Notes To My Mother

  Whenever I think of the Eastern Sierras one of the first images that comes to mind is Mono Lake.  I've. known this lake since I was 4 years old and I can remember driving by it on highway 395 with the water very near the road.  It has lost a lot of water since then (1946-47) but it retains its beauty.  This image was taken in February when the Milky Way is low in the horizon in the early morning.  You may already know it is best to shoot the stars in the darkest hours and that would be after Astronomical Twilight ends at night and before it begins again in the morning.  It goes like this:  in the morning first there is Astronomical Twilight when the dimmest light begins(about 30 min), then Nautical Twilight (another 30 min) then Civil twilight followed by sunrise. The Golden Hour is just before and after sunrise.  This image was taken in the last moments of darkness just as Astronomical Twilight was beginning.  You can see the beginning of ...

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...

Last year my grandson, Levi Davis-Lundblad, and I went to Mt. Shasta to see if we could get some images of the Milky Way over the mountain. We stayed just north of Weed and went exploring. We were looking for good views of the mountain and instead found a wonderful sculpture garden dedicated to veterans of war. It is located about 11 miles north of Weed on highway 97. We switched gears and dedicated our limited time to shooting the sculptures at night with the stars as our backdrop. The sculpture above is titled "Why?" and represents the upper portion of the work. "Nurses Never Sleep" is dedicated to all of the nurses who have served during wartime. "The Flute Player"During times of war a flutist were used to communicate with the troops as the sound would carry much better than the human voice. To all veterans Photo by Levi Davis-Lundblad. I am planning to return to this area during the dark skies in June to see if I can capture that image of the Milky Way...

   Traveling from Sonoma County to the Eastern Sierras I will often stay overnight in Topaz Lake to break up the long drive and give myself a little more time to explore along the way.  Topaz is an unincorporated community located on highway 395 just south of the Carson Valley.  The California-Nevada border goes right through the middle of the lake. It is a quiet, mostly residential area with a couple of motels, a gas station and a casino.  Waking up before sunrise is a real treat as the community has not yet begun to stir and it is such a serene scene.   To the south of town there are a number of side roads to explore that run across the valley to the east, along with a road that runs on the east side of the valley, roughly parallel to 395 for a stretch.  The picture above is a morning shot from the east side of the valley. This is an image of the valley south of Topaz, looking north at sunset.  At about this time of day the coyotes begin ca...

                                           We were in Big Bend National Park setting up the lights to capture the foreground of a planned Milky Way shot.  I was with Andy Cook of Rocky Mountain Reflections, a top shelf workshop leader. Some of the group were at the car, some of us setting up, communicating over walki Talkis.  Then the call came telling us to come back to the car right away as there was a storm that was closing fast on our location.  We scrambled back looking off in the distance and saw lightning strikes as the storm approached. As the storm came closer the lightning continued and it appeared we were right in its path. It was totally beautiful and exciting.  Sometimes the lightning would completely light up our surroundings. One photographer snapped some daylight-like images as the flashes continued.  Several times the lightning was so br...

If you want to take pictures of the stars, the Milky Way in particular, you will be better off if you find a location with dark skies.  In Sonoma County there are no night skies that are truly dark.  It may look dark, but when shooting the Milky Way to the south, with a long exposure, the lights from the city will show at the horizon.  And, you will likely have airplane trails in most of your frames.  One place with truly dark skies is Big Bend National Park in Texas.  And not airplanes! I have been there a few times with Andy Cook of Rocky Mountain Reflections (great workshops by the way). This first image is of the old movie set located west of Lajitas along highway 170.                                       This view was taken not only a few yards away.  It was totally dark and I could not see the river with my naked eye, but the person I was with reassured me ...

Balance Rock & Orion Shooting at night opens up a completely different world to photograph. And it is loads of fun. But it requires some advance planning to make the experience fun and enjoyable. Here are some of the things I needed to take into consideration in order to get this image of Balance Rock and the constellation Orion in Arches National Park in November. Equipment You Will Need You will need a wide angle lens, the widest you have. For this shot I used a Rokinon 14mm fixed lens. This is a fairly inexpensive lens but it is very sharp and a good value for the price. I shot with a full frame camera on a tripod. You will need a tripod for sure. A cable release is nice to have but it is optional. Take your widest angle lens and your tripod. And warm clothes as you may be standing around for considerable amounts of time. Before You Go Out To Shoot How long to expose? There are some things you should know before you go. First, if you want sharp images of ...

At the end of this month I am returning to one of my favorite places, Arches and Canyon Lands National Parks. The last time I was there I hiked to Delicate Arch and while the walk is about a mile and a half and up hill most of the way, it is well worth the effort. It is difficult to capture how large this arch actually is without something included in the image to help give the viewer a perspective.  In the image above you can see a man and two children posing for a picture at he base of the arch. The North Window In another part of Arches there is a location called The Windows.  There is a North Window and a South Window.  The North window is often photographed in the morning light with a view of Turret Arch through the window.   This image was taken in the very early morning hours. It doesn't include Turret Arch but I love the feel of this image.  For me it conveys a sense of mystery and an expectation of things to come. If you e...

There is nothing quite like being with the night for several hours uninterrupted, alone and with no artificial light. When I was shooting stars at 11,000 feet in the White Mountains I stood looking up from sundown to around 3 am. It was exhilarating. At that altitude you see the stars with such clarity and there are so many of them! It is simply awesome. In fact, there were so many stars and they were so bright I could walk around in the dark without a flashlight. When the night got dark enough I turned on my camera and pointed it in the direction I had been gazing for the past hour or so. I set the camera to expose for about 30 seconds. In that amount of time the camera’s sensor picks up considerably more light from the stars than I can see with the naked eye. This is a picture taken looking toward the southern horizon where the center of the Milky Way can be found in the constellation Sagittarius. Look at the tremendous number of stars! These kinds of images are best c...

I am standing alone in the dark at 11,000 feet in the Patriarch Grove of Bristlecone Pines in the  White Mountains of California. One of the least light polluted places in the US. The sun has been down now for quite a while and I am thinking night is in full swing. The stars are out, getting bright and clear. The North Star is visible and all of the stars of the Big Dipper are coming into view. I turn on the camera and point it toward Polaris, the North Star. It is going to be a four minute exposure. The time passes slowly. Finally the red light goes off, and I see the captured image in the viewfinder on the back of my camera. Oh my, where did all that light come from? The stars are popping with brightness If you leave a camera on for a while it will pick up light you don’t notice with the naked eye. You may think it is dark, but the camera sees so much better than we do.  On this occasion it was absorbing all of the last remaining light as the sun s...