Panorama: San Diego, California. Harbor and Downtown

"I make photographs and still make photographs of the natural environment. It's a love because that was part of my life before I was involved in photography."

-John Sexton

Stitched together out of seventeen different photos. Taken from the wharf of the U.S.S. Midway museum, the large blue building is a venue for various events and attractions. Behind is part of the growing San Diego skyscape.

That's it for panoramas. Next on the agenda is "People".

Panorama: Round Valley, California

"A lot of people think that when you have grand scenery, such as you have in Yosemite, that photography must be easy."

-Galen Rowell

(It does make it a bit easier though, and a lot more fun and rewarding. -Andy)

Comprised of ten separate photos. Round Valley lies between the town of Bishop and the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, both located at the bottom of the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I was visiting Mammoth one particular day in early October looking for fall color. A weather front moved in that dropped about three to four inches of snow in Mammoth, and liquid in the Owens Valley below it. On my way back from the Mammoth day trip to my motel room in Bishop, the clouds began to break in the west, making for visually stunning skies, while throwing animated shadows upon the landscape below.

The photo above has got to be a better pic of me than those ungodly ones Gayn took at the get-together some of us attended in Laguna Beach last Friday. I have now developed an inferiority complex that may persist and prove to go chronic. Marion, I may have to request the need of your services.

GACK!!! 

Gack: The sound of a cat coughing up a hairball.

Self portrait taken up at Mammoth. Didn't find any fall color, but I was rewarded with an early snow - even in the village. This photo was taken a bit further up the mountain, past the ski resort and before dropping down towards Devil's Postpile, off of a ski slope access maintenance trail.

The whole town of Mammoth and its environs was virtually deserted, as it was in between seasons. I had the whole place to myself! Those tire tracks in front of me were made à moi when heading up the service road.

It is so darned peaceful when all is calm and quiet, the sky is pregnant with gray, and big flakes of snow are falling straight down in lazy spirals. The quiet, serenity and solitude are unimaginable. One can literally hear the silence. It lays upon one's soul like a cool, comforting blanket.

But, I digress: Next is a panorama of San Diego's partial downtown skyline taken from the wharf of the U.S.S. Midway museum.

Panorama: Joshua Tree National Park

"I never tried to revolutionize photography; I just do what I do and keep my fingers crossed that people will like it."

-David Bailey

Two panoramas taken at Joshua Tree National Park. Both are early morning shots, just after sunrise. Gotta love that warm, golden-hued early morning low-angled streaming light! Click on the photos below for a more intimate view. Once the larger version is opened after clicking, one can increase the magnification of it by holding down the Ctrl key (Windows) and the Cmd the key on a Mac, while scrolling up and down with your mouse wheel. This works in the Firefox browser. Not sure if other browsers support this function. Then one can use the browser scroll bars to move around within the photos.

I'm not liking how Google Blogger renders panos. It downscales the original, so when one goes to view the larger version, it renders to only fit within the browser window. Magnifying it tends to make the photo somewhat fuzzy. *Sigh*. One can't complain too much when the service provided is free.

Series of five shots stitched together.

Shot a little later in the morning. The light is not quite as warm as in the first pano, as the sun is already higher in the sky and taking on more blue. Stitched from a series of seven photos.

Panorama: Mesa Grande, California

"Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography."

-George Eastman

Panorama: any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model.


Click on the photo below for a larger version of the pano. Due to its rather large size, the panorama may be slow in loading. Be patient: it won't take that long.

Made from seven separate photos, and stitched together in software to create this pano. Click on the photo above and it will expand into a larger photo that one can scroll back and forth, up and down.

After spending a better part of the day chasing down fall color last November up and around the little town of Julian, California, I decided to get adventurous and take a road never traveled before to get home. Boy, I'm glad I did! The area is between Julian and Lake Henshaw, bordered by Hwy. 76 on one side and Hwy. 78 on the other.

