The prompt for the 20 days of Chill for today is summer rain. I had to laugh at that since I live in Southern California and we don't get summer rains. P.J. noted that summer rain is a bummer because it wipes out baseball games. I think the local teams, the Angels and the Dodgers have been rained out less times in the last fifty years than I have fingers on my hands, combined.
So what to write about today? Well, how about summer rain? I've been camping enough times that I've been able to experience summer rains. My youngest son and I went to the Grand Canyon and had thunderstorms every single day that we were there. It was quite an experience.
Although it's not rain, when my wife and I honeymooned in the middle of July in Oregon, Crater Lake received a foot of snow on the day before we got there. It made for some really nice shots, which I have on slide film and need to scan and digitize one of these days.
I even got sprinkled on when I took this shot in Bodie, California at the state historic park that surrounds this old ghost town. Even though I don't usually see summer rains very often where I live, I have experienced them enough elsewhere, that I can honestly say I like them. It makes for some really striking photos in my opinion.
Three quarters of the way through the challenge and I haven't missed a beat yet. I'm actually surprising myself with this one. This is my 16th entry for the year. Last year, I only wrote 25 blog entries, so I'm well on my way to doing much better on the blogging front than I've done in a long time.
Every now and then, I've camped in some cold climates. One time, a buddy and I drove all night during our winter break to go to the Grand Canyon. Little did we know, but while we were driving, it snowed on the south rim and we arrived to a winter wonderland. We slept in our uninsulated camper in 0 degrees and then hiked along the rim and down into the canyon where it was quite nice.
Camping in the winter, you expect that kind of weather and are usually prepared for it. Camping in the summer, you're not as prepared, but every now and then, the weather can change and turn nasty in a hurry.
This particular camping trip happened in 2010. The plan was to camp at the Devils Postpile, something I hadn't done in 33 years and then head up to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Camping at Devils Postpile, was downright cold. We knew it had been cold, but weren't sure how cold until we got to Lassen and spent the first night there. When we got up the next morning, we walked down to the ranger station. My son and I had remarked on the walk down that it had been warmer that night than the previous two nights at Devils Postpile. We were greeted at the ranger station with the weather report that the overnight low in Lassen that night had been a frosty 34 degrees. I can't imagine how cold it got at the Devils Postpile, but it wouldn't have surprised me if it had gotten down into the 20s.
Now, we knew were were going to be in the mountains, and we always bring enough layers, but it was still plenty chilly. 2010 was also an abundant year in California for rain and snow. The photo above was taken at Helen Lake in Lassen, on July 2nd of that year. Yeah, you read that right - Winter in Summer. You just have to remember that it can get frosty even in the middle of the summer.
On day 2 of this challenge, I mentioned how we really don't get much winter here in Southern California. It's a blessing and a curse. The blessing is we can wear shorts pretty much all year long, or at least most days. Yeah, we get our occasional bad spot of weather, but it's usually not that bad. And therein lies the curse.
Since 1955 it has rained a grand total of 2 times on the Rose Parade in Pasadena that is held every year on New Year's Day, or January 2nd if New Year's Day falls on a Sunday. Two freaking times. Both times, the grand marshall of the parade was a Supreme Court Justice - 1955, Earl Warren and 2006, Sandra Day O'Connor. OK, let's think about this. Two times it's rained, both times the courts have been involved. I think the Rose Parade Committee will be smart enough never to invite another Supreme Court Justice to be Grand Marshall again.
But that brings me back to my main point. It's always perfect weather on New Year's Day. Here's the thought process that probably goes on in households in the midwest on that day, where it's probably snowing and the temperature is hovering somewhere south of 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Martha!! Come quick!! They're wearing shorts again at the Rose Parade."
"I'll be damned, they are!"
"That's it Martha, we're moving to California this year!"
And the population swells again. Sigh.
But what does this have to do with the prompt for today? Nothing except to give you an idea that I don't really have a favorite article of clothing in the winter, with the exception of socks in bed. My wife wears socks all the time as she's always cold, so most of the time she wears socks. In the last couple of years, I've decided that wearing socks to bed isn't such a bad idea, especially when you have to get up in the middle of the night and walk across hardwood floors.
So yeah, let's hear it for socks - my favorite article of clothing for the winter. Oh yeah, and for the next 8 years, we're going to have a Supreme Court Justice as Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade, so you can stop moving here. We have too many people out here as it is.
This is an interesting topic to be talking about for day two of the Chill challenge. I'm not exactly sure what winter comfort food really is, mainly because we don't get much of a winter compared to other regions in the United States or in the world for that matter.
