Liquid Amber

Fallen Liquid Amber Leaf

Death can be a beautiful thing.

Most of the leaves had fallen from the liquid amber trees at Glendora Centennial Heritage Park. The week before I looked over the chain link fence and noticed that the foliage was at peak color. I longed for an opportunity to photograph it but the park wasn't open that weekend. This is what it looked like the following week.

South Fork Bishop Creek Canyon

South Fork Bishop Creek Canyon Fall Color, Inyo National Forest, California

After the sunrise shoot at the Owens River I went to breakfast before heading up Bishop Creek Canyon again to check out the fall color along the road to South Lake. On my previous visit in 2005, the South Fork had the best foliage out of the places I visited (Rock Creek Canyon, McGee Creek Canyon, Middle and South Fork Bishop Creek), so I was hopeful of something interesting at least. I heard that the foliage wasn't peaking yet but figured it was worth a visit since I knew that South Fork has amazing displays of aspen tree "waterfalls" seemingly flowing down the mountainsides.

North Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon

North Lake Sunset, Eastern Sierra, California

If photographing the Middle Fork of Bishop Creek was peaceful, North Lake was an entirely different experience. At North Lake you could hear a pin drop from across the lake but that was the problem here. It is too popular for it's own good. You can hear fishermen from across the lake, figures that are just little dots in the viewfinder, and worse, the shoreline attracts some obnoxious photographers apparently.

I had my gear balanced on top of this rock for about 15 minutes or so shooting photos when another photographer (retired hobbyist) who kept trying to chat with me and this other photographer, asked me if I had gotten my shot yet. To paraphrase, I was like I'm not here for just one shot. So he has the nerve to ask if I could move out of his way so he could use his "ultra wide angle" lens. And this guy was standing on the rock about five feet to my right! His view was basically the same as mine. Though I was a bit ticked off at his request, I decided to be nice and moved. Well the other guy (F/T pro) claimed that I was in his way now never mind the fact that he was standing about ten feet BEHIND us. No kidding dude, I was already "in his way" before that probably. Who knows, maybe he was trying to photograph my butt, you never know. So I moved again.

In hindsight, I should have responded to the hobbyist that he should use a different lens then if it is too wide to use effectively. I tried to be accomodating to them and yet I got no respect in return. The pro ended up taking my original spot once the other guy got his shot and never left that spot until after dark. From that point on, I didn't really say anything to either one besides a few short responses to their questions. From what little info I knew of the pro, (a bit of an arrogant one at that) I looked up on the internet and found out who he is. He teaches workshops so I was a bit surprised that he was such a jerk. I guess if you aren't a paying customer then he reserves the right to disrespect you.

All the other photographers I have shot with in the past have been respectful of each other's personal space but these two certainly didn't have that. If someone is in the spot that I want, I would never ask them to move, I'd find a different spot or come back at a different time. All I know is that if I encounter the same situation again, I won't be as nice the 2nd time around.

Middle Fork, Bishop Creek

Yellow Aspen Fall Foliage Along Bishop Creek, Inyo National Forest, California

The nice part about photographing during the weekday is that there are less photographers and tourists getting in your way. There were mainly fishermen up here on Tuesday afternoon. The foliage on Tuesday appeared to be at peak because there was very little green in this area and it never quite looked as fresh the rest of the week. Part of it might be due to the fact that it was raining while I was taking these photos. Rain can make foliage look very vibrant.

Fall Color, Eastern Sierra

Aspen Trees Fall Color in Bishop Creek Canyon, Inyo National Forest, California

I just got back from spending the week in the Eastern Sierra. Bishop Creek