Blue Coast

Getting back from vacation and into the work week means waiting until the weekend to get back to reviewing the images from our California Big Sur Coast trip.

As the week progressed the weather was more and more grey and cloudy. We were headed south one morning and this view of the band of light and the layers of smoke and mist drew my eye.

The conversion to Blue/Black/White is a duotone in Photoshop. Enjoy the image!

Wednesday - Garrapata Coast

Wednesday dawned so dreary that we didn't even try to shoot in the morning. It was our transition day to move south from Monterey to stay at Big Sur.

We stopped at several places along the way. The first image is from the coastline at Garrapata State Park. We got filtered light that allowed the detail and colors of the area show through. The second is from the headlands north of Point Sur lighthouse. The lighthouse is located on the big rock at the end of the beach.

Both images were processed in ACR/CS5 and Color eFex Pro. Enjoy!

Tuesday Evening - Rocky Point

The photo weather degraded throughout the day on Tuesday. The day opened cloudy and the ceiling continued to lower throughout the day. Sadly, this Pacific front is forecast to linger throughout the rest of the week.

The scenery continues to be amazing, but the low light and mist dims the images.

But one shouldn't quit shooting. The following is an image from Rocky Point. This location is famous for the bridge in the rock at water level and the Rocky Creek bridge in the background. By the time we arrived the light was very muted and there was little color in the scene. So, in an attempt to make lemonade I processed the image in B&W/cyan and attempted to incorporate the softness of the deep background into the overall theme:

I'm pleased with the result. This was an exercise that was done using Silver eFex Pro.

Monterey Bay Sunrise

One of my first photo outings of this trip was a trip to the shoreline to witness the sunrise over Monterey Bay. The morning was cool. The sunrise was "windowed" by a band of cloud that hovered above the horizon.

Enjoy the images !

Images processed with ACR/CS5 and Color eFx Pro

California

We are on our annual spring trip. This year we decided to go to Monterey, California. Driving in on Sunday we were constantly going "look at that!" as the Central Coast unrolled in front of us.

Here is an early image from our trip. It is taken at Willow Creek turnout.

D7000, 35-70mm, ACR, CS5, CFX

Yosemite - Final Morning

Our last day in California I drove back up into Yosemite Valley. It was a nice day with some lingering mist in the lower levels.

I returned to shoot some sunrise images at a location that we had originally visited on the first morning that stayed grey and cloudy.

I was much more fortunate on this visit. The location is a bend on the Merced River. El Capitan is to the west and the Three Brothers are to the east.

Being down in the shadows of the valley with the brightening sky made for a very wide contrast range. So we shot bracketed images with the plan to process as HDR images. Here are a couple of my favorite results.

Light on the Peaks - Three Brothers above the Merced

Morning Light on El Cap - Merced Reflection

The camera: Nikon D7000 with Tamron 11-16mm f/2.8. The processing: HDR processing in Photomatix, final processing in CS5

Yosemite - Half Dome

We ended the day towards the upper part of Yosemite Valley watching the sunset on Half Dome. There were light clouds forming and moving across the face of the formation. As I started to process these it quickly became clear that a Black and White treatment was the best way to represent these images.

Clouds on Half Dome

Conversion to B&W in ACR, additional post in CS5. Nikon D7000 and 70-200mm f/2.8 @ f/11

Yosemite - Brilliant Afternoon

The rain of the previous day set up today to be about as beautiful as possible for our visit. The air was washed clean and the waterfalls were flowing nicely. In the fall the waterfalls are often dried up, so the weather leading into and during our stay favored us.

Here are a couple of favorite images

Upper Yosemite Falls

Merced River - El Capitan Reflection

I have several images of the upper falls from various points of view. If you look at my waterfall image from the rainy day (previous post) you can see the flow has a different character. This image captures a great pattern of the water breaking across the rock face.

The image of El Cap and the Merced River is from the location knows as the Gates of the Valley. The entire valley was lit brilliantly, but I focused on the vertical view of El Capitan because the wisps of clouds that moved across that side of the valley.

Upper Falls was shot with the Nikkor 35-70mm zoom at f/13. Reflection was shot with the Tamron 11-16mm at f/11

Post processing is ACR and CS5. I'm using some new techniques shown to me by my instructor earlier in the week.

Yosemite - Tuolumne Grove

After the rainy day and night we had a dewy and bright morning.

Our first stop was Tuolumne Grove. It is one of the sites where the giant sequoias are found in the park. It is a small grove (about a dozen trees). It was a one mile hike to the big trees from the parking area. The big trees are mixed into the forest, so no photos of them. But on the way out there were sheltered patches of vegetation where the sunlight was just starting to warm the dew. Here are a few images from that part of the hike.

Yosemite - Rainy Afternoon

Our cloudy morning turned into a rainy afternoon. The valley filled with mist and clouds which offered a new photographic opportunity.

We moved around Yosemite Valley photographing the clouds and mists against the valley walls. My instructor for the day was Michael Frye. If you go to his blog here you will see one of his images, and a special event that took place at one of our locations.

Here are two of my images from the day.

Glacier Point Layers

Falls in the Mist

More images from sunnier days to come !

Yosemite - Cloudy Morning

Our first morning in Yosemite Valley dawned cloudy and grey. No spectacular light, so the famous mega-geology of surroundings all just blended together.

I had arranged to have a private photo workshop with a local photographer. While the conditions may have not been the expected, his advice for the morning was right on: When you have soft light look for detail and color. And he was absolutely right. The fall colors haven't arrived in the valley yet but there was lots of color and detail to find and enjoy

Wildcat Falls

Flowing Water

North Side

More to come from a grey day...

Yosemite - Day 1

After a busy August and September we got away for a photo holiday. We attended an event in Los Angeles on Saturday. From there we spent several days at one of our national treasures: Yosemite National Park.

Parts of four days were spent in or around the National Park. As you might imagine, a hard drive full of images were captured. Much to look through and share over the next few weeks.

We arrived the first afternoon by way of Wawona Road, which brings you into Yosemite Valley by way of the iconic Tunnel View approach. Here is one of my first images of the valley on our arrival.

Much more to come...