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Jeff Sullivan 
Landscape photographer, author, workshop instructor, filmmaker
Occupation: Photographer, author, workshop instructor.
Location: Gardnerville, Nevada
His ProfilesRankThis is the rank of 'Jeff Sullivan' out of all Google+ Profiles.: 83 (GenderRankFor the gender 'Men'.: 43)
His ProfilesRankThis is the rank of 'Jeff Sullivan' out of all Google+ Profiles. in United States: 47 (GenderRankFor the gender 'Men'.: 23)
Followers: 1,836,341
Following: 4,840
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Latest postings
2013-05-24 16:35:41 (27 comments, 50 reshares, 438 +1s)
Bodie Night Photgraphy in Motion
I decided to put a few images from this star trails shot at Bodie into an album to see if Auto Awesome would animate them. It did! It doesn't know whether the stars or the ground are moving though, so it decided to move them both a little bit. Technically it's more accurate to show the earth moving because it is the rotation of the earth which makes the stars seem to move, although we don't think of it that way from our point of reference.
I've added June 29 (one day) and August 24 (weekend) workshops to my Bodie night access offerings for 2013:
Bodie Night Photography Workshops 2013:
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/bodie-night-photography-workshops/
The PayPal registration/payment buttons don't work within my blog posts and separate pages though, so you have to access them via the bu... more »
2013-05-23 22:50:57 (25 comments, 41 reshares, 466 +1s)
Unknown Nevada
One of the things I'd like to make a concerted effort to do this year is explore more of Nevada. It's relatively unknown to most photographers, so the subjects tend to be pretty fresh, not over-shot.
Many of the subjects are what you'd expect... State parks, decaying towns and abandoned mines, a National Park and a National Monument, but others seem a little more serendipitous: eroded badlands, hoodoos, dry lake beds, wild mustangs and wild burros, bighorn sheep, hot springs and tall mountains with alpine wildflowers and gnarled bristlecone pine trees. I probably have years worth of exploration of the state ahead... all the more reason to get started as soon as possible!
My California book is coming along well... close to 5000 words so far this week, so I'm starting to look ahead and think about what projects to work on next.
2013-05-23 20:12:14 (33 comments, 48 reshares, 622 +1s)
Milky Way in California's Eastern Sierra in August
In the Northern Hemisphere the bright, complex center of our Milky Way Galaxy is visible above the horizon if you can find an area with dark skies (little light pollution from cities). This was taken in early August, when the Milky Way is visible to the southwest. To an observer as the night goes by the Milky Way moves right and tilts up on the left side, and at 10:45 pm it had a tilt perfect for vertical compositions.
2013-05-23 06:30:32 (27 comments, 32 reshares, 495 +1s)
Mono Lake Sunrise Silhouette
I can't get enough of this place. Can you see why?
2013-05-22 18:50:12 (18 comments, 39 reshares, 402 +1s)
One Year Ago Today: Wildfire in Record Hot Year in the U.S.
This is from the Topaz Ranch Estates Fire May 22, 2012, just over the hill, about 2 miles from where +Lori Hibbett and I live. We saw the smoke and went to the top of that hill to capture this pictures.
U.S. Roast to Hottest Year on Record, By a Landslide
"How hot was it? The temperature differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree but last year blew away the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit."
"The year featured a La Niña weather pattern, which tends to cool the global climate overall, and scientists expect it to be the world's eighth- or ninth-warmest year on record."
"Assuming that prediction holds up, it will mean that the 10 warmest years on record all fell within the past 15 years, a measure of how much th... more »
2013-05-22 19:33:39 (42 comments, 56 reshares, 643 +1s)
Mono Lake Sunrise
I was shooting a time-lapse video on this morning when the card filled (I had forgotten to format it). I changed the card but that created a small glitch in the timelapse.
Then the battery died! I changed that. To get the battery out I also had to take my Canon off of the tripod head using a Manfrotto quick release plate. It doesn't necessarily snap exactly back into place, so you also typically get a sudden jump in some direction of a few pixels.
Both happened during the peak sunrise color, so I couldn't simply make a video from before or after the glitch, I had the best light interrupted twice!
I did keep shooting though, so I have lots of still pictures from the morning, and this is how we learn. I'm a lot less likely to make those same mistakes now when I shoot.
