2011 An Unbelievable Year in Pictures

There was a time I used to dream of wildlife encounters before a safari to Yellowstone.  I don’t remember the dreams now, but those last few nights before a safari started were sleepless with anticipation.  In the late 1980′s, when I lived in St. George, Utah my friends, usually Bryan Sutton, and sometimes his dad Bob, or Eddie Blount, would travel on photo safaris with me.  That went on for a number of years until moving to Providence, Utah.  In the decade of the ’90′s I had more friends joining me, Casey Bell and Jed Packer among others.  The trips got bigger, better planned, but the excitement never went away.  No matter how many trips to Yellowstone, or Zion, or the Tetons I took, I was always amped up, ready to chase for the next image.

By the turn of the century I was marketing photography seminars at my studio, and safaris all over the inter-mountain west.  While my personal photography got better and my organization skills and planning for these events improved, I was left to wonder about mixing a passion with business.  Now, that probably seems remarkable to many folks who see only the upside of the “mixing a passion with business”, but I knew that there would be a downside as well.  The downside is your passion becomes your business, and all the minor difficulties that before were ignored and minimized start to wear you down.  Picking up the camera daily to do commercial and portraiture jobs is not the same as anticipating a big photo safari to Yellowstone, or Death Valley, or Big Sur.

My studio in Providence was a means to an end.  While it provided me a living, it also took me out of the parks and mountains a great deal and kept me in town.  In June 2003 I photographed 24 weddings, a ridiculous number to be sure, but that was in addition to the families, engagements, bridals, etc I was shooting that month.  Everyday was full, many with three shooting jobs per day.  And just so you know, I was shooting all medium-format equipment and 120mm roll film back then.  I carried a large Mamiya 645 AF camera and lenses around with me, constantly filling roll film backs, and sending off boxes of exposed film to a lab in Kansas.  Not only were the hours long with few, if any, weekends off, but my studio had to be open for clients on a regular basis.

There was a business upside to this: I didn’t have to advertise for clients as much after a few years, they seemed to come back each year, and referred me to their friends.  The attributes I had developed as a wildlife photographer, shooting quickly, shooting for position, and just photography woodcraft traits in general – served me well in portraiture.  I took command of the wedding (photography) party and groups and shot quickly, never missing the important images, and never making people wait.  I had an internal list of images I wanted to get, given the clients and location, and I was good at getting what they wanted.  Unlike California where much of the photography is candid, with less structure – the weddings I shot were mostly inside-the-box types of jobs.  What suffered was my wildlife/nature photography.

Now there is no question that if you want to make a good living as a photographer you shoot people.  People pay you upfront, on-time, and refer new clients to you.  Grizzly bears mostly don’t sell, and if they do its after much sweat and pursuit of that sale, and it is almost never very much.  One good family portrait job will outsell 1000 great grizzly shots.  The difference is that the skill level of a good wildlife/nature photographer far exceeds that of a portrait photographer, most of whom (not me, of course) are joined at the hip with their studios.   They don’t want to leave the familiar surroundings of their studio’s preset lights and backdrops, posing benches, and chairs.  I loved taking folks outdoors and then having to create the image.  Manage the sun and location, and shoot in a set of circumstances that changes with each job.  I enjoyed that aspect of portraiture.

In 2008 I married Jacqueline and moved back to California.  I reset my business plan back to wildlife and nature photography – first, through city sponsored seminars – and second, by leading photography safaris in the American West.  Mix in some commercial shoots, stock image sales, and an occasional portraiture job … and their you go.  What I really hadn’t anticipated was the depth of beauty of California, the state I grew up in and had overlooked as a photography destination for so long.  I mean, come on, I had just spent 25 years shooting in Utah with Yellowstone only a few hours away – what could be better than that?  I think 2011 was a turning point for me.

Most of you who are reading this know me, or have shot with me, been to a seminar with me, or at least feel like you know me a little through my images.  The excitement that I talked about at the beginning of this essay, the difficulty sleeping and dreaming of wildlife encounters before a big photo safari, had begun to fade.  My passion for photography had become a passion for the business of photography, and business always becomes routine to a degree.  In other words, I began sleeping fine before leaving on big safaris.

This past year has been a photography epiphany for me.  While I did about the same number of safaris and seminars, had about the same number of commercial fine art sales and jobs, I had more peak experiences.  My timing has grown better at many of the locations I shoot at.   Lots of you that have shot with me know that I’m lucky when it comes to wildlife and landscape encounters, but this year was better than normal, hitting locations in awesome light or storms that made for great images, and shooting a number of animals for the first time (gray fox, peccaries, white-tail bucks, condors, Mohave green rattlesnake) or super close-up (bobcats, and of course, the always close grizzlies, and many birds) or performing great hunts and behavior (red foxes, bald eagles, raptors, etc).

I’ve shot some new locations this year, going to places at the request of those on my safaris … and they have always chosen wisely, and I listened.  On the Bosque del Apache (New Mexico) safari last January, after two days of intense and overwhelming bird photography, Diane Tomita suggested going to White Sands National Monument for the third day, and what a great choice that was.  Incredible place.  After that safari I was down shooting with Butch Ramirez in Laredo, Texas – shooting birds and animals I had never photographed before in a shooting environment (blinds) that was new to me (though I own a great blind but use it rarely.) for practical wildlife photography.

