I recently went on a trip to Death Valley (again), and camped there for 3 nights. I ended up visiting the same location for 3 days, hoping that I’d get a nice sunset one of the times. It ended up happening the third day, but the problem is that I was set up facing the opposite side, where there was no color. I remember looking back before the sun had set and thinking, “hmm, maybe I should compose the other way, there might be good color in that area.”I decided to stick with my original composition and had faith the color would show in the area my camera was pointed to.
When the sun set, it turned out I was completely wrong and realized the sky was starting to turn pink behind me. It was too dark and late for me to recompose the other way, so I simply rotated my tripod head 180 degrees and shot 3 images. Below is the third one I took – I would’ve wished to add some rise and include more of the sky, less of the foreground, and find a more interesting composition for the foreground arrangement of cracks. Also would’ve liked if I didn’t run out of Velvia 50, right before this moment. Just gives me another reason to revisit this location in the future – though it does hurt to miss that opportunity after 2 days of waiting:
Shot on Velvia 100 – F22 @ 30 sec
This next location is an area I’ve been recently visiting on a weekly basis. I’ve never explored the north bay much, so I took a trip to Cataract Falls almost two weeks ago. It was right after a large storm had rolled through and soaked the bay area, and I was curious to see the conditions where the rain had hit the hardest. I started my hike pretty early – around 7am. The drive out there was pretty dark, and once I got onto the road nearing the trail, dense fog rolled through the trees and the road became almost completely covered with branches, mud, leaves, and rocks from small rock and mudslides. When I started my hike, I was the only person out there at the time, and it was nice to breathe in the fresh cool morning air with nobody in sight, and only the rushing of recently fallen rain to listen to, flowing across the trail, down nearby hills, and into cataract creek.
After a lot of uphill hiking, and about 3 miles in, I found this cluster of trees around 9:45am. It really caught my attention – the green moss and fungi covered trees, the fog blowing through the distant trees, the soft white light filtering through the forest. I took this shot and feel pretty happy about it. Most of the foreground has been cropped off, mainly because I felt it subtracted from the rest of the image.
Shot on Velvia 50 – F22 @ 20 sec
Next, I made my way back down the trail to a spot I passed earlier in the day. The moss here was impressively dense, and I took this shot, mainly drawn to the color and detail. I thought this area was beautiful.
Shot on Velvia 50 – F22 @ 1min
Its really impressive how many trails there are in this area, and how much area there is to cover. I’ve definitely only scratched the surface of the north bay, and I look forward to visiting new locations up there in the future. Just hope I don’t run into any mountain lions.
Thank You for reading and viewing my images! I hope everyone has a great holiday and break.
Justin Nambiar 