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Ancestor's Delight Sunrise Over Ancient Petrogylphs California It's not every day that you can witness snow capped peaks and 5,000 year old petroglyphs while the sky explodes with color around you. As fate would have it I was treated to this amazingly rare scene while on a weekend trip to the Eastern Sierras. Knowing how special this morning was I made sure to cherish every moment of it, as well as to step away from the camera to embrace the scene and take it all in. Carved thousands of years ago by removing the top layer of granite these symbols let ones imagination run wild as to their meaning. The weekend was spent with early mornings, long car rides, constant Wunderground iPhone App checking, a little bit of prayer, much less complaining than the previous weekend, and most importantly beautiful scenes. In all I drove about 1,000 miles, saw my first Joshua Tree, roamed around dry lake beds in Death Valley, bundled up in jackets, stripped down to just shorts and t-shirts, survived a snow storm, and explored natural sandcastles. The weather reports for this weekend had been changing daily and it wasn't until the hotel cancellation deadline had passed that the trip became a reality. Boy am I glad it did! The previous afternoon started with clear skies and no cameras but as the sun started to set I caught my first glimpse of the clouds. After sprinting back to the car, lots of exhaustion and a race with time my 4th attempt at photographing the petroglyphs ended with a colorless sunset. It was early to bed and an even earlier to wake but my 5th attempt turned out much more successful! The storm clouds had finally rolled in and as I began my trek to the petroglyphs I watched as the sky lit up with beautiful pinks, oranges, and reds all around me. I constantly walked in circles just to take it all in. What an amazing morning! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/11, 1.0 sec, ISO 125
Shrouded Fog Surrounding Hawk Hill Taken from Slacker Hill, San Francisco, California I thought I would post something a little different ... and perhaps surprising today. Despite having a number of fairly "epic" photos in my queue I wanted to touch on a topic that I've been thinking a lot about lately. All too often I find that we landscape photographers get numbed by the amazing beauty we see every day. We see so many beautiful sunrises, amazing landscapes and stunning vistas that we forget about the lesser but still beautiful scenes. In our search to find the "perfect" scene we tune out all the other beautiful things we see. What may be a beautiful sunrise to most we consider "boring" if there wasn't a burn with huge textured pinks, reds, oranges, and yellows in the sky. If the fog is too high we call it "skunked". If the clouds only have color in one part of the sky we say that it's dull. Sometimes we get so caught up in capturing the "perfect" photo that we end up focusing solely on the bad parts of the image. So what if the lower right of the image is boring, as long as the remaining 3/4 of the photo is still beautiful? So what if the fog was a bit high today? And so what if the photographer super saturated the sky to make it more colorful? Perfection in landscape photographer is rare -- if it ever occurs. We are not studio photographers - there are forces we cannot control and we should not overly criticize photos because Mama Nature didn't answer our phone call (but please, feel free to provide constructive criticism on my photos)! On this particular morning there could have been a number of things "more perfect". The fog was higher than I would have liked. Cars only drove up to Marin Headlands; none drove down to give me beautiful red taillights in my photos. The deck of the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't visible and the glow of the lights in the fog was minimal. San Francisco could barely be seen and a huge dark black hill sat in the middle of my photo wasting tons and tons of pixels. But there were high clouds and high hopes. What I came home with wasn't perfect but it *was* a great morning. I shared the beautiful sunrise with a number of photographers, several of which I call my friends even though we only hang out for an hour when we randomly show up at the same spot. I witnessed the fog roll up and down. I avoided work. I had a nice hike. I enjoyed a wonderful pink and purple sunrise. And I came home with so many photos I was excited about that I didn't even know where to start! At one point I looked to my right and saw the fog shrouding one of our other favorite spots to photograph the fog, Hawk Hill. The pink clouds had started streaking towards it. I temporary gave up on shooting the Golden Gate Bridge and took a couple photos of the fogged in hill. Sure, the right portion of the sky is boring and there's a big empty spot in the lower right that has no subject, but it's the *rest* of the photo that I wanted to show you all. And it's the feeling that I felt while up here that I hope you get when you look at this hill, isolated in a sea of fog. And sure enough, a couple minutes later the other photographers thought I was onto something because before I knew it everyone was running with tripods to take a few snaps of their own! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 38mm, f/5, 0.5 sec, ISO 100
Laser Chief Lower Antelope Canyon Page, Arizona One of my fellow photographer friends, Jave, has a wonderful photo in Lower Antelope Canyon of light beams in front of the Granite Chief. Willie, Yan, and I had spent the night in Page, AZ and we found ourselves with half a day to kill. We arrived at Lower Antelope Canyon before they opened and were the first ones in the canyon. We didn't see anyone for over an hour. At some point one of the Navajo guides walked past and I stopped him and asked if he knew what time the light beams crossed in front of the Granite Chief. He told me that it was later in the afternoon but we had a flight to catch and couldn't wait for that to happen. Willie wanted to get a photograph of the Chief anyways. Willie took some shots and just as we were about to leave I noticed a light beam forming near the eye of the Chief! Sure enough the tiny little light beam grew and grew as the sun came up through the canyon. We stopped and fired a number of photos. I like how this looks like the Chief was Cyclop's early teacher … look at those laser beams coming out of his eye! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 38mm, f/11, 2 sec, ISO 125