2013-05-23 13:12:51 (44 comments, 49 reshares, 690 +1s)
Summer Milky Way and Reflection
For those of us in the Northern Hemipshere the bright, complex center of our Milky Way Galaxy rises highest in the night sky in the weeks close to the Summer solstice on June 22. Here's a shot from early July, captures high in the Ansel Adams Wilderness at an elevation of 10,000 feet.
The image was captured in July 2010 on a Canon 5D Mark II, on a moonless night. Here's a blog post on the process:
Producing Milky Way Images
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2011/05/25/producing-milky-way-images/
2013-05-20 18:15:34 (71 comments, 94 reshares, 883 +1s)
Golden Gate Bridge at Sunrise
I had a request yesterday for a print of an image from this sunset by the Golden Gate Bridge, so I uploaded this shot to my SmugMug gallery as well to provide a couple of options to select from: http://jeffsullivan.smugmug.com/Landscapes/San-Francisco-Bay-Area/3792961_m27SrJ
The other one is a little soft in places because it was shot at 50mm, which offered less depth of field. This one was shot at 24mm so it's sharp all over. I could have gone for a smaller aperture, but that light was changing quickly and that would've resulted in exposures so long that I'd have fewer compositions (as well as more noise).
2013-05-20 13:15:47 (54 comments, 45 reshares, 667 +1s)
Wild Iris Season in the Eastern Sierra
This is the time of year when the wild iris are blooming in the Eastern Sierra. They'll be doing great down near Bishop through the end of the month, and the bloom will move up in elevation until it reaches the Bridgeport area at 7000 feet in early to mid June.
2013-05-19 19:57:02 (60 comments, 98 reshares, 1046 +1s)
Pancake Cloud
Here's another shot of the huge "Sierra Wave" lenticular clouds forming over Topaz Lake on the California / Nevada border a couple of nights ago. The peaks on the horizon, the Three Sisters, mark the California/Nevada border. The North Sister on the left is in Nevada, the South Sister on the right is in California, and the Middle Sister straddles the two states, with its peak lying just into California.
Fortunately I put two cameras out to shoot time-lapse sequences, because for at least part of the time with one of them I forgot to switch the lens into manual focus. That's really ironic, since for landscape I most often use a wide lens and use manual focus to control depth of field, but because I was using f/8 at a long focal length, I wanted the camera to focus more accurately than my eyes could. So I got both cameras set up and shooting, and went ... more »
2013-05-18 20:59:55 (101 comments, 146 reshares, 1339 +1s)
Goldfields
Captured April 2011 in Antelope Valley near Lancaster, California.
2013-05-17 20:08:57 (27 comments, 33 reshares, 478 +1s)
Rainbow in a Sun Ray
Last night I caught a sun ray rainbow, just before sunset, at Topaz Lake on the Nevada/California border.
You may have noticed that rainbows move as the sun moves. White light contains all of the colors of the rainbow, and the rainbows we see are simply that light separated out into various wavelengths, which we perceive as colors. This doesn't happen like it does with a prism, where the rainbow comes out the back side of the prism and that color-separated light is projected onto something. Instead, raindrops do separate the colors of light through refraction, but instead of it escaping out the back, that light is reflected back out of the raindrop at a 42 to 43 degree angle. So everywhere you see rainbow color is a raindrop, and if you draw lines back from that rain drop to yourself and to the light source, those lines meet in roughly a 43 degree angl... more »
2013-05-17 15:56:05 (59 comments, 72 reshares, 784 +1s)
Lenticular Cloud at Sunset Last Night
Even when I'm not out actively pursuing photographs, sometimes they arrive at my doorstep anyway.
Lenticular clouds are so common in the Eastern Sierra they ore often referred to locally as "Sierra Wave Clouds." Air flows over the Sierra Nevada, dips into the steep 4000 to 10,000 foot drop off here on the back side, then takes a bounce back up, and water vapor condenses as the air rises and cools at the top of that downstream wave. It's like the wave which can form on the downstream side of a rock submerged in a river.
2013-05-16 22:37:47 (97 comments, 129 reshares, 1141 +1s)
Lake Tahoe Sunset near Sand Harbor State Park< Nevada
Last night I tried a photo cropped to a 1:2 shape to see how it would work, this one is 1:3: 300 pixels by 900 pixels. Let's see how it looks with the #NewLook G+ layout...