The weathermen in Southern California could "predict" the weather as "Sunny and mild" every day and be right probably 75% of the time. In my book, that's a pretty good track record for weather guessers. Winter, the way most people view winter, doesn't happen here.
So comfort food is, to me anyway, things that I don't get on a regular basis during the year, mainly because it's either not very good for me, or too expensive, or just ridiculous. Christmas time is always the time for all of us in the family to get some really good stuff, just because. That's what ends up stuffing our stockings every year. It's gotten to the point that our stocking stuffers take up grocery bags, because my wife goes all out with it.
Things that usually end up in my stocking are Oreo Cookies, Pop Tarts, Clamato Juice (don't judge me, I like it), bunches of Heath Toffee bars, boxes of Junior Mints and York Peppermint Patties and Pringles Potato Chips. Sometimes if I'm really lucky, I'll get a can of Macadamian nuts. See? All the things that aren't really good for me, but that I love tremendously. Once all of those things are gone, then Christmas is really over.
Needless to say, I've been rationing things this year, so Christmas isn't over, even though I went back to work yesterday. I still have half a bag of York Peppermint Patties and an entire package of mint Oreo Cookies. And my youngest better hide his stash, because I've been eyeing his Triple Decker Oreo Cookies that landed in his stocking.
So the hope was that I'd be able to write more than once every other week, but that doesn't seem to be happening, so bear with me as I continue to take you through last summer. Kind of funny actually that we're almost in winter and I'm still writing about summer, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Anyway, the first weekend in June I had volunteered to help my friend Craig in his quest to hike the John Muir Trail, from Yosemite Valley to the top of Mt. Whitney and then down to Whitney Portal. Craig had everything planned out, so it was just a matter of me going along for the ride and enjoying everything. We took his truck and my van up to Lone Pine, California, where we were going to leave his truck at Whitney Portal. Whitney Portal is the major trailhead leading up to the summit of Mt. Whitney and where Craig would be coming down from after his 211 mile hike over two weeks.
So the first day was mostly driving in caravan style as we worked out way up to Lone Pine. Since Craig is also a geocacher, we caches along the way, mainly because we didn't have any set itinerary outside of making sure we ended up in Yosemite on Sunday, June 8th so he could get his permit to hike the trail, which would begin on the 9th.
We couldn't have asked for better weather, for camping and photography. There were just enough clouds that I was able to get some pretty spectacular shots. The shot of Mt. Whitney was taken from the road leading up to Whitney Portal. No threat of thunderstorms, just puffy clouds that helps enhance the shots I took that day and on subsequent days. The second shot was taken from an overlook just west of the Mammoth ski area looking over the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The jagged peaks in the middle of the shot are called the Minarets, which was the original name for the Wilderness back before Ansel Adams, the famous photographer passed away.
After dropping off his truck at Whitney Portal, we headed up to Mammoth. Sometime during the day, we'd made the decision to camp at Devils Postpone National Monument. By the time we got to Mammoth, it was close to 8 o'clock in the evening and starting to get dark. We got down to the Postpone and the campground was closed. I think it actually opened a couple of days later. We found out that many of the campgrounds were closed, or were opening up the weekend that we were there. Fortunately, Reds Meadow campground, just a couple more miles down the road, had just opened up the day we got there, so we had a place to stay that night. We pulled into the campground, pretty much in complete darkness, pitched the tent, ate dinner and then hit the sack. We had a big day planned for the next day.
To be continued.....
So it occurs to me that I need to blog more often than once a month. My last post was for this same photo blogging challenge on the theme new. This one is on the theme red. The photos I posted for last month's theme, I thought were rather good, yet I only received 2 comments about them. It's kind of disheartening when that happens which may be a contributing factor in me not writing more.
The other reason is February has been an incredibly busy month for me. I participate in our school's Shakespeare club and our performance happens this Wednesday during school hours and then again on Thursday evening. Seeing middle school kids memorize Shakespeare has always been amazing, even more so when I get involved in the process and it takes me forever and a day to get all of my lines down.
But on to this month's theme - RED
I really haven't thought about the theme that much this past month (Sorry P.J.), but when I looked at my shots I came up with six that I think will work quite well with the theme, so here we go.
1. "K" Line
A couple of weeks ago on the 365 project, I was pushed to take a shot of some real live trains. I'd been posting shots of the model trains when I went to the Great American Train Expo in January and my push partner wanted me to think bigger. Coming home from a geocaching trek out in the desert, I stopped at this overpass in Colton, as it's right on the edge of a huge rail yard next to Interstate 10. This shot ended up being one of the ones I posted for that particular challenge. Many people at 365 weren't quite sure if it was a real shot or if it was another model train shot. I assure you, these trains are huge, nothing that any of us could pick up by hand.