HorseFAIL Horsetail Falls, Fire Falls Yosemite National Park, CA Although Galen Rowell first photographed the Horsetail Falls "Fire Falls" in 1973 it was only until recently, with the popularity of the internet and social media, that this became a popular scene. During 2 weeks in February the sun sets at just the right angle that the orange glow reflects off the water and granite wall giving it the appearance of fire. Thousands of photographers flock to Yosemite National Park each winter to photograph this. In order for the Fire Falls effect to happen there needs to be plenty of water in the waterfall, the angle of the sun has to be just right, and the sky needs to be clear enough not to block the light from the sun. There are 2 main locations to photograph the Horsetail Falls Fire Falls: one by the El Capitan picnic grounds (on Northside Drive) and the other along the river bank further south (on Southside Drive). Having photographed this event from the Southside Drive location in 2011 I decided to photograph from Northside Drive this year. Willie, Alan, and I drove down to Yosemite National Park on Friday afternoon and spent the entire weekend in Yosemite. My cousin and his friend also joined us. As most people have pointed out the water level this year has been awful. A few giant storms in December gave way to an extremely dry January and February. When we arrived on Friday afternoon we could barely even find the waterfall, which is supplied by snowmelt from the top of El Capitan. Although several inches of snow fell a few days earlier the water level was looking pretty abysmal. On top of that, clouds kept rolling in. Luckily the clouds disappeared an hour or so before sunset and the only issue we had to tackle was water level. Disappointingly, not enough snow melted and we ended up with a mostly wet wall and not much waterfall. Willie, Alan, and I spent the rest of the weekend freezing our tuchases off as we drove around the park trying to find other things to photograph. We also ran into a number of other photographers that we have exchanged emails, comments, and conversations with: Jean Day, Matt Granz, Michael Bonocore, Joe Azure, and Chung Hu to name a few. We decided to cut our trip short and leave the park early on Sunday morning. Just as we drove out of the park at 9:30am we noticed that Horsetail Falls was *gushing* with water. We could see it with our naked eye! Scratch the plan to leave -- we turned around and went to the lodge to get some grub. Unfortunately …. When we returned at the waterfall a couple hours later the waterfall was completely gone again! Oh well, next year! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D ED: 200m, f/11, 1/50 sec, ISO 100
Choo Choo Train The Subway Hike Zion National Park, Utah When I visited Zion National Park in 2011 one of the hikes that I absolutely loved was The Subway. In fact, I went so far as to call it my most favorite hike I've ever done! Willie, Yan, and I had hiked the Narrows the day before and also found it to be equally amazing. Yan, having heard me raving about the Subway insisted that we head here on our second day in the park. I wanted to try something new, specifically hike to Kanarra Creek, but Willie and Yan convinced me that emerald pools and glowing walls would be worth it. The Subway it was! We arrived at the parking lot quite early and were shocked to see so many cars had already arrived! It was decided to see if we could pass *all* of them and we took off almost at a run at times. Other groups came and went in our wake as we flew up the Virgin River towards the Subway. About halfway through the hike I realized that our blistering pace was causing me to not enjoy the hike at all and I forced Willie to slow down so we could take in the scenery. This also gave us a chance to look back and realize that the clear skies we were hoping for were being covered with clouds … not good for glowing walls in the Subway. On the other hand, it was perfect for photographing Archangel Falls located slightly before the Subway. Despite our fast pace to the Subway we were the second group to arrive. We had to wait for them to finish taking their pictures and then waited some more while they got out of ours. Turns out that waiting was well worth it because the clouds that had been blocking the beautiful glow inside the Subway disappeared for about 15 minutes and we frantically snapped photographs. A flash flood 2 months earlier deposited sand inside the Subway and left the emerald pools looking yellow and boring. It took some "special sauce" in post processing to bring back an emerald color to the pools. We brought a bag of leaves with us and were able to get beautiful some beautiful swirling motion in the water, which had eluded me when I photographed this in 2011. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/16, 8 sec, ISO 50 B+W Circular Polarizer
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
Narrow Beauty The Narrows, Wall Street section Zion National Park, Utah One of the most amazing hikes in Zion National Park is The Narrows. Once Willie, Yan, and I donned on our drysuit pants, neoprene socks and canyoneering shoes we trudged 9 miles up and down the Virgin River through this beautiful slot canyon. In the morning the suns rays bounce off the red rock walls, causing them to glow with beautiful color. One of the first spots we found with glowing walls was here in the middle of Wall Street. This is only a small section of the rock wall that was lit with a beautiful orange and yellow but I really loved how the water was also reflecting the color. I decided to use a less traditional landscape (horizontal) orientation so that I could include the glow of the water in this photo. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/11, 1.3 sec, ISO 320 B+W Circular Polarizer
Lost Her Panties Sunset from Tunnel View Yosemite National Park, California The way the clouds parted and lit up El Capitan it made it look like she was wearing a bra. But now she's missing her panties! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 36mm, f/11, 1/40 sec, ISO 100 No Filters, No HDR
Ancestor's Delight
Sunrise Over Ancient Petrogylphs
California