2013-05-16 00:52:09 (42 comments, 40 reshares, 568 +1s)
Mono Lake Sunrise Color
Testing the new skinny column layout with a tall photo... how does it look?
2013-05-16 02:29:43 (19 comments, 23 reshares, 355 +1s)
Elevated Pool
As I was exploring the rocky shores of La Jolla I came upon this sandstone mound with a little pool of seawater on top. It looks like someone stepped in it and splashed some of the water out right before I found it.
2013-05-14 20:59:37 (40 comments, 28 reshares, 356 +1s)
San Francisco Photowalk Tonight
For the photowalk in San Francisco to be attended by 1300 people tonight, apparently Google+ events have a "party mode" which will allow people to upload photos in real time so others can follow along: https://plus.google.com/events/cm6l1qj16ktg9f8sv69ep7b2rhk
2013-05-14 17:17:14 (33 comments, 15 reshares, 265 +1s)
How Blue is Blue Hour?
This is adjusted to an ultra-warm color temperature of more than ISO 40,000, and it's still blue!
2013-05-13 21:29:59 (41 comments, 51 reshares, 484 +1s)
Moon Rising Over Half Dome
This photo of the moon rising over Half Dome was taken earlier this year, on Feb 22, in Yosemite National Park, California.
Permits for Events and Workshops on Public Lands
I was chatting with a friend on G+ recently and he said he might start leading photography workshops. The requirements vary from property to property, but generally you need $2 million in liability insurance, first aid training, and you have to apply for permits ranging from $200 per year to $1500 for a single event, and there can be additional monitor charges. I've been down that road, so I referred him to this useful summary of parks and permit requirements:
Still Photography and Permits On US and California Public Land
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/photo-permits/
What happens if you don't get a permit? I hear that th... more »
2013-05-12 18:18:09 (73 comments, 88 reshares, 872 +1s)
Eta Aquarid Meteor, Milky Way and Reflection
A few days ago I suggested that you could go out in the early morning hours, look east, and look for meteors from the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. All week we've had storms here, so I wasn't able to look for it myself. Yesterday morning, I finally had my chance. I did capture many meteors, but mainly as the apparent source, or radiant point, of the meteor shower rose above the horizon starting around 2:40 am.
Then reviewing my shots I saw this one earlier, around 12:23 am. Was it an Eta Aquarid? Meteors could come shooting up over the horizon a couple of hours before the radiant point in the constellation Aquarius rose, but I think that was going to occur more centered in this picture. So the trail of an Eta Aquarid meteor should be pointing down and to the left, towards a point below the center, almost 90 degrees from this o... more »
2013-05-12 00:50:58 (51 comments, 65 reshares, 701 +1s)
Sunset storm over Wellington, Nevada
Here's another image from sunset a couple of nights ago.
The camera is facing east, opposite the setting sun. The sunset orange to blue color transition is called the "Belt of Venus". As the sun sets in the west, the edge caused by the shadow of the earth rises in the east, with the warm light of sun on one side, and the shadow lit only by local scattered blue sky light. That orange or pink over blue coloration is pretty common and consistent here, so perhaps it's more visible with the transition projecting onto our dusty air (especially down at Mono Lake where there tends to be a high concentration of ultra-fine dust).
Astronomer +Philip Plait describes the phenomenon on his Bad Astronomy blog:
Moon Rise over an Arsenic Lake
h... more »
2013-05-10 21:19:50 (90 comments, 148 reshares, 961 +1s)
Which Sites Protect Your Photos Best? Why You Should Care
As you create and upload images to the Internet, your camera, your editing software, your tagging of information as you upload can all be associated with your photo and help people find you as the rightful owner if someone steals your image. Unfortunately, some sites strip off the critical information which identifies the photo as yours.
Once your image then becomes separated from you, it may get classified as an "orphan work". The UK has passed a law which protects companies using these "orphaned works", so your photos may start appearing in many unapproved and even offensive commercial uses.