The eagle safari was amazing once again, followed by the snowstorm/blizzard Yellowstone winter safari in February.  The blossom trail in March and the Tehachapi wildflower safaris were really the color of spring … with the Mohave Green Rattlesnake providing the flavoring for that safari.  Remember, don’t lay down on holes in fields of flowers – I’m just saying …   Death Valley was stunning as usual.  In May, Mike Green suggested spending a day on the southern Utah Spring Safari at Monument Valley, so off we went, and shot stunning sunrise images of the mittens and of rising storm clouds in Zion Canyon.  Some of my best Zion images ever.

From Yosemite waterfalls in May to the always exciting spring wildlife safari in June in Yellowstone, great image opportunities were everywhere.  We photographed grizzlies at ranges that made us retreat, and black bears swimming in ponds.  For the first time I took out my can of grizzly mace as the Quad Grizzly sow with her two remaining cubs came right up to us at sunrise, I mean, right up to us.

The summer was spent shooting agriculture images and wildflowers throughout the Sierras, from Sequoia and Kings Canyon to Angel’s Camp and Lake Tahoe.   When autumn rolled around many of us were back in Yellowstone shooting bull elk on the Madison River and the amazingly Red Fox near Roosevelt Junction.  What a show they put on.  Not to consider my own mortality, but I have to ponder how many trips to Yellowstone I get in my life.  How many spring babies and fall ruts I get to witness there.  I’m glad I don’t know how many I have left, hopefully decades worth.

Of course, fall colors always take me to southwest Colorado, Yosemite, and southern Utah from October through November.  Great colors and a cool Gray Fox awaited me in Zion.  Wow, what an opportunity.  The Nikon D3s gave me a weapon I’ve never had before, the ability to push my ISO and still shoot publishable quality images.  I shot that rare gray fox in dim-going-to-dark light at ISO 3200 and came away with amazing images.  I would have been dead with the Nikon D2x, I would have tried, but I would have failed in capturing any image as good as what I shot.

And now I’ve come to November – December safaris, mainly being to a new area for me, the Big Sur area of the California coast.  Wow.  Every stop was wow, sometimes double wow.  The majesty of that shoreline, headlands, beaches, and wildlife was stunning.  There aren’t enough superlatives to describe all the amazing landscapes and wildlife I saw and photographed.  I have to thank Dave Collins for doing some research on the area and shooting with me on the first safari.  On the second safari we added other locations with equally majestic views, such as the windows in the rock at Pfeiffer state beach.

Many of you have led me to great spots, either from your own knowledge or from taking part in the safaris and pushing me to find great locations.  I’m the first to admit I don’t know every great location in the American West, every road with incredible spring flowers, or every trail leading to a breathless landscape … but I keep looking, I keep pushing, and 2011 has been a great year for me and my photography growth.  When you photograph new subjects you are pushed to learn how to photograph them, a trick here or there, an angle here or there, a certain time or possibly a new exposure rule for a particular type of light … you build your skills, and I have certainly built mine this year thanks to many of you who went on safaris and grew with me.  So to all of you, I say thanks.  On the night before my December safari to Big Sur, via Pinnacles, I was amped up and couldn’t sleep.  Its been a few years since I felt that exhilaration prior to a safari, and I have to say I liked it.  That safari was just a week ago now, photos edited and processed already, and many of you have seen a few of them, and I’m going back Jan 14-15 again, and I’m amped up just thinking about it.

Shooting in California has been more than I could have imagined when I first moved back.  But as my knowledge of the area increases I hope to be able to bring these amazing experiences to many of you.  After all, photography is only fun when it’s shared, it is a journey that we make and not a destination.  For those of you that have graced me with your presence on a safari, or spent a couple of hours with me in a seminar – I hope you know that sharing photography has become my life’s adventure, and I hope I transfer some of that excitement for photography to you.

Here are my some FAVORITES from 2011 …

Yucca at White Sands National Monument (New Mexico)

