MO Photos

Including the trip we made last month I've been out to Kansas City with Miranda four times now. And while what I've seen of Missouri is nowhere near as photogenic as scenic California, the area around her parent's house in the suburb of Blue Springs is prettier than the ag lands we have surrounding Davis. I'd done a few hikes around the area the previous times out there but this year I packed the good cameras with me, determined get out and explore with the camera. I even talked Mir into a road trip to see the St Louis Arch, though we eventually ran out of time to do so.

Our first night in town there was a good lightning show. I'd missed the one big storm that had come thru California a few months back and was excited about this one. But I wanted to stay with Abby for one storm since she had talked about the grumbly rumbly noise episode of her favorite cartoon Guess with Jess. Everyone told me 'It's Missouri, there'll be more thunderstorms.'

The place I had in mind for thunderstorm shots was the far eastern part of Blue Springs Lake that runs along the main road into their neighborhood.  Dead trees, killed in the flooding to create the lakes, covered this section and had my attention since the first time I visited.  On the next free evening I drove down to check out the sunset scene. There was one good storm cloud in the sky. I tried shooting it over those trees on the Blue Springs side but the sunset colors were much better over Lake Jacoma. A few sudden downpours but no lightning.

Still the trees called to me. So a few nights later I went down again and hiked down to the water's edge on the other side. I walked maybe a quarter mile, if that. As I set my bag down to get out the camera I noticed a few bugs on my pants. TICKS!!! On our last visit I woke up in the middle of the night and found three of the damned things on me after a short nature hike. This time I was determined not to let the bastards latch on and quickly picked at least twenty off my pants and socks. I had just enough time to get set up before the sun dipped below the horizon. 

The trees I could get close to shore weren't as exciting as I'd hoped. Also there was some kind of new overflow pumping water into the lake that kept it from being perfectly still. Can't decide if I like the rippled effect it made on the reflections or if it would've been better calm and smooth like a mirror. 

Not wanting to deal with any more nasty bugs I looked for a place around the big city to shoot. Earlier in our trip we had passed by the WWI Liberty Memorial Tower after taking Abby to the Crown Center. I searched online, found a few decent shots of it by other photographers, then got it in my head that this was the place I needed to shoot. After a dinner out with friends Miranda indulged be by letting me shoot around at night while she and a sleeping Abby waited in the car. 

The tower now sits on top of the country's only WWI museum and, fitting with KC's image, has a nice fountain at it's entrance. It was a little dark and I was trying to not keep Mir waiting so I only took a few shots. If I had this one to do again I'd try going a little lower to emphasize the ripples in the water more. 

I ran up top and tried another angle.

I like the twinkle of the lights on the stairs. But I had to use a fisheye to get the whole scene in and don't like the distortion it caused. 

Behind the tower there's a great view of the city skyline with Union Station in the foreground. 

I'd hoped there would be some lightning in the area to make the sky more interesting but I only saw one flash far to the east of here. Next time I'll make sure to come back here and do a multi-image panorama like I'd done in San Fran over the holidays. 

The last few days of our trip were spent in Colorado Springs visiting Miranda's brother Marcus who's stationed there. I was happy to sit shotgun for the nine hour drive across Kansas, hoping to take in the scenic glory of the state. I don't think I would've missed anything by watching the roads instead of the view. CO Springs, on the other hand, sits on the edge of Pike's Peak and the Rockies and looked like a much better place for a photographer to enjoy the outdoors. Mir's dad Mark mentioned wanting to visit a park called the Valley of the Gods that was in town. No one else was interested so one afternoon he and I took a 15 minute drive over to check it out. 

The park was pretty cool and everything was in easy walking distance. Several tall rock formations were covered in rock climbers dangling from ropes. While it was great to see it was hard to photograph. The paved trails were all lined with fences and signs telling people to not climb without permits and to respect nature. But all the paving and signs made it hard to photos that looked natural. 

I went up one unpaved trail to a smaller rock overlooking part of the city. Even here there were more signs. Out of the 15 minutes or so I was there I did manage to find a few seconds without anyone in the foreground for a shot. 

