Night Photography in the Eastern Sierras

It is hard to pick a favorite place to be at night in the Sierras because there are so many great places. Lake Sabrina ranks very hight on my list for a number of reasons. One, its elevation is very high at just over 9,100 ft which helps with reducing the atmosphere between the camera and the stars. It is also a very scenic spot, both in the daytime and at night. In the middle of the drought the water level was very low which made a shot like this one impossible. But during wet years it is a joy to shoot. It is also very scenic in the daytime, especially first thing in the morning. And finally, it is easy to get to being just 18 miles on highway 168 out of Bishop.

Another easily accessible night location is Tioga Lake located along highway 120 just past the top of Tioga Pass when heading west. The only problem with this location are the cars that keep coming on the highway to the left of this scene. A little patience and you will get some nice shots between cars.

Not quite as available as the previous two sites, the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is located in the White Mountains, east of Bishop. Take highway 395 South to Big Pine, then highway 168 to White Mountain Road which will take you to the Schulman Grove and visitor center. Trail lead out of the parking lot. The Bristlecone in the image above is in the Schulman Grove and is often cited as Methuselah, the second oldest tree in the world at 4855 years old. I'm not convinced this is methuselah, but it is a gorgeous specimen of a Bristlecone. If you go here at night be prepared for company as it is a popular photography location.

Art Display At The Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

The Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, has a wonderful program that encourages artist members to display their work. The work is hung in the Social Hall and typically has about twenty pieces hanging for two months at a time. On March 1rst I will be hanging several images taken in Iceland, along with some wildlife images, including foxes, coyotes, eagles and kites. I will also have some paintings by my mother and two of my own. I am pretty excited about this showing. One of the pictures I will have in the show is of Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall in Iceland. When I first saw pictures of this waterfall I knew I wanted to go to Iceland to take pictures of it. This composition required gettin into some very cold water.

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The Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024

This last May, my wife, Jan, and I were on vacation in the San Juan Islands, WA. We were there for a week staying at the Trumpeter Inn, a B&B on San Juan Island. Mid way through our stay we heard there was to be a Northern Lights display and that we would likely be able to see it since we were at a latitude just north of Victoria, BC. The excitement was immediate. The conditions were just right as the sky was cloudless and the moon was in its crescent phase and would be low on the horizon (and therefore not overly bright) during the expected good viewing time between 10 pm and 2 am. The image above was taken that night and is what I was expecting to see, a green Aurora. Little did we know what was to come! Early on the was the first hint that something special was about to happen as color in addition to green began to show. I found this very exciting as I had seen green auroras before but never one with the purple/blue colors an...

Notes To My Mother

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