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2013-06-18 06:14:04 (37 comments, 55 reshares, 705 +1s)

Milky Way over Bodie Firehouse
This is from our night photography workshop last Friday at Bodie State Historic Park. The next one is coming up Saturday, June 29. The moon won't rise until after midnight, so the Milky Way should be stunning for most of the time we'll be there!

2013-06-17 20:59:55 (22 comments, 44 reshares, 481 +1s)

Milky Way over Bodie
Here's an image form our night photography workshop at Bodie State Historic Park last Friday night.  Our next workshop will be the night of June 29: http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/bodie-night-photography-workshops/

View larger on SmugMug: http://jeffsullivan.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Bodie-State-Historic-Park/27801071_2w7bHF#2580184877_GzCXwdj 

2013-06-12 17:44:18 (19 comments, 41 reshares, 541 +1s)

Topaz Lake Sunset
We had some nice thunder clouds forming earlier this week, but as often happens, by sunset they had mostly broken up or drifted away.

2013-06-11 19:39:24 (25 comments, 54 reshares, 637 +1s)

2013-06-11 18:08:54 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 28 +1s)

Still building an Emerging Photographers on G+" Circle...
Do you know someone I should add? 
It started with photographers in +Euro Maestro's Cream of the Crop circle, but I've grown it to include more photographers on G+ who deserve a little more love form the community.  They're not all super-active yet, but it's the time-old "chicken and egg" problem... they'd probably become more active once they see more interaction with the community on G+.  So whether they're brand new to G+ or simply relatively undiscovered, let's welcome them to the G+ photographer community!  

Add your photographer nominations in the comments below, thanks.

2013-06-11 04:31:35 (36 comments, 42 reshares, 610 +1s)

Sunset Tonight
Our clouds often break up around sunset, but fortunately this one was massive enough for there to be some left when the sun set. 

2013-06-10 21:09:27 (21 comments, 59 reshares, 552 +1s)

Gamma Delphinid Meteor Shower "Outburst" Predicted Tonight
If it happens, it will be most visible from North America and South America, around 1:30 am PST tonight:
"Peter Jenniskins, research scientist with the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, has examined dust outbursts from long-period comets and suggests the Gamma Delphinids may return for a brief moment of splendor, as Earth passes through this stream of cometary debris not seen since 1930."

Observing Alert: Rare Meteor Shower May ‘Outburst’ on June 11
http://www.universetoday.com/102794/observing-alert-rare-meteor-shower-may-outburst-on-june-11/

If you miss the one tonight, or it doesn't turn out to be as strong as hoped, there should be some Perseid meteors in the sky during my workshop in Bodie August 9:h... more »

2013-06-10 15:47:20 (19 comments, 12 reshares, 198 +1s)

Photowalk Anyone?  "Ghost Town" Bodie State Historic Park
I just added 15 more photos to my Bodie Interiors album, mostly from the G+ Photowalk and photography workshops +Lori Hibbett and I held at Bodie last year.  Some of these photos are available shooting in through windows, others require guided access with Bodie Foundation monitors.

Should we hold a G+ 2 Year Anniversary Photowalk at Bodie on June 29 this year?  We live only 45 miles away, but it's not like we could possibly get tired of visiting.  I find something new every time I visit.  We're going to be leading a workshop in the area that day starting at noon, and in Bodie that night, so a photowalk would be easy to add to our schedule that day.  If I have time I'll contact a sponsor to run a photo contest like we did on our photowalks last year.

Since it's coming up fastin 3 we... more »

2013-06-09 16:36:45 (22 comments, 20 reshares, 352 +1s)

Morning Coffee, Inside Boone General Store
This is an old coffee grinder in the Boone General Store.  We were able to enter the buildings as soon as there was enough light, and this was taken shortly after the sun peeked over Bodie Butte.  I had to shoot some photos from the inside pointing out, because for so many years I had been on the other side of the glass shooting inwards!
In 2013 we'll do another sunrise and interior workshop at Bodie October 13: 
http://activesole.blogspot.com/p/bodie-night-photography-workshops-2013.html

I was finally able to re-order this album and at least have the cover image I selected show up in the share as the largest one.  Here's the rest of the album: https://plus.google.com/photos/107459220492917008623/albums/5887226287122891953

2013-06-08 22:58:14 (39 comments, 35 reshares, 686 +1s)

Inside a Wild West "Ghost Town"
I just uploaded a series of photos from out Bodie Sunrise and Interiors workshop October 7 to a new album.  Unfortunately I can't re-order the album and choose the photos I'd like Google+ to show first, so here's one of the photos, and you can visit the album to see the rest.