Mesa Grande (not to be confused with Mesa Grande, Arizona) is a moderately elevated mesa, peppered with Coast Live Oak and Engelmann Oak trees. It is very reminiscent of the the large oak valleys that one passes through while driving in parts of the California Central Valley.

Studded with meadows, ranches, and farms, Mesa Grande will transport one to places seemingly way far, far away from the rat race called SoCal. While taking a leisurely drive along its graceful, winding road, I saw many examples of gorgeous and mature oak tree specimens, plus quite a few wild turkeys doing their turkey thing. This would be a good road to experience in a convertible auto with its top rolled down!

While threading my way through one particular bend in the road, I came upon this wonderful little pasture studded with oaks, a windmill and some cattle. The fall color was terrible around Julian, but I was rewarded with this pastoral scene coming home because I decided to take the road less traveled that day.

Monochrome IV

This is the last in the series of Monochrome.



“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

 Laguna Beach, California. Detail of artist's model studies showcased in the front window of Laguna Art Supplies.

Plugged in and Waiting for the a.m. Bus. Laguna Beach, California.

Family Day at the Beach. Laguna Beach, California. This row of tennis shoes caught my eye while strolling along the boardwalk alongside Main Beach one Sunday afternoon. What an interesting little story it tells of a family's day down at the beach.

Moonlight on Bird Rock. Laguna Beach, California.

I entered this shot of a gorilla in a photo contest. Hope to place at least!

Camera, Cigs, and Tats. San Diego, Ca.

A Reoccurring Theme. San Diego, Ca. Located next to the San Diego Convention Center, this photo emphasizes the strength of reoccurring lines, plus the concept of a vanishing point.

Next we head on to Panos, short for panoramas.

Monochrome III

"Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution."

-Ansel Adams

Shot from the Yosemite Valley floor, I like the moodiness of the mountaintop in the background by how it is shrouded somewhat by the approaching winter storm that was descending upon the valley that day.

Shot in the Imperial Sand Dunes that are situated south and east of the Salton Sea, this little tuft of grass created arcs in the sand by way of shifting breezes. It rained on the dunes two days before I visited, creating the rough-looking dimpled texture on the dune's surfaces. Normally when dry, they have a smoother, silkier appearance.

Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Also shot at Joshua Tree, the backdrop of eroded rock behind the yucca creates an interesting composition and adds a bit of depth.

This place really rocks! Joshua Tree National Park is home to vast quantities of weathered rock formations. What caught my eye here was the number of layers of boulders in the above photo; no less than nine separate planes in my count. Although not a particularly engaging and moving photo, it does illustrate the compositional effect of layering, or stacking of objects.

While crawling around in and amongst some pretty gnarly boulder fields and outcroppings in Joshua Tree, I came across this marching army of boulders advancing relentlessly across the viewfinder of my camera.

The next series of photos after these will end Monochrome. After that, we venture on into Panos, short for Panoramas.

Monochrome II

"What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time."

-John Berger

I love traveling on Hwy. 395! Never get tired of it, except for the part that runs through Hesperia and Adelanto. Running parallel to the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range along the base of its foothills, the 395 passes through some of the most scenic areas and spectacular landscapes throughout all of California. If one wishes to view geology in the raw, this is the road to travel on.

Abandoned Car, Bodie Ghost Town. Bodie, California. Shot this photo with a camera that was converted to capture the infrared spectrum of light. Green turns white, reds and blues turn black, while browns will transform into various shades of gray. One of my faves.

Winter Grasses. Yosemite Valley, California. While out exploring the valley floor and hoping to capture some iconic winter shots, I came across this patch of dead and dormant wild grasses popping up through the snow in a large meadow adjacent to the Ahwahnee Hotel. Captivated, I immediately envisioned it in black and white; reminiscent possibly of a Japanese pen and ink drawing. The contrast of the white snow to the relative darkness of the slender stems cried out "Create in me a black and white!" I obligingly did so, and am very content with the outcome.