2. Monorail Red
Back when I was in college, I worked at Disneyland. It was one of those great summertime jobs that worked out well with my schedule while I was in college. People always ask me where I worked when they find out I worked there.
I worked on the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes, Mike Fink Keel Boats, worked one Christmas and New Year's on Pirates of the Caribbean and the last summer I was there, I worked on the Monorails.
Each ride had its own special appeal and you had a different thought process with each ride. Someone asked me once if I ever went back to work at the park, which ride would I go to and without hesitation, I would choose the canoes. I don't think I really appreciated it at the time, but when you think about it, there's not too many places and/or jobs where you can get an 8 hour workout and get paid for doing it.
When we went to the park a couple of weeks ago, I told them I had worked on the monorails and they asked whether I wanted to see the new look of the cockpit. I'd driven the old Mark III monorail and this was the much improved Mark VII. The driver now has the ability to go through an array of video displays keeping tabs on each riding compartment, including a rear display. One time when I was driving, the train ahead of me broke down and I had to park my train over the motor boat cruise for about 20 minutes or so while they tended to the train in front of me. Those cameras would have come in handy since one of the guests inside my train decided to jump out. I'll never understand why people will do such stupid things in order to "save" themselves five or ten minutes of time.
3. The Happiest Place on Earth
As noted above, we went to Disneyland over President's Day weekend. My daughter flew down with her friend and she took me to Disneyland for my birthday. Needless to say, it was one of the best trips I've had to the park in recent memory. When we first entered into the park, we headed over to City Hall, so I could get my birthday badge, which I wore proudly the entire day. I don't care how old you are, it's always nice to get birthday greetings from total strangers. I started to seek out other people who share my day and wished them a Happy Birthday as well. I don't think I should be that amazed in once sense, but it was quite fun to notice all the people who share my birthday.
Later on, the younger set decided they all wanted some kind of hat to commemorate the occasion and a stop at the Mad Hatter's shop next door to Alice in Wonderland was in order. Both my daughter and her friend got matching Minnie Mouse ears that they wore proudly throughout the rest of the day. My son bought a Peter Pan hat and later in the day a small child even called him Peter Pan.
4. Upland Station
Last weekend, I took the Metrolink train into Union Station on a reconnaissance mission. At school, I run a photo club and the teacher across the hallway runs an art club. We've talked about taking a field trip into downtown Los Angeles on the train for both clubs and we wanted to scout out locations ahead of time. Since the plan was to leave from the Upland station, we met here Saturday morning. While I was waiting for her to arrive, I walked around and took some photos, catching this one of the station and the light clouds in the sky. I thought the red tile roof worked as a nice color contrast to the rest of the shot. I submitted this shot and the Monorail Red shot to the Yahoo weather app as well, but neither one was accepted.
5. Go for Broke Monument
Located in the Little Tokyo district in downtown Los Angeles, the Go for Broke Monument highlights the contributions of all Nisei veterans of World War II. Most of these veterans were interred in concentration type camps for the duration of the war, yet still felt the need to enlist and serve their country of birth, the United States of America.
The memorial includes the names of all who served with the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Military Intelligence Service (MIS), 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, 232nd Combat Engineer Company, and the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion.
Old Glory just looked awesome from this angle. I almost wished I'd brought my wide angle lens along on this trip, but I think this shot worked out well, even though it's kind of tight overall.
Well, that's another month of shots posted for the theme. Please stop by P.J.'s blog to see other takes on the same thing by wonderful photographers. And, once again, please comment below. I really won't bite.
This should have been posted yesterday, but things got in the way, so here's my take on the theme New, as posted in P.J.'s blog. At first, I thought this was going to be an easy theme, but there aren't as many new things as you might think, so I'm taking a leap here in my interpretation of the word New.
1. New Lens - This was my Christmas present from my wife this year, but it wasn't purchased until after the new year and so I didn't take this photo until after the new year, so the photo was taken during the month. This year, I've decided to try a 365 project again after taking about 7 months off just to recharge my brain with regard to photography.
In 2011 I started a 365 project and did two full years of pure 365. I got my camera out each and every day and took photos and posted at least one to the 365 webpage. The work wasn't always quality, because there was a drive to make sure I used the camera every day. This year, my project already has some fillers in it, but I'm trying to post real quality work. I'm also using my Prime 50mm lens exclusively at the moment, mainly because I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the lens. So far, I'm really enjoying the lens and have been taking lots of photos with it.
The learning curve hasn't taken as long as I thought it might and I feel very comfortable with the lens. I've been shooting mostly in aperture mode mainly because I can. The one selfie I took so far was really interesting to see that lens open wide with a 1.4 aperture. I can't remember the last time I've seen a lens open that wide.