In 2013 our Bodie Interiors workshop will be October 13:
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/bodie-night-photography-workshops/

2013-06-12 17:01:41 (63 comments, 76 reshares, 900 +1s)

Bodie Night Photography Workshops for 2013
I've fine-tuned my workshop schedule to offer six sessions at the "ghost town" of Bodie State Historic Park this year, 5 at night and one for interior access:
June 14 - Filling up fast 
June 29 - Will hold a G+ 2 Year Photowalk in the morning!
August 9 - Friday before Friends of Bodie Day special event
August 24 - Eastern Sierra weekend workshop
Oct 12 night + Oct 13 dawn/interior - Back-to-back Bodie!

The Bodie night access we are given starts when the park closes to the public at 6 pm, and goes until 1 am, so we get a full range of daylight, sunset, blue hour, twilight light as well as night.  In addition, I tend to schedule the workshops for nights when the moon will rise or set during our session, so we can capture both the moon-lit town and dark, starrys... more »

2013-06-06 17:00:55 (18 comments, 32 reshares, 532 +1s)

Points of Light
Accomplished using a vertical pan during a long exposure, in a back-lit aspen forest in the Eastern Sierra last year..

I'll be leading a number of Fall colors workshops this year.  I'm a little slow getting my new Web site out the door as I focus on completing my book, but I hope to get the workshops announced on my blog soon!  (www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com/blog)

2013-06-06 07:36:51 (21 comments, 27 reshares, 503 +1s)

Solar Heating and Lighting
This is one of my HDR shots from 2011... the range of light from the sun-drenched white clouds to the deepest shadows in this building was too great for a single exposure to capture. It was too cool of a setting to pass up, so I used the three-shot bracketing on my old 5D Mark II to capture exposures for the sky/exterior, interior, and deep shadows.  

This is on an abandoned ranch not far from Mono Lake.  I first uploaded this to G+ back on August, 2, 2011.  It was interesting going back to an article on producing good HDR results that I wrote back in 2007 and seeing how much of the advice still applies.  Here's  One I wrote in 2011:

HDR-Friendly Workflow, Using Adobe Lightroom for Realistic Results
"Now that HDR has been on the market for a few years, it seems like there are many people who didn't like its earlyoutp... more »

2013-06-05 23:36:18 (36 comments, 53 reshares, 655 +1s)

Sunrise Clouds over Tufa at Mono Lake
We've been getting some clouds building in the afternoon in recent days at Topaz Lake and Mono Lake, but they often break up just before sunset. We had three good crashes of thunder overhead last night around 7 pm, but even that large thunder cloud dispersed before it could put on a good show of color or lightning.  Fortunately some clouds and storms do occur at just the right time for photographers, and it's only a matter of time before we get the next one. 

2013-06-05 06:33:28 (31 comments, 36 reshares, 618 +1s)

Independence Day
This photo was taken last year in Bridgeport, California, where there is not only a large professional fireworks display, but people are allowed to light fireworks in the street as well.
http://www.bridgeportcalifornia.com/fourth.php

July 4 is when Americans celebrate leaving the rule of one dysfunctional government, and creating our own dysfunctional government.  The celebration is coming in one month! 

2013-06-04 16:40:13 (31 comments, 31 reshares, 489 +1s)

Sunset Rain at Mono Lake
From a visit in September 2012, when +Lori Hibbett +roma g +Natalia Stone and I checked the Web cams at the +Mono Lake Committee and saw clouds building, so we headed over to the lake to catch sunset.

I'm revisiting some of past photos from Mono Lake visits as I format a few to the right size to complete the Mono Lake chapter for my upcoming guide book.

This week's forecast is for afternoon clouds, and they could build to the point of creating scattered thunderstorms.  Fortunately that's all before my son's 8th grade graduation later this week.

2013-06-03 15:43:05 (58 comments, 120 reshares, 988 +1s)

There's No Place Like Home
This is one of the earlier images I posted on G+, a Winter sunrise reflection at Topaz Lake on the California/Nevada border.  Shooting into the sun like this can involve a greater range of light than a digital sensor can handle, so I used Photomatix HDR software to recover lost detail in the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights.  I've been using Photomatix HDR software for 7 years or so now, and it got a bad reputation earl on for being strange results which were relatively difficult to control.  