Sierra Bonsai, South Lake. Bishop, California. I was up in the Bishop area of the Sierra Nevada several years ago in October to photograph fall color up on the eastern slopes of this remarkable mountain range.

On one of my forays looking for fall color around South Lake, located west of the small town of Bishop, I came across a rather large granite escarpment overlooking and dominating the south end of the lake. As I was hiking around it, I came across a veritable grove of naturally stunted pine and broadleaved trees, forming an amazing little bonsai garden.

There must have been at least 60-80 of these diminutive natural sculptures threaded all along the cracks and crevices of the escarpment. It kind of reminded me of the fairytale landscapes incorporated into Disneyland's fairy boat ride. None of them were more than 4 foot tall; many of them gnarled and looking quite old. This particular broadleaved specimen was approximately 2-3 foot tall.

Dead Bristlecone Pine Stump. White Mountains, California. The White Mountains parallel the Sierra Nevada range to the east. Between them lies the Owens River Valley and Hwy. 395. It is a rather stark and dry mountain range. As winter's Pacific storms swoop down out of the Gulf of Alaska where they are spawned, they bump up against the Sierra Nevadas and are wrung out of much of their moisture before they crest and move to the east. By the time the clouds reach the Owens Valley and the White Mountains, very little moisture is left in them.

The bristlecone pine has adapted itself to harsh, dry and high altitude environments, such as found in the upper elevations of the White Mountains. Determined to be the oldest living things on our planet (except perhaps for some of the nuns that taught at a parochial school I once attended), several have been reported to be over 6,000 years old.

Monochrome I

"Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still."

-Dorothea Lange

Monochrome: the state or condition of being painted, decorated, etc., in shades of a single color.

This next series of photographs is entitled "Monochrome", versus "Black and White". Monochrome by its very definition encompasses a much broader swath for interpretation, thus allowing for greater expression within subject matter. The first photo below is an example.

It was converted from a color photo to an old-style photo process called Old Plate. If this series were labeled Black and White, then technically it couldn't have been included, due to the fact that not only black and shades of gray are present, but also sepia-like tones are expressed. If it were converted to a simple black and white instead of Old Plate, I think it would have lost that feeling of transposing oneself out to the "Old Wild West".

I love black and white and monochrome photography. Color can be rather confusing and distracting at times in a photo. Strip away color from the right photo and what buds forth is the soul, its underlying essence and structure - architecture if you will - of the subject; captured in that moment of time and space.

Not all photos lend themselves to monochromatic conversion. There need to be several factors present in order to make a good candidate.

Structure: Differences and nuances of color can both confuse and mask the underlying shape and composition of your subject. The first photo below for instance of the dead juniper is unremarkable as a color photo.The intense reddish-orange of the Moab sand, coupled with the green foliage of the surrounding bushes - all enveloped by a beautiful blue sky, pulled the eye away from the dead cypress in the middle of the photo. But suddenly, after being transformed into a monochrome photograph, the dead and dry branches manifest themselves more clearly and one can discover and enjoy the grace, complexity and intricacy of the twigs and branches of the otherwise dead and dusty tree.

Composition: Strip away color, and straightaway one begins to realize the relationship of objects in a photograph to one and another.

Contrast: Differences between dark and light, shade and brightness are critical in monochrome photography. Black on one end with white balancing on the other play very important roles, for without them, all one would have is varying shades of gray.

To be good candidates for conversion, a capture needs the basics of good photographic technique such as contrast, composition, subject matter, light (or lack there of), and perspective, to name a few. Contrast especially can make or break a monochrome photo. One of the more important aspects in this form of expression via photography though is tonality. Hue is the color. Saturation is the purity/intensity of the color. Tone is the degree of lightness and darkness, or Luminosity.