2. Grow Old with Me
This sounds like a contradiction in terms as far as the theme goes, but with this new lens, I decided to create a new series of shots, based upon a central theme. The theme ended up being my wife's hands and the words, Grow Old with Me, My Love. All of the shots were in B&W or sepia tone, and all of the shots thus far have depicted her hands doing regular things that she does on a fairly regular basis.
Some of the shots, like this one, had to be staged, as it's not too practical to give someone a hug and also take a photo at the same time. So far, I've posted 6 shots on my Flicker page for this series. I have one more shot that I'd like to take before I end this particular series. I'm not sure if I'll end up taking more after that or not, but it can be open ended, so I probably will if I see something that I know will work with the series.
3. How's the weather outside?
In December, I became aware of a group on Flicker called Project Weather. To be honest, I can't remember if I became aware of it, because one of my shots was invited to the group, or I just stumbled upon it, but I would suspect the latter happened. Either way, I joined the group and downloaded this new app (well, new for me anyway) - Yahoo Weather.
It's a standard weather app, but it takes photos matched geographically and weatherwise as the cover shots for any location. In other words, if you're searching for the weather in San Francisco, when you pull up the San Francisco page, you should get a photo of somewhere in San Francisco which also depicts the weather for San Francisco at the time.
I started submitting some of my weather shots figuring I might get a couple in there. I've been very surprised because I now have 19 shots in the queue for various locations around the United States. Of those 19 shots, I've actually seen 6 of them show up for the weather places that I follow. Yeah, I'm a geek, I love weather and I have all the places where I've had photos taken come up in rotation in the Yahoo Weather app. I did a screen capture of this shot in the weather app in mid January on my iPad. I took that shot a couple of years ago on my way to work one morning. Here's a link to all of my shots that are in the Project Weather database for inclusion in the Yahoo Weather app. No payment for any of them, but my name and a link to my Flicker page appears on the photo when it shows up in the app.
4. New Trail
Like many of the bloggers who do this photo challenge, I also geocache. Last weekend, I went with a friend of mine down into Riverside County to hike in Harford Springs Wildlife Sanctuary. This was a new trail for me, one that I had never been on before.
The park is crisscrossed with many hiking trails and there are about 15 to 20 geocaches scattered throughout the park. Up until this past weekend, I was totally unaware this park even existed. We took several of the trails and looped around the park getting about half of the cache available to us before we started losing the light. All that means is I'll have to go back another time to find the rest of the caches hidden there and explore the other areas of the park.
That's the real reason I got involved with geocaching in the first place. I know about the Congress Trail in Sequoia National Park and I know about the John Muir Trail and the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park. I've hiked on the Pacific Crest Trail and have read accounts about hikers on the Appalachian Trail. Those are major trails that most everyone knows about. Geocaching will take you there as well, but geocaching also gets you out on the trails in your own backyard. I now hike regularly in Claremont Wilderness Park. Before geocaching, I didn't even know that park existed. Were Harford Springs Park closer, I probably would hike in it on a regular basis. I took this shot at the trail head just as we were starting our hike. The first geocache we found was just up the hill beyond the fence post on the right hand side of the shot.
5. A new appreciation for the art of PhotoShop
A couple of days ago, I happened to step outside for some reason and realized we were getting a spectacular show outside, one that had to be recorded.
This shot was taken looking over my neighbor's fence from my back yard. The problem with this shot is there are several telephone wires that criss cross down to our neighbor's house. When I first pulled the shots up on my computer I loved what I saw, but I didn't like the telephone wires. So I decided that I was going to PhotoShop them out of the shot.
I have gained an entire new appreciation for people who do this all the time. The patience and skill required to go through and pixel by pixel remove something that you don't want and then blend in what you've cloned to remove it in the first place takes a lot of time. I think this photo represents more hours of work than any other I've taken.
For an idea of what the scene looked like originally, here's a shot I took in January 2011 from about the same vantage point. With the first shot, I had a wider lens, not the prime I'm using now, so the telephone pole to the right was already cropped out of the scene, but you can still see the wires and the antenna I removed from this shot.
I realize that some people will now look down their nose at anything I post because it's probably not a true image. If that's the case, so be it, but my goal is to produce great shots, not mediocre shots. I think this shot is much better than the shot I took in 2011. If PhotoShop helped, then I'm all for it.
Well, that's my interpretation of the theme New for this month's blogging challenge. Please stop by P.J.'s page to see how other people interpreted the same word.
Please feel free to comment about anything you read here. I really won't bite.
