Threezing Thriday Threesome and the Thog

Twas the week before Christmas and all on my shift
were barely any assignments for my shutter to click.

To say last week's work schedule was light would be an understatement. Two assignments the whole week. Even my Saturday shift that usually runs til 11pm was done by 11am. Combine that with Miranda being able to stay home with Abby while on winter break and I was finally able to take my time with some photo exploring again.

Really it was the weather to start the week that got my photo juices flowing. Monday and Tuesday mornings had some of the thickest fog I'd ever seen. That was perfect for two reasons. First the fog makes for cool photos. And second it provided me some cover to do a little exploring at places I wasn't sure I'd be allowed at.

I headed towards the yolo bypass wildlife area thinking I could get some of the reed ponds with reflections and horizons that would vanish into white. Along the way I stopped at an old graffiti covered shack that sat alongside I-80. It was another one of those places I'd seen for years but hadn't had the initiative to stop and look. With the fog giving me cover I pulled down the dirt road up to the edge of the freeway. The designs on it now weren't the best I'd seen but now that I know how easy it was to get to I might try going back and working the freeway lights at night into a good photo.



I started down into the wildlife area but barely made it past the main gate. I'd taken quick shots of the pillars under the causeway before but never took the time to set up for a good shot. So this was the perfect time to change that. I set up the tripod over what I'm pretty sure were fresh cougar tracks and lined the camera up for the perfect, symmetrical shot. It took a few minutes of leveling and adjusting everything with the grid on the viewfinder before I finally looked up at the pillars and realized they weren't symmetrical at all. A few of them weren't even straight.



Whoever designed the underside of this bridge clearly wasn't thinking about its photographic qualities. However I'm pretty sure the person who put that old shopping cart there had to have done it for a picture.



I started to drive out into the wetlands to see what else I could get when a big flock of blackbirds sprung up from a field. Fred had taken a photo like this last year in the fog that I thought was one of the coolest photos I'd ever seen. The fog made the more distant birds a lighter shade of grey. His photo is still more awesome than mine but they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so here you go Fred



Monday's fog was just a primer for Tuesday morning. I couldn't even see the house across the street when I pulled the car out of the garage. I set course for Woodland this time to see a drainage pond near Costco I'd shot in the fog the past two years. But the air was so thick the two islands at the pond 50 feet from shore were just shadows in a sea of white. I was going to have to wait for a little visibility. Not wanting to waste the time, and needing to keep moving to stay warm I did a little exploring. Between the pond and a junkyard were some abandoned and overgrown animal pens. For years I'd thought one shed in back of all the others would make for a good photo but the area had always been fenced off. Now I've been known to wander (some might call it trespassing) into open farm fields or the old cannery site when they used to leave the gates unlocked. But if someone closes off their property I try to respect it. I'd never gone out to this shed because of that. About two months ago the winds brought down a large tree on the edge of the property and that tree took a good twenty feet of barbed wire with it. Surely this was a sign from the photo gods that a picture needed to be taken here. Again under the cover of the fog I worked my way thru the weeds to the shack.



I didn't explore too closely but I think it was actually an old wagon and not a shack. The fog started to loosen and I moved back to the pond. When I shot here last year there were some canada geese living on the islands that made nice little additions to the scene. This year the water was low and the geese were gone. The photos were okay but missing something. Even after getting back home and processing some of them they were still lacking any punch. Then, on a whim I flipped one upside down.



The reflection of a foggy sun in the water became a single point of light in a moody black sky. It figures that my favorite photo from the fog would be the most artificial one. But getting to explore some normally in plain sight subjects under the cover of the fog made it all worth it.

Friday I went in to work at my normal time and there was only one person left in the office. With clear skies, no wind, a new moon, and nothing to do at work it was the perfect time to go back to my newfound subjects for some nightscapes. Back to Woodland I went with an extra work camera, to go along with my two personal cameras, so I could try three different shots at once. I was hoping to shoot due east across the pond for diagonal star trails but the observation deck looking that way was closed. Instead I went to near where I took the previous shot, focused on only one of the islands and composed with a tumbleweed in the water for foreground detail. But looking at the star trails in the finished product I wish I would've shot due south to get them curving over the island instead.