People have proposed that preserving rights information is the key to avoiding having your work "orphaned" (taken from you and used without your knowledge or permission), but that argument is ... more »
2013-05-09 16:57:18 (74 comments, 83 reshares, 856 +1s)
Malibu Sunset
Captured during the Malibu photowalks +Lori Hibbett and I organized last month. I shot in Aperture Priority mode at f/16 for depth of field with a 16mm lens. I was losing light so I left the aperture shut and I also kept the ISO sensitivity low to get a long exposure. The range of light in the scene was extreme, so I used a 3 stop Cokin #121 graduated neutral density filter to better even out the exposure between the sky and the reflected light in the foreground surf. I ended up with a 13 second shot at f/16, ISO 100. I bracketed exposure due to the extreme range of light, in case I might need to use a brighter exposure to reduce shadow noise, or use a darker exposure to eliminate blown highlights. Multiple exposures also enable me to consider multi-shot techniques like HDR.
There still was too much dynamic range in the scene to have the single exposure look natura... more »
2013-05-09 07:14:35 (19 comments, 11 reshares, 384 +1s)
Cracks Me Up
Dried mud at San Jacinto Wildlife Area near Riverside, California.
"The Lands Program is responsible for assisting Regional staff in the management of over 1,000,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat. In total the California Department of Fish and Wildlife manages 711 properties throughout the state. These properties provide habitat for a rich diversity of fish, wildlife, and plant species and comprise habitats from every major ecosystem in the state. In addition, the Lands Program also administers several private lands conservation programs designed to assist landowners with the management of wetlands, riparian habitats, native grasslands and wildlife-friendly farmlands."
2013-05-07 21:57:42 (40 comments, 37 reshares, 533 +1s)
Rock Maze
Here's another shot from the photowalk in La Jolla in April. Some of the locals were complaining about the weather. It was a lot more comfortable than the blizzard I had left behind in the Eastern Sierra, so I thought it was great! The cloud cover was nice too, adding texture compared to some alternatives like blue sky or fog.
2013-05-07 08:45:30 (20 comments, 37 reshares, 526 +1s)
La Jolla Potholes
From the La Jolla photowalk April 15... great seeing everyone!
2013-05-09 10:31:54 (26 comments, 28 reshares, 431 +1s)
Newport Beach Pier
This is the last spot +Lori Hibbett and I explored before the Little Corona Beach photowalk last month.
I've added over a dozen more photos to the album from the trip... check them out!
2013-05-06 22:03:07 (24 comments, 25 reshares, 372 +1s)
The Storm Which Almost Was
The day before I caught that storm with sun rays all over the place a couple of nights ago, there was an afternoon storm building on that day as well, but it lost energy and the clouds mostly dispersed. Fortunately there was still some nice sunset color in the thin clouds which remained.
2013-05-06 06:48:37 (151 comments, 198 reshares, 1435 +1s)
Golden Hour During the Storm
Here's another shot from last night. The clouds were forming just a few miles west, so as the sun set, it shot golden light under and through the clouds for a few minutes.
2013-05-05 22:38:28 (35 comments, 89 reshares, 644 +1s)
Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower Tonight
The Eta Aquarids are a light shower, producing about 10 meteors per hour at their peak, so a camera covering a portion of the sky may be lucky to catch one or two per hour. The shower's peak will be tonight May 06 01h15m GMT/Universal Time, (Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 6:15:00 PM PDT here in the U.S.).
Here in California the radiant point for this shower rises around 2:40 am, to the east, in the constellation Aquarius. The crescent moon will follow and wash out the sky a bit at 4 am, the sky starts lightening with astronomical twilight at 4:12 am, then sunrise comes 5:53 am.
With only an hour and change of dark sky viewing after the radiant point rises, I probably won't go out of my way to pursue this one.
This photo is from the Perseid meteor shower in 2009. I created a time-lapse video from my Perseid shots that year... more »
2013-05-06 08:18:12 (33 comments, 38 reshares, 550 +1s)
Storms in the Eastern Sierra This Week
Afternoon and evening clouds have been building for the last couple of days. Last night the temperature dropped to 38 degrees here at sunset, and it was snowing intermittently as I captured this image.
Overnight, occasional thunder and lighting passed by. Scattered thunderstorms remain in the forecast for the next 5 days, with partly cloudy skies continuing for another 3-4 days after that. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Mono Lake, so there could be a fresh dusting of snow on the Sierra Nevada in places as isolated storms form and pass over.
