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Indecision Hideaways Beach Princeville, Kauai, HI Before I left for my week of vacation in Kauai I looked at the weather forecast and it said "Partially Cloudy" or "Rain" pretty much every day while we were there. Although I was bummed that it might ruin my plans for lying on the beach, I got excited because that meant I might be in luck for catching a killer sunset. Of course once we arrived at Kauai the weather changed completely and it was mostly beautiful days with hardly a cloud in the sky at sunset. There was one exception: sunset on the first full day we were on the island. After making our way down a steep trail we arrived at Hideaways beach and to my delight I noticed lava rock all over the beach. Do you ever have one of those days where there's so many composition possibilities that you become overloaded and don't even know where to begin? Even though we arrived super early, I kept going from spot to spot, back and forth, up and down the beach, unable to decide which lava rocks I wanted to shoot! "Oh, I liked that spot, but the clouds just moved. Ok, over here, the clouds are better here now." I spent so much time moving my tripod all around that I almost missed the sunset! I originally setup in this location because the waves were creating some beautiful water motion in this little channel and the clouds had been positioned perfectly for the sunset. Unfortunately, when the sun got low enough to begin the light show, the clouds picked up and started high-tailing it out of my composition (moving to the left). From this spot I was able to setup my tripod on a couple rocks and avoided getting sand in my tripod (sand is about the worst thing for a nice tripod), and the rocks were high enough to keep me mostly dry when the waves came in here! I waited until the wave started retreating from the little channel to open the shutter. To my delight, the exiting wave hit some rocks in the middle of the channel and splashed up, catching some of the beautiful setting sunlight. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 17mm, f/14, 1/6 sec, ISO 160 Lee Filter Holder + 0.9 HiTech Soft ND Grad
Queen's Falls Queen's Bath, Princeville Kauai, HI I recently spent a week on vacation with a couple of my friends on the beautiful island of Kauai, Hawaii. We fit a gazillion things into the week but also found time for some relaxing days as well. One of my favorite parts of the trip, if not *the* favorite, was our visit to Queen's Bath. On the north end of the island, near Princeville, is an area of coastline covered my lava rocks. In one particular place, called Queen's Bath, the lava rocks have made a little pool that is protected from the incoming waves. Water flows in from the back, filling the pool with water, fish, and other goodies, but keeping it safe to swim in. This place has become so popular that a parking lot and official trail have been made to get here. If you do go here, be careful to ensure that you find the *actual* Queen's Bath and don't instead swim in one of the similarly but much more deadly pools that aren't protected from the incoming waves. There's a sign at the bottom of the trail stating that 28 people have died here. On the hike down to the falls I passed 2 waterfalls that I knew I just *had* to photograph. The first one, which is a bit larger, I may post later. The second, and smaller set of falls is this one here, where the water cascades down from the stream and creates 2 waterfalls almost back to back. The wide angle lens used here makes the falls appear somewhat larger than they are, but in actuality they're fairly small. After swimming in Queen's Bath we went home and showered and waited for golden hour to start. We returned, hoping that the setting sun would reduce the glare on the rocks and then I planned on shooting sunset from the lava rocks as well. For this, I chose a composition that would show the two falls in a somewhat "S" shaped curve, and threw on the polarizer to reduce some of the glare. From where I am standing, Queen's Bath is behind me and to the right. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S 29mm, f/11, 1.3 sec, ISO 100, Tripod B+W Circular Polarizer
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
Models: Katherine and Jacob Baugher Photographer: Aaron Meyers http://www.aaronmphotography.com/
High and Low Zabriski Point Panorama Death Valley National Park, California Willie, Zack, and I arrived at Death Valley in the evening, checked into our hotel, grabbed some food and began looking at the forecasts to figure out the details for our Death Valley trip. There was a chance that the clouds would roll into position in time for sunrise so we woke up before dawn and raced over to Zabriski Point. We were the first to arrive! Since it was dark and we hadn't scouted earlier, we setup where we thought we should be and waited for sunrise. As was the theme of the trip, we had no color in the sunrise except for a faint glow. The moon was full and setting and we managed to take advantage of that and capture a few shots with the setting moon (I did not pull a "Peter Lik" and place the moon in this shot). As many of you know, Zabrsiki Point is a pretty mind-blowing place. There's some awesome shapes, amazing hills, snow covered mountains (although without snow), and just a giant escape. Behind the view here is Badwater Salt flats, the lowest point in the U.S. Above badwater, you can make out 14,000 ft mountains! Pretty insane to have the 2 juxtapositions in the same scene. I decided that a single exposure couldn't properly capture this place and took a pano of Zabriski Point with the moon setting. A little bit of pink color came out in the sky and I absolutely love the shapes here! Rather than edit out the people, I thought I'd leave the other photographers and on-lookers in the photo in an attempt to give this place a sense of scale! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: Multiple Exposures at 35mm, f/11?