Northern Bobwhites near Laredo, Texas

Whitetail Buck near Laredo, Texas

Bald Eagle - Farmington Bay, Utah

7x7 Bull Elk on wintering grounds - Yellowstone National Park

Plum Blossoms - Blossom Trail - Tulare County, California

Mohave Green Rattlesnake - Tehachapi Wildflowers Safari

Mist in the Sequoias - Sequoia National Park

Stormy sunrise at the Mittens - Monument Valley

Rising storm clouds on the West Temple - Zion National Park

Lower Yosemite Falls and mist - Yosemite National Park

Grizzly Cub - Yellowstone National Park

Sunrise behind Sow Grizzly and cubs - Yellowstone National Park

Newborn calf elk and mother - Yellowstone National Park

Mustang Clover and lichens - Yokohl Valley, California

Ripening Grapes - Tulare County, California

Silage Corn - Tulare County, California

Bull Elk crossing the Madison - Yellowstone National Park

Leaping Red Fox - Yellowstone National Park

Hunting Red Fox - Yellowstone National Park

Sunrise - Moulton Barn on Mormon Row - Grand Teton National Park

Sunrise at the Oxbow - Mt. Moran - Grand Teton National Park

Changing Maple Leaves - Zion Canyon - Zion National Park

Gray Fox - Zion National Park

Desert Bighorn Ram - Zion National Park

Autumn Colors at Alder Creek - Yosemite National Park

Autumn leaves at Fern Springs - Yosemite National Park

Bobcat - Yokohl Valley, California

Ferruginous Hawk - Yokohl Valley, California

Point Sur wave break - Big Sur, California

Storm waves hitting the Soberanes Cliffs - Big Sur, California

Fern Grotto near Pfeiffer State Beach - Big Sur, California

Hunting Bobcat - near Pinnacles National Monument

Windows and Light - Pfeiffer State Beach - Big Sur, California

Winter Equinox view of Setting Sun - Pfeiffer State Beach - Big Sur, California

Those are just a few.  I hope everyone gets out and shoots more in 2012.  If it is anything like 2011 then we are all in for some amazing moments, and images.  BRP

2011 December Big Sur Safari (#2)

It has been my habit to travel through Pinnacles National Monument on the way to Monterey to begin the Big Sur safari.  Instead of traveling hwy 198 west to hwy 25 then north to Pinnacles, I traveled on a secondary paved road, that began as the Los Gatos Creek Road and finished as the Coalinga Road before meeting up with hwy 25.  We saw our first bobcat on that road.  Over the coarse of the next three days we saw a total of 11 bobcats and 8 coyotes.  It was an amazing thing to see that many cats.  One of the two bobcats we saw in Pinnacles NM was very close and we got great images.

There were large flocks of California Quail, wild turkeys, and a variety of songbirds and hawks that were active throughout the monument.  The car is always your best blind, and many of the different species we were able to photograph without leaving the car.

We traveled the monument road a number of times, each pass through seemed to bring a different bird species or another bobcat encounter.  The images below show an Acorn Woodpecker (right) and a Red-shouldered Hawk (below).  On the November Safari we saw coyotes but no bobcats, so this was quite a change. 

There were a surprising number of tourists in the monument, but the animal and bird activity definitely wasn’t slowed down.  A ranger at the store told us that there has been a bobcat hanging around that nearby campground, and it was checking that campground out that Allen spotted the bobcat.  We drove to within 45 feet of it and it was very docile and not agitated at all.   It did sit down in the grass waiting for us to drive away, so it was certainty use to seeing people.  When we didn’t drive away it eventually got up and ambled away, very unconcerned.  We saw six bobcats on this day, just an amazing number.  Shortly after leaving the park we saw another bobcat just off the highway.

This bobcat was traveling and not interested in stopping for a couple of photographers, so this is just a grab shot out the window of the 4Runner as he climbs the hillside next to the highway.  All the cats we saw were very healthy and looked like they ranged from twenty-five pounds all the way up to forty pounds.

We arrived in mid-afternoon in Monterey, checked into our hotel, then headed to the Soberanes cliffs and beach area to shoot sunsets.  Similar to November’s safari, large waves regularly crashed through the sea stacks creating great photo opportunities.  In the image below I was using a 4 stop ND filter to slow my shutter-speed to get a decent blur on the waves, shot at ISO 100, f11 and 1/8 second.  This was the shutter speed I was looking for.  After seeing the images from November’s safari, shutter speeds in the 1/4 to 1/15 area produced the nicest blur on the waves, without losing the shape of the waves to badly.

For the final minutes of sunset we drove down to the Rocky Creek bridge and shot the sea stocks off the coast there.  We never had any clouds around sunset, on any of the days, so it was composition and color instead of cloud formations I tried to work into a good sunset image.  This was Friday’s sunset, Saturday’s sunset at Pfeiffer Beach would be different.

The next morning we met up with the other safari goers and headed out to the Point Sur area.  It was cool and breezy in Monterey that morning but warmed up rapidly to a comfortable 60 degrees along the coast.  In November we had large storm driven waves crashing this beach, but on this safari the waves were more normal but there was an interesting marine layer hanging above the beach, creating a dreamy, misty looking landscape image.  High up on the Point Sur bluff, above the beach, is the lighthouse and Naval Station.

Lots of coastal moisture has turned the hillsides a vibrant green, and the meadows leading down from the highway towards this beach at Point Sur (below) were really a contrast in colors and textures.  The view from the highway is dramatic, also, like November, there were hundreds of hawks and falcons working the pastures and meadows along the road.  The image was taken just after sunrise.

We shot our way down the coast as far as Pfeiffer beach, where we looked over the beach we would be returning to that evening for the shoot through the eroded rock windows in the large rocks just off the beach.  That afternoon we found another large bobcat to photograph along Highway 1.  This cat had very dramatic striping and bright pelt colors.

Hunting through the grass and mid-December flowers, this bobcat was unperturbed by our presence just across the fenceline bordering the highway.  After staring us down and yawning (image of FB) he sauntered away, paying us little attention.  This cat was very stocky and  had an amazingly vibrant pelt.