I comment from time to time on the weather in Southern California, but I normally refrain from saying too much about it during this time of the year. Why? Mainly because I believe it's the Rose Parade's fault that we have so many people living here in California today.
I'm a perfect example of it I guess. Although I consider myself a Californian, I wasn't born here, rather was transported here by my parents in the early 60s much like many of the kids I went to school with at the time.
My 5th grade teacher Mrs. Packard, on the first day of school, brought out a map of the United States, then proceeded to name every state and ask us to raise our hands when she came to the state where we were born. She started in Maine where she was born, and went across to California. Allen Schoff and I raised our hands when Indiana was called. Of the 27 or so children in the class, I believe there was one person who raised his or her hand when the last state, California was called. California was a state of immigrants from other states at the time.
I believe that every January 1st, the weather gods smile down upon Pasadena, California. It has to be since we've only had two years in the last 60+ years where it's rained on the Rose Parade. Every year, people back in the midwest and east coast huddle inside their houses while it's snowing outside and it's 20 degrees and they watch the Rose Parade, live from Pasadena. The conversation goes something like this.
"Henry!"
"What Martha?"
"Come and watch the parade with me."
"Look Martha. They're wearing shorts again on January 1st. That's it, we're moving to California!"
And the population of California inches up again. So why do I tell this story? Because I'm posting something that might encourage people to move out here. My last post dealt with the Yahoo Weather App where I'd submitted photos to be included in the weather app. The screen shot shows one of my photos on the main page of the weather app for Pasadena, a shot that I took just before Thanksgiving this year of Pasadena's city hall. For all of you back east, please don't look at the temperature.
Not really, but I thought that would make a catchy title for this entry. Sometime yesterday, read through the Flicker Blog post I get on a fairly regular basis and discovered a new group on Flicker called the Project Weather. It looked kind of interesting, so I checked it out and decided to join the group. After all, what's cooler than a bunch of really cool shots of different kinds of weather right?
If you've clicked on the link already, you'll see that Project Weather is run by Yahoo. Photos that appear in this group will also appear in the Yahoo Weather app for iPhones and iPads. In other words, if a photo is accepted, it gets put into the queue. When using the app, a person checking out the weather for an area should get a photo that corresponds to the area and to the weather of that area at the time.
I'm not sure if this works all that well as it's nighttime right now and the only shots I'm seeing on the app at the moment are star photos or full moon shots. I checked out a couple of the photos and one of the photos used for my area was a photo taken in Brazil, but the photo matched up with the weather for my area, so it worked.
So after checking this out, I decided to submit a couple of my shots to the project in the hopes that possibly one might make it onto the app. The project's site says that I could wait up to a month before seeing any of my shots in the photostream, so I wasn't expecting anything. I uploaded about a dozen shots or so and didn't even think about it afterwards.
This afternoon, when I got home from work, I logged onto the computer and noticed that the shot of Bryce Canyon above had been favorited by someone. I found this a little odd since this particular shot has been buried in my photostream, so it gets very few views now. But I decided to click on the shot, just to see and I saw that it was now in the Project Weather photostream. It had been less than 24 hours and one of my shots had been included in the app. Not only that, when I looked more closely, half of the shots I'd submitted were now in the photostream, including this other one I took at Crescent City, California a couple of years ago.
So now, I have the Yahoo Weather app (free by the way) on my iPad and I have the current locations of the places where my shots were taken on there just to see if they ever show up in the rotation. I guess it's a good way to get some new exposure for some of my shots. Here's a link to the other shots that Project Weather accepted from my submissions. Hopefully, the next time it snows up in the high desert, someone using the app will see my shot of Joshua Trees with snow on them.
Well, I guess I'm getting a little better this month as this represents my fourth post of the month. Double last month's posts, so I'll just have to give myself a pat on the back for that and hope that I can do better next month.
This month, PJ proposed the monthly challenge of Fall, so here are my entries for the theme, all taken in October.
1. Fall Flowers
My neighbor down the street has an incredible front yard garden. He grows all sorts of seasonal fruits and vegetables throughout the year. Every year around this time, these flowers show up, so I call them Fall Flowers. I have no idea what kind of flowers they are and every time I'm near his house, he's never out so I can ask him what kind these are. I've been fortunate enough to photograph these a number of years in a row. Last year, I got a shot that reminded me of something out of Alice in Wonderland. This shot actually reminds me a little bit of it as well.
2. Lucy
Lucy, or the lack of Lucky is a harbinger of fall. I've featured Lucy before in this blog as well in photos, but this one definitely represents fall. Lucy is a California Desert Tortoise, one that I've had a permit for ever since I got her over 10 years ago. I can't release her back into the wild, mainly because tortoises that are in the wild tend to have respiratory ailments that they could pass on to the wild species.
