Gold rush.

Whilst in California in July I scheduled a day trip up to the Lassen Volcanic National Park and Mt. Shasta areas; about a four-hour drive north from my hotel in Martinez in the East Bay. Naturally I started out a bit before dawn, and when the sun had come up and I was on I-505, just before reaching the anticipated long stretch of I-5, I saw the most magical hills to the east. They immediately made me think of a golden Palouse Fields (google them, they’re beautiful) and as usual, I had to figure out if I could stop or not. With heavy regret, I did not stop. And yet as with all things great and wonderful, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

So, I schemed to drive back out there. I knew exactly what pre-dawn time to head out to catch the same light and I knew that the skies would be clear each morning. It ended up that the best way to fit this in was to go the morning of my flight back home. It was an hour drive out to an area I found out is called Dunnigan Hills.

I simply pulled over to the shoulder, rolled the window down, and pulled out my camera; didn’t even have to get out of the car. What really captured me were the folds in the hills and how they seemed sculpted by the rising and falling light and shadow. I used my telephoto lens, which made the difference - the tiny details are incredibly important.

I want to note that it is times like these I am grateful to be able to use a full-frame camera and post-processing software. I always shoot in RAW, which captures the scene without finalizing any approximation of saturation/exposure/etc., and then I can bring the photo back to what I saw with my own eyes. The aforementioned detail is possible because of the 36MP of the D810. While I love, love, love how phone cameras have democratized photography for the masses, there are still a couple of benefits to doing things the old-fashioned way.

I had to go back. That’s the lesson here. And while it would be awesome to travel with a photog friend, a lot of times I get these wild hairs and I feel like they would be very inconvenient for anyone who enjoys normal sleeping/eating schedules, or talking during road trips; things like that. When you’ve got the wanderlust, sometimes you just gotta go it alone.

Also - appropriately - the county in which the Dunnigan Hills are located is called…Yolo.

Berkeley Rose Garden.

There’s a particular public garden up in the Berkeley hills that I try to visit whenever I’m in the Bay Area. The sheer offering of types of roses is really to die for, even if you go during an “off season,” as I did in July. Flowers in general are crafty little beings; you think you’re above photographing such things and then when that first photo on your camera or phone makes you gasp…it’s a wrap. You’re now spending copious amounts of time and money for the privilege of capturing nature’s ephemera.

I pretty much always use my telephoto lens now when capturing flowers, because there are so many ways to play with light when it’s sunny, and cool techniques to try when it’s cloudy (like manipulating a black background in post-processing). Additionally, to put in a little plug for Tamron, my lens is crazy steady even at 400mm so I can catch little bugs without having to get too close, because of course they would eat me.

The above is not a true macro shot (I don’t have a macro lens) but it’s probably the clearest close-up photo of a bug I’ve ever taken - and I didn’t need a tripod. It’s times like these that I understand why some people get so excited about their “gear.”

I hope to start publishing on my blog once a week going forward - I’ve been set back this week with a nasty cold so my apologies; I’m glad to be back in the saddle.

Shark Fin Cove.

Typically when I take a photo trip I try to go to some new spots - it’s actually very tempting to keep going back to the same places that dazzled you before. It only took an evening of glassy-eyed googling to pinpoint Shark Fin Cove as a must-see destination, and in mid-July I was cruising down the coast toward Santa Cruz.

The “clouds” are actually fast-moving fog and it never really caught any color from the sunset, so in post-processing I used a filter to change the tint of the sky. I’ve only very recently started doing this, because I felt guilty about inventing a pretty sky, and then I saw a quick video by this fantastic photographer I follow on Instagram - a video about how to improve your post-proc techniques - and I watched as he changed an almost colorless sky to something pink and purple and gold. Now, anyone who has spent time photographing nature knows that it’s incredibly hard to predict a good sunset. In fact, replacing skies in post-proc has become so popular that I think the latest version of Lightroom includes it as an option. So sometimes, when you see that stunning landscape photo with the crazy clouds and colors…it’s been added in. Purists everywhere are weeping, I know.

You can see the natural daytime colors of the cove, about two hours prior to the photo above, here:

And below is how I processed for post-sunset using the general vibe of the cold coast.

Lastly, I just have to say that there is absolutely no way for me to see, hear, or even think the words ‘shark fin cove’ without immediately hearing ‘shark’s fin soup, madame!’ from the classic comedy Clue. I know I’m not the only one. Thanks for visiting!

Cypress Tunnel 2.0.

If the cypress tunnel above looks familiar, that is because it is the same tunnel featured on this site’s intro page. When I stumbled across a photo of this spot on someone’s random blog back in 2017 I instantly knew I had to find it when I took my vacation in late September. And it was everything of which I had dreamed…except for the dense fog that refused to lift during my two-hour stay.

But, interestingly, though the isolated spot in Point Reyes has become much more popular since then (it even has it’s own little page on the California parks site), I still have not come across one from a foggy morning. So, I guess I got lucky. And it is one of my favorite photos I’ve taken, to be sure.

When I took a trip to NorCal again last month, I visited the cypress tunnel again, this time on a bright sunny morning. And I still loved it. How can you not? But please note: if you get a chance to visit, the entrance is now blocked off due to people literally parking in between the trees for several years so they could get their pointless selfies. You can still walk the tunnel, obviously - although I wonder how long before someone ruins that for us, too.

Please be sure to check out my previous blog posts. They are all that remains of the first incarnation of my blog as I have decided to do things differently and hopefully, for more eyes. Thanks for visiting. :)