Convert a photo to b&w, and suddenly the dark green foliage surrounding the bright red flower converge, causing the flower to lose itself in the foliage due to the tones being similar in appearance and therefor meld. Red and green are opposites on the color wheel, but turn them to black and white and suddenly the flower is lost within the leaves, for the tones converge, although the colors are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Conversely, a yellow flower nestled within the same green foliage will stand out from its background, basking in its own tonality. In order for a photograph to become a good candidate for conversion, differences in tonality, not just differences in color are extremely important.

Dead Cypress. Old Plate photographic interpretation. Shot in Arches National Park, Utah, I was struck by the starkness of the dead tree and the complexity of its twigs and branches. Although seemingly in chaos, Fractal design in nature is quite evident here. Design is the key word: with design, one would have to logically infer that one needs a designer, to... well... design, for out of chaos comes cosmos. Detonating a bundle of TNT will not produce a wristwatch, no matter how many eons one has to try it in. Food for thought.

 

Escondido Center for the Performing Arts. Escondido, California. Escondido is home to a wonderful cultural center where art and sculpture are exhibited, concerts and plays are performed, and other cultural events are showcased. I like the simple geometry of its architecture, especially this section of it. To me, an amalgam of Roman architecture and of "Metropolis", the 1927 silent German expressionist science fiction film of the future somewhat manifests itself within the lines, arches and angles of the building. The contrast in this photo was really goosed in order to emphasize its structural features.

Mailbox Row. Amusing in black and white. "Myeh" in color.

R.I.P. Had some fun with this one. One afternoon when I was at home, I spotted and saved this fly carcass from the dire straits of having been spotted and subsequently swallowed by my cat. Instead, it is now center stage in the photo above. I retrieved it off of the floor, placed it on the kitchen counter and then added a fly swatter to the background. Ta-da! We now have a whimsical little story in the form of a picture.

I was visiting Julian once with a photography club I belong to. Towards the end of our visit, one of the members thought that casting silhouettes on the wall of the old Julian jailhouse would be cool. We spent almost an hour shooting various people in various poses. This photo is one of my favorites of the series.

Bodie, California. Situated east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, between the resort area of June Lake and the town of Bridgeport off of Hwy. 395, sits the ghost town of Bodie. I converted this photo to sepia and added some film grain in order to mimic a photographic technique used during the heyday of this once thriving mining town.

Moab, Utah. Part Two

"The earth has music for those that listen."

-George Santayana

Coreopsis daisy.

Desert Primrose.

"Zen Cypress". One of my favorite photos. Took it with a 10.5mm fisheye lens. Got way down low below it on my back, reclining on a stair-step shelf and shot up into the the little tree. From what I remember, it was about 4 foot tall, mas o menos.

Fins photographed from waaay above down to waaay below in the Canyonlands area. Shot with a telephoto lens and then cropped close in Photoshop to detail and accentuate the fins.

Park Ave. To me, Park Ave. is one of the most spectacular and stunning geologic features of Arches National Park. The fins are thin, long behemoths that dwarf the canyon and hiking trail below. When hiking below them on the canyon floor trail and looking up, my impression of them was they were reminiscent of a giant stegosaurus back studded with huge armor plating.

And of course, Utah's most well-known feature, Delicate Arch. Its image can be found on many a Utah license plate.

I hiked up there in the late afternoon to capture this shot, along with another 50-100 or so people with the same intent, or there just to visit and stare at this wondrous natural sight. There is a natural sandstone bowl (with long natural benches even!) facing the arch. I would have to say that at least half of us were serious photographers, all decked out with carbon fiber tripods, multi-megapixel DSLR cameras and backpacks and bags full of camera related tchotchkes. All the other folks seemed normal.

While sitting there after setting up my tripod and camera and waiting for the light to get better, I was looking around at the audience and was hit by a remarkable scene before me of the resemblance of a scene aping the original Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston.

That wraps up Moab, Utah. Next we venture into the realm of monochromatic photography.