Lucy lives in our back yard and usually is out in the early spring, summertime and early fall, but right around this time she disappears into her burrow for good and we'll not see her again until sometime next March when it warms up for good. I saw her a couple of day after I took this shot, but I'm pretty sure she's underground for good, hibernating until spring comes.
3. The lone leaf
The next two shots are a couple that probably represent a traditional fall shot. I found this leaf lying on these parkway rocks and like the way it looked, with the contrast of mostly grey rocks and bright yellow color of the leaf.
For the most part, our fall actually lasts a long time in Southern California. We don't really get that cold, cold snap of air that most trees need to drop their leaves. I have deciduous trees in my side yard and are still quite green and will be green for several more weeks.
While we wait for some brief moments of color, further north, the leaves have all dropped and snow is starting to fall. This leaf just tells us that it's getting a little cooler here.
4. The first storm
Here's another traditional "fall" type shot of colored leaves. I did not take this particularly for the leaves, but more for the storm that passed through earlier this week. The nice thing about fall here is we can have just about any kind of temperatures during the week and it will all seem perfectly normal. Earlier this week, when this storm went through, the high was a very crisp 56 degrees. I can all hear the snorts of derision over that, especially for those who live in northern climes.
Anyway, this storm that moved through our area, dropped temperatures significantly, as it had been in the 80s the week before. It dropped some much needed rain and we had a light dusting of snow on the mountains at the higher elevations. This is what our weather is like in the fall. Mild, with an occasional cold front storm that will move through the area.
5. Family Fall Festival
Last night, our school held its annual Family Fall Festival. This year, the various clubs on campus were also invited to participate. I advise the Photo Club on our campus, so we had a table set up where we could give information out to parents and students who were possibly interested in our club. There was a gaming truck out in the front of the school. Food and popcorn was being sold.
This year, the theme was at the movies and each club decided to represent a different movie. Members from various clubs dressed up as characters from Grease, Despicable Me, Sandlot, and others. The photo club took this theme a different way and decided they wanted to be paparazzi at a movie premiere. One of my students took over 140 shots on her camera and I counted at least 7 or 8 other students all with their cameras having a good time being paparazzi.
Many costumes were seen last night and I particularly liked these outfits worn by a couple of students. The Cat in the Hat would have been so proud.
Well, there's my entries for this month. Please head on over to PJ's blog to see other blogger's interpretations of fall.
I'm not sure if I'd call this a slow down period on my photography or not. I know I haven't picked up my camera since last Saturday, but I know I'll pick it up again this Saturday. I'm definitely not taking photos at the 365 pace that I did over the last two years.
As far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. It's allowed me to look back on some of the images I've taken in the past. I found several images in old folders that I'd dismissed previously for various reasons. This photo of Yosemite Valley, taken in the fall of 2008 is a perfect example. With the cloud layer above the valley obscuring Half Dome in the distance and part of El Capitán on the left, I felt this image was pretty flat and so never have published it before this week.
I went back and looked at it again and thought about what it might look like with some monotone processing, what we used to call black and white. Black and white is really a misnomer since there are so many varied shades in a monotone shot that it's not just black and or white but varying degrees of shades. I actually really like this shot a lot now, much more so than the color version, which I assure you, will not see the light of day.
The other shot I worked on this week was this shot I took in July 2007 of the Grand Canyon. Photographically, I think the canyon looks so much better with clouds overhead and we had perfect conditions for photographs the four days we were there. Monsoon season was upon us and we had thunderstorms and rain every day of this particular campout. Not very fun for camping, but great for photos.
This particular image was very flat in appearance, mainly because I'd overexposed the sky quite a bit. I bumped the contrast up quite a bit on the image which brought out some of the subtler clouds in the sky and some of the color in the rock layers. Adding some saturation to the shot helped bring out the colors more and I was able to have a more pleasing image that what I had previously. I have another shot of the canyon that I'm probably going to work on later this week. I might even do a "before" and "after" shot to show you the difference between the two. Until then, please enjoy these images.
When I hit the flashback button tonight, I was really pleased with the image that showed up this evening. We've been having warmer weather than normal this past week. Our daytime high hit 98˚ F today and with those kinds of temperatures, the butterflies have come out in force.
Most of them seem to either be very wary of things larger than themselves, as I have not been able to get many, if any shots of the larger species around here. I have been able to get quite a few shots of skippers, like the one posted here. They just seem to want to pose.
