Looking back to the Whites as I leave to go home

Day Eight: Photo Excursion September 27, 2003
Day seven, the last morning after a long week and a Friday night campfire. Everyone said their goodbyes, exchanged email addresses, packed up cars and cleaned the camp. The drive down the mountains was sad and strange. Each mile closer to civilization and other cars and other people and traffic. Each mile down, a mile closer to home and work and the stresses of daily life. This week was awesome.

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Day Seven: Morning Crooked Creek road again

out crop of granite lit with the morning sun

Day Seven: Photo Excursion September 26, 2003
This morning was spent trying to not only capture a decent image compositionally, but also shooting with the large format camera (pictures still to be scanned) and practicing the tonal management process we had been taught. I am not sure I was quite successful as I transposed some numbers, but that's why I bracketed for safety.

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Day Six Morning: Crooked Creek Aspens

a trio of aspens

Day Six: Photo Excursion September 25, 2003
We had a long day today for shooting. Johanna and I headed back down to Crooked Creek to scout it out for some shooting. We drove all the way down to a grove of aspens and then down some more until we reached what seemed like never ending outcrops of granite boulders and then headed back. We shot for a long time in the aspens—which was tough shooting as the grove was up the side of a hill at a fairly steep angle. At the bottom was the actual crooked creek—some of the only water around—and I spent some time exploring some macro and motion images.

We headed back after exploring and deciding to come back in the morning when the light was better and plans to head up to Patriarch in the evening.

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Day Five: Photo Excursion September 24, 2003
Another day of classroom lecture and really no time to get out and shoot. We did class exercises and I spent time still getting used to the altitude. Captured a few rocks with lichen close to camp. Three shots gradually getting closer with the camera (not the zoom lens.)

I think I like the last one best—it's also the one where the lichen really pops out.

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Morning Sunrise: up at Sunrise Point above Patriarch Grove

Day Four: Photo Excursion September 23, 2003
On Tuesday morning, after a full day of classroom lecture on Monday, we got up at 5:30 am and trekked up the mountain to Patriarch Grove and Sunrise Point. Sunrise Point over looks the mountin range and faces the mountains in Nevada. The sun coming up over the mountains is not to be missed and was quite spectacular. I spent my time on this single tree, capturing the changing light as the sun came up, crested the easter mountains and lit up the bristlecone wood and the mountains to the west.

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desert landscaping in fall colors, outside Big Pine

Day Three: Photo Excursion, September 21, 2003
Day three - I don't have to be at the workshop until at least 1 pm so I get up, check out of the little motel ($36 night) and explore the rocky, desert landscape that I had scoped out the evening before. Once I got there and pulled off the side of the road, I had to drop down into the wash area—about 5 feet below the road surface. The plants are very thorny and I worked hard not to disturb the ground too much. The light was up a little higher than I had wanted but I needed the sleep the night before. The landscape is rugged and beautiful and the plants were beginning to sport their fall colors.

I shot for awhile and then began my ascent up the mountains into the Ancient Bristlecone Forest and into the sky.

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Church in Bodie

Day Two: Photo Excursion, September 20, 2003
Got up and left Mono Lake and Lee Vining. Since I had the whole day, I decided to drive up to Bodie. Bodie is north of Lee Vining and once you turn off the highway you then drive a few miles up a windy road that then goes gravel. The first test off pavement of this SUV I rented. Any car could have done this road and I got there a little before 11.

Bodie is a real ghost town, preserved in a state of arrested decay, as the brochure says. Pretty cool old buildings and junk. My favorite area was the graveyard.

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Yosemite fire

Day One: September 19, 2003
My ten day excursion is started with the rental of an SUV 4 wheel drive. This trip, I want to be able to go off paved roads and not worry about ripping up my car. I drive across the state, due east on 680 and eventually into Yosemite. There are notices that there are several controlled burns going on throughout the park and the sky is hazy with smoke. It smells wonderful up here - pine and smoke like girl scouts. I stop a couple of times and shoot half dome in the distance. The sky is hazy and it looks really far away. Around a final bend and the fires really show up through the trees. I am glad I am not in my convertible.

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Turned 40 on the 8th. Also got new 28mm and 15mm fish-eye lenses. Some pics from the family celebration on Friday night.

Sheila - Beatles projected in the background.