Eastern Sierra Adv – Fall ’10

We’re sharing our home in the Eastern Sierra Oct 21-24, 2010. We’ll be doing a little traveling, a little shooting, a little dinning, a little ice cream, a little digital darkroom, a little UFO, maybe even a guest appearance by Big Foot and for sure, a lot of fun. Fall color is lookin promising for this fall with all the water we have promoting tons of green right now. The gorgeous granite isn’t going anywhere and the light in the fall, well, there just isn’t anything like it. We only take six folks, we’ll be based out of Mammoth Lakes the entire time but ranging out to photograph some of the splendor that makes the Eastside a beautiful place. Want to join us, give Sharon a call at 760.924.8632, today!

Great Week Finished with an !

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One of the important lesson the Eastern Sierra teaches anyone who cares to listen is take life slow. To simply enjoy even the smallest treasure makes the day all that much sweeter. Our last shoot at Rock Lake spoke this listen in volumes!

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Didn’t have to wander any distance, barely walked far from the truck and the clouds and the light performed. We had a wonderful time with really great folks sharing our home here in the Eastern Sierra. I think we have a couple more B&W converts and definitely fans of this very unique of our wild heritage. Thanks gang for a great week, it ended with one helluva exclamation point!

Photos captured by D3x, 18AF on Lexar UDMA digital film

We Stop for Photos!

I told the group we were heading to one place but as soon as I saw the sky, I made a quick left and then a rapid stop. I grabbed my camera and ran up the hill. When you see here what I saw, you can see why there’s a bumper sticker saying We Stop for Photos!

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It’s all about drama, landscape photography that is. This kind of sky screams drama so to make the image, you just need a somewhat interesting foreground. The more interesting the foreground, the more the drama pops in the photograph. The rocks are tan and they were surrounded by yellow flowers, a great foreground. In fact, just a little too good which is why I went B&W. If I hadn’t, the foreground might have gotten more attention visually when I want you looking at the drama in the sky. You’re the photographer, it’s always your choice where the viewer’s attention is going to go.

Photos captured by D3x, 18AF on Lexar UDMA digital film

The Ghost Forest is to Die For!

After haunting the shoreline for sunrise, we headed up to the Ghost Forest. This grove of pines were killed in place by CO2 from our volcano. When you have great skies you really can’t make a bad photo here and this morning was that kind of situation.

What’s the key to making the images happen? First is finding the right clouds for the background. Next, find a design pattern in the trees that is interesting. Next is know that you can’t find the perfect pattern and that there will always be some trees you’ll need to remove in post from the photo. Lastly, a wide lens and the willingness to endure a stiff next the rest of the day. After that, just have fun wandering the forest for a couple of hours.

Photos captured by D3x, 18AF on Lexar UDMA digital film

Last Day Sunrise Grander

The radar showed clouds and in just the right places so I knew exactly where I wanted to take the gang for their last sunrise shoot. That is one of the big advantages of the Eastern Sierra Adv, I do know my backyard pretty good for just such occasions.

Horseshoe Lake is one of the very few that man doesn’t mess with. It’s waters come and go on natures clock. Right now it’s just one giant mirror reflecting the incredible beauty of the Sierra crest.

There’s a really good reason John Muir called the Sierra the Range of Light. Just wait five minutes and it will change as you see here. Sometimes it gets better, sometimes it gets worse but it will change. Was it worth getting up oh dark thirty to greet the day? Hell ya!

Photos captured by D3x, 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

Back to the Ol Homestead

With the great puffies and gorgeous July light, a trip to Bodie was a must. Bodie is not new to me, in fact, my family has been going to Bodie since 1900. So it was with great delight we took the group there to share not only it’s photographic wealth, but also it’s colorful history.

There are many, many ways to approach photographing Bodie. My approach this time was to have corrected buildings in B&W. The first obstacle most fret over are all the people that walk through your photo. There are two ways of dealing with this. The first is simply wait, most folks don’t stand at any one place for more than 30secs. The seconds is simply use Content-Aware fill in Photoshop. I used a combination of these two in these photos.

Next, I shot with the 24PC-E handheld. I seemed to have opened Pandora’s box by talking about these lenses so much, all I get are questions on how to use probably one of the simplest of photographic tools. We have a video being posted this week which will hopefully make this simple tool simple to use.

Lastly there is the B&W. What I did was create 1 image HDR and then take that Tif through ACR 6.2 for the B&W conversion. It’s really easy to do and as you can see, it creates pretty dramatic results. But the key to all of this is the one thing we have zero control over, and that’s the clouds. They make the whole image happen. Without them, all the rest is just talk.

Simple Click – Light We Found

Tuolumne Meadows is just gorgeous right now!

Simple Click – Up The Hill

From 6000′ to 10000′ we went chasing the light up Tioga Pass.

Quick Trip to Monumnet Valley

We’ve got a great group of folks with us here on the Eastside so thought we’d take them on a quick trip to Monument Valley. In miniature that is.

OK, we didn’t drive to Utah overnight, rather we left at 4AM and headed to a favorite locale. After doing some star trails, we headed down and got on our knees. We got on our knees, elbows and stuck our butts in the air as we photographed these very delicate and fragile sand tufas.

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OK, so getting down on your knees is part of making the photo, what else is? The top photo was taken with the 18AF, the bottom with the 24PC-E, one with tilt in and the other corrected. I don’t think either one is required to make the shot. Nope, to make the shots come alive required the great clouds and light and then a good dose of romance. No matter how big or small your landscape, I feel the same ingredients goes into all of them in order for them to be successful. Oh yeah, having good knees doesn’t hurt!

Photos captured by D3x, 18AF / 24PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film

Eastern Sierra Adv – Summer Edition

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It’s one of my favorite times of year and we couldn’t be happier then to be sharing it with photographers. We have a great group of adventurers with us exploring all the magic the Eastside has to offer in summer. Typical Moose fashion, we were up before the sun so we could greet it. Using an old technique from film days, shot prior to the sunrise, minus 3 exp comp dialed in and nothing else permitted the color, gradation and moon to be captured in one click. No filters needed, just lots of coffee!

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Working at nearly 10,000 feet, the sun comes up early. Working the ridgeline, you can find little isolated pockets of light on really cool subjects. For me, a total wildflower moron, this is important. Sticking my ass up in the air at all let alone that early in the morning, it better be darn easy. This little Mtn Phlox though is a the perfect example of what I’m talking about. I borrowed Jake’s 24-70, zoomed to 70mm, bent over and shot. Dialed in -1.5 exp comp to make the shadows go black and I was done. By 7AM, light was hard and the call of the wild pancake could be heard from the mtn tops. Damn good morning and great start!

Many have asked if there is a Eastern Sierra Adv for the fall. There is, it’s based out of Mammoth Lakes and even though we’ve not announced it or dates (waiting for last minute for best guess on fall color) there are only two openings left. Give Sharon a call at the office if you want to join in.

Photos captured by D3x, 45PC-E / 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

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