I left that camera to shoot on its own, retrieved the other two cameras, and took them over to the old wagon. Originally the two cameras were going to be looking in different directions. But many times when I compose photos in the dark I get back and find I wish I would've moved the camera just slightly. So I set the cameras up a few feet apart, one with an ultra wide angle



and the other with a moderate wide.



I'm most proud of the second photo not because of how it looks but because I had three cameras and three tripods but only two cable releases to run the cameras. Anticipating this I picked up a small stone in the parking lot the same size as the shutter button on the camera and used electrical tape to keep it pressed down and continuously shooting. Even though it was a pretty cheap way of doing things I was excited it worked. I was also really happy I anticipated the cold (the outside temp gauge on the car read 29º when I was finished) and brought gloves. There's nothing like carrying a freezing cold tripod with bare hands.

The only thing I didn't anticipate was being so close to the airport. Since all three cameras were facing east or southeast, pretty much directly at Sac Intl, about half my editing time was spent removing trails from airplane lights on all the photos. I'm going to have to foggy exploring looking west next time.

a solitary sunset

So remember how I said Wednesday's sunset was epic? Well maybe that was a bit of an overstatement. It was pretty good but nothing like Friday's sunset. Yep, Friday's show was one for the ages. Epic of epic proportions, if that makes sense. Strong central clouds that dominated the sky as they were lit by the finals rays of the sun were supported by plenty of soft accent clouds to fill the remaining sky. I couldn't have scripted it better, except for the fact it all happened over Winters and Lake Berryessa while I was stuck in Davis where 90% of the sky was clear.

Knowing that the show was going to happen in only a small part of the sky I headed south of town where I knew of a few solitary trees far enough off the road to be able to use a longer lens and fill the photo with as much of the sunset as I could capture. My original thought was a valley oak near the south putah levee. But when I arrived a second tree a few hundred yards away caught my eye. I'd always liked the position of the tree, with a vast, uncluttered view behind it, but didn't care for the tree itself when it had its leaves. Now in its winter bones it looked much more photogenic.

The colors in that photo don't do justice to the real thing but my photoshop color manipulation skills aren't the best.

While the long lens helped condense the tree and clouds into a nice little package it didn't really convey my mood about this sunset. The real beauty of it seemed distant, out of reach. So I put a standard 50mm lens on the camera and recomposed.

This photo is more like the feeling this sunset gave me. The tree and I (as the viewer of this image) alone with a thin ribbon of distant color in an otherwise dark and empty sky and landscape. Not that I feel alone in life. With Abby and Miranda I've never felt more loved. Just that this particular sunset was more someone's else's to enjoy and I was only allowed a peek of what could have been had I been standing atop one of the Vaca hills.

Not wanting to end on such a downer I tried a little positive use of negative space. This was the view looking south of the hills where there were no clouds either.

I love it when the lanscape allows to me to take advantage of the color gradation in a post sunset sky.

Twilight, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn

Tonight's sunset was epic. The kind that only happens a few times a year. And as usual I had only a few minutes between assignments at work to find a foreground to do justice to the show in the sky.
While there are many benefits to living in Davis, idyllic landscapes famous landmarks are not on the list. Certain I didn't have enough time to find a good spot in the fields outside of town I headed to the train station. But the southerly position of the December sun didn't line up well with the old SP depot. I decided to let this one pass and headed home to check up on Abby before my next assignment. As I turned on to Eighth St the sky was an amazing pink. I had to find someplace to shoot at and the cemetery was my only option. A year or so ago they had installed a new fountain structure and I thought I could get a decent reflection in the pools. Unfortunately the water had been turned off for the cold weather. It's too bad because the scene balanced pretty well.



I'll keep it in mind next time I'm looking for a nearby landmark.

On Saturday my favorite landmark within a short drive of Davis was in the perfect position for the last lunar eclipse til 2014. I checked the US Navy's moon data site and figured out what time I needed to get up to shoot the alignment of the Sacramento Tower Bridge and the moon. I woke up early, ate breakfast, and headed up to Sac. As drove across the bridge towards The Capitol I realized I'd calculated something wrong. The moon was already dead center on the towers. By the time I parked and ran out to the Capitol Mall with the camera the moon had moved north of the bridge. To add insult to injury I managed to get the three other photographers dedicated enough to get up at 5 am on a winter Saturday who actually got the shot in my shot.

