California eScape

California eScape

The most recent photographs are added to the top of this page. This October 2002 trip was to be a chase for autumn colour, which Murphy (of Murphy's law fame) decided to have follow us about 5 days after each place we visited. So, only one autumn colour shot in 2002, but still an interesting trip as always.

First, some history - in May 2001 I went with a friend to photograph the Alabama Hills region in central California. We arrived late in the day, just before sunset and managed to set up just one shot before the sun went behind the Sierra Nevada mountains. We figured we were in good stead for the next morning having scouted out a good morning shot, and went back to dinner and the hotel. The next morning was completely overcast in a featureless sky, a complete wipeout. This year we went back -- arrived just near sunset, got off one shot and scouted the next morning's shot. Things once again looked good, with a light dusting of high elevation snow adding some drama. Guess what -- next morning looked totally overcast yet again ! However, being an eternal optimist we went out anyway and I set up at my chosen spot. Shortly before the sun was to officially peek over the eastern horizon, a small slit opened on the horizon and the sun lit up the clouds from underneath, a wonderful orange-red colour that lit the entire foreground (these foreground rocks are normally a warmish yellow-grey colour). Then the sun rose and a line of light lit the Sierra Nevadas. I quickly made an exposure reading and got off three shots in the rapidly changing light before the sun went completely behind the clouds for the next 4 hours. The shot below was the one that worked best.

Near Mammoth Lake, on the other side of the Interstate, we came across a wonderful river of grass, normally a term reserved for the Everglades but suiting this stream perfectly. The light was pretty harsh but I decided to shoot anyway. I wish I had polarized the water fully -- I left it about 3/4 polarized as the view through the camera showed it just picking up some of the blue of the sky, but the film unfortunately picked up a lot of the blue, losing the detail. This was taken from a small bridge on a dirt road with a lot of farming traffic -- clouds of dust meant the camera spent more time protected under the dark cloth than not. Not one of my best but I have never seen another stream anywhere outside of Florida with this type of underwater growth.

We then traveled up north to some of the many volcanic areas of California. At the Lassen Volcanic area light was either coming from a totally clear sky or was overcast, but my one autumn colour shot I like was taken in bright overcast, just a hint of shadows being cast. The Kings Canyon hike is steep but worth the hike as the stream works its way down through a long, winding waterfall area.

Up closer to Tulelake one morning we hit a deep bank of mist/fog that had formed over the lake and surrounding area, and while we were driving towards the nearby Lava Beds National Monument we came across this herd of deer. There were about 8 of them and while they were extremely nervous I decided on the normally foolhardy pastime of large format wildlife photography. By the time I set up with the 450 mm five had moved away, but I got three shots off of these three before they spooked and disappeared into the nearby brush. Even the sound of the shutter going off made them nervous and coupled with a 1 second exposure time, this was the only shot that worked OK (one deer moved during the exposure but the other two held pretty steady.

In May 2001 I attended a B&W workshop in Yosemite. Still working on those negs. However, I have a few shots completed in colour that I took after the workshop. The one I used as the lead-in photo on my home page was taken at the foot of El Capitan, lit by the intense blue sky. I like this one for the simple repeating shapes.

Bodie is a wonderful place if you like Ghost Towns. The wood weathers a wonderful bronze brown colour. I have quite a few more at Bodie, most are B&W that I have to get into the darkroom for.

My first visit to the Alabama Hills is described at the top of this page. This was the one shot that we took just before the sun went behind the mountains. I nicknamed this rock "the foot"

This October 1999 trip started by flying into Los Angeles -- not really enjoying the huge construct called LA (and other large cities in general) we eScaped as fast as we could and drove out of the city towards the North. I was just beginning to shoot large format, so this was the first trip I can remember that I did not take any medium format stuff at all ! I still have to scan a number of shots from this trip, but so far, the photographic highlights of the trip were the following :

We drove North into the Pinnacles where they filmed one of the Star Trek movies (there seems to be lots of places in California called the Pinnacles, this particular one is near Red Rock). An interesting place with large tufa (similar material to the outcrops in Mono Lake but much larger), existing here because this used to be a large lake bottom several thousand years ago. A bit tough to photograph due to the pathways people have eroded into the soft material and the unfortunate off-road vehicle tracks in too many places but with a bit of care these can be avoided. Best in early or late light, we were there too close to the harsh midday to be really stunning. This is always the problem with vacations, the urge to see the area means you are not always able to be there in the best light for photography.