I spotted this skipper and bee back in July of last summer, right near the end of my summer vacation. I think if I were to post this shot today, I'd do a slightly tighter crop to get the vertical stick out of the frame on the left hand side. Why that didn't get cropped out the first time around is very perplexing to me.
This post is actually a reminder to myself. Late in the year last year, I was taking part in the "Get Pushed" challenges where you would be partnered up with someone else on the 365 Project and they would push you to do something outside of your normal comfort zone. I had been pushed by Harry Benson to take some star trail shots, a long exposure.
Life and the weather got in the way that week and I never got around to completing this challenge. And, of course, it's raining right now and very cloudy on the perfect weekend to attempt this again. Monday there will be no moon in the night time sky, much like it was in this shot taken last December.
I'd taken this shot in the morning when I went out to get the paper. Saturn was low in the sky, with a waning crescent moon and a very bright Venus just above it. The next couple of days a storm came in, clouding up the sky at the perfect time for this kind of shot, much like what's happening right now in Southern California.
The other problem with night time shots like this is you're also dealing with the cold. If it were to clear up tonight or tomorrow, that would mean we'll have really cold night time temperatures. Well, cold is relative since our really cold would get down into the high 30s. Still, sitting out in the open for 2 to 3 hours while you're taking star photos is not something I'd like to do very often in 30 degree weather.
This challenge is something that I will do, but I'm probably going to hold on to it and attempt it sometime this summer. I can drive up to the high desert, find a spot near some Joshua Trees and wait for the evening to unfold, or I can attempt it when we go on our annual summer camping trip.
And even thought Spring Break is right around the corner, it's going to be difficult to do, because the moon will be progressing back to full during those two weeks reflecting a lot of extra light into the shot that I really don't want to have. I know Harry is a reader of this blog, but he's out of the country right now. I'd just like to let him know that I intend to keep this challenge. It's just not going to happen this month.
Today is the last day of my winter/Christmas vacation. The break is mostly an eating break, or so it seems with two holidays crammed into a short time frame, there just seems to be eating, and then more eating. We had a New Year's Eve party at our house and we're still eating leftovers from that shindig.
Since this was the last day, I decided to go for a hike to burn off some of those excess calories. There was a geocache I wanted to find and it was about a two mile hike to get to, so it looked like a good outing for the day. The hider of the geocache had found an old geocache of mine I had archived back in November 2008. He found the remains of the cache over 100 feet from where it was supposed to be while finding another of my caches I placed after archiving that one. Got that?
The gist of the matter is he used all the stuff that was in my old cache and created a new one. How could I not go after it? With blustery winds and brilliant clouds in the sky I set off. I stopped here and there to take some shots including the one above. I found one cache before finding the other one, so it was a successful hike and geocaching experience. The second cache was situated on top of a hill with a commanding view. With the cool weather we've been having, it was very easy to see a long distance. In the second photo, you can see the sun shining off of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island beyond, perhaps 50 miles distant from my location.
Unfortunately, what you can't see in that photo is the rain coming right at me. Just off to the right of that photo, I could see rain in the distance. I'd cut it too close and as soon as I put my camera down to look at the image I'd just taken, I saw a rain drop plop into the middle of my LCD screen. Taking the camera and putting it underneath the photo vest I was wearing, I hurried as best I could back down the hill, but the rain was coming too quickly and I had two miles to walk and/or run to get back to my car.
I was able to trot along for a little bit but the trail was steep in spots and it was also getting slick with water and mud, so walking seemed to be prudent. Me going down while trying to protect camera gear would not have been pretty, so I opted for getting wet while keeping the gear as dry as possible. To add insult to injury, a mile and three quarters down the hill with only a quarter mile to go, it started hailing on me.
By the time I was down, I was soaked through to the skin in most places. Fortunately, the extra layers of my photo vest kept the camera dry and the extra layers of my pockets kept my iTouch and Cellphone dry, so I'm going to call it a good day.
I think that's only about the third time where I've had to hike a prolonged distance in the rain. The worst time was when I was backpacking in the Sierra Nevada back when I was in college and we had to camp in it. This hike today seemed worse at the time, but since I've had a hot shower, it doesn't seem so bad in retrospect. It could have been a lot worse. I could have a lot of damaged gear. All I really have is a bruised ego from getting caught in the rain.
It's been two years since I've been on an extended camping trip with any of my children. My youngest and I had a week long excursion planned for Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park starting on June 18th. The new park for both of us was Zion. I'd been there before, but it had been 25 years and I'd never camped there, so we had four days planned there and 3 days planned at Bryce Canyon.
Monday broke bright and clear and we had the car packed early and were on the road by 8:30 AM. We were packed lean and mean because this was the first time we were camping in our Corolla. In the past, we'd always camped using our family van, but with my wife's recent surgery, she didn't have enough hand strength to work the stick shift in the Corolla, so we took that so she could maneuver around in the van.