As the moon headed behind the Drexel college building and the sun started to light up the sky I turned around to catch the sunrise over the Capitol building. A light rail train passed by at just the same time.

I packed up the gear and headed back home. As I crossed the bridge the water on the river was so still it was almost a mirror. I pulled off and took a quick walk along the West Sac riverfront. The sky was too bright and plain for a good photo of the bridge. But considering I already had a Breaking Dawn and Eclipse photo I figured I needed a good Twilight photo to go along with them.
The forecast for Tuesday's sunset was clear skies and no wind. So before sunset I drove back across the causeway hoping for smooth water. When I saw the waves rippling across the river I was pretty disappointed. But since I was already there I had to give my shutter finger its dues. I scrambled down to the water's edge and set up the camera. As the sun disappeared so did the waves. When the twilight sky turned that perfect blue I got the shot I was hoping for.

Now that I have three parts of the Twilight saga complete around the bridge in Sac I'm going to need to come back around the New Moon and finish it off.

Right Place, Right TIME, for an iconic moment

So there it is, the iconic, infamous or whatever you want to call it image of the pepper spraying at UC Davis. At the time I really didn't feel it was that great of a shot. My shutter speed was too slow. There was too much dead space behind the protesters. Part of the jacket of a girl to my left worked its way into the photo. When I got back to the office and put together a photo gallery I didn't even pick it as my lead photo. Boy was I wrong. Within hours this single image had more than three times as many views as our entire website gets in a day. And in the two weeks since I've had more people, friends, family, and strangers alike congratulate me on this photo than probably every other photo I've taken in my 13 years as a photojournalist.

Even though I usually reserve this blog for my photo adventures outside of work, I feel the process leading to and following this photo deserves an explanation.

My shift on Fridays starts around 2:30 and I had only two assignments on the books as I was getting ready to head in to work that day; a group of seniors using iPads to supplement their hearing aids and children making pottery at the Art Center for holiday charity sale. That was the normal, exciting stuff we get to cover here in Davis. Then Cory Golden, our UCD beat writer at The Enterprise, called to suggest we bring a photographer to the Quad within an hour to cover the Occupy UC Davis encampment. While I usually ride my bike to campus I decided to drive thinking I might have to speed over to the other assignments after this proved to be nothing exciting. I mention that because on my bike I usually have a big, bulky backpack for my gear but instead I was able to use a smaller shoulder bag that proved much easier to maneuver thru the crowds that eventually formed.

I arrived on campus just at the police chief was preparing to tell the protesters their tents needed to be removed in an hour or they could be arrested. Some of the students suggested moving to another part of campus, trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities and keep the movement going, an idea I thought sounded the smartest. Again, I was waaayyyy wrong. The vast majority wanted to take a stand there and prove their point. About 4 of the 29 tents were taken down, mostly because they were being borrowed and the borrowers didn't want them confiscated. As the deadline approached the scene became a little more frantic. One of the lead protesters was running around asking where all the media was. "You're looking at it" I told him. He didn't look too pleased. I probably should've told him The Aggie did have two photographers, Jasna Hodzic and Brian Nguyen, there as well.

News came in of riot clad officers lining up down the road and the tents were moved into the center of the quad. The protesters formed a human chain around the tents, ready to force the police arrest them if they wanted the tents gone. It was here I thought I had the shot.

It was one of the rare times when a fisheye lens perfectly matched the subject. I held the camera above my head in live view mode and composed a shot with the most passionate looking students in the foreground. With the nice color, soft lighting, and good subject and background composition it would have made great lead art for the Sunday paper. Then the police marched in.

Why they timed it around the hour when students would be filtering out of classes is beyond me. So as twenty or so officers with helmets, pepper ball guns, and batons marched onto the Quad the crowd of onlookers quickly multiplied. The student-police ratio went from 3:1 to probably 10:1 by the time they left the scene. Bad news for the police but good news for me.