Later that afternoon we headed by to Pfeiffer beach for the sunset.  To our surprise the place parking lots were nearly full and the place was jumping with photographers, my guess would be 120-140 photographers … an almost ridiculous number.  With the winter solstice only a few days away, the sun was going to be setting directly though the windows in the rocks, thus attracting all the attention.  There are two large rocks just off the beach, and both have windows that have been eroded through by the pounding waves.  As the sun began to get lower in the sky, a bright orange shaft of light passed through the windows into the waters between the rock and beach.  It wasn’t easy to get into shooting position, and there were times I was shooting between or over other photographers – but I got the images I wanted.  I moved up and down the beach shooting the shaft of light from different directions.  The image below shows the first large rock which has two divided windows, before the sun was very low in the sky.

The images below show the larger rock, which had all the photographers gathered directly in front of its single window, as the sun sets and shines directly through the window.

It was an amazing sight, while the image, at left, is cool – I thought the real striking image was the wide shot of the rock with the sun burst coming directly through.  I struggled to get position for this wide shot, which required no one in front of me, and there was some jostling going on.  I look back in 2011 and realize all the great things I have seen and photographed, but this really was a moving sight.  As the light becomes more red and the graphic nature of the landscape gets only more dramatic, my heart was racing.  My mind was going through every option to get these images, every possible angle, the compositions, the exposure changes I would need to make to emphasize the shafts of light, how the bracketing should be set up in conjunction with the exposure compensation.  This was a one shot deal to get.

The next day, Sunday, we shot in Point Lobos State Park before moving down the coast to shoot McWay Creek and Falls, then finally the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas, then finishing at the San Simeon pier.  Point Lobos was truly spectacular and really was the first time I’ve seen an angry ocean.  Huge crashing waves pass over the rocks and create sink holes in the ocean that shoots water in the air.  A half a mile out and about a half a mile wide, Point Lobos is a twisting, raging torrent of ocean that makes me glad I’m not a sailor.  This was my first trip their and I was awed by the power of the ocean moving through that tight area.  On the rocks just off the point California Sea Lions (below) put on a bellowing show that was easy to hear.  Oh, saw another bobcat at Point Lobos as well.

We ended the safari at the San Simeon pier hoping for clouds and color, but got neither.  We worked our way around the pier at the beach level looking for interesting angles and reflections.  The 4 stop ND filter helped blur the waves under the pier, but we just didn’t get much color.  Around San Simeon I saw four more bobcats …. good heck, what a trip.

2011 Big Sur Safari (#1)

For just being a few days this was an extraordinary shoot.  I’d only been back from the Southern Utah Safari since Monday when on Thursday I headed back out, this time to work my way through Pinnacles National Monument, on my way to shoot the Big Sur area the following two days.  While the weather was difficult and wet, it made for great pictures.

Dave Collins and I met up in Coalinga and traveled Hwy 198 west until turning north on Hwy 25, which would lead us to Pinnacles.  This twisty highway is always a slow drive but we found the local bird life out in force.  Hawks, falcons, and golden eagles were actively hunting in the adjacent pastures and hillsides, while wandering tarantulas were crossing the highway at various spots.

Face shot of a wandering tarantula.

Dodging the cars was the most difficult and dangerous part of shooting the tarantulas.  The one pictured above was about 6-7 inches wide when its legs were extended.

Once we were in Pinnacles we photographed a couple of coyotes, wild turkeys, numerous songbirds, while high above us condors floated on the thermals.  Pinnacles has a large, diverse population of birds and walking the trails allowed us to get some decent shots of some of them.  Acorn woodpeckers, Bewick’s wrens, canyon wrens, nuthatches, sparrows, brown creepers, Western and Steller’s Jays, and many others flit about the trees that shade the bottom of the canyon.

Western Scrub Jay with Acorn

The oak trees and large pines provide a great habitat for all the birds.  It was very difficult photography though – the birds always seem to stay just out of range and move incessantly through the brush.

We photographed a couple of different coyotes, one that looked more like a dog/coyote mix than a straight coyote.  They were hunting parallel to the roads and didn’t seem the least bothered by us as slowing down and shooting them from inside the vehicles didn’t stop them from hunting.  At one point I was shooting face shots right at the 500mm lens minimum focusing distance.  But there was a lot of possible prey, including lots of mule deer, rabbits, quail, and the previously mentioned turkeys.

BeWick's Wren in Spanish Moss

We found the most activity in the Bear Gulch Day Use area near the end of the road.  Trails go off from this location in various directions leading to prominent areas of the monument.  Many of the oak trees are covered in Spanish moss and provide interesting backgrounds to the bird photography, some of the larger pine and sycamore trees have hundreds of acorn woodpecker holes drilled in them.

Late in the afternoon we made the short run to Monterey, maybe about 70 miles away or so.  The clouds started to close in and there was a light drizzle that night.  The storm was a few hundred miles off-shore but it was the source of energy driving the unusually high waves against the Big Sur coastline area, as well as regular bands of rain.  In the morning we traveled down towards Big Sur and a few miles beyond, to a point just north of the Point Sur Lighthouse, to photograph large rollers as the crashed ashore.  It was an amazing spectacle.

Waves coming ashore just north of the Point Sur Lighthouse

Every set of waves had its own unique curl and dynamics as the waves crashed ashore.  The off-shore breeze kept the foam and spray behind the curl, making the photography much easier.