The weather forecast for Lee Vining alongside Mono Lake has possible snow in the forecast for Tuesday, so the Web cams may show some interesting conditions for California photographers looking for somewhere to shoot later this week: http://www.monolake.org/today/webcam
Yose... more »
2013-05-05 13:30:12 (9 comments, 17 reshares, 86 +1s)
Which Companies Respect and Protect Your Rights? Google, Apple, Verizon, etc. rated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Good to know as my smartphone hardware and +Verizon Wireless contract come up for refresh:
Study: Apple Definitely Doesn’t Have Your Back
"Out of the six possible ways Apple could protect its customers from law enforcement intrusions into information, the company failed on five. The results were disturbing: Apple won’t require a warrant for investigators to access your content; won’t tell you when the government tries to access information; doesn’t publish its transparency policy; doesn’t publish the guidelines dictated by law enforcement; and, most damningly, won’t show up in court to defend a user’s rights."
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/study-apple-definitely-doesnt-have-your-back.html/
It's Time for Transparency Rep... more »
2013-05-04 17:50:31 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 19 +1s)
Use of common pesticide linked to bee colony collapse
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/colony-collapse-disorder-pesticide/
US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse
Government study points to a combination of factors for decline in population, breaking away from singling out pesticides
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/02/us-bee-report-pesticide-eu?CMP=twt_gu
A Political Battle Over Pesticides
Bees, the pollinators of a third of the world’s food crops, are in peril. And that’s about the only thing scientists, environmentalists, policy makers, and agro-industrialists can agree on.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/35058/title/A-Political-Battle-Over-Pesticides/
Just when we thought that science couldn't get any more politicized...
SOPA aut... more »
2013-05-04 15:21:10 (16 comments, 42 reshares, 160 +1s)
SOPA author Lamar Smith wants congressional guidelines to replace peer review for federal science research
Texas congressman Lamar Smith, SOPA author and new chair of the US House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, wants to overhaul how the National Science Foundation funds research projects. According to Science, Smith's draft bill (called the "High Quality Research Act") would require that the director of the NSF certify prior to any funding award that the proposed project is "groundbreaking," of "the finest quality," does not duplicate any other federally-funded research, and will "advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and ... secure the national defense." It also requires that the National Science Board (including the president's council of science advisors) issue a report making recommendations... more »
2013-05-04 11:36:23 (64 comments, 155 reshares, 885 +1s)
Fall 2011 (Mostly Eastern Sierra, California)
I had a few question about my Mono Lake sunset photo a few posts back. Here's the album of photos I shot back then, in Fall 2011. This first photo is a sunset reflecting in a pool of water. It was like a Crayola box full of blues, pinks purples and oranges had exploded. Photos 2, 3, and 4 are different compositions and images from that same sunset at Mono Lake I posted earlier.
I was asked on one of the colorful Mono Lake sunset shots whether I had adjusted the saturation. I double checked, and all of the settings which would directly affect color were set to zero, except of course white balance. It was simply one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever experienced. I wrote a blog post recently which touches upon the myths of "perfect exposure" and accurate color in photography:
htt... more »
2013-05-03 17:27:09 (30 comments, 7 reshares, 69 +1s)
Anyone here using Instagram? I'm sharing pictures @FlakPhoto
2013-05-03 14:26:50 (28 comments, 39 reshares, 474 +1s)
Sunrise in Annapolis
I wake up at 5:00 this morning and the weather was clam, so I decided to go to the Annapolis for sunrise. I got there around 6am with no-one else around, 20min after other photographers came. I'm glad to met Sam and Andy. they are very nice people.
This one was taken with a ND filter at 6:56am.
* Mar 30, 2013 - Annapolis, Maryland
#Maryland #photography #seascape #sunrise
+1212Scenery +PixelWorld
#promotephotography +Promote Photography
#hqsplandscape +HQSP Landscape #HQSPPromotion +HQSPPromotion
2013-05-03 13:22:38 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 39 +1s)
Lightroom 5 Resources Roundup
Useful LR5 resources are posted by Adobe, NAPP, and Photoshop Café.
Here’s a list of and links to those resources.