I'm not the stereotypical shove-my-way-to-the-front type of photojournalist. So when the police line only covered one quarter of the circle of protesters I was able to set up at the end of their line and get both police and protesters in my photos. At first it seemed a bad move as the initial arrests were made out of my line of sight, including one protester who had to be carried out by his hands and feet. That would've made a great photo. As police moved into the tent area

the protesters at the back of the circle broke apart and allowed others to come in and take down the tents before the police could. With the tents coming down I figured the excitement was mostly over and moved around the crowd looking to get a final shot of the police leaving with their last few arrestees. I was wrong yet again.

The protesters, buoyed by chants of support from the growing crowd of onlookers, moved to encircle the officers as they had done the tents and force the police to make more unpopular arrests on their way out. The majority of the crowd filtered into the area the police had just vacated. I followed, too, and watched as one of the arrestees was led thru the crowd.

I mention this photo for two reasons. First off the officer's last name is Beerman and at the time I could only think about how much crap he probably had to put up with from drunk college students over the years. The second, which only became obvious in hindsight, is how easy it was for police to exit the circle even at the most crowded spot.

I noticed the lead officers were forming up on the other side of the group so I moved around to that side and positioned myself directly in front of the protesters.

During the whole protest I had been switching between shooting still photos and video. Just after I took the above photo I switched to video as Lt. John Pike approached the group in front of me and said something to the three men seated on the left.

You could see here how the officer's mood changed as the protester turned his warning into a joke. We're all human. We all have emotions. And the look on his face told me things were about to get more serious. A few more officers came in from behind me and I quickly tried to position myself in a spot where police wouldn't ask me to leave but I would still be close to the protesters who were blocking the walkway. This was a time when I knew I had to do everything I could to stay as close as possible to the frontline. I was lucky that the crowd control officer on my side, who was assisting from the City of Davis PD, was happy that I had moved back before he had to ask and so he let me to stay at the very edge of the path. I try to be kind and respectful as much as possible when I shoot and I really believe that mild attitude was key getting myself in the best possible spot to capture this moment.

The whole spraying seemed to happen very quickly. In unpredictable situations like that composing a photograph becomes instinctual. Looking now at the tilted horizon I think my thought was to have the protesters flow from the bottom corner and middle thru the center of the image and into the crowd with Pike as close to a rule of thirds position as possible while the other riot police filled in the top right corner. Really, though, I don't remember what I was thinking other than to keep shooting.


Two casual passes of pepper spray were followed by officers moving in to clear protesters from the walkway.

I liked the action of that photo better than the spraying. And as protesters were moved off the path I captured the photo I thought best summarized what had just happened.

I went low to try and show readers the protesters' point of view, blinded and helpless on the ground as the almost faceless riot police towered over them. The photo, at least so I thought, was much more dramatic and when I put together a photo gallery I initially chose this as our lead photo. I later learned it was the action, not the reaction, that had the most impact.
Another shot of the same protester having his face rinsed

With their path clear the police made their way off the Quad. Many of the students who had only been watching were now chanting against the police as well. I liked that it was a girl in a Raiders jacket who was acting as a barrier between angry students and the police.

It was here where I made another smart decision. I really wanted our readers to know these were real people in our photo. I snapped a quick photo of Lt Pike's name badge and Cory then confirmed with the Chief of Police his full name and rank. I found the protester who was face up in the spraying photo and had later been down pushed in front of me,

and as he was being led towards the waiting fire truck I said to him "I am from the Davis Enterprise newspaper. I understand if you do not want to be identified but it adds a human element to the ..." Before I could finish he replied "David Bucsho, B U S C H O." I immediately recognized the name. I had taken his photo just a week earlier when he and his girlfriend were volunteering to help restore the Domes co-housing. We had had a short but happy conversation at the time and I think that may have persuaded him to offer up his name to me. Both Fred and Sue, who had covered the protests earlier in the week for us, and the Aggie photogs had complained to me earlier that most protesters were reluctant to give their names to media. It was this tiny and very lucky little victory that gave me the most satisfaction of all the work I had done that day.

I went back to the office hoping to get up a photo gallery online before heading over to the UCD-Stanford men's basketball game. Just the previous week we had started having all editorial staff set up Twitter accounts to try and drive more traffic to the paper's website. The timing couldn't have been better. Though the only followers I had were other people at the Enterprise Cory had built up quite a following. After a brief discussion as to wether we should identify Lt. Pike (we decided to do so since he had a name badge that anyone could have read and the chief praised his work that day) I tweeted and Cory re-tweeted the link to the photo gallery.