Thomas Fog-erty Sunset above Thomas Fogarty Winery Woodside, California When people think of California wine they typically think of one of 2 (or 3) main areas: Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and the up-and-coming Paso Robles regions. Many people living in Silicon Valley might not realize that there's a whole slew of wonderful wineries right in their backyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains … places like Ridge Winery (one of my favorites and also one of my wine clubs), Picchetti, Hall Crest, and Thomas Fogarty Winery. Ridge and Fogarty sit on top of the Silicon Valley side of the Santa Cruz mountains and have absolutely *gorgeous* views of the entire Bay Area; on a clear day you can see all the way from San Francisco to San Jose. I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a Friday evening event at Thomas Fogarty winery that happened to take place right during sunset. I brought my camera with me in case some clouds rolled in and sure enough I managed to sneak out and capture this surprise of a sunset. I hadn't expected there to be any color in the sky but as I looked out towards San Francisco I noticed both clouds and fog rolling in. To my delight the fog created a mystical feel to the beautiful sunset at the winery. I tried to keep the vineyard in my composition to give a better sense of where this place is and how lucky these people are to own a vineyard up here. I was really impressed by how quickly the fog rolled in. This is a single exposure brought into LR4 and Photoshop CS5 with some minor doging/burning, and some color/contrast alterations (removed the HiTech Reverse ND Grad color cast and then I spent a long time trying to make the green feel right and eventually gave up as the best I could do). Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 48mm, f/13, 3.0 sec, ISO 200 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad + HiTech 0.9 Soft ND Grad
Eagle Ray Sunrise at Eagle Falls Lake Tahoe, California After Willie and I watched a beautiful sunrise over Emerald Bay we decided to see how easy it would be to find Eagle Falls. We knew the general location but we weren't sure if the falls was right off the trail, if we had to hike down to the lake, or what. Turns out it's a LOT easier to find than we thought. And by a lot easier I mean it's literally right off the road (you can see it from the road). It took a little bit of log walking, tree branch hangin' on, and some skippin' over rocks to get over here to get the composition we wanted. By this time the clouds were rollin' in pretty heavily and although we knew the color was gone we thought we'd have some fun taking some test shots anyways. I wanted to use the branches to add some interest to the foreground as well as frame the shot. I figured the tree could help frame this as well. The sunrise managed to squeak through the clouds and made a couple light-rays which I thought were neat. Without any color I thought I'd turn this into a black and white and see how it turned out. I used Nik's Silver Efex Pro to convert this and pull out some contrast and structure in the photo. Did I over process this? After the conversion I tried to pull the contrast back even more but I think a lot of that motion was in the RAW file from the long exposure. Thoughts? Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/9, 0.5 sec, ISO 100 B+W Circular Polarizer + HiTech 0.6 Soft Grad ND
End of the Road Old Mill Beach Westport, Connecticut Back in March I flew home to surprise my mom for her "30th Birthday" (at least that's what we're calling it). My brothers flew in and a couple of her best friends also made the treck over. She was completely surprised and we had a wonderful weekend! The weather also turned out to be absolutely perfect and I spent one night eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket at the beach while we "watched" the sunset "together". I say "watched" and "together" in quotes because it was more like my mom sitting on the picnic blanket while I ran around with my camera trying to snap photos, and occasionally coming back for a couple minutes while my Lee Big Stopper exposed a 5 minuet shot. Earlier in the day it had been pretty cloudy at the beach and I ran home and grabbed my camera and dashed back to the beach. I threw on the Lee Big Stopper to see if I could capture some cloud movement. This is a long exposure at Old Mill Beach, Westport, CT; LE to make the water glassy and make some nice pastel motions in the sky. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/22, 111 sec, ISO 100, Tripod B+W Circular Polarizer + Lee Big Stopper
Purple jacket
End of the Road
Old Mill Beach
Westport, Connecticut

