Hills

Perched on Top

Sunrise over Oak Tree and Hills Silicon Valley, California If I’m getting up for sunrise while at home in the Bay Area it’s usually to go visit the Golden Gate Bridge or some other iconic spot in San Francisco. The Bay Area has some other beautiful locations though: tons and tons of rolling hills with beautiful oak trees dotting all over. They become especially pretty in the winter and spring, when all the winter rain turns our golden hills into stunning green hills. On this particular morning we met just before sunrise and looked around, wondering where the clouds were. There was 1 small patch of clouds that might light up, but the rest of the sky was devoid of anything that would catch color. Fortunately for us, that one small cloud happened to plop itself right behind the tree we wanted to photograph! I loved how this scene has criss-crossing hills, that suck the eye in, and then the Oak Tree cements your eye. A bird perched itself on top of the tree, which itself is perched on top of the hill. Big thanks to Willie for hunting for this tree and finding it! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8: 56mm, f/11, 1/40 sec, ISO 200

Pot of Gold

Sunset rainbow over green hills Silicon Valley, CA One of my favorite local scenes to photograph are the hills. The Bay Area has a lot to photograph but it's mostly known for its cityscapes and seascapes, so it's fun to photograph something different. And photographing it from the air is even more fun and different. Willie asked if I wanted to go fly the drone with him and the forecast looked perfect for some hills photos. Low clouds with a clearing at the horizon are perfect to light up the hills but also provide something interesting in the sky. When photographing the hills, I don't actually want a colorful sky -- the orange and reds from the sky don't go well with the green hills. But a nice glow in the clouds pairs perfectly with the warm shades on the hills. The setup was perfect -- before the sun went down, a hole in the sky cast light-beams all around. The sun dipped behind the clouds for a while before popping out just before it was blocked by the hills and dipped below the horizon. For a while, Willie and I were getting rained on. We let it past and then put our drones back up, and that's when I noticed a rainbow had come out. I flew to a nearby hill to use as a foreground and captured this stunner. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/4, 1/80 sec, ISO 100

The Behind-You Tree

Sunrise over the Bay Area Silicon Valley, CA As I explore more and more of the beautiful hikes in the Bay Area I keep coming across a number of beautiful rolling hills with oak trees peppered all over them. Most of the time there’s other trees, shrubs, houses, more hills, or other distracting things next to them. But every once in a while you stroll across a lone pine that’s just asking to be photographed. Willie and I met up at the parking lot and hiked up to this area. You can see the trail crossing through the photo. We had actually planned on photographing a different tree, which we thought had more character and faced more easterly, the direction of sunrise. The tree we were planning on photographing had some clouds behind it, but for whatever reason not all of the clouds caught the beautiful sunrise color. At one point I happened to turn around and look behind us. The entire sky was glowing orange and virga in the sky was catching the sunrise colors. I suggested to Willie: “dude, I think we should photograph the other tree.” We hesitated a little: it wasn’t as interesting but we knew we had to follow the sky. I’m glad we did turn around because this amazing color in the sky didn’t last long but boy is it awesome. I turned out loving this scene much more than the one we had originally intended to photograph! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8: 24mm, f/13, 0.5 sec, ISO 100

Sneaking Around

Last light on trees in the Painted Dunes Lassen Volcanic National Park, California Many months earlier Willie had asked me if I wanted to check out Lassen National Park. It was one of the California parks that I had never been to and we had seen photos of the Painted Dunes from some amazing photographers like Brian Rueb, so I immediately said "YES"! It didn't seem worth getting a hotel for just a few hours so we made the (crazy) decision to drive 12 hours round-trip, all in one day. The hike up the Cinder Cone is *grueling*. It's basically straight up an 800 foot ancient volcano and since the ground is volcanic sand called "loose scoria", it's basically 1 step back for every 2 steps forward. I'd count 100 steps then call for a break, and then we'd repeat until we were at the top. Once there, the views of the "Painted Dunes" were spectacular! Created from layers of oxidized ash falling on top of still hot lava flows, the colors in this area are just stunning. Just as the sun was dipping below the mountains, the scene became even more gorgeous. The tips of the trees turned golden yellow and the colors of the dunes started to glow pink and purple and orange. We ran around like crazy people trying to photograph all the different spots of the dunes with the different trees and shapes and patterns. After the hike down we made it back to home without falling asleep on the 6 hour car ride! Nikon D850 w/Sigma 150-600mm: 210mm, f/11, 1/20 sec, ISO 640

