There’s a good reason they call Cathedral Valley Cathedral Valley. Michelangelo would have loved to paint on this substrate. It’s in a remote part of Capital Reef National Park which is in a remote part of Utah which is in a remote part of the United States.
A close friend of mine experienced a family tragedy this past weekend. You may have heard about it on the news. A propane tank explosion occurred at the home of the Hammon family on March 22, 2014 badly burning those inside.
– See more at: http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/support-for-lyman-samantha-baby-emery-and-desiree/154342#sthash.a4gjVO1s.dpuf
– See more at: http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/support-for-lyman-samantha-baby-emery-and-desiree/154342#sthash.a4gjVO1s.dpu
This is to benefit and support Samantha LeBaron, Lyman Hammon, and baby Emery as well as Desiree LeBaron, who have been in intensive care in burn units in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Click on link below for more details and how you can help in their recovery.
https://www.youcaring.com/lymansamanthaemery
Sincerely
Michael
The unusual is the usual at this place. Grotesque shapes of rock cast by millions of years of weathering have produced a carnival of oddities that Barnum & Bailey would be proud of. I half expected a woman with a beard to come walking around the corner. The rock in the foreground is called half and half because it possesses a split personality. Equal parts of red and gold make up its whole but how and why? A fellow I met at the trail head said he came to this location just to photograph this rock. And for 4 1/2 hours, that’s all he did. While I went out and explored ( See Previous Post) the area beyond this oddity, he patiently waited for the sun to cast the perfect light on the subject. He also mentioned that the rock moves over time, following the line you see etched in the soft sandstone. Maybe it does but I suspect it would take a million years or two for anyone to notice. I didn’t really have that much time to find out.
Baja California is not in California, it’s in Mexico. The Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) is not in California, it’s in Mexico. But whatever it’s called, Baja Mexico is a place of much diversity, great landscapes and a vast desert environment surrounded by immense bodies of water. https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9998847,-113.5,6z
It’s about a 1,000 mile (1,609 Kilometers) drive from San Diego to the southern tip of Baja at Cabo San Lucas. I had the opportunity a few years ago to drive that stretch and to capture the essence of the land, its people and customs. The food was spicy, inexpensive and the military checkpoints were ubiquitous. The photos below are a good representation of the land in much of Baja with its endless mountain ridges and succulent desert vegetation. These photos and more are available as prints or downloadable files at http://dawn2dawnphotography.com/
And then there are the sunrises and sunsets. This was when I decided to name my website Dawn2Dawn Photography.
And when you get hungry, you head to town. They serve really good Mexican food down here!
After a great meal, it was time to reflect.
Hi definition time lapse video showing storm clouds passing through Zion National Park at sunset. This spot is about 100 yards from where I live.
If you’re not claustrophobic, you’ll love hiking through Spooky Gulch in Southern Utah. It’s a difficult drive to the Hole In The Rock Road near Escalante, Utah, 4-wheel drive required. You better not be more than 10 pounds overweight, you might get stuck in this slot canyon.
Let’s get creative. This post is about as technical I get with these posts. I don’t show algorithms or some flow charts comparing the various phases of the sun or moon. I try to keep it simple.
Using manual mode on your camera, you can get funky with your photos and suggest motion in your images or to create something altogether outside the box like the classic softening of moving water or the blurring of a static object. In the photo above of sequoia trees, you’re slowing down your shutter speed and slightly moving your camera during exposure to get this effect. This was shot hand held at a shutter speed of 1.3 seconds, an f-stop of 22 at an ISO of 50. Closing down the aperture to 22 is necessary to reduce light to the sensor since this was shot during the day. You can then use a slower shutter speed to get the blurred effect. Just panning your camera may give you a blurred effect at a higher shutter speed. An ISO of 50 reduces the sensors sensitivity to light which also allows you to shoot at a longer exposure.
The shot below was shot hand held panning along with the cyclists at 1/30 second, f11. The slower shutter speed creates the blur. You should do some test shots beforehand and experiment with the shutter speed to get the look you want remembering to set the f-stop appropriately so the shot is not overexposed. It is amazing some of the cyclists were blurred and some were in focus. I guess some were moving faster than the others. You can also use a tripod for these shots and pan along. My camera doesn’t have a strap on it anymore as I almost always shoot with a tripod.
To get the effect of streaking car lights, you need a tripod and enough traffic to get a continuous line. This was shot in downtown Los Angeles just after the peak of rush hour where there was still plenty of traffic that was moving steadily. Bumper to bumper traffic (frequent in LA) would never give you this look unless you did a really long exposure. This was a 5 second exposure.
So, the next time you’re out shooting, consider using a slow shutter speed to produce something that your Facebook family and friends will like over and over! Buy a good tripod and a filter that fits your most used lens. And if you don’t understand any of this, shoot me an email- MJ
For those people(Like Me) who don’t get a permit for The Wave because a tour bus of people showed up at the lottery drawing, another option is to visit Buckskin Gulch. It is the longest slot canyon (13 miles)in the US and it is fun. On this particular day, my aim was to get to a spot in the canyon where the afternoon sun would be highest (not so high in winter) and capture the colorful and various hues it produces on the sandstone canyon walls. The indirect sunlight reflecting and bouncing back and forth on the walls generates magentas, oranges, tangerines, blues, cyans, reds, violets, golds and whatever rainbow color you can visualize. I got the color I wanted but it only lasted about 20 minutes as the shifting sun altered the light. You first have to navigate the very narrow Wire Pass to get to Buckskin but it is fun in itself. You can purchase these images as either prints or downloadable image files at http://dawn2dawnphotography.com/
This bird refuge in New Mexico is the winter home for some 50 to 100 thousand birds, ducks and whatever else has wings. All of these images can be purchased as either prints or downloadable files at http://dawn2dawnphotography.com/
I spent one day there recently and was amazed by the numbers of living things flying above and around me. The snow geese and sandhill cranes would periodically do what locals call a blastoff! They would all just get up at the same time, fly around and land somewhere else in the refuge only to return later to an open cornfield.
