Wandering Aimlessly in the Night

Ah the best laid plans of mice and men. On Saturday Lenore was meeting old high school mates from high school down in Novato, Ca at five p.m. The sun doesn't go down until six. That would make it perfect for me to have an hour before the sun went down to do some photography. Such was the plan I had in my mind until we got lost and couldn't find the place where we were meeting them. By Lenore's dead reckoning we finally found the house at about five minutes until six. I jumped out of the car and braced my camera on a wood chipper that was parked near the house and photographed an oak tree silhouetted by the sunset.Wait a minute.. a wood chipper what the? Then it hit me. Who keeps a wood chipper parked on the street a nice upscale residential area? To give you some reference I was just in the middle of reading a murder mystery where all of the victims are thrown into a wood chipper before the bodies are disposed of. Just plain creepy to see one sitting there in such a nice neighborhood. Pushing those thoughts from my mind I drove westward hoping to find a ridge top to photograph from. I found a couple but there was no room on the narrow road to pull off. I then drove south past the Cheese Factory and around Lake Nicasio. A stiff breeze was up making reflections off of the lake all but impossible. I turned toward San Rafael and when I hit the freeway I went further south and turned off in Tiburon. I was hoping for a good view of San Francisco. The views of the city from there weren't all that noteworthy. I tried a few but I wasn't happy with them. I drove north and then on a random chance took the exit for the San Rafael Bridge. I took the last and only exit before the bridge at San Quentin Prison. Surprisingly there was a sign with a small parking lot that said "Scenic View". I created some images of views of the bridge but only one of them came out because there was too much vibration on the camera from the wind off of the bay. After that I packed it in and went back to pick up Lenore. Lucky for me she had a piece of chocolate truffle cake for me to nibble on. Love and God's blessings to all, chris

Revisiting an Old Scene

I spent a great time yesterday photographing Acorn Woodpeckers. I also revisited two old images that I have photographed in the past. One of the ways that you can improve your photography is to reshoot old scenes that you have photographed before. You can try another angle, photograph from either a higher or lower position. Try visualizing it from a different location. If you photographed it at sunrise try shooting it at sunset instead. In my particular situation I have photographed this one oak tree before. The last time I photographed it was about a year ago when I photographed it at sunrise in beautiful pink light. Yesterday the fog was thick as I drove past it on my way to my photoblind. Hmmnn.. I thought to myself. "That looks pretty interesting in the fog. I photographed from a couple different angles and then chose the best one for today's photoblog. The farm implement too has been photographed before. I think it was it was just last week. This time I noticed the silhouettes of the horses behind it added an added dimension that was really cool. As the horses grazed I kept moving my tripod trying to get a good angle of them. I was also shooting through a deer fence. This was done by putting the camera lens right up against the fence and not stopping don too far to allow the fence pattern to show through. So when you are out photographing a landscape or a scene again in the future look for ways that it can be photographed in a new and different way. God's love and blessings upon your weekend, chris Both images photographed with a Canon 7D and a Canon 100-400 IS lens supported on a Manfrotto 055PROBX tripod with a Bogen 3055 ballhead.

Stars Come Out At night

This evening we drove down to Redwood Valley in celebration of Lenore's birthday.( Happy Birthday Lenore my Love!) We went to Marios for some Italian food. It was delicious. On the trip home we pulled off the highway onto one of the really wide pull outs so I could photograph the night sky. It was really hard to time my images between cars. Luckily we are far enough north on 101 that we don't get a horrendous amount of traffic and I was able to get a few thirty second long exposures in. My favorite one is this one with an oak tree in silhouette. God's light and love to all, chris

Camera Equipment Used- Canon 7D, Bower 8 mm lens. Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod with a 3055 Ballhead. Camera Setting- Manual Mode,ISO 6,400,F3.5, Shutter speed 30 sec.

Take What You are Given

This morning when I took Annika to school I noticed that there was a lot of frost. I realized that I had better take a quick tour of the Little Lake Valley before it started melting.There were these awesome clouds too. When I talked to Lenore she told me that they reminded her of upside down moguls on a ski slope. You just have to take the gifts God gives with you and work with them. This morning it was frost and an awesome sky.

