Venus and Night Sky over Mud Cracks Death Valley National Park, California There’s a couple scenes that Death Valley is known for: beautiful salt flats, rolling Sand Dunes, and plays filled with mud-cracks. On this particular trip in November 2016, Willie and I managed to photograph all 3 of these, and perhaps a little bit more. On this particular evening we hiked out to a playa filled with mud-cracks and ran around like giddy school-boys as we found amazing pattern after amazing pattern. We left clothing in various locations to mark our favorite spots and then watched as clouds rolled in just at sunset to give us an amazing sunset. I had to force myself to stop and let it soak in, before frantically getting back to my camera to try to take as many photos as I could, with a number of different compositions. After the sun went down we decided to wait for blue hour to kick in so we could take some star photos with the playa. As we waited I noticed that the color in the sky never really faded ... it just kept lingering. So of course I kept taking photos! Saturn even popped into view, as you can see the bright spot in the middle of the sky. I named this photo “Our Playa” because the shape of the mud cracks, at the bottom, forms both an “A” for Aaron and a “W” for Willie. Special thanks to David Thompson for giving us some amazing tips! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 15mm, f/4.5, 10 sec, ISO 2000
Sunset over Sunflowers Vacaville, California I’ve always been in love with sunflowers. One of my earliest memories is from pre-school where I would make the teachers pick me up so I could grab the seeds from the few sunflowers that grew near the playground. During high school we would eat sunflowers while I sat waiting as designated pinch runner on the baseball team. When I drove by the sunflower fields near Sacramento a few years ago I knew one day I’d have to get some photos of them! Unfortunately last summer was a cloudless summer and there really weren’t any opportunities to photograph the sunflower fields. This year, despite the drought, has had a number of beautiful summer monsoonal sunsets. The weather forecast looked juicy and Cmdr Acosta even came out of hibernation to join Willie, Alan, Ropelato and I at the sunflower fields. Virga filled the sky as we drove and we prayed that the horizon wouldn’t be so thick that it blocked sunset light. Once at the fields we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find the best patch of sunflowers. They were slightly past their prime with shriveled up leaves and droopy heads but that didn’t stop us. When the sky lit up beautifully we were ready to capture it. Running from composition to composition can sometimes get a bit hectic and in my rush I forgot to “focus stack”: focus on multiple areas both near and far to ensure the entire scene is in focus. Some of you may prefer this photo to be sharp front-to-back but I actually preferred the blurred background ... it locks the eye on the 2 sunflowers in the front. What do you prefer? Deep depth of field or the shallow one? Nikon D800 w/Rokinon 14mm f/2.8: 14mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO 640
Snowshoeing to Peyto Lake Banff National Park, Canada The Canadian Rockies are known for epic mountain and lake scenes, beautiful peaked mountains with colorful lakes sitting at their base. Moraine Lake, Lake Louise, and Peyto Lake, just to name a few. When we set out on our nearly week long trip to Banff National Park I expected to see as many of these mountain scenes as I could. Willie and I explored the area close to Banff National Park on our first few days, when the weather was clear and easy to get the lay of the land. Then a big snow storm hit and dumped over a foot of snow on the area. Our ability to venture further out and see many of these epic mountain scenes began to decline. On our last full day in Banff I turned to Willie and said "there's no way we're coming here and not seeing Peyto. Hop in the car, we're going!" And off we went ... which Willie was perfectly fine with since he wasn't driving and could do his typical thing: fall asleep. I was quite glad we had rented an all-wheel drive SUV because the road to Peyto, Icefields Parkway, really wasn't plowed. By that I mean that one lane had been plowed and it became a game of dodging cars. On the way to Peyto we had the plowed lane but on the way back ... well, lets say that was not the most fun time to be the driver. I had brought snow-shoes with me, in the event of needing to hike through the snow, and it turned out to be a good decision because the mile long trail to Peyto was filled with 2 feet of snow! A nice family from Colorado, whom we exchanged contact info with, sludged through first and carved out a path that made our hike with heavy camera gear much nicer! Although the epic mountains behind Peyto Lake never made an appearance, it was still an epic view! I've been wanting to put more of a "people element" into my photos lately, so when Willie was done taking his photos I hopped on down and placed myself in the photo. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8: 24mm, f/11, 1/125 sec, ISO 100