Photoshop.com
http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotcom/2013/04/lightroom-5-beta-now-available.html
LR5 Advanced Healing Brush
LR5 Radial Filter
LR5 Upright
LR5 – Terry White’s Top 5 Features
NAPP Lightroom 5 Launch Center
http://photoshopuser.com/lightroom5/?utm_source=napp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=lr5+invite
LR5 Smart Filters
LR5 Cloning Healing
LR5 Spot
LR5 The Radial
LR5 Upright
LR5 Book Changes
LR5 Slideshow
LR5 Tips
Plus, check out this free NAPP PDF and Lightroom eMagazine.
http... more »
2013-05-03 13:57:37 (59 comments, 63 reshares, 660 +1s)
Sunset Rain Clouds Over Mono Lake
I do a lot of planning for many of my images, studying maps and moon rise times and angles, and anything else I can think of to maximize the opportunities I'll have for interesting compositions.
In the case of this shot, I looked at the Mono Lake web cam and saw the clouds, arrived at this spot an hour later, took a few pictures, and went home.
The color onsite was just like this when I shot it... the blue in particular down by the lake seemed surreal! I was temped to simply stop and watch it, but nah, when I capture it in camera, I can enjoy the moment a lot longer!
Mono Lake is in the Eastern Sierra region in California and Nevada, including Lake Tahoe and extending past the western border of Death Valley National Park. Here is an album on G+ containing more of my Eastern Sierra im... more »
2013-05-02 19:27:33 (19 comments, 31 reshares, 291 +1s)
Serendipity
You prepare yourself, you place yourself, you carry and set up lots of gear, but sometimes success comes down to a flash of good fortune.
Here's the time-lapse video of this storm on +YouTube:
Lightning Storm Formation (HD video)
http://youtu.be/I8OEEhKlKzE
In addition to single exposures like this and the time-lapse video, I also used the free StarStaX app to create a composite image with all of the lightning strikes, plus star trails! The process is described in this blog post:
Creating Star Trails Images
http://activesole.blogspot.com/2011/05/creating-star-trail-images.html
This image was selected "Photo of the Day" over on the Outdoor Photographer Magazine blog:
Photo Of The Day 9/19/2012
more »
2013-05-07 00:58:58 (57 comments, 39 reshares, 522 +1s)
Don't Change Your Lens Surrounded by Flowers!
Before my Southern California trip last month I was careful to clean my sensor, and I took test photos to ensure that I had done the job well. Red Rock Canyon State Park, Malibu, Corona del Mar... sure, I picked up a dust spot here and there, but everything was going fine until +Lori Hibbett and I decided to make one more stop before the photowalk in La Jolla.
We stopped at the Carlsbad Flower Fields, where you can shoot for personal use for $11. There were signs noting special permission was required for professional photography, and there were monitors driving around on golf carts in case someone looked like they were shooting professional portraits. I started with a 16-35mm lens on, but there are a lot of buildings in the background, plus a lot of people walking around, so 70 - 200mm seemed like a better way to isolate the flow... more »
2013-05-09 10:31:54 (27 comments, 39 reshares, 540 +1s)
La Jolla Twilight Storm
I'm finally getting far enough through the photos from my trip around Southern California to get to the photos from the photowalks towards the beginning of the trip.
Here's a shot from the La Jolla Cove area, where we met about 15 G+ photographers including +John H. Moore +Garry McCarthy +Sairam Sundaresan +Chris Warren +J. Rae Chip +Lori Hibbett +Sam Aminisam +Peter Tellone
2013-04-30 14:30:23 (27 comments, 24 reshares, 425 +1s)
Desert View
This area was cleared by a large and hot fire, but in some of the areas the trees died but did not burn very completely. Driving up from enjoying sunrise on a beach on the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, I arrived near Mt. Laguna near the 6000 foot level in the evening. The mountains had their heads in the clouds, and the road led into the mist as the light was fading. It was hard to identify landmarks, so we didn't know exactly where we were, or where the road ahead was leading, but we don't get a lot of fog away from the coast in California and Nevada, so we continued forward to see what the road would lead us to.