Crashing waves north of the Point Sur Lighthouse

These waves were pretty far away and we used our long telephoto lenses to get reasonably close to them.  Typically, my exposure for these waves was around f4 to f8, with shutter speeds ranging from 1/350 down to 1/150 second at ISO 400.  The dark sky required the higher ISO settings and due to the distance, depth-of-field wasn’t a real issue.

More waves north of the Point Sur Lighthouse

After the waves we moved up and down the coast, traveling some of the local dirt roads back into the Los Padres National Forest looking for landscapes and wildlife.  Much of the ground surrounding the LPNF is privately owned and fenced, making photography of scenic areas very difficult.  But on the old coast road we found some waterfall landscapes.

Los Padres National Forest waterfall and ferns

The wind was blowing in these tight canyons and on the hillsides and there were times when the rain ended our shooting opportunities.  Sometimes we never left the car.  During one hard rainfall we drove up on a beautiful red-shouldered hawk enduring the rain on a power line right above a flock of wild turkeys.

Red-shouldered Hawk

They didn’t seem to mind the rain as much as we did.  The next day we again headed south from Monterey and wound up on the Saberanes cliff and beach south of Monterey but north of Big Sur.  The gray sky was a good balance for the gray-green waves that pounded against the stacks of rock just off-shore.

The shoreline here was very rocky with almost no sand at all, just nicely round gray granite rocks covering the entire beach.  We climbed down to the beach and set up to shoot north up the shoreline.  Initially, I was more intrigued by the rocky beach rather than by the crashing waves farther up the coastline.  There was a nice waterfall leading down through the cliffs, emptying out onto the beach we were on.  We shot these more obvious subjects before I started shooting the waves hitting the rocks.  I bracketed the first exposures, figured the best setting, and then set my camera on manual, not wanting my exposures to be changed by the exploding water, going from dark gray-green to white almost instantly.  I normally wouldn’t have gone to manual, but I wasn’t going to change the composition much so a manual setting was fine.

The Soberanes Beach and sea stacks.

As I shot the wider shots I began to notice the pattern of spray on the small rocks closer to the shoreline.  Its interesting that the longer we stayed to shoot the beach the more subjects just seemed to appear.  Maybe our vision was just getting better.

Crashing Wave Spray

Past Big Sur we drove the Pfeiffer Beach road and photographed the rainforest effect of the forest and ferns.  The beach road itself was blocked by fallen trees, so we spent our time working the areas along the road.

Rainforest effect of trees and ferns

As we moved south down the coast we also spent a lot time at McWay Falls, not shooting the falls (really a sunset shoot), but shooting the creek and its waterfalls that led down the hillside from the picnic area to the large waterfall above the beach.  Under these coastal redwoods the reddish/brown bark and limb branches made for a bright red foreground around the waterfalls.

McWay Creek and waterfall

The trails along the creek made for great compositional elements.  Water was really the subject of this photo safari.  There were waterfalls, crashing waves, rain, swollen creeks – all great subjects for photography.

We finished the last day down near San Simeon.  The coastline was just crowded with raptors of one species or another.  We tried shooting them from the vehicles but that is always a tough chore.  At the elephant seal overlook at Piedras Blancas I had more luck photographing the shore birds moving along the beaches.  They were my final subjects of this great safari.  December 17-18 is Big Sur Safari #2 … sign up and come along.

Curlews babysitting Sanderlings at Piedras Blancas

2011 Yosemite Fall Safari

As usual we all met in Oakhurst and came into the park from the south entrance.  We shot the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias first before moving on to Alder Creek.  So many small to medium waterfalls!  When I had photographed this creek on the Yosemite Waterfalls safari back in May the river was running so high that the delicate small waterfalls were submerged.

Alder Creek

After a good water year Alder Creek was running higher than normal, though perfect for photographing waterfalls.  Both just off the road (at the bottom of the creek) and farther up the trail to the higher waterfalls (about 100 yards) yielded many to choose from.  Using a polarizer was essential to capturing the waterfalls without glare from the reflective surfaces, such as the creek and wet rocks.  Many of my exposures were over a second long, so a tripod was essential as well.  Low ISO settings, use of the self-timer, and bracketing images for each set-up guaranteed me a good image.  I have always found the smooth curves, eddies, and small trickle waterfalls of these types of scenes to be very photogenic.

In processing these images I noticed that blue/cyan starts to creep in to the darker areas of the image, so I used the Hue/Saturation dialog box (Ctrl + U) to reduce them.  In images where complete sharpness is required, not only do you want to use the Hyperfocal distance in your focusing location to insure the greatest amount of depth-of-field (dof), but applying some additional contrast through sharpening helps as well.  This can be done by going to Smart Sharpen and use setting like: 30% Amount, 10 Radius, and 0 Threshold.

Alder Creek

After Alder Creek we traveled into Yosemite Valley to photograph the Merced River and the color along its banks.  With most of the valley still in the morning shade, the river had nice even lighting without any direct sun hotspots.  Today was really a day for waterfalls, autumn colors, rivers, and leaves.  I don’t think I shot a single “big” landscape image.  I was totally captivated by the water and colors.

Color along the Merced River in Yosemite Valley

This image is similar to an image I shot last year at this same set of waterfalls.  The main autumn colors here are yellow, with only a little red and some orange leaves in the valley.  Everywhere we went the ground cover color was also very strong.

