Moon Fire

After last week's trip to Rodeo Beach I began plotting my return by checking for low tides around sunset/sunrise to hopefully get a better shot. And since the tides correspond to the phases of the moon I also checked to see if I could line up any landmarks with a rising/setting moon. Friday the 24th a crescent moon would be setting due east an hour after sunset. Looking at google maps (double true) the north end of treasure island lined up with alcatraz and the north tower of the golden gate. A great alignment for a photo. Technology can be a huge help in getting extraordinary photos. It can also help save me gas and bridge toll by checking bay area weather cams and seeing nothing but fog at the golden gate.

So around sunset I pulled Mir away from her farming video game and headed north past woodland determined to find something to line up with the moon. Along poleline road we passed a huge hay bale fire that was sending a thin ribbon of smoke up the valley. The smoke cloud created wonderful lines on the northern horizon and we found a solitary oak on the way to Knight's Landing with the Sutter Buttes in the background.

The tree is a little small and I probably should've shot this direction again from a closer position.

Up the road with the same tree but now looking east to the sunset and moon.



Realizing the tree will be around longer than the burning pile of hay we headed back to try and get the descending moon above that fire. Maneuvering along some back county roads toward conoway ranch I found a good spot to line everything up. The pile looked to be about 20 feet wide from this angle and probaly 40-50 long. It was a scene I definitely don't expect to see again.

Last Weekend

Last weekend was a decent one for photos. Watering the backyard garden found an industrious spider who had set her web up in the right spot to catch a few rays of light passing thru our trees. The first photo is looser with some color leaking thru the fence in the back while the second photo was from further back and zoomed in so a black pot would provide a solid dark background.


Later in the day a few clouds appeared on the horizon and I headed out, again, to the sunflower fields. Unfortunately as the sunlight waned the clouds thinned even faster. There was just enough color in the sky to make an acceptable shot.


The drive back into town made the trip worth it. A local great horned owl had found a nice perch along F St.


Sunday Mir and I headed down to Marin to check out a small waterfall that fell onto the beach and into the ocean. The exit for that hike happened to be the same exit for Stinson beach. After sitting in traffic for 5 minutes only to move a couple hundred feet we gave up (I'm fine hiking a couple hours to see a waterfall but 5 minutes in traffic practically destroys me) Golden Gate park was option no. 2. Looking for the first uncrowded place to pull over we happened upon a trail down to a nice black sand beach. While we're both appreciative of the beauty in nature this beach was a little too au natural for us. Mir, with the help of an unexpectedly large wave, did get in the spirit of the beach for a while as she let her jeans dry.


Deciding to skip the unmarked beaches we followed signs down to Rodeo Beach on the ocean side of the park. This one was more family friendly and had some nice rock formations along the beach. Mir on a big rock looking for sea creatures.


and a nice set of rocks that I'm going to have to come back an visit on a clearer day at low tide.

Starlight Sunflowers

Checking the weather report for a repeat of Saturday's sunset was a little depressing. Not a cloud in the sky for at least 10 days. Not sure if the sunflower fields on Road 102 were going to last that long I decided to head back out last night to try some starry skies behind the flowers. It's pretty hard to compose a shot in nearly complete darkness, especially when it's watering night and the field is surrounded by a soggy moat. And as dark as it was on the ground there was still too much light in the sky being right between Davis and Woodland. We need to get that dark sky ordinance rolling again.



That's the Milky Way running along the left edge of the photo.



If it's not too breezy I might try going out again for one good and long star trails photo.

Sunflower Sunset

As the first drops of rain fell I knew the skies were working towards a grand sunset. It was about 4:30 and I was stuck in Woodland sweating thru an American Legion baseball game. The rain was not only a cool relief but a reminder to keep my eyes to the sky. I already had in mind a sunflower field about six miles down the road from our house that was waiting for a colorful sky to compliment it. Back in the office I watched the clock and would peek my head out the door every few minutes to see how things were developing. By 8:00 I knew I had to get out and shoot. I was all ready to skip out of work for a half hour or so when Chris told me he only needed one more photo and the little league folks would email it in in a few minutes. A conundrum. Do I leave now, drive 10 minutes, quickly shoot, drive back, and work on one photo or wait a few minutes, stay as long as I like at the sunflowers, then go straight home? I chose the latter and fifteen minutes later realized that was a bad choice. The sky was absolutely perfect as I left the parking lot, a good 10 minutes from where I was supposed to be.

There was still some color in the clouds when I arrived but nothing like it was just minutes earlier. Though my patience is usually a virtue this was one moment where time was not on my side.