It's not every day that you can witness snow capped peaks and 5,000 year old petroglyphs while the sky explodes with color around you. As fate would have it I was treated to this amazingly rare scene while on a weekend trip to the Eastern Sierras. Knowing how special this morning was I made sure to cherish every moment of it, as well as to step away from the camera to embrace the scene and take it all in. Carved thousands of years ago by removing the top layer of granite these symbols let ones imagination run wild as to their meaning.

The weekend was spent with early mornings, long car rides, constant Wunderground iPhone App checking, a little bit of prayer, much less complaining than the previous weekend, and most importantly beautiful scenes. In all I drove about 1,000 miles, saw my first Joshua Tree, roamed around dry lake beds in Death Valley, bundled up in jackets, stripped down to just shorts and t-shirts, survived a snow storm, and explored natural sandcastles.

The weather reports for this weekend had been changing daily and it wasn't until the hotel cancellation deadline had passed that the trip became a reality. Boy am I glad it did! The previous afternoon started with clear skies and no cameras but as the sun started to set I caught my first glimpse of the clouds. After sprinting back to the car, lots of exhaustion and a race with time my 4th attempt at photographing the petroglyphs ended with a colorless sunset.

It was early to bed and an even earlier to wake but my 5th attempt turned out much more successful! The storm clouds had finally rolled in and as I began my trek to the petroglyphs I watched as the sky lit up with beautiful pinks, oranges, and reds all around me. I constantly walked in circles just to take it all in. What an amazing morning!

Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/11, 1.0 sec, ISO 125
Ancestor's Delight Sunrise Over Ancient Petrogylphs California It's not every day that you can witness snow capped peaks and 5,000 year old petroglyphs while the sky explodes with color around you. As fate would have it I was treated to this amazingly rare scene while on a weekend trip to the Eastern Sierras. Knowing how special this morning was I made sure to cherish every moment of it, as well as to step away from the camera to embrace the scene and take it all in. Carved thousands of years ago by removing the top layer of granite these symbols let ones imagination run wild as to their meaning. The weekend was spent with early mornings, long car rides, constant Wunderground iPhone App checking, a little bit of prayer, much less complaining than the previous weekend, and most importantly beautiful scenes. In all I drove about 1,000 miles, saw my first Joshua Tree, roamed around dry lake beds in Death Valley, bundled up in jackets, stripped down to just shorts and t-shirts, survived a snow storm, and explored natural sandcastles. The weather reports for this weekend had been changing daily and it wasn't until the hotel cancellation deadline had passed that the trip became a reality. Boy am I glad it did! The previous afternoon started with clear skies and no cameras but as the sun started to set I caught my first glimpse of the clouds. After sprinting back to the car, lots of exhaustion and a race with time my 4th attempt at photographing the petroglyphs ended with a colorless sunset. It was early to bed and an even earlier to wake but my 5th attempt turned out much more successful! The storm clouds had finally rolled in and as I began my trek to the petroglyphs I watched as the sky lit up with beautiful pinks, oranges, and reds all around me. I constantly walked in circles just to take it all in. What an amazing morning! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/11, 1.0 sec, ISO 125" href="javascript:openLB(2470662107,'',XLarge,'',1024,684);">Ancestor's Delight Sunrise Over Ancient Petrogylphs California It's not every day that you can witness snow capped peaks and 5,000 year old petroglyphs while the sky explodes with color around you. As fate would have it I was treated to this amazingly rare scene while on a weekend trip to the Eastern Sierras. Knowing how special this morning was I made sure to cherish every moment of it, as well as to step away from the camera to embrace the scene and take it all in. Carved thousands of years ago by removing the top layer of granite these symbols let ones imagination run wild as to their meaning. The weekend was spent with early mornings, long car rides, constant Wunderground iPhone App checking, a little bit of prayer, much less complaining than the previous weekend, and most importantly beautiful scenes. In all I drove about 1,000 miles, saw my first Joshua Tree, roamed around dry lake beds in Death Valley, bundled up in jackets, stripped down to just shorts and t-shirts, survived a snow storm, and explored natural sandcastles. The weather reports for this weekend had been changing daily and it wasn't until the hotel cancellation deadline had passed that the trip became a reality. Boy am I glad it did! The previous afternoon started with clear skies and no cameras but as the sun started to set I caught my first glimpse of the clouds. After sprinting back to the car, lots of exhaustion and a race with time my 4th attempt at photographing the petroglyphs ended with a colorless sunset. It was early to bed and an even earlier to wake but my 5th attempt turned out much more successful! The storm clouds had finally rolled in and as I began my trek to the petroglyphs I watched as the sky lit up with beautiful pinks, oranges, and reds all around me. I constantly walked in circles just to take it all in. What an amazing morning! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/11, 1.0 sec, ISO 125
Ancestor's Delight
Sunrise Over Ancient Petrogylphs
California

It's not every day that you can witness snow capped peaks and 5,000 year old petroglyphs while the sky explodes with color around you. As fate would have it I was treated to this amazingly rare scene while on a weekend trip to the Eastern Sierras. Knowing how special this morning was I made sure to cherish every moment of it, as well as to step away from the camera to embrace the scene and take it all in. Carved thousands of years ago by removing the top layer of granite these symbols let ones imagination run wild as to their meaning.

The weekend was spent with early mornings, long car rides, constant Wunderground iPhone App checking, a little bit of prayer, much less complaining than the previous weekend, and most importantly beautiful scenes. In all I drove about 1,000 miles, saw my first Joshua Tree, roamed around dry lake beds in Death Valley, bundled up in jackets, stripped down to just shorts and t-shirts, survived a snow storm, and explored natural sandcastles.

The weather reports for this weekend had been changing daily and it wasn't until the hotel cancellation deadline had passed that the trip became a reality. Boy am I glad it did! The previous afternoon started with clear skies and no cameras but as the sun started to set I caught my first glimpse of the clouds. After sprinting back to the car, lots of exhaustion and a race with time my 4th attempt at photographing the petroglyphs ended with a colorless sunset.

It was early to bed and an even earlier to wake but my 5th attempt turned out much more successful! The storm clouds had finally rolled in and as I began my trek to the petroglyphs I watched as the sky lit up with beautiful pinks, oranges, and reds all around me. I constantly walked in circles just to take it all in. What an amazing morning!

Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/11, 1.0 sec, ISO 125
See photo in original gallery.
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