Posts tagged ‘Waterfalls’

Apr 30

Wildflowers and the Balcones Canyonlands

We’ve had a fairly wet spring here in central Texas, which is great for the wildflowers. The weather yesterday was ideal for wildflower photography—mostly cloudy and temperatures in the low 80’s.

I left the house with my Fujifilm X-T2 and a few lenses. The images shown here were taken with my XF16-55mm f/2.8 and XF50-140mm f/2.8 lenses. I used the builtin Fujifilm Velvia profile.

I drove north of Austin, finding many wildflowers along the way. These photos were taken along Ranch to Market Road 1431, between Lago Vista and Marble Falls.

Bluebonnets and Fleabane
(Click any image to enlarge.)

The high season for bluebonnets (the state flower of Texas) was about a month ago. In many locations, the blue flowers have given way to the yellows and reds and oranges of other wildflowers.

Indian Blanket, with a few Bluebonnets and Coreopsis mixed in

As I prepared this post and looked up the names of the wildflowers in the various photos, I realized how close I came to suffering a painful fate. Read more

May 30

A Final Night and Morning in the Grand Tetons

I got up early on Friday to drive the three hours from Canyon Village in Yellowstone, through West Yellowstone, and then down to Idaho Falls. Why? Because of some upcoming international travel, I needed a Yellow Fever immunization. Due to timing, and a nationwide shortage of said vaccines, it was most convenient for me to make an appointment with Eastern Idaho Public Health.

I arrived early (as planned, just in case), so I went down to see the eponymous falls. A Mormon Temple is in the background on the left.

Click any image to enlarge.

After my immunization, I had lunch, and headed eastward to go over Teton Pass. From the top, you can see a nice view of Jackson Hole.

I drove on down to Jackson and got settled into the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park for my final night. I did a little infrared photography in the bright afternoon sun, before heading back to Jackson to meet with a couple of friends for one final night.

Because of the great location and view from near my hotel room, I set up my camera for star trails. I did a couple of 35-minute captures from about 11 PM to a little after midnight.. Here’s one of the photos. The moon was waxing gibbous, and provided plenty of illumination for the snow on the mountains.

Despite the late night, I rose early in hopes of great color at sunrise. I got a little bit of pink in the sky, much like earlier in the week. Here are a couple of photos—one of Mount Moran, and one of Mount St. John.

Before I knew it, it was time to leave for the airport and fly home.

The general consensus at the Nature Photography Celebration (organized by The North American Nature Photography Association) is that it was a successful event that we should repeat in new locations in the future. We heard from great photographers presenting about their latest projects, and we had plenty of free time to go out and photograph great locations on our own. (And we even had a small trade show with support from many camera manufacturers, camera stores–especially Gary Farber at Hunt’s Photo & Video–and other organizations.)

A big thank you to my friend Charlotte for sharing wine, cheese, and a hyperactive dog in her beautiful home, and for including me in her network of friends, who all made me feel welcome a long way from home.

I am grateful for the beautiful places like the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, and all the other National Parks and National Monuments we are blessed to protect for future generations.

May 28

Yellowstone National Park

On Wednesday, I planned to get up early for sunrise photography, and to start driving up to Yellowstone. But I woke to rain in Jackson, and slept in another hour.

I drove up through Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway and entered Yellowstone National Park at the south entrance. I continued north, and rain turned into snow. It was 34 degrees and the roads warm enough to not have trouble with ice.

Click on any image to enlarge.

I tried to be a tourist and visit a roadside sight or two. Here’s Lewis Falls, with me standing on snow, watching the snow fall. Did I mention it was 34 degrees?

Soon, I decided it was best to just keep driving on to Old Faithful. By the time I got there, the snow had subsided, and there was just a little bit of rain. I arrived a few minutes before the famous geyser erupted. Not the photo I imagined with a brilliantly colorful sky in the background, but this is more of a snapshot anyway. In the peak of summer (and in better weather), you would see thousands more people surrounding Old Faithful.

Peak season begins Memorial Day weekend, and I was there just before that. So it was beginning to get crowded, but nothing like the park sees later on. Being a week or two before the busy season begins also means that not every road (or campground or lodge) is open—but it’s still a great time to visit. The creeks, rivers, and waterfalls were really flowing.

Here’s the inside of the historic Old Faithful Inn, with people waiting to enter the dining room. Some consider the inn the largest log building in the world.

I walked around for awhile in the rain in the Upper Geyser Basin in the Old Faithful area. It was nice to get out and walk around. Here’s one of the pools in the area: Morning Glory Pool. Pro tip: bring your polarizing filter to cut down on reflections in the water. I left mine at home.

My destination for the night was Canyon Lodge, so I kept on driving north (no more falling snow!), past the other other geyser basins. Here’s an overlook showing the Norris Geyser Basin in the distance.

Jul 10

Hiking in the Dolomites, Part 3

The next day, we took the bus to the end of the road, and went for an approximately 7-mile hike near Santa Magdalena at around 2000 meters elevation. Here’s the trail we took, hiking from east to west:

As I mentioned in my last post, the weather turned overcast with a low ceiling, and a nearly constant threat of rain. The good news is that it didn’t actually rain much—a couple of passing showers that lasted only minutes. The bad news is that we had to imagine what the scenery looked like:

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

Once again, I turned to my infrared Nikon D300 to find elements of drama in the larger scene. On this trip, I used the versatile Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens for all of my infrared photos. This shot is using a focal length of 65mm (35mm equivalent of 100mm) at f/5.

