Drought's BaneSunset in Silicon Valley California I must have had some kind of precognition into the future because I don't normally keep my camera in the trunk of my car, but after trying to photograph the fog yesterday I decided to leave my camera in the trunk "just in case". Sure enough, that time happened to occur on Wednesday. Willie and I arrived at our favorite San Jose spot just as Lukas Wenger and his wife pulled up. Jave arrived shortly after and we set off to find "the cracks". I decided I wanted setup near some still water that I had found, knowing that I could shoot east or west from here and still include both cracks and reflection in the water. Turns out the sky in the east did nothing but man… the sky in the west!!! Wilson Ng and Matt Levine showed up just as the sunset started to get good. There weren't any of those high, thin, textured clouds that we photographers normally like. Instead, the entire sky just LIT up. Lit up is probably the wrong term -- it EXPLODED with color! Rain started to fall in the west and the rain clouds started turning yellow, orange, and pink! We stood there hooting and hollering at how beautiful the sky looked. Man was that a beautiful night! For anyone who wants to find this spot, I offer you a warning: Despite knowing the safety issues here, I pulled "a Willie" tonight. Our first time here Willie got stuck in the mud and had to be rescued by another friend. Knowing this, I am normally very careful and test each step before I put any weight down. At one point during this sunset I started walking around trying to find other compositions. As I walked around this little pond of water I started to see the entire pond just GLOW with beautiful red and orange colors; I wanted to get closer. I was so excited that I started to run. I took about 2 steps and realized I was stuck … knee deep in the thick, gross mud. I was able to get myself out but it could have easily been much worse for me. If you find this place, be extremely careful that you do NOT get stuck! Seriously -- even when I knew about, I still got stuck! Cleaning up the mud was not fun, took a long time, and smells horrible! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/18, 3 sec, ISO 80 Lee Filter Holder + HiTech 0.6 ND Grad
ThirstySunrise in a dry lakebed Silicon Valley, California One Friday evening I had dinner plans and wasn't able to join Willie and Jave for an attempt at sunset photography in the Bay Area. While I was inside having a delicious dinner they found an amazing dry lakebed to photograph. Turns out that the lakebed is pretty soft and Willie ended up getting stuck in the mud and needed rescuing! Willie wanted another crack at this spot and he immediately called me up and told me to wake up at 4am and join him! We weren't sure if the weather would cooperate but we went out anyways, setup shop and waited. Sure enough, just as we thought it would be a bust, some sun made it through the clouds and lit up the clouds with some oranges and yellows! This place really reminds me of Death Valley and I loved the way all the cracks fit together. I definitely want to come back here in the future! This was also my first time playing with my new toy, a brand spankin' new Nikon D800! Man was this guy fun to use! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 17mm, f/16, 0.4 sec, ISO 100
Transiting SurprisesSunset over Moffit Field after the Transit of Venus Sunnyvale, California Willie and I left work earlier and found the an empty parking garage near work to setup camp and photograph the Transit of Venus. The Transit started around 3pm and that meant we had to leave work earlier. At one point Willie went back to work and then eventually went home to finish off the Transit. I decided to stay. Have you ever spent several hours sitting on top of a parking structure, alone, with absolutely nothing to do but make sure your camera is taking a photo every minute? Yea, I didn't think so, because it's BORING as heck! About an hour and a half before sunset I thought about racing home and finishing off the Transit there, as Willie had done. That's when I noticed that some beautiful clouds were beginning to roll in. I decided to stay. Right about that time I felt my phone buzz and I looked down to see a text message from Willie: "Are you still there? DON'T LEAVE! I'm coming back!" He had seen the sweet clouds too. Willie and I watched what we had hoped would be a gorgeous sunset turn into a huge disappointment. A little bit of color lit up some of the clouds with some orange colors and then they faded. Willie packed up. I had 2 cameras and 2 tripods out and as I finished packing one of them I looked up to see the sky behind us was starting to turn a beautiful pink. I raced to put the D700 on the tripod as the sky began to light up with pink, purples, and fading oranges. What a treat! We hadn't expected there to be a good sunset … got our hopes up … were disappointed … and then were surprised when the sky lit up again! I clicked off a few photos but wasn't really happy with any of the compositions that the top of a parking structure offered. Just when I thought the light was fading and began to pack up my tripod I noticed that more of the sky had taken a purple color. I pulled the camera back out, and being too lazy to setup the tripod I bumped the ISO up a bit and snapped 6 photos with the intention of putting them together into this panorama. This photo looks out over the NASA Ames facility. In the background you can see the skelaton of Hanger 1, which is under repair to remove toxic chemicals that were found to be leaking into the ground. Hangar One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures, covering 8 acres. It was built in the 1930s as a naval airship station for the USS Macon, a rigid airship (aka blimp) built for the navy. On the right you can see one of the new Moffit Towers buildings, which is currently being renovated for Motorola Mobility to move into. Earlier in the day I knew that I wanted to use the glass panels of the building to reflect the sunset and I think it worked perfectly here! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/8, 1/50 sec, ISO 640 6 images stitched together in Photoshop