Our day had clear skies and bright sun, warming up to about 70 degrees on the valley floor.  A week later the valley received its first coat of snow.  Every trip to Yosemite is different:  some years its all about the big images, or shooting in the Tioga Pass area and Tenaya Lake, or the big waterfalls in spring, but this fall was all about the small landscapes, nearly macro-type images that showed nature’s designs.

Autumn Maple leaves in Yosemite Valley.

Our last destination was Fern Springs.  This very small spring, maybe 10-12 feet in circumference, is surrounded by moss covered rocks and vegetation.  Overhanging trees drop leaves into the spring which accumulate along the edges, or flow over a small series of waterfalls that drain it.  Every angle provides amazing images, and we shot with a number of other photographers, taking turns at each spot.

Fern Springs

Wow.  That’s all I can say.  Everyone on the safari shot similar images, and had opportunities to shoot their own specific compositions.  It’s dark under all the trees and long exposures create (due to polarizing filters as well) gorgeous frothy streams of water as they cross over the foot tall waterfalls.

We finished the safari shooting the Wawona covered bridge.  We began the day in pre-dawn light and ended the day in post-sunset light, and I think we were all pretty tired, at least I was.  But the images speak volumes of the beauty of Yosemite.  This safari turned out to be a macro landscape shoot, the big landscapes will have to wait for another day.  That day is Monday, January 9th, 2012 for the winter Yosemite safari.  I hope to see you then.

2011 Yellowstone Fall Safari

It was a month ago, so winter is close to setting in now, but this past Yellowstone safari was an incredible success.  The safari officially started on Sep 29, but I arrived on Monday, Sep 26 with Dave Collins and Bill Singleton for a few extra days of shooting.  The weather was beautiful, too nice as a matter of fact for great animal activity, but, as usual, we worked hard at finding animals and got lucky.

We made it from California to Alpine, Wyoming on Sunday, September 25th – a drive of about a thousand miles.  The next morning we worked the Moulton Barn on Mormon Row in the Jackson Hole Valley.  Some rain fell, as shown in this image (below), and the sunrise color only lasted for a few minutes.  By the time we hit Yellowstone’s south gate the weather had cleared.

Moulton Barn on Mormon Row in the Jackson Hole Valley

The colors in Yellowstone were awesome, with the cottonwoods in Lamar Valley really putting on a show.  We went from wildlife, to landscapes, back to wildlife as we traveled throughout the park.  Cold in the mornings, the weather warmed to comfortable (for us) temps during the day.  This was not a safari where we hit a lot of bears.  While I’ve shot them many times in the fall, spring is really the best time for bears, when they are the most active with cubs and moving more.  Our trips over Dunraven Pass turned up a single black bear working the white bark pines for nuts, but that was it.  Instead we hit the jackpot for red foxes and bull elk.

Leaping Red Fox mousing in meadow.

He was a great jumper, and we all waited for the moment.

The red fox that we spent the most time with (we saw two others) was at the Yellowstone River picnic site just over the bridge, about a mile northeast of Roosevelt Junction going towards Lamar Valley.  Like a precision timepiece, the fox showed up around 8:30am each morning, hunted briskly for about an hour, then vanished.  He was an excellent hunter, catching about 7-8 voles or gophers during each visit.

There were lots of photographers working this fox.  Most folks had smaller lenses and appeared to be excited tourists.  This kind of close encounter was probably thrilling for them and the (unless they got a grizzly close-up) highlight of the trip.  But others weren’t excited about this unique experience.  There were probably 20-25 people shooting the fox each morning we were there.  After posting some images online to a major Yellowstone reports site, there was quite a flare up over the ethics of shooting this fox at close range.  To not shoot the fox would have been ridiculous, why else are all these people in Yellowstone?  The fox wasn’t begging food from humans, he was hunting in an area in which he was very successful with natural prey.  I was amused by some who stated that the group of photographers (photographers and tourists) ruined the experience for them … which only begs the question that if they had arrived first, they would have been shooting the fox themselves when we arrived.

The reality is the fox could have ditched the photographers in seconds.  Instead, he ignored the humans, like he would have ignored a herd of bison, and continued his hunt.  He moved around the meadows quickly, not giving some folks time to get out of his way as he trotted by, moving through all of us quickly, irregardless of keeping a respectful distance from him.  Shooting a 500mm lens requires distance, and I was constantly moving back and forth trying to keep him well framed in his environment, like I would do with any wild animal.  If the fox is habituated to people, is he also habituated to the bison? or to cars? or to traveling on roads in winter?  I am not a believer in the commonly held idea (by some) that humans are interlopers in nature.

Cow Elk crossing the Madison River in sunrise mist.

Between the great landscapes and amazing red fox, the elk were putting on their annual show during the rut.  The two prime locations were in the Madison River Valley between West Yellowstone and Madison Junction in the mornings, and at the south end of Swan Flats, just south of Mammoth Hot Springs about 5 or 6 miles, in the afternoons.

A 6x7 Bull Elk crossing the Madison in sunrise mist.

There is just something amazing about the sound of a bugling bull elk.  It’s kind of a whistle, mingled with a grunt, and belted out with a primordial aggression that sends the hair up on the back on my neck.

Bull elk and cows in Swan Flats.