I went off to the basketball game and got a couple of nice dunking photos of the Aggies. Of course the Ags were overmatched by the bigger Cardinal so these photos didn't tell the story of the game.

Since we don't have a Saturday paper I usually head home after late Friday night games since I can make a quick gallery there. But, curious about our new tweeting, I decided to head back to the office to check on the protest story and maybe add another tweet about the game. Cory was still in the office monitoring the growing amount of reaction to the pepper spraying. He said a big name blogger from across the country had already called the spray photo THE iconic image of the Occupy movement. And Dean Royal, our internet editor, said the photos were dominating our web traffic. I followed Cory's advice and changed the lead photo. We also discussed sending the photo on to the AP. But not wanting the Bee or Chronicle to take advantage of us being the only professional print media there we decided to hold it til Sunday. I completely forgot about the basketball tweet.

By Saturday a couple shaky videos surfaced on YouTube and helped the story spread across the world. As the main video racked up 100's of 1000's of views I began kicking myself for not shooting video during the spraying. Still captures from a good 1080p camera like mine would've been good enough for four column photos in the paper. I also regretted not shooting RAW and not minding my shutter speed as the sun was going down. Even worse I deleted probably a third to a half of my photos that night not realizing the magnitude of the story. So many things a professional like myself should have done better, not just in a historic moment such as this but in any shooting situation. To top it all off, my decision to upload only low resolution photos looked bad when an amateur photographer opposite my position put out a higher resolution photo and her image of Lt Pike became the one used in so many internet memes.

Soon I realized my decision to stick to stills was the right one. Fred had sent four photos to the AP on Sunday. I heard some had been printed in the Bee, Chronicle, and Seattle Times that Monday though I didn't get to see any of those. Then the following Friday I got a call from the McKillop family whom I had shot family portraits fora couple hours earlier. They had just received the new edition of TIME and told me I had a two page spread in the front of the magazine.

At first I didn't think much of it. After all I'd had three photos in my pinnacle publication, Sports Illustrated (even if those three combined were only printed about 4 inches total across.) And I'd already had a nationally published double truck spread in Volleyball magazine with this photo from the 2003 Volleyball Festival that I thought really looked like the work of a professional.

But I have to admit that when I walked into Newsbeat five days later and opened up the magazine to see it was my photo alone leading off their news section I was pretty jazzed. And when they emailed a few days ago letting me know they were going to use it in their Ten Best Photos of the Year edition the excitement really set it.

I still don't think the purely photographic aspects of the photo are all that good. But given the gravity of the subject matter and its effect on people in town and around the nation I guess it's safe to say this is my best photo yet. Yes Miranda, even better than Kitten Dexter in the bathtub

I love it when a plan comes together

This was the sunset two Thursdays ago. I think it turned out pretty well. Of course I knew it was going to turn out nice because I had a 'Plan D.'

That night I had a light schedule at work with enough time to sneak out for what was shaping up to be a good sunset. I prioritized what I thought would work best. A, the tree that was in the sunflower field looking west, the right direction for sunset. B, the tall old oak about a quarter mile from that one that could be shot in any direction. C, the industrial area in north Woodland looking west had some nice grain towers and machinery that could make a good silhouette. D, hope one of the first three worked. C was on the way to A and B and as soon as I passed it I could tell it wouldn't work with the way the clouds were moving. A and B would've been good picks but it was tomato harvesting night so all the roadside parking near both those trees was clogged with the dusty cars of the migrant workers.