Another approach to photographing with uncooperative weather is to focus on details, such as this flower.

I believe this is a Phyteuma orbiculare.
Common name: Round-headed Rampion

The weather improved marginally as we neared the end of our hike, descending to Santa Magdalena to catch the bus back to the hotel. The mountains were still in the clouds, but we could at least appreciate more of the scenery.

The next day, we hiked again for about five miles in the same area, heading more east:

The weather was slightly improved from the day before—the ceiling had lifted ever so slightly, and we saw some blue sky as the day progressed.

Here’s my favorite infrared photo from the day, with the brooding clouds hanging just at the top of the peaks.

As long as the sky was cloudy, we could switch our focus to scenes that don’t include it. I photographed these waterfalls with a 1/3 second exposure at f/22.

The photo below is a 1/10 second exposure, also at f/22.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, one of the themes of this week was to find different ways to photograph something interesting while having challenging weather conditions. This led us to time-lapse photography.

Here’s a very short video of sixty time-lapse frames. Each frame was taken 3 seconds apart, and the video below speeds it up by 36x. I’ll have a few more examples like this in later blog posts.

Next up, an afternoon in Ortisei, on our way up to our first mountain hut, the Rifugio Resciesa.

Sep 23

Fallingwater

I’ve spent the past week in Pittsburgh, at a conference and visiting some professors at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Today, I escaped the city—Pittsburgh’s a great city, by the way—and did a little sightseeing in southwestern Pennsylvania.

I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood Museum. But most of my time was spent at Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater. There’s a hint of fall color just beginning to appear—this part of the country is beautiful.

A year or so ago, I visited Taliesin West. Both it and Fallingwater have an enormous sense of fitting exactly into their surrounding environments. Taliesin West sitting perfectly in the desert of Arizona, and Fallingwater belonging no other place than along the stream called Bear Run in Pennsylvania.

May 17

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Hawaii, Day Four

Today’s word is “mystery”.

Thanks to the Na Pali Riders, we enjoyed a Zodiac tour of the Na Pali coast. The Na Pali coast is gorgeous. Because of the rugged mountains and the highland swamps, Kaua’i is the only major Hawaiian island that doesn’t have a road that goes all the way around. They tried, but abandoned the road machinery in the swamps. Don’t forget that Kaua’i is one of the wettest places on earth, with the Wai’ale’ale crater receiving an average of about 450” of rain a year.

Much of the land is sacred to the native Hawaiians. It’s rough topography, it’s inaccessibility, and it’s incredible beauty combine to make the Na Pali coast mysterious and alluring.

One of the highlights was to get to see the sunbeam near the waterfall of the Waiahuakua Sea Cave.

May 16

Hawaii, Day Three

We had a tough day today. The weather didn’t cooperate; only a bit of rain, but a lot of clouds that socked in some of the canyons all day.

Today’s word is “wonder”, which is what you feel all along a hike we did to the top of Waipo’o Falls, in Waimea Canyon. The canyon is up to 3000 feet deep in places.

This is an HDR (high dynamic range) image, created from three exposures with a one stop difference between each.

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Jul 6

Summer Trip Night Seven, Yosemite Falls at Night

Just wanted to post a couple of quick night shots. The Yosemite Lodge is a few hundred yards from Yosemite Falls, so it was easy for me to walk over about midnight and try a few things.

These were taken with a Nikon D700 at ISO 800, with a 17-35mm f/2.8 lens at f/5.6, for about 3 minutes. (Timed with my iPhone’s stopwatch.)

They look somewhat like daylight shots, except for the stars in the sky.

Jul 4

Summer Trip Day Six, Devil’s Postpile

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but my time at Devil’s Postpile National Monument turned into a full day of hiking and about a hundred photos.

Today was July 4, so the park was crowded—probably a couple of thousand visitors—their busiest day of the year. They have a shuttle bus system to reduce the number of cars on the narrow, windy roads.

Among other things, the monument protects Rainbow Falls of the San Joaquin River. This photo shows how the falls got its name… (As always, click the images to enlarge them.)

The monument is named after a large, well, “pile” of columnar basalt. Normally perpendicular, there are some places where the columns seem to bend over. This image is infrared, which shows the green foliage as nearly white.

Here’s another infrared shot, of the dead trees left from the 1992 Rainbow Fire, which burned about 8000 acres of forest.

And here are a few other favorite images from my five-mile hike at about 7500 feet of elevation.

Tomorrow, it’s back to Yosemite.

Jul 1

Summer Trip Day Three, Yosemite

I spent the day exploring more of Yosemite, hiking to Taft Point, driving to Washburn and Glacier Points, and then spending more time in Yosemite Valley.

The Valley has a lot of smoke in it from the Grouse Fire, which started from lightning about a month ago. It’s a little frustrating that the grand vistas are pretty hazy, but I appreciate the benefits that fire brings to the forest environment.

The image above is another infrared photo. It is the classic view from the “Tunnel View” overlook. El Capitan is on the left. Half Dome is just left of center in the far distance. Bridalveil Falls is in the lower right.

Tomorrow, I work my way back through the Yosemite high country, and will end up in Bishop, on the other side of the Sierras.

PS: My friend Nancy wanted a photo of me driving through one of those “tunnel trees”. The California Tunnel Tree in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias isn’t big enough for a car (and they don’t allow them there anyway). When the tunnel was cut in 1895, they didn’t foresee the size of today’s cars. No car, but here I am under the tree.

Conservation Photography and Other Photo Adventures