These morning and late afternoon elk encounters were opportunities for me to test out the high ISO abilities of my new Nikon D3s camera body.  This image (at right) was shot at ISO 3200 in near darkness.  The tight grain pattern and careful image processing resulted in images that look normal, shot in normal light without any of the harsh effects of low light and high ISO settings.  All I can say is wow!

We worked our landscape photography skills during times when we weren’t on a good wildlife subjects.  The colors got better as the week went along, particularly those cottonwoods in Lamar Valley.

Cottonwoods in Lamar Valley.

Bald Eagle

We had opportunities to shoot other animals and birds, such as bald eagles and osprey.  Coyotes made themselves a good subject near Dunraven Pass, while eagles and osprey were along the rivers.

On Sunday we drove down to shoot sunrise at the Oxbow on the Snake River.  Fires in the valley had smoked up the area, though the Oxbow was clear of smoke at sunrise.  Clouds began to pile up and storms were on the way.

There were a great number of photographers in Grand Teton National Park that day.  I would estimate that just at the Oxbow there were at least 120 folks shooting up and down the river and on the side hills.

Moments after sunrise at the Oxbow of the Snake River.

Finally, as we drove south towards Jackson we came across the horses of the nearby dude ranches in a pasture with the towering Tetons in the background, covered with storm clouds.  It made a great subject and provided many memorable images for all of us.

Horses in pasture with Tetons in the background.

2011 Southern Utah Fall

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a new blog.  This summer, starting in Yellowstone in June, has just been off the charts in the number of safaris, shoots, and seminars I’ve been doing.  Family obligations and trips, as well as many personal shoots, have cut into my time and my ability to stay current … but I’m going to try to keep up.

My regular autumn southern Utah safari was Nov 4-6, just this past week.  Wow.  I got to Springdale on Thursday afternoon, the day before the safari, and on my initial run through Zion Canyon I ran across a Gray Fox.  Now, I’ve been shooting in Zion since 1985 – 26 years – and this is the first Gray Fox I’ve had an opportunity to see or photograph.  They are almost, almost, strictly nocturnal – so finding one in daylight, even poor light late in the afternoon, was rare.

My new Nikon D3s, that I started shooting a couple of months ago really paid off as I was able to shoot at ISO 3200, and with careful processing, capture a number of good images of the fox working the area around the Grotto, which is about 3/4 mile past Zion Lodge.

Gray Fox in Zion Canyon

For about an hour we had a cat and mouse game of hide-and-seek.  The gray fox would lose me, I would circle, and eventually find him again.  Four times he lost me and four times I found him.  We began in the meadow opposite the parking lot for the Grotto and ended with him on a rock ledge about ten feet up the canyon wall, curled up sleeping with his tail over his face.  He gave me four or five good encounters where he would stop moving and just watch me.

Hunting through the meadow.

I’ve photographed hundreds of red fox, and seen many kit foxes in the southern Utah and southern California deserts, but never a gray fox.  He was skilled at climbing logs of the fallen Fremont Cottonwood trees and the cliff face were he ended up.  It was a great encounter for me.  The next day I had another first when I saw a raccoon in Zion Canyon.  I’ve seen Ring-tailed cats before, but never a raccoon.

Gray Fox taking a break in Zion Canyon

The next day we began the safari by shooting sunrise images at the Towers of the Virgin viewpoint behind the old Visitor’s Center.  With the canyon still pretty dark we headed up to the top of Zion above the tunnels – which I call the “roof”.  A mile past the second, smaller tunnel we came upon a small herd of desert bighorn ewes in the company of a very large full-curl ram.  They were very close to the road and posed for us on the rocks many times.  As with the fox, I shot some hd video of the sheep as well.  I’m hoping to put together some footage from these encounters and create an interesting video.

Desert Bighorn Ram headshot

We captured as much of the sheep and their inter-actions as possible, then moved back to Zion Canyon to shoot some of the color.  We saw sheep a number of other times on other days, but didn’t run across any other rams to photograph.  They were all located in the same general area from the park’s east entrance to the smaller tunnel.  The rut was just beginning for the both the mule deer and the bighorn sheep, and should run through early December.

After returning to Zion Canyon we began to photograph the Maples, Gambel’s Oak, Fremont Cottonwoods, and Velvet Ash that were in their fall colors.  The maples with their bright red leaves always catch my attention first, but the others in yellow are photogenic as well.  You hardly know where to start.

Autumn Maple leaves in Zion Canyon

We spent each morning shooting up on the roof first, where the light was better, then we shot in late mornings and afternoons in the canyon.  Each day the colors got better, more vibrant, and more trees in full color.  I figured Nov 7-8 would be peak colors for the maples, maybe a couple of days later for the cottonwoods.  Last year the safari fell over those days and Nov 7th was peak color day last year.

The Pulpit and autumn colors.

On Saturday morning we headed over to Bryce Canyon National Park to photograph the morning light in Queen’s Garden.  Snow had fallen the night before and many of the park roads were closed, limiting our travels … but still the snow added an amazing counterpoint of color and brightness to the images.

Morning light on rock formations in the Queen's Garden.