Fortunately I'd had other Plan A's fail in this part of the county before and on the drive out saw a previous 'A' that could work as my 'D' tonight. I'd stopped at group of old oaks along the levee before but never got the right combination of tree, field, and sky like the treat I found this time. After seeing the result, I'm glad my other plans fell thru.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little frustrating having my Plan A's fail so frequently. But my confidence in my backup plans keeps me going back out. Take last Friday's sunrise for example. I couldn't fall back asleep after a pre-dawn changing and feeding for Abby. Looking out the window I could see clouds on the eastern horizon that piqued my interest enough to head outside at 6am. Plan A was a drainage ditch just north of town and Plan B was a line of electricity poles right next to it. Both ran east-west and since we were near the equinox I figured the sun should be rising almost in line with them.
A:
It was okay. The sun wasn't directly lined up and I had to do some photoshopping to remove some large power lines running across the top of the photo. I can see why I thought it would be good but I'm not sure conditions could get much better than this so I don't know if I'll try it again.
B:
My original thought with these power lines was for a full moon rise but I think the combination of summer haze, road dust, and light clouds made this a nice sunrise photo. The Sacramento skyline on the right side adds a gritty feel but I wish I'd balanced out the poles better and moved ahead of that bush. Maybe some other time I'll try again.
I didn't have any more plans so I decided to throw a few pebbles at a group of pigeons sitting on the power lines and see what they'd do with the clouds.
C:
Meh. I was beginning to think I should have just slept in. I was only 2 miles from home, there wasn't a whole lot of room for a Plan D if it was going to show up on my drive back. But every other time down this road my thoughts were in sunset mode, with eyes to the west. Looking east for sunrise gave everything a new look. The boring-at-sunset west pond at Wildhorse Golf Course caught my eye. I pulled over quickly and snuck thru the fence.
D:
Plan D I knew I could count on you.

A few weeks ago I had an assignment south of town around sunset. This was a direction I don't usually go so I kept my eye out for good landscapes. I spotted a collection of distant oaks with the gap in the Vaca hills in the distance. I researched google maps and the US Navy sun/moon data table to find out when the sun should set in that gap and marked my calendar for a return trip. And of course I put together a set of backup plans. When I got to the levee road that looks over the oaks it was obvious I had miscalculated the position of the sun so it wasn't as close to the oaks and the bottom of the gap in the hills as I'd hoped. But this time the tomato harvest worked in my favor. The silhouetted machinery contrasted nicely with the oaks and the extra dust from the harvest gave me a scene I was happy with.

I went to try my B option
and returned the next night for my plan C
but this was a time when my 'A' game was on.

Having found the Wildhorse pond to be quite photogenic I put it at the top of my Plan A list. With a new moon and a near windless night I headed out to the pond to try star trails again. A small rowboat on the shore lined up well enough with the north star to make a nice Plan A composition. And except for a few fish and frogs jumping the water was still enough to reflect some of the star trails.


If I had remembered bug repellant I probably could've stayed out there all night. But after 100 minutes a few clouds started to move in and I decided to get some sleep. Before I headed home I had to try a Plan B composition just to see what I might need to try next time.
The clouds that were going to ruin the star trails made for a great starry still photo. Plan A and Plan B both gave me something good.

Now I just have to wait for a Wildhorse pond Plan A to fail to find my next great photo.

East Davis: A Photographer's Home

We in California are blessed with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. There's Yosemite, The Big Sur, San Francisco, and East Davis just to name a few. Okay, maybe most people won't put East Davis, or any of Davis, on that list. But for the past 14 years it's what I've called home.

When I first moved to this part of town I had just started taking photos for the Aggie. This side of the tracks seemed to be popular with other Aggie folk, especially those of us who were more artistic minded and in that bottom income bracket. Often times, in search of free entertainment, we ended up in the cemetery in the middle of the night. Not so much the tombstone area but the undeveloped part in the back. At the far end of the property was the old Chiles mansion site. Though the mansion had burnt down decades ago the old barn still stood at the edge of the cemetery. A few times some of us slipped thru the fence to sneak around the barn but it was already creepy enough being behind the cemetery on dark nights so I never had an inkling to go inside, until last week.

Even though the barn is smack dab in the middle of town It's pretty easy to forget it is there. It's only visible from a low traffic part of Eighth St and the lot is mostly overgrown. Except for a couple assignments I had for the newspaper when the property went up for sale I had forgotten about it.

I'd been wanting to try a star trails photo lately. In thinking of good foregrounds most of my ideas were old oak trees further out in the county that would require parking my car on the side of a lonely road for an hour or two. Then I remembered the collapsed barn and truck south of town I had shot over the winter that was only a 20 minute bike ride away. As the new moon approached it dawned on me that the perfect test subject was only a few blocks away. So last week I rode my bike back behind the cemetery to make sure the barn hadn't been bulldozed yet. It was still there. Either some homeless or drinking teenagers had pried open one of the doors so I took a look inside and wondered why I'd waited so long to come here for pictures.