Sincerely and God bless,

chris

Trees in the Valley

Still not feeling great but I felt the need to get out of the house. I drove a loop around the Little Lake Valley just looking for trees to photograph. Plenty of trees mind you. Just looking for ones with the right combination of light and fog to make them interesting. When I was done I found a number of them that i really liked. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Thank you and God bless,

chris

The Drive to Downtown and Back

Samo ,Samo! This morning I made my usual drive to town to drop Annika off at school and then go work out. After I dropped off Annika I made a few stops along the way whenever an image presented itself to be taken. Enjoy and God bless!

chris

A Change of Plan

I awoke to a beautiful sunrise today. The first sunrise with clouds in it in a long time. My plan was to photograph turkeys in nice early morning light and then go work out. One family member was running late and as a consequence I had to take them to school this morning. So photographing turkeys was now not part of the mornings plan. I decided to take an early morning tour of the valley and see what I could see. I found some valley oaks standing proud in the early morning light and fog.

God's blessings to all,

chris

All Over the Map or Serendipity

Today it was foggy as I dropped off Annika at school which was fine with me. Why? Because I envisioned creating some moody, foggy stock images and I knew the area right where I wanted to do them. Driving down off of the ridge top I was munching on a banana. I threw the peel up on the dash to throw away later. Then it hit me. I could do a shot of the banana beside the road with traffic going by. A perfectly boring but useful stock shot.

So after dropping off Annika I did it. No doubt I will get a lot of questions asked of me about my sanity over the next few weeks from locals that know me. My close friends won't ask those questions as they already know I'm a little nuts. They will just make a simple statement such as."I saw you shooting some pictures up past the high school the other morning." The final image works pretty well as I shot it a ground level right on the pavement. I stopped way day to F32 and the traffic just shows as a background blur behind the banana. The message of the image is clear.It yells out, "Garbage".

Next I headed up to the end of the Little Lake Valley and took some images of moody oak tree shots with the double yellow centerline leading into the image. They looked pretty cool too. I just kept traveling around the valley until I was passing a friend of Lenore's house like I have done a hundred times over the years. Boom there it was. A beautiful yellow ribbon tied around an old oak tree. I almost went by but it drew me back as if to say, "This is what you came to photograph this morning."

At first I took some images of just the ribbon on the tree. Then I noticed the coloring of the house behind it. Which in turn made me realize the door to home was there too. All the symbols told the story of how they have a son in the military and they want him to come home safe. Serendipity happens.

Now I need to burn some CDs to send off to a hunting and fishing magazine. After that I need to make a print for my wife's friend Sue.

Sincerely and God bless,

chris

The Lone Sentinel

I spent the morning with my dog Badger driving around on the snow covered backroads looking for interesting trees. Don't dogs make good traveling companions? They just sit there looking around quietly. Then they curl up in a ball and go to sleep.

My adventure started in the valley below where I live but I quickly realized I would have to get to a higher elevation as almost all the snow and frost had melted there. I immediately thought of one of my favorite drives out through the Sherwwod Valley and then back to the main highway on a narrow one lane gravel road. Perfect for my little beat up old throw away 4WD.

The Sherwood Valley used to be home to the Pomo Indians (Native Americans) and later it was home to a the small town of Sherwood complete with two lumber mills and a railroad and all. Not a single building remains of the original town. There is not a sign of it remaining. Outside of the townsite there is a very unusual house that was built about the same time though. It is a tall three story house built in an octagon shape. As such locals call it the "Octagon House".

As my fortune would have it the snow was melting before I found too many trees that I considered photo worthy. I was lucky to see a Golden Eagle on top of Sherwood Rock though when I entered the valley. The eagle stayed there the whole time I was in the valley. Log that one into the potential possible future photos memory bank.

Finally on one of the down grades heading down towards 101 I saw a tree perched all by its lonesome near the top of a ridge. I liked it because you could see broken limbs around it and see that it had weathered a lot to survive where it did. The sky still held a blue color behind it. I liked how the image turned out. It embodies that tough lone tree; the sentinel guarding the ridge.

God's light and love to all,

chris