A lot of the challenges with HDR have been resolved by two big changes:
1. In the past you picked an HDR processing method, then waited a while to see how it turned out.  Recent versions of the software show you 32 different methods so you can select the one which best suits your goals instead of picking one blind.
2. The latestver... more »

2013-06-02 20:29:03 (56 comments, 127 reshares, 1108 +1s)

Light Painting in Death Valley National Park
I've added a few photos to the album from the workshop I led in Death Valley National Park in mid-March.  One of the techniques I demonstrated was spinning a light around on a string, and using red on the reflective surface  of the slat flats at blue hour created various shades of red, blue and purple where the colors mixed.  I'll be announcing another Death Valley workshop in December over on my blog in the next few days: www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com/blog

2013-06-03 17:59:09 (42 comments, 57 reshares, 766 +1s)

Four Planets 
Mercury, Venus, Jupiter... and Earth at the bottom!  
Captured tonight, shortly after sunset.
I caught them closest together on May 26, when I caught them in a time-lapse video, hosted on +YouTube: http://youtu.be/p2NibPZtsQs
The video is best switched to 1080p resolution and viewed full screen.  Shot at nearly 400mm focal length, in the video you can actually see that the planets are round, and not points of light, like the stars appear to be.

The planets are now moving apart, but it happens slowly, so you should be able to see them in a line like this in the coming evenings, about 45 to 60 minutes after sunset. 

This photo is best viewed large, in the higher resolution I uploaded it in (you can click on the picture to see a larger copy).
#astronomy #astrophotography #planetconjunction  

2013-06-12 17:01:01 (69 comments, 93 reshares, 1155 +1s)

Tufa Rock Formations, High and Dry
The calcium carbonate (limestone) "tufa" rock formations at Mono Lake form underwater, when calcium-rich springs meet the alkaline water of the lake.  The PH of the lake is 10, roughly the same as household glass cleaner, and it has a slippery, soapy feel to it.  There's even a  soapy foam which forms from wave action on the lake on windy days.

Diversion of the streams flowing into the lake to send water to Los Angeles have lowered the lake level over 40 feet, and doubled the salinity level to as high as 99 grams per liter, three times the salinity of the ocean.  If you walk out into the lake you are very bouyant, and your feet come off the bottom before your shoulders get wet.

The lake was described as "lifeless, treeless, hideous desert... the loneliest place on earth" by writer Mark Twain, but the prolificalka... more »

2013-05-31 08:12:17 (24 comments, 38 reshares, 525 +1s)

F/8 and Be There
The only way you're going to get the shot is if you're present for it in the first place.  I tend to take cameras everywhere I go, so when I was driving to and from Truckee last Friday I was able to stop by Lake Tahoe and look for the Jupiter, Venus and Mercury conjunction.  There were too many clouds in the sky to see the planets, but I was treated to a nice sunset.  

Some of my favorite photos were taken when I was expecting to capture something else.  So get out for any reason, but remember to take your camera just in case!

Here are my results from chasing that three planet conjunction event four days in a row, including a time-lapse video from the best day: 
http://activesole.blogspot.com/2013/05/venus-jupiter-mercury-conjunction-1080p.html

2013-05-30 13:17:52 (65 comments, 89 reshares, 807 +1s)

Snow Plant
"Sarcodes is a monotypic genus of a single springtime flowering plant in the heath family containing the single species Sarcodes sanguinea, commonly called the snow plant or snow flower. It is a parasitic plant that derives sustenance and nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi that attach to roots of trees. It is unable to photosynthesize nutrients.[1]Ectomycorrhizal (EM) symbioses involve a mutualism between a plant root and a fungus; the plant provides fixed carbon to the fungus and in return, the fungus provides mineral nutrients, water and protection from pathogens to the plant. The snow plant takes advantage of this mutualism by tapping into the network and stealing sugars from the photosynthetic partner by way of the fungus.[2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcodes

2013-05-29 14:18:17 (20 comments, 26 reshares, 365 +1s)

Black Bear and Cub
I was driving through the Truckee National Forest on Monday between Truckee and Kings Beach when I saw movement on the side of the road.  It was a black bear, only about 50 feet in front of me.  As she walked out onto the road, she looked back, and I knew she had a cub.  He was reluctant to come out into the open, out of the bushes, so she walked back towards him.  They walked up a log together and into a small clearing.  The cub looked back, and froze there for about 10 seconds, curious about me.  Mom kept walking, so he turned and ran after her.