Hopefully the sunflowers are patient enough to give me one more chance.

Twin Oaks

Costco is a wonderful place. Two dollar giant pizza slices, huge bags of peanut m&m's, sparkling hidef tv's greeting your entrance. But the real gem there is the $2.99 12x18 prints from the photo lab. Large enough make the photos be seen but not so big as to show all the flaws in your focus, exposure, and old lenses. It's really the perfect size in every way but one, nobody makes 12x18 frames. For as long as the 24x36 mm leica format has been dominate you would think frames with a 2x3 aspect ratio would be common. But frame manufacturers are still infatuated with the relic formats; 5x7, 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20. All useless to me. Kohl's sometimes carries an american made 14x20 frame (several of which grace our living room walls) that gives a nice 1 inch border to 12x18 photos. But at over $20 each on sale the frame ends up being 7 times the price of the photo.

Enter Wayne's do-it-yourself world. I took a piece of scrap pallet wood, ran it across the table saw and router a few times and voila, a free 12x18 frame. A quick trip down to the spca thrift store found a nice poster of a shirtless Brady Anderson. $3 and a glass cutter later I had 3 $1 panes of 12x18 glass.


As you can see in the photo trying to cut perfect 45º angles on a table saw isn't an easy task. So it was off to craigslist for a good miter saw. Craigslist is a great way to reuse/recycle and to avoid directly giving any money to companies that have outsourced jobs to china. So for about the price of three new frames I got a great deal on a saw in vacaville that will hopefully help me make countless more.

As I was leaving with my purchase the clouds were putting on wonderful show over the vaca hills. I detoured thru the backside of town, along the base of the hills, looking for a nice foreground to match with the sky until I stumbled upon a stalled housing development. Barren streets and empty lots lead to small hillside graced by a pair of oaks.

Here was a positive result of the housing slump. This view, or possibly the trees themselves, would be gone forever had the building craze continued. Although, I'm sure they've only been granted a temporary reprieve and the sun will eventually set on this view.


The twin oaks were nice but I convinced myself there was more to see in the hills. I meandered thru back-country, one-lane roads before popping up down the road from lake solano. The sun was getting low and a set of power lines were ruining the shot there so I headed up to berryessa for what I hoped would be a colorful show.


Well, I probably should've stayed at the oaks. But now I have a couple more photos that will need some frames. I think I'm also going to need some more wall space soon.

North Coast Road Trip

Another year another couple weeks of vacation I had to use or lose. Best way to solve that problem, road trip. Miranda especially needed some time to relax after finals. Since we both had friends/family up the way to the canadian border that seemed like the smart path to take. First planned stop was my nephew Erik's in Eureka. But every time we've gone up there I've wanted to poke around the Avenue of the Giants old growth redwood park. With 9 days to burn on the road I finally had the time to stop. Here are a couple shots of the trees with Miranda for scale.



Two nights at my nephew Erik and Kala's place in Eureka and we began our trek up the coast hoping to make it to portland by midweek. We didn't get far before being distracted by a roadside aquarium in Crescent City where Mir unknowingly volunteered to french kiss a sea anemone. On the road again and over the oregon border we were lured to the sea again at a sign for whaleshead beach (that's pronounced 'whales head' not 'whale shead' as we both initially thought) The beach was pretty but it was a small natural spring flowing from a cliff face that caught my eye. The bright green algae around the crack and the mix of black, brown, and gold sand made for a great color combo. I spent a while trying to get it right but don't think it looks as cool as it did in person.

On the way back to the car a small plant washed ashore. Good time to try some shallow depth of field.


We found a few more nice vista points before pulling into Bandon Beach just around sunset. I'd heard Bandon mentioned on photography sites before but was amazed to look down on the beach and see a dozen or so manned tripods all over the beach. Even in yosemite I'd never seen so many photogs in one place. Turns out it was just a photo workshop, which I should've guessed by the quality of gear most of them were using. I wasted most of the sunset trying to figure out how to use my 4x5 again but got one decent thin red line and reflection of the rocky beach.

We managed to just sneak into the beachside hotel before they closed and shacked up for the night. I awoke before sunrise to find the beach clogged with photographers again. The beach was long and flat enough at low tide that there was plenty of room for all of us. Well except for that one guy with the really heavy walk who left deep footprints everywhere. The beach is so flat and smooth around the big rocks that there were nice reflections everywhere.

and my favorite from bandon beach

I went back to the room and woke Mir so she could play with all the sea life clinging to rocks. Not only was there an abundance of photogs but there were also more starfish and sea anemones than I'd ever seen before. It was hard to leave but we knew there was still plenty of coast left to see.