While we worked the canyon we encountered many mule deer bucks.  On our first day in we saw a dozen bucks and maybe 35-40 does and yearlings.  After hiking the side walls of the canyon for color we spent some time Saturday afternoon shooting the muley bucks we encountered.  The largest buck we saw, a massive 4×4 34-36 inch rack (determined by how far the antlers are outside the ears of the deer, which are generally 22″ wide from ear to ear when alert) was in the ranger housing area, where when we stopped to photograph another large buck – we were promptly asked to leave.  Some things never change.

A nice 3x4 mule deer buck in Zion Canyon.

So in the late afternoons the mule deer were very active, and of course, I continued to look for the Gray Fox hoping for another encounter.  The canyon, but also the campgrounds near the park’s entrance, have been traditional mule deer breeding grounds over the past quarter century that I’ve photographed the park.  The largest bucks I’ve photographed have been in the 5 and 6 point class, mostly in the 30″ width range in Zion.  This year the rutting activity seems to have started fairly early.  I thought the deer looked very healthy and sleek.

One animal that I’m used to shooting there are the wild turkeys.  This year we only saw a handful, so maybe the foxes or coyotes are making in-roads in reducing their population somewhat.  On Sunday storm clouds began to move in and thicken up, darkening the park considerably.  If you have time, the park should still have good color and lots of wildlife opportunities for another ten days, then the color will fall to the ground.

The Mittens – Shooting and Processing for Effect

Photoshop is a remarkable program.  It allows us mere mortals to recreate the images we actually envision in the field.  My last post was about my photo safari to southern Utah, and shows a number of images.  One that has drawn a lot of comments and e-mail is the silhouetted sunrise image of the West and East Mittens, rock formations in the middle of Monument Valley.  Like all photographs, the elements of how the image was taken is a mix of natural occurring events and man-selected options.

The naturally occurring events include the passing storm clouds and the amazing gap in the distant clouds that allowed the suns rays to burst through.  The graphic scale and design of the mittens, the low light of sunrise, and the wind that drove the dust into the atmosphere to create those sun rays.  Of those, only the time of the image – at sunrise – was within my control, and more fluke than plan.  It was a hundred and thirty miles from our hotel in Page, Arizona to Monument Valley that morning.  The remnants of the evening storm were still active as we headed out about 4:30am into a blustery wind and driving rain.

This first image is a representation of the mittens when we stopped on the switchbacks that led into the valley.  The flat light on the monoliths and the contrasty sky were a problem.  The second I saw this scene I knew that a  decision had to be made about where the power and energy in the image was, and make exposure control choices accordingly.

The image of the East and West Mittens as I first saw them.

Everyone knows that there are three rock monoliths here, Merrick Butte is cropped out via the composition, not through image cropping.  My first decision was not to back off the composition and include all three buttes.  The wider angle view would have pushed these two buttes farther back in the image, reducing their impact.  That would also have reduced the impact of the sun rays flashing through the clouds.  In my mind this was where the energy was in the scene before me.  I stayed with the 24-120mm lens instead of moving to the wider 12-24mm lens and framed the image as shown above.

Second, I knew the image would be stronger if the foreground was silhouetted.  When I look at a semi-silhouetted scene I tend to look into it to see if I can identify elements of the foreground – something I don’t want a viewer of my image to do.  With the horizon separating nearly equal parts of the image, which I knew would probably burn my sunrise clouds – I set the camera to shoot a 5 shot bracket spaced a half stop apart, with the exposure compensation set to -1 eV to center the bracket around.  You might ask why a 5 stop bracket, why not 3, or even a 3 shot bracket spaced 1 stop apart.  My answer is that I don’t know if I will ever see this scene here again and I’m not going to take any chances.  I want the closest to perfect exposure for the image I imagine, and a half stop can make a difference.  The final image I used (below) was the -1 image, so my initial guess for the center of the bracketed images was correct.

This image was taken as a raw file then converted in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and processed in CS5.  The ACR converter is the same across Adobe’s image editing programs, such as Elements 9 and Lightroom 3.  I don’t process for color or sharpness in ACR, just exposure.  So I tweaked the middle six sliders: Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, and Contrast.  As you could imagine I didn’t mind large areas of the foreground and mittens going to black.  That was how I envisioned the image.  Once I had the exposure tweaking done, I opened the image in CS5.

I sharpened the image some (30% in smart sharpen) then carefully selected the darker areas I wanted to silhouette.  On a separate layer I darkened those areas a little more using the Levels control, then I inversed my selection to work on the sky.  I sharpened the sky more in order to define the rays of light, used the contrast tool to add contrast to the sky, then applied a Sepia Photo Filter twice to the sky to bring back the sunrise color I remembered.  You can see the results below.

After processing the raw file in ACR, then in CS5.

While not a perfect image, the composition allows for both a panoramic or traditional image dimension for printing.  The bursting through effect of the suns rays is enhanced by the higher contrast sky and the photo filter.  Finally, I created another layer and ran Imagenomic’s Noiseware Pro over the image to reduce the noise in the underexposed areas of the clouds.  There is no noise in the silhouetted areas to worry about.  I added a black mask to that layer, then painted in the noise reduction in the sky, except where the suns rays are so well defined between the mittens.

When I pulled my vehicle to a stop, jumped out and set up my tripod, and began to compose and shoot – this is the image I had envisioned.