As always, geocaching was a part of the trip. When we hike, we usually look for geocaches along the way. When we drive, we look for geocaches to break up the drive, so I don't get too tired and become a road hazard. Since we were driving all the way to Zion in Utah in one day, one of our goals for the day was to find a cache in every state we traversed, for a total of four. It was easily done, with Utah the only state where we only found one cache.
We found several caches in and around Las Vegas. This was the first time we'd stopped in Las Vegas to find caches. Since it's a major tourist attraction, most of the geocaches in the city tend to be virtual caches, one where you have to either post a photo showing you were there, or email the cache owner with answers to questions that can only be ascertained by being at the correct coordinates.
We found two virtuals near the MGM Grand Hotel, one at M&M World and one at the MGM Grand. Las Vegas is such an entertaining city. I don't think there are too many places where you can see a replica of the Statue of Liberty surrounded by a looping rollercoaster across the street from a large hotel castle. Across another street is a golden lion and a casino/museum dedicated to candy that touts itself as "Melts in your Mouth, not in you Hand." And hidden behind a sign near that, we saw Batman, sans mask, taking a drag on a cigarette. Only in Vegas.
The rest of our trip through the Nevada desert was rather monotonous and we were rather glad we weren't early pioneers to the region since our car thermometer was registering 115˚ F outside that day. It wasn't much cooler by the time we got to Zion, the temperatures in the high 90s at about 6 PM MDT. All four days we were in Zion, it was triple digit temps, so shade was at a premium.
But the scenery was worthwhile and we happily set up our tent after a long day's drive. The one problem that camping newcomers have is they don't know the best sites at a particular campground. We wouldn't consider ourselves newcomers to camping, but definitely newcomers to Zion. Our campsite didn't have the best shade in the world, so we had to improvise during the days to make sure we were away from the heat and in shade if we happened to be in camp. There were other sites, particularly D Loop where there was lots of shade. At least we'll know for next time.
No campfire that evening, in fact, we didn't have a single campfire as it was pretty much outlawed in southern Utah at the time due to extreme heat and dry conditions. We survived without our S'mores that week. But, as you can see, we had a pretty spectacular view.
Spring has sprung. Last week, we had temperatures in the low 50s with over 2 inches of rain. This week, it's been in the low 80s. The natives are restless at school, with testing right around the corner.
Another harbinger of spring is the return of butterflies and ladybugs. As I look back over my album for the past month, I can see four different photographs that feature ladybugs. There's a photo of a ladybug on a post, there's one on an artichoke, there's this one and then there's one I took today of a bug in a flower.
Ladybugs are very cute little critters and pretty easy to photograph. As long as it's not too windy, they make a decent subject and very few people get tired of looking at ladybugs.
It rained today. That's not a bad thing, just that it messed with my plans a little. Then again, in the long run, it was probably a good thing that it did rain.
The plan was for me to go geocaching with a friend of mine who lives in Camarillo. That's about an hour and a half drive to the west of me. I was also playing another kind of GPS game which took me down to Carson. I left the house in a downpour.
The drive down was interesting to say the least. I had to come to a complete stop one time on the 605 because the California Highway Patrol (CHP) were doing a traffic break to help a car that had spun out to the side of the road.
Once I got to my intended spot, I scored my virtual points and then called my friend in Camarillo hoping to hear that the weather was better there. No such luck, so I made the decision to come back home. On the way home, I passed five accidents, two of which might have been called Sig Alerts. Sig Alerts are major traffic stoppages on Southern California freeways. Fortunately, all the accidents were on the other side of the freeway, so my route home didn't involve any stop and go driving. I was very fortunate.
As it turned out, I had a stressful week at school and usually when stress is released I'll get a nasty migraine. Yep, today was no exception, so it was actually good that I ended up back at home. I was able to rest, take it easy and recuperate. I also took a walk and got, what I feel, are some pretty nice photos of raindrops on several different kinds of plants.
The first shot has really convinced me that I need to look into getting a macro lens. Overall, I was pleased with how the shot turned out. However, using a 200mm zoom lens for shots like that are ok, but I'd really like to get a lot closer so more detail can be seen in the droplet.
The second shot was taken around the corner from my house, near the end of my walk. This particular neighbor has lots of flowering plants close to the sidewalk and there was lots of raindrops. I liked how the petals, which had fallen off the flower, were lying on the dead leaves from the parkway tree. I used a program called Photomatix to tonemap the shot and enhance the veins in the leaves. I think it gave it a nice effect.