The drive up 101 is as excruciatingly slow as it is pretty. And by the time we hit Newport we were ready to cut inland and get moving again. We probably missed some really pretty beaches in northern oregon but we were also tired of being stuck in traffic and were really excited to get to Portland. Now maybe our expectations were unrealistically high but Portland was not worth the rush. Tons of homeless and junkies everywhere. Nowhere near as many bicycles as we'd been lead to believe. And we could not find a single recycling bin anywhere. Portland's suckiness turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it lead us to quickly move on to the Columbia River Gorge (and the cheaper hotels outside the city) The waterfalls there are amazing and you can get so close that it's impossible to keep the camera lens dry. We were there at midday so the light was in a bad spot to get the famous shot of Multanomah Falls with the walking bridge. Mir suggested a 1 mile hike to the top of the falls. It was breathtaking, literally and figuratively. Besides being good exercise it also chewed up enough time to move the sun into a better position. However you will get no cliche multanomah falls from me as Mir and I both agreed the neighboring Wahkeena Falls was more likeable and less touristy.
Wahkeena Falls in color

and artistically sepia toned Wahkeena Falls


We left the Gorge and began the push to Seattle, again arriving just around sunset. It also happened to be just before the moonset as well. Here's the crescent moon and space needle from our hotel parking lot.

We wandered around a bit after dark. Never have I been in any major city after dark and felt as safe as we did in Seattle. No hooligans or ruffians anywhere. The only frightful part was a bombardment of seagull poop as a giant flock passed over looking to roost for the night. But before sleep deprivation and bird poop called us back to the hotel one final shot of the space needle reflected in the experience music museum.

We headed up to Bellingham to visit Caitlin and Luna and so Mir could have tea. Bellingham is a pretty area but I didn't really do any shooting there. Here's sunset from the waterfront near her apt with the point-n-shoot.

We closed out the trip by getting lunch in Everett with my nephew Sean who I hadn't seen in 6 years and then staying with Mir's old roommates Jenny and Josh who had just moved to Grants Pass. While I didn't do as much in depth photographing as I had planned getting to see so many good friends, wonderful places, and doing it all with Mir made this vacation one of my best ever.

Worth Seeing

Two boys are riding in a car. One looks around at many things as they pass by. The other only looks at one thing at a time.
Q. Which boy sees more?

This was a multiple choice question on an IQ/aptitude test I took in second grade. I remember it because I knew the answer to put down was the boy who looked at many things. But I had to answer the other way because it seemed to me the boy who looked at so many things never really got to 'see' any of it. There is so much that can't be seen in a passing glance. I don't know if it was a deep philosophical moment for a seven year old or just the little engineer in me who knew the devil was in the details but I still wonder if that was actually the answer they were looking for.

One of the problems with being a male of driving age is that I'm often called upon pilot the ship on road trips. The little boy who wants to look at the details of the drive is stymied by the need to stay between the yellow lines on the road. Every so often, though, I get a chance to sit on the right side of the car and take in the scenery. Such was the case last friday when I accompanied a reporter to a farm on some lonely county roads past Zamora. I got to look around. Sometimes at many things, sometimes just one at a time. Unfortunately being a passenger also means I can't stop the car when I see something I really like. So when I saw a distant tree on gently rolling, wheat covered fields I knew I was going to have to come back as a driver who could stop and be the boy who got to see the details close up.

First stop was one I saw in a passing glance on the way over and decided to stop for. Some wildflowers in a few shades of different grasses with an old fence leading thru the photo. Not great but still worth a try


Next stop was the patch of hills I saw before

I spent an hour in basically the same spot watching the wind roll waves thru the fields of wheat and clouds thru the sky


The wheat on the other side of the street was already golden. A few misty clouds moving over the vaca mountains and some power lines that conveniently look like scratches on a negative helped give this photo an antique look.


There was another spot along I-5 that I've wanted to stop at for years but always seemed to be short on time when passing thru. Several mighty valley oaks standing in the middle of working ag fields. Last year one was surrounded by sunflowers but I forgot to return when the flowers were in bloom. Right now the tree was just in corn but it was the first time that I had the time to stop. Five miles along a frontage road, thru a drainage ditch with 5 foot tall thistle, over the railroad tracks, and trespassing onto some farmer's property all to see a descendant from last year's sunflower patch telling me the details were worth stopping for a closer look.


My push thru the weeds in the ditch was entertainment for a few of the local blackbirds. A good viewing point for them to watch me was also a good view for me and the camera.