There were campgrounds in the area, but it was surprisingly cold. We had traded the warmth of the beaches of La Jolla for this mountainous terrain where temperatures were quickly dropping through the 40s and into the 30s. Ironically this stretch of s... more »
2013-04-30 14:39:01 (61 comments, 78 reshares, 781 +1s)
Foggy Evening in the Laguna Mountains
I tend to think of fog as a sign of stillness, of calm. With no sun you have no warm air rising, so no wind rushing to fill that space. This wasn't that fog.
On this evening we had driven from the Pacific Ocean up into the clouds, close to 6000 feet. You know when you look up at mountain ridges and the clouds are spilling over the side? The air is colder than what's in the valley below, so the cloud is sending dense tentacles of mist at you, reaching out? If you get into that cloud the air movement has created a lot of wind, and the mist varies in density, sending shadowy figures racing in front of you. Items in the landscape appear, then disappear, as if their presence had been a mirage all along. It's particularly tempting for photographers. You're lured ahead, and out of your car, but your intended subject fades aw... more »
2013-05-08 05:44:08 (24 comments, 42 reshares, 421 +1s)
Sands of Time
Formed by flood waters from the Colorado River breaking out of irrigation canals from 1905 to 1907, today the Salton Sea is California's largest lake. Saltier than the Pacific Ocean, the Salton Sea is 226 ft below sea level. Prized in the 1950s as a vacation destination for the rich and famous, today the increasingly salty water is fed with agricultural runoff and suffers algae blooms which have ringed the lake with dead fish.
Earlier this month I was on my way to the site of an old resort on the lake when a sand dune across the old road blocked my path. Nature reclaims what mankind has abandoned.
A documentary has been made on the Salton Sea area, "Plagues and Pleasures":
http://www.saltonseadoc.com/
"While PLAGUES & PLEASURES covers the historical, economic, political, and environmental issues that face the Sea, it mor... more »
2013-04-30 07:36:36 (5 comments, 3 reshares, 51 +1s)
Nice surprise!
Super happy to be selected for one of the day's photos in +Jarek Klimek's Photo Extract for Google+.
Thanks for the hard work by Jarek, and congrats to +Toby Harriman +Jorunn Gudlaugsdottir +rohan reilly +Jeff Sullivan and +Zsolt Zsigmond. I'm stoked to be in such great company!
2013-04-29 19:27:07 (26 comments, 45 reshares, 481 +1s)
Red Rocks of California
California has a few sites with red sandstone. One of the most intricately eroded is Red Rock Canyon State Park, between Mojave and Ridgecrest. The various layers of sediment have different hardness, which causes the erosion patterns to change as wind and water cut through the rock.
2013-05-09 14:08:54 (24 comments, 44 reshares, 472 +1s)
San Jacinto Wildlife Area
California's San Jacinto Wildlife Area includes a series of shallow ponds to provide habitat for migrating waterfowl. The ponds which are not flooded have some nice cracked earth, providing an interesting foreground for photographic compositions.
On Google+, +Tom Grubbe must live near here, as he has produced some great images on and near this property over the years. Check out his G+ Stream if you get the chance.
2013-04-27 23:55:20 (19 comments, 21 reshares, 289 +1s)
Salvation Mountain
What can one man accomplish with some clay and hay to make adobe, and a lot of donated paint? Leonard Knight's Salvation Mountain! It's over 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide.
Salvation Mountain is located in the lower desert of Southern California in Imperial County just east of the Salton Sea and about a hour and a half from Palm Springs. Salvation Mountain is Leonard's tribute to God and his gift to the world with its simple yet powerful message: "God Is Love."
http://www.salvationmountain.us/index.html
2013-04-27 16:21:17 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 22 +1s)
Bombay Beach
There was a little bit of sunset color when I passed by Bombay Beach last week, but this time of year the sun is too far north, and way off to the right from this perspective. The first 5 photos here (cover and first 4 more) are from the east side of the Salton Sea.
A documentary "Bombay Beach" was released in 2012 profiling some of the community's residents:
Bombay Beach and the allure of the ghost town
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/02/bombay-beach-ghost-town
Here's some intriguing information about the film, and the filmmaker Alma Har'el:
http://bombaybeachfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bombay-Beach-for-Festivals1.pdf
“A beautiful, quirky, and ultimately very moving film about the American Dream as it teeters on the edge of a desert sea.” - Terry Gilliam
Film trail... more »
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