I was hoping that the whole sequence in this album would "auto-awesome", but you can get the general idea browsing through the images.

2013-05-28 17:45:29 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 11 +1s)

San Diego WELCOME HOME TIMELAPSE
Wow.  By +Michael Shainblum. 
https://vimeo.com/63804783#

2013-06-02 14:43:42 (34 comments, 72 reshares, 653 +1s)

Planets Jupiter, Venus and Mercury on Sunday, May 26
The planets Jupiter, Venus and Mercury were in conjunction Sunday night May 26, the closest they'll appear until 2021.  Here's one of the images I captured before they set.

These planets are close together in the evening sky this week, so every night I've been trying to capture them together on the horizon in the twilight hours before they set. The first night the clouds were too thick. The second night I was shooting sunset in high winds at Mono Lake with the Sierra Nevada as a high western horizon, so I caught a few pictures of the planets, but they set too quickly to capture a time-lapse video. The third night was just right.  It was relatively clear to the west, I was in a high shooting position with an apparent horizon lower than my position (less than 0 degrees elevation), and fortunately that was Sunday May 16,th... more »

2013-05-27 02:14:44 (30 comments, 35 reshares, 302 +1s)

2013-05-28 18:58:09 (54 comments, 113 reshares, 785 +1s)

Jupiter, Mercury and Venus to form triangle tonight!
Apparently the equilateral triangle they'll form tonight is the closest together they'll be until 2021.  They'll only be 2 degrees apart, and best viewed around 9 pm tonight on the Western horizon (near where the sun went down), about 45 minutes after sunset (now on the U.S. East Coast).  They'll remain close together for a few more evenings.  This photo is from twilight last night, around 9 pm, as they set behind the Sierra Nevada (a horizon about 2.7 degrees high from this viewing position at Mono Lake).  

UPDATE: I've posted the time-lapse and summarized my four nights of efforts to capture this event on my blog on +Blogger: http://activesole.blogspot.com/2013/05/venus-jupiter-mercury-conjunction-1080p.html
#astronomy   #planetconjunction  

2013-05-28 18:56:10 (109 comments, 161 reshares, 1452 +1s)

Lenticular Cloud over Mono Lake at Sunset
I enjoyed this exotic lenticular cloud with +Nicole Sullivan and +Lori Hibbett at Mono Lake last night.  
To see the cloud in motion, here's a video of the time-lapse sequence I shot of this sunset: http://www.tout.com/m/5ytbg7 UPDATE: I've posted a higher quality copy of the time-lapse on +YouTube: http://youtu.be/reoWKwLhlsY

2013-05-24 23:02:43 (16 comments, 10 reshares, 277 +1s)

Going to see my daughter!
Here she is, three images of her at once, from a visit to Bodie we made in 2004.  Of course she's not this age any more, but in a way, she always will be to me.

My son can't make it this weekend due to an injured foot, but I'll see him in June, and we'll make up for lost time this Summer.

2013-05-24 16:35:41 (47 comments, 103 reshares, 809 +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 thebu... more »

2013-05-23 22:50:57 (31 comments, 50 reshares, 548 +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 (39 comments, 63 reshares, 745 +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 (31 comments, 38 reshares, 570 +1s)

Mono Lake Sunrise Silhouette
I can't get enough of this place.  Can you see why?

2013-05-22 18:50:12 (21 comments, 45 reshares, 438 +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 muchth... more »

2013-05-22 19:33:39 (45 comments, 57 reshares, 687 +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, 51 reshares, 732 +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 (78 comments, 96 reshares, 916 +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 (57 comments, 46 reshares, 683 +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 (59 comments, 103 reshares, 1071 +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 (105 comments, 152 reshares, 1366 +1s)

Goldfields
Captured April 2011 in Antelope Valley near Lancaster, California.

2013-05-17 20:08:57 (27 comments, 34 reshares, 488 +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 degreeangl... more »

2013-05-17 15:56:05 (61 comments, 76 reshares, 794 +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 (98 comments, 131 reshares, 1149 +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 (43 comments, 43 reshares, 581 +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, 24 reshares, 371 +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 (41 comments, 30 reshares, 371 +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 (34 comments, 18 reshares, 288 +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 (40 comments, 52 reshares, 490 +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 thatth... more »

2013-06-12 17:00:26 (71 comments, 89 reshares, 875 +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 fromthis o... more »

2013-05-12 00:50:58 (51 comments, 68 reshares, 709 +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 Lakeh... more »