Before the Storm

Sunset over green hills Silicon Valley, CA I mentioned to Willie that I wanted to photograph more of the Bay Area hills and he was kind enough to invite me out to go shoot on a stormy evening. Actually, I think he just wanted me to drive him there (which is fine by me. Chauffeur Meyers at your service). When we arrived it started to drizzle. I was a little worried that the rain wouldn't play nice with the drones, but the rain stopped and we thought it was safe to launch. We spent about 25 minutes exploring the area before bringing the drones back. Just as we went to launch the second battery, the rain came back, so we took a little break and waited for the sun to dip lower in the sky. We had been waiting for a gap -- low clouds blocked the light, then the clouds gave way, before the sun dipped below the mountains. When the sun did finally hit the sweet spot, we had the drones in the air to capture the way it illuminated patterns onto the hills. The sky caught a bunch of the glow as well. Later on the sky turned pink and purple, before pouring and hailing on me while I drove home. DJI Mavic 2 Pro: 10.26mm, f/4, 1/120 sec, ISO 100

Arrest that Sunrise

Sunrise over Oak Trees Silicon Valley, California If I’m going to get up for sunrise while at home, it usually means I’m heading up to San Francisco to photograph the city. After several years of waking up super early and driving an hour to San Francisco, it was time to start exploring for photographs a little closer to home. Luckily Willie had done all the work and had found a number of trees in Silicon Valley that would be prime for sunrise photography. After rolling out of bed and meeting Willie at the parking lot, we hiked up the hill to this spot where several stunning Oak Trees greeted us. The pre-sunrise glow was *strong* and Willie walked (ran) at a pace that my short little legs could barely keep up with. There were times I had to run just to catch up. He was excited! Sure enough, once the sun did come up, the sky lit up with beautiful pink and orange colors. I love what winter does to these trees - without the leaves you see the amazing (and gnarly) shapes of the Oak Trees. They sweep through the scene and draw your eye in various patterns around this photo. A little bit of rolling hills helps frame the scene and add slight movement. Behind us a rainbow stretched across the entire sky. And of course I was so busy taking photos that I missed my chance to book Yosemite campgrounds, which went on sale just as the sunrise was exploding! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 14mm, f/11, 1/8 sec, ISO 200

Lupine Federal Bank

Lupine Field at Sunset Silicon Valley, California It's been a pretty nice winter and spring for photography but I've either been too busy with work, too lazy, or stuck indoors due to shelter-in-place to take advantage like some of my friends have been doing. Escaype was predicting a nice sunset and I was itching to get outside and with some encouraging words from Willie, I decided it was time to dust off the camera and hunt for some flowers. In case you're reading this years from now, this photo was taken during the Coronavirus Apocalypse of 2020. One nice thing about shelter-in-place was that there was hardly any traffic on the road. What would have been a 2 hour drive in rush-hour traffic took only 40 minutes. When I arrived, it turned out Willie had changed plans and decided to meet me. We kept 6+ feet away and hunted for the flowers. We found this patch of white lupines on a small hill facing sunset but the field we really wanted to find was too far away from where we parked, with not enough time to get back in the car. As the sun dropped below the hills, I Loved how it cast the entire field (and hills) in golden light. The last bit of light over the hills lit up the flowers in warm, beautiful tones. The wind blew the flowers in all different directions, so I bumped up my settings and fired away, hoping a few of them would capture the flowers as if they were calm and still. Nikon D850 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 19mm, f/10, 1/200 sec, ISO 800

