall Beach Davenport, California I had a feeling that the skies last week would we worth a trip to the coast and I threw my camera gear into my trunk just in case. Sure enough, James called Willie on Wednesday afternoon and asked if we wanted to leave work early and head to Santa Cruz. I had to wear business attire to work that morning and forgot to bring a change of clothes with me so I forced to head out with suit slacks and a button down shirt on. Once we got to Santa Cruz we decided we'd head to Panther Beach. We arrived and scouted for a while but I quickly realized that most of the good compositions would be under water before the sun set. I decided to head through the hole in the rock and start scouting "Hole in the Wall Beach". A little over a year ago Willie and I went down to Hole in the Wall Beach, crossed through the hole and had a very boring sunset. What I didn't realize was that the tide had come in and when we went to go back through the hole to return to our car I mistimed things, got swept in a wave, taken partially out to sea, thrown against the rocks, and then finally managed to swim back to the beach and get out. While my camera bag stayed mostly dry I lost a D80, a 50mm f/1.8, my iPhone, and my work blackberry (thankfully Apple replaced my iPhone for free!) Fast forward to Wednesday and again, the tide was low when we arrived and coming into a 3ft high tide. James, Willie, and I crossed the hole and scouted out some locations. I decided to stay close to the hole and shoot some of the rock outcroppings. Lukas Wenger passed us as we scouted around and later Jim Patterson and Kendra walked by and I managed a quick "Hi!" before they continued on to the south part of the beach (personally, I found) it pretty neat to run into a famous photographer like Jim!) Wearing tall rain boots ended up being a true blessing. As the tide came in the spot where I had setup my tripod quickly filled with incoming waves; the boots kept me dry while I was able to take photographs as water came in and then retreated. I tried to find some movement of the water around the rocks. As the sun continued to set the sky filled up with more and more color. Turned out to be quite a nice sunset! And I was able to successfully return to my car without getting swept away! I've now successfully conquered Hole in the Wall beach!! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/18, 1.3 sec, ISO 125 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Holy Sunset, Batman!
Hole in the Wall Beach
Davenport, California

I had a feeling that the skies last week would we worth a trip to the coast and I threw my camera gear into my trunk just in case. Sure enough, James called Willie on Wednesday afternoon and asked if we wanted to leave work early and head to Santa Cruz. I had to wear business attire to work that morning and forgot to bring a change of clothes with me so I forced to head out with suit slacks and a button down shirt on. Once we got to Santa Cruz we decided we'd head to Panther Beach. We arrived and scouted for a while but I quickly realized that most of the good compositions would be under water before the sun set. I decided to head through the hole in the rock and start scouting "Hole in the Wall Beach".

A little over a year ago Willie and I went down to Hole in the Wall Beach, crossed through the hole and had a very boring sunset. What I didn't realize was that the tide had come in and when we went to go back through the hole to return to our car I mistimed things, got swept in a wave, taken partially out to sea, thrown against the rocks, and then finally managed to swim back to the beach and get out. While my camera bag stayed mostly dry I lost a D80, a 50mm f/1.8, my iPhone, and my work blackberry (thankfully Apple replaced my iPhone for free!)

Fast forward to Wednesday and again, the tide was low when we arrived and coming into a 3ft high tide. James, Willie, and I crossed the hole and scouted out some locations. I decided to stay close to the hole and shoot some of the rock outcroppings. Lukas Wenger passed us as we scouted around and later Jim Patterson and Kendra walked by and I managed a quick "Hi!" before they continued on to the south part of the beach (personally, I found) it pretty neat to run into a famous photographer like Jim!)

Wearing tall rain boots ended up being a true blessing. As the tide came in the spot where I had setup my tripod quickly filled with incoming waves; the boots kept me dry while I was able to take photographs as water came in and then retreated. I tried to find some movement of the water around the rocks. As the sun continued to set the sky filled up with more and more color. Turned out to be quite a nice sunset! And I was able to successfully return to my car without getting swept away! I've now successfully conquered Hole in the Wall beach!!

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/18, 1.3 sec, ISO 125
HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
See photo in original gallery.
Camera: Nikon Corporation (Nikon D700) |
more details: exif |
original size: 4256px x 2832px |
Current: 600px x 399px |
Other sizes: S • Medium • L |
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Keywords: beach sunset water waves wet wall rock landscape hole california pacific movement davenport seascape nikon santa cruz pacific ocean hole in the wall 2012 nikon d700 silicon valley photography aaron meyers photography
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