We proceeded into Death Valley from the West. Unlike our previous visit to the valley, at about the same time in early October but a few years earlier, we were not hit by an unseasonable heat wave (49 C), but rather it was quite cool this time (5 to 10 C). Very pleasant to go hiking, so we did a number of hikes that would have been real killers in the hot weather. We hiked the Gower Gulch Loop, taking the longer route via steep hike up to behind Zabriskie Point -- well worth the exertion. We also hiked all the way up Mosaic Canyon, which gets up to quite a high elevation (but always within a canyon). Spent some time on the sand dunes, but could always spend more. We had quite a wind blowing this time which is good and bad -- good because it erases footsteps but bad because it gets sand in everything photographic. I still don't have what I want photographically from the dunes area.

We then drove South into Mojave National Preserve. The weather was pretty stormy looking (gusty with heavy dark clouds) and so we did not have much to photograph in large format but the area was interesting. Being extremely dry that year, a lot of desert plants had dropped their leaves to conserve moisture, and so it was even more barren looking than usual (two years later the rains came at the proper time and it was the best spring flowering in 50 to 60 years -- we weren't there of course !).

We then entered Joshua Tree National Monument. This is a really interesting place geologically but once again we were hampered by very high winds and dark clouds. We had some good hiking even so, but this is a difficult place to photograph since there are so many rocks it is too busy visually. We hung around and late that night, the surface winds died down, the storm moved out and the sky cleared just in time for sunset. And what a great sunset ! I got these two photos which I really like. The first was taken about 20-30 minutes before the sun actually set (right in the middle of magic hour) and the post-storm sky had this very weird blue colour, very surreal -- I think there was significant upper atmospheric dust that was causing this because it only happened this one evening. I composed a simple shot with some of the omnipresent balanced rocks, but a composition that does truly represent a small slice of Joshua Tree.

Turning to the west, I waited for the sun to set, and was rewarded with a beautiful orange/red/magenta/indigo glow, again due to the atmospheric dust I think. In hindsight, I should have positioned the silhouetted Joshua trees so they were larger, but c'est la vie.

The next morning we came in early to catch this shot of what is probably a very ancient tree with another balanced rock, a shot I had seen a couple of days previous but the light was totally wrong then. The warm early morning sun really makes all the difference here. Compositionally, this one is a bit odd -- at first glance you might think there is too much sky on the right, but if you crop it out it looks all wrong. Discussing this one with Jack Dykinga, we feel that the warm sun on the rocks on the right balance the vertical rock on the left. I feel that the bit of visual tension this causes actually makes the composition stronger.

Leaving Joshua Tree by the Southern route, we stopped to hike in the White Tanks area where there is a small stone arch. I love arches. We arrived at this one and I quickly noticed that I could position the moon under the arch but would have to work fast. And I mean fast. You would not think the moon moves very fast in the sky but you would be amazed at how fast it really does move ! After setting up four times, I was finally at the lowest point I could get and managed to get off two really quick shots before the moon moved behind the arch. With a bit more time I would have fine tuned the composition to hide the bush at the bottom right. Here is the result, one of my favourites from this trip.

We also stopped at the Cholla Gardens, a wonderful place to see Teddy Bear Cacti. Lots of backlit photo ops here but nothing turned out extraordinary for me this time. I really think very early morning is the right time for this area and we were there at the wrong time with the light too harsh.

That was about it for "the best" photographs. We meandered our way back to LA over the next three days, and then flew back home.

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