That moonless night around 9:30 I loaded up the tripod and camera and headed out to the barn. I was surprised to see how many stars were visible here in the middle of town, I could even see the Milky Way. I put a fisheye on the camera to get as much sky as possible and started clicking away, one minute at a time. It was dark and just breezy enough to make the leaves rustle creepily behind me for the hour plus I was out there. After compiling the shots together in photoshop I'm pretty happy with the result.

After my peek inside the barn I decided I needed to come back for some daytime interior photos. The barn sits in a north-south position and the picture I envisioned was light slipping thru the barn boards at high noon, which is technically closer to 1pm this time of year. I took some test shots before the sun was in place,


Then when the sun was lined up with the boards I stirred up some dust to make the rays of light really shine.



The barn was a gem hiding right here in town. Just east of East Davis I found another little hidden jewel. A few weeks ago, while driving back from an assignment in Sacramento, we had a rare cloudy summer evening. Thinking of a good place to shoot the clouds I remembered a lonely shack, hidden by the train tracks and a cell tower, that I'd seen in the distance of a Duck Days falconry exhibit two years back. I pulled off the freeway, headed over the tracks and took a right on probably one of the least used roads in the county. I parked the car and walked down the old driveway to the shack. Some homeless had obviously called it home in the past but now it was the perfect subject for my sunset photo. I backed away to emphasize it's loneliness in no-man's land outside of town and let the sky dominate the shot.


So close to town, just a few hundred yards from the freeway, yet seen by almost no one. Kind of the same way I feel about Yolo County's scenic value when compared to the better known locales in this well photographed state of ours. Sometimes I feel blessed to call this place home.

Saturday Night Lights

You'd think I'd learn. For as much as I've talked about taking advantage of all the timely photo opportunities nearby I still seem to find a way to blow it when the time is right. That sunflower field and old oak I thought would make a great photo when the flowers were in bloom probably would have, if I had made it out there in time. My first return to the field to check on the sunflowers was on what I thought might be the last day with clouds for the summer, hoping I could match an interesting sky with an interesting subject. But only a few of the flowers had opened and a return trip would be necessary.

About two weeks later I looked out the window in the morning and saw patches of clouds, the timing seemed perfect. As I headed north of Woodland several other sunflower fields were in perfect bloom, giant seas of gold soaking up the sun. It was going to be my lucky day. But when I turned down that old county road the color I had hoped for wasn't there. The big flowers had already begun to droop, their heads too heavy with seeds. Although I wasn't going to get the picture I was hoping for I couldn't let the 20 minute drive and puffy clouds go to waste. I started shooting with the artsy half of my brain, shallow depth of field, slight vignetting, etc.


But sunflowers just have that 'cute' appeal so I changed moods and let the flowers have their play day in the sun.


While the sunflowers that dominate the land around town peak for only a few weeks there is one constant that lasts all spring and summer, saturday night River Cats fireworks. For the past 4 or 5 years I'd stuck with the tried and true shot of the Tower Bridge and fireworks from the waterfront. Each year a new camera or lens helped me make slight improvements on previous shoots. This year I gave up the comfort spot and tried some new positions.

First I headed down the Capitol Mall for a distant view. It was a nice shot but a little cluttered with light poles and signs.


Mir and Abby tagged along with me for the July 3rd show. This time we watched from the Capitol Mall on the I5 overpass. We got Abby to wake up in time for a great show.


While it was fun having the family with me for a few minutes of fireworks I'd really been wanting to give Mir a nice night on the town. And what I surmised from these other views of the bridge was that there was probably a really nice view of the show from the top floor of the Embassy Suites hotel overlooking the bridge. So I made reservations for the next saturday. In exchange for dinner at Fat's and dessert at Il Fornaio, Mir became my camera assistant and held up a black shirt by the cameras to block reflections in the window.



A great finale for a great evening with my lovely girls, even though Abby slept thru the show.


There's one Saturday game left this season, one more time to take a new look at a an always spectacular view.