Back in March I flew home to surprise my mom for her "30th Birthday" (at least that's what we're calling it). My brothers flew in and a couple of her best friends also made the treck over. She was completely surprised and we had a wonderful weekend! The weather also turned out to be absolutely perfect and I spent one night eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket at the beach while we "watched" the sunset "together". I say "watched" and "together" in quotes because it was more like my mom sitting on the picnic blanket while I ran around with my camera trying to snap photos, and occasionally coming back for a couple minutes while my Lee Big Stopper exposed a 5 minuet shot.

Earlier in the day it had been pretty cloudy at the beach and I ran home and grabbed my camera and dashed back to the beach. I threw on the Lee Big Stopper to see if I could capture some cloud movement. This is a long exposure at Old Mill Beach, Westport, CT; LE to make the water glassy and make some nice pastel motions in the sky.

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
24mm, f/22, 111 sec, ISO 100, Tripod
B+W Circular Polarizer + Lee Big Stopper
End of the Road Old Mill Beach Westport, Connecticut Back in March I flew home to surprise my mom for her "30th Birthday" (at least that's what we're calling it). My brothers flew in and a couple of her best friends also made the treck over. She was completely surprised and we had a wonderful weekend! The weather also turned out to be absolutely perfect and I spent one night eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket at the beach while we "watched" the sunset "together". I say "watched" and "together" in quotes because it was more like my mom sitting on the picnic blanket while I ran around with my camera trying to snap photos, and occasionally coming back for a couple minutes while my Lee Big Stopper exposed a 5 minuet shot. Earlier in the day it had been pretty cloudy at the beach and I ran home and grabbed my camera and dashed back to the beach. I threw on the Lee Big Stopper to see if I could capture some cloud movement. This is a long exposure at Old Mill Beach, Westport, CT; LE to make the water glassy and make some nice pastel motions in the sky. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/22, 111 sec, ISO 100, Tripod B+W Circular Polarizer + Lee Big Stopper" href="javascript:openLB(1803652200,'',XLarge,'',1024,682);">End of the Road Old Mill Beach Westport, Connecticut Back in March I flew home to surprise my mom for her "30th Birthday" (at least that's what we're calling it). My brothers flew in and a couple of her best friends also made the treck over. She was completely surprised and we had a wonderful weekend! The weather also turned out to be absolutely perfect and I spent one night eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket at the beach while we "watched" the sunset "together". I say "watched" and "together" in quotes because it was more like my mom sitting on the picnic blanket while I ran around with my camera trying to snap photos, and occasionally coming back for a couple minutes while my Lee Big Stopper exposed a 5 minuet shot. Earlier in the day it had been pretty cloudy at the beach and I ran home and grabbed my camera and dashed back to the beach. I threw on the Lee Big Stopper to see if I could capture some cloud movement. This is a long exposure at Old Mill Beach, Westport, CT; LE to make the water glassy and make some nice pastel motions in the sky. Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/22, 111 sec, ISO 100, Tripod B+W Circular Polarizer + Lee Big Stopper
End of the Road
Old Mill Beach
Westport, Connecticut

Back in March I flew home to surprise my mom for her "30th Birthday" (at least that's what we're calling it). My brothers flew in and a couple of her best friends also made the treck over. She was completely surprised and we had a wonderful weekend! The weather also turned out to be absolutely perfect and I spent one night eating fried chicken on a picnic blanket at the beach while we "watched" the sunset "together". I say "watched" and "together" in quotes because it was more like my mom sitting on the picnic blanket while I ran around with my camera trying to snap photos, and occasionally coming back for a couple minutes while my Lee Big Stopper exposed a 5 minuet shot.

Earlier in the day it had been pretty cloudy at the beach and I ran home and grabbed my camera and dashed back to the beach. I threw on the Lee Big Stopper to see if I could capture some cloud movement. This is a long exposure at Old Mill Beach, Westport, CT; LE to make the water glassy and make some nice pastel motions in the sky.

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
24mm, f/22, 111 sec, ISO 100, Tripod
B+W Circular Polarizer + Lee Big Stopper
See photo in original gallery.
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