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
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
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
