San Gabriel Mountains from Irvine

I actually missed the best opportunity for this photo last Tuesday when there was more snow on the mountains and the sky was impeccably clear. It had rained on the prior Friday, which is a very good thing for us in Southern California where we are in a drought, and snow had fallen on the San Gabriel mountains east of Los Angeles. I didn't think to take my camera with me we I rode my bike to work on Monday morning and as soon as I saw the view of the mountains my heart sank. On Tuesday it was cloudy and then on Wednesday I finally got this shot. It's not as good as it could have been on that Monday when there was more snow and the air was crystal clear, but this isn't too bad, I guess.

This view of the San Gabriel mountains is looking north across South Lake on Yale Loop. On winter mornings after rain has fallen and passed, the view can be pretty spectacular. This just gives you some idea of what it's like. Perhaps later in the winter I'll get another shot at it with lots more snow.

One plus in this photo, however, is that the liquidambar trees still have their leaves so that makes for a great contrast of primary colors in this photo. They are the trees with red leaves on the left side.

This is an HDR (high dynamic range) image composed of three exposures at f/20 with exposures of 1/125, 1/30, and 1/8 at ISO 100.

Lake Cachuma Early Morning

I'm pretty pleased with how this photo turned out. It almost looks like a tone-mapped HDR image, but it's not. I was able to uncover all these gold tones and the contrast in the clouds with Photoshop.

Here are other photos I took at Lake Cachuma.

The Narrows Gorge Zion National Park #1

I took this picture when I hiked The Narrows Gorge in Zion National Park. This was an awesome experience and the scenery was of course incredibly beautiful. The Narrows is known as a "slot gorge" because of it narrow width. This shot was taken at a point where the gorge is actually quite wide. At parts we had to hike through water that was up to our necks even though it was late summer. You have to be concerned about thunderstorms as they can cause the water level to rise fast. Keeping the camera out of the water was my main concern. The place where we rented out hiking gear had these cool hip bags for your camera that kept it dry.

If you ever do this or a similar hike, make sure you rent or buy the special boots that have grip on the slippery rock, and make sure you use a polel to help keep yourself upright, but expect to end up in the drink at least once nonetheless. Our entire party all fell into the water by the end of it. Take it as part of the experience, and the water's warm anyhow, at that time of the year at least.

Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/13
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Lake Cachuma California #1

This is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) photograph of Lake Cachuma in California. I really like the clouds; so much drama!

Across Lake Cachuma 2

Here's my second version of this photo taken across Lake Cachuma.


Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/11
Focal Length: 160 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Across Lake Cachuma

The light for this photo was very low and dull so I had to play with the image to give it a lift. Since there was a lot of noise in the photo, I decided to try and make it appear like an old-fashioned toned photo and also tried to make something of the darkness of the scene.

The photo is taken across Lake Cachuma, California, from the Lake Cachuma Recreational Reserve.


Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/11
Focal Length: 160 mm
ISO Speed: 200

San Jacinto Mountains from La Quinta with Moon

The La Qunita Resort is located in the low desert of the Cochealla Valley, California, about 20 miles south east of Palm Springs. The western side of the resort is framed by the San Jacinto mountains which are starkly bare. My stay there last week coincided with a full moon, and this photo was actually taken at around 7:20am not long after the sun had arisen and just before the moon set. The newly risen sun behind me cast a beautiful warm red glow over the mountains.

Canon EOS 20D
Canon 18-55mm lens at 33mm
1/80 secs at f/16
ISO 400