Thomas Fog-erty

Thomas Fog-ertySunset 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

Closing Time

Closing TimeSunset at Steinbeck Vineyards Paso Robles, California Every December for the last couple of years my friends and I had down to Paso Robles for a weekend of fun and celebration. ALthough my roommate has now graduated and moved down to Southern California we still celebrate her birthday by renting a giant hacienda, cooking great food and tasting a lot of wine. While researching wineries I came across Steinbeck Vineyards and their jeep tour of their vineyards. When I called to see if they could handle a group of 30 young adults they were more than happy to accommodate us! We split into 2 groups and I was in the group arriving second. Before we even arrived we heard from the first group that the tour was absolutely amazing and that we were going to have a blast. When we finally got to Steinbeck and hopped into a 1950's jeep we knew we were in for a treat. The ride was almost like a roller coaster, going up and down hills, around sharp bends and was an absolute blast! While on the tour we stopped on top of this hill (we weren't sure if they Jeep could make it, but it did!) and found out that it had been featured in a number of magazines, including wine spectator. Looking up at the clouds I had my hopes that sunset might produce some color and I knew that I wanted to come back here. After finally heading back to the tasting room and tasting some wine I asked if I might be allowed back into the vineyards. The owners dad was nice enough to hop in his pickup and drive me back out to the vineyards. Sure enough, as the sun set the entire sky exploded with pink, yellow, and red color. I think this sunset lasted for about 45 minutes. It was absolutely stunning! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S 60mm, f/5, 0.6 sec, ISO 100

Soaring to Resplendent Gold

Hot Air Balloon Ride Napa Valley, CA There's quite a bit of backstory to this photo. I was in Montana to see the total solar eclipse when Andy mentioned to me that he was going to Albuquerque in October to see the Hot Air Balloon Festival. Sammi and I had wanted to go so I immediately hopped on and booked flights to join them. Unfortunately, Delta had other plans for us. A dent in our plane delayed us just long enough to miss our connection and we spent the night and morning in Salt Lake City, missing Saturday's balloon launch. After some more delays we finally arrived to a windy New Mexico. The balloons launched every single morning of the festival, except for the one day we were there! 😡 I think Sammi's dad must have felt bad for us because he treated us to an amazing present for Christmas: a Hot Air Balloon ride in Napa Valley! It was months away but we booked a hotel so we could make a wine weekend of it and we'd been super excited. As the weekend approached, the weather couldn't have been more perfect: no wind, clear skies, and warm 80°F temperatures! We woke up early (like 5am), met the balloon company, ate a light breakfast, and then hopped in our balloon. It was amazing how it just kinda floated off into the air before we knew it. Up and up and up we went. Balloons launched all around us. One even dipped into a river just to have a little fun with their passengers. About 20 minutes into our hour long flight the sun started to peak over the hills, lighting up a small layer of fog that had begun to form. Another balloon moved into the scene just as the fog and light all hit together. Luckily I had brought my camera with me and I knew I just had to capture the brilliant light and scene I was seeing. Nikon D850 w/24-70mm f/2.8: 70mm, f/10, 1/500 sec, ISO 500

Paso Sunrise

Paso SunriseSunrise over Lake San Antonio Bradley, California The the past 2 years my roommate and I have planned a big trip down to Paso Robles, CA for her birthday. We rent a huge house and have 25+ of our closest friends together to celebrate, have fun, and go wine tasting. This year we rented a house in between 2 lake's (Lake San Antonio and Lake Nacimiento) that had a gorgeous view of one of the fingers of Lake San Antonio. Saturday morning was a full lunar eclipse and several of us got up early hoping to get a glimpse of the moon. Unfortunatey 2 things prevented us from seeing it: 1) the house looked north east and the lunar eclipse was mostly west facing and near the horizon and 2) clouds rolled in and covered up the eclipse! Fortunately for me, the clouds rolling in meant that the sunrise would be beautiful and sure enough, it was! I spent a little while setting up and figuring out my composition after I stopped trying to see the lunar eclipse and I waited for the sun to rise. There was already some color peaking up over the mountains but I knew that the more I waited the more color would lit up in the clouds. Sure enough, I was treated to an absolutely beautiful sunrise! So glad I woke up early for this :) I had to heavily crop this image because I was pretty far away from the composition that I wanted. I didn't purchase an adapter ring for my Lee Filter holder that would fit on my 70-300mm lens so I had to stick with the 24-70 and then crop it. I suppose I should have thrown the lens on my D300s instead of my D700 and used the D300s but oh well. It came out great anyways :) Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 70mm, f/11, 4.1 sec, ISO 320, Tripod Lee Filter Holder + 0.9 HiTech soft grad ND + 0.9 HiTech reverse ND

Bloody Early

Lunar Eclipse over Oak Tree and Hills Silicon Valley, California While a lunar eclipse isn't quite as rare as a solar eclipse, it can still be fairly neat to see. When I witnessed the solar eclipse in August I planned for months on where to go and how to see it. For this lunar eclipse, which occurred on January 30, 2018, I didn't plan as far in advance. What's special about this lunar eclipse is that it's basically an ultra-rare "Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse. What that means is there's a lunar eclipse (moon eclipse) that occurs during the second full moon of the month (Blue Moon), and it's also during a point in the orbit when it's very close to earth (Super Moon). The "blood" part comes in because the solar eclipse makes the moon appear red. Willie and I decided the night before that we would drag our butts out of bed and go photograph it. Since the moon was going to be fairly high in the sky it made things hard for aligning the moon with San Francisco and we opted to stay close to home. Our plan was to try to align the moon with some trees. Both of us arrived just before the moon went into total lunar eclipse and we spent almost an hour taking photos of the moon and the sky, while the moon was still too high in the sky to frame with trees. Just before 6am we got into position and waited as the moon finally dropped above the trees and we were able to take a snap. The moon has not been enlarged in photoshop -- this is exactly how my 600mm lens captured the moon. I captured a second, longer exposure to get the foreground to start to be visible and blended the two. Nikon D800 w/Sigma 150-600mm Moon: 600mm, f/8, 1.0 sec, ISO 1600 Foreground: f/9, 30 sec, ISO 1600

St. Thomas's Fiery Breath

Sunrise over St. Thomas Church Slovenia St. Thomas Church in Slovenia is probably the most photographed scene in the whole country, despite the fact that the entire country is gorgeous and has photographs around every bend. The views are evident the moment you walk off the plane -- when you step out of the door you immediately gaze at the beautiful Alps and lowland foothills. Despite seeing a million photos of St. Thomas Church, I knew I wanted to spend a morning here. We flew into Slovenia, spent a day in the capital city of Ljubliana (pronounced Lee-oob-lee-ah-na) and then the next 5 near Lake Bled. This particular morning had a weather prediction of partially cloudy and was my only real chance of getting any color in the sky. Despite being extremely exhausted from hiking 16 miles the day before, I woke up hours before dawn, got in the car and drove to this very remote town. You're basically driving on 1 lane roads to get to this viewpoint. Of course when I arrived there were already 3 other photographers (some nice folks from Poland). Just as the sun came up, the clouds in the low portion of the sky took on the orange glow of the rising sun. I used a telephoto lens to focus on the church of St. Thomas and the rising fiery sky. D850 w/Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8: 120mm, f/11, 1/10 sec, ISO 64

Painted with the Last Light

Last light on trees in the Painted Dunes Lassen Volcanic National Park, California It's been a relatively quiet photography year for me; work was busy (we bought Flickr after-all!), I got wrapped up in other life and travels and just didn't have much photo inspiration as some previous years. So when Willie asked me if I wanted to do a crazy day trip to Lassen National Park, I was absolutely in. By crazy I mean our intention was to drive 6.5 hours north to Lassen, hike to the top of a volcano, take sunset photos, then drive back another 6.5 hours all in one day! We left early in the morning (Willie drove for once! At least for the first few hours), stopped for lunch, and made it to the north end of Lassen with plenty of time before sunset. We had read that the hike to the top of the "Cinder Cone" was going to be grueling, but having been working out a lot, I figured it "wouldn't be too bad." The hike is only about a mile but it's basically straight up 800 feet (you should see the elevation chart my phone recorded). To make it worse, we were walking up volcanic sand (aka "loose scoria"), so every 2 steps forward is one step back. With a ton of heavy lenses in our backpacks it was a grueling crawl: we'd walk 100 steps and then take a break ... 100 steps and take a break ... 100 steps.... but as "old" as we are, we made it up in record time! Lassen Volcanic National Park is exactly as the name sounds: volcanic. Though the Volcanoes aren't active, they have left their mark on the landscape. The area before you, known as The Painted Dunes, formed when layers of oxidized ash formed into pumice fields after falling on top of lava flows that were still hot. It creates this area of crazy color, shape, and now new growth. We had seen photos from several other photographers, particularly Brian Rueb, and been inspired by the shapes and light they captured. Though we had some ideas in mind, that all went out the window when we got to the top of the Cinder Cone and realized how many different scenes there were. Though I had initially intended to wait till the sun had completely dropped behind the hills, my favorite photos from this trip were ones like this, where the last touches of light hit the top of the growing trees and cast this amazing glow. The purple and pink cast of the setting sun contrasts well with the green and yellow tips of the trees. I know I'll be back here at some point, though hopefully with a little less weigh on my backpack next time! Nikon D850 w/Sigma 150-600mm: 150mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO 800