I thought this view would be great at night with the city lights glowing and decided to return again that night. I left a little late and missed the nice sunset colors in the clouds at the main overlook. But the red rock made for a nice conversion to black and white. 

I'm still a little upset at not getting the better clouds I would've had by leaving 20 minutes earlier but this one's a little too far away for me to get a do-over now. 

I hiked back up to the overlook for the night shot.

I like the moon as an element in the sky but the shadow it created blocked out a lot of the detail I'd wanted from the rocks. Again, not sure I'll ever get a re-do on this one so I'll have to live with it. 

We flew back home out of Denver with a stop in Orange County. Since Abby is over two she has to have her own seat now. While that hurt the bank account it made the flight more comfortable having a whole row to ourselves. It also guaranteed me a window seat. I kept one camera with me in case there was a good view. I'd hoped to see the Grand Canyon but most of Arizona was covered in clouds. The clouds didn't break until we were back in Cali. It was late in the evening and the low sun combined with the fog and smog in the San Bernardino mountains to give me one final redeeming photo from the trip. 

Next time we head back to KC I'm going to make sure catch the first lightning storm that comes around. And I'm definitely getting a plane seat with a good view. 

Stars of Gold

Way back when Miranda was volunteering her time at the Marine Mammal center in Sausalito I used to tag along sometimes and do night shooting around the Marin Headlands. I was surprised at how many stars were visible so close to San Francisco. After my first attempt at star trails I knew I needed to come back and try the star trails around the Golden Gate.

I tried once before early last year looking south but wasn't really happy with the results. The bridge was too bright to get long enough exposures to go with the stars. But after practicing with my post processing techniques and getting a new Nikon that has a sensor with the dynamic range to not blow out the highlights while keeping shadow details I figured it was time for another go at it.

I waited for a moonless, clear night (and Miranda's permission) and set off for a night alone with the bridge. When I pulled in there was a good crowd at the Battery Spencer overlook for the sunset. So I went back down to the base of the bridge to kill some time.

I'm still not sure how I like this view. Maybe I'll try again but with a tighter composition. After 45 minutes here I headed up top and had the place mostly to myself. 

I wanted a view of the whole deck of the bridge. So I brought my 9 foot tall tripod and set it up to shoot over the chain link security fence, up the path from the normal photo area. 

I like the headlight trails running all the way to the bottom corner and was really surprised that the light on the TransAmerica building came on for about a minute in the middle of my shooting. But the star trails weren't long enough to be really exciting. Also the chain link fence I was shooting over showed up enough in the bottom right corner to be distracting. I did a quick but ugly clone job to clean it up in the final image. As I was packing up I poked around and found that shooting from the top, where the fence line heads down the cliff face, helped keep the fence from showing up in the shots. Knowing there was a better view to be had was going to force me to return and do it better. 

On the way home I made a quick stop in Sausalito on a hunch from a view I'd seen on the way in. I circled around a bit, found a hidden parking spot, and climbed down to the water's edge under a freeway overpass. Alcatraz lined up perfectly with the Bay Bridge and its new lights. Though it was windy out, the water here was just calm enough to get some nicely colored reflections. 

A few nights later I trekked down again, determined to double the star trail lengths and get that fence out of my shot. Here's the better angle with 1.5 hours of trails. 

The construction lights on the SF side and TA building weren't lit like last time. But work crews coming and going beneath the bridge made some cool headlights trails under the north section. 

While that camera was running I set up two other cameras at the regular photo spot to see how that view looked with star trails. One horizontal

and one vertical

Both of these were shot with my Canon cameras which don't handle the mix of bright lights and dark skies as well as the Nikon. So at the end of the star trail shooting I took two extra photos, one exposed for the highlights on the bridge, then another at f/16. The small aperture creates the starburst effect on the bridge lights. Since the star trails process is spent blending 100-200 photos together (and considering the time spent erasing plane trails from those 100-200 images) blending in those last two photos didn't add much time to the process. I'm glad I included them as they really did a lot to improve the quality of the final images. 

I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. But I still think the star trails need to be longer to make the image really dynamic. I did a quick calculation that 5 hours would get enough trails going from the horizon to the top of the photo to make it look complete. Might as well pull an all-nighter, I guess. Don't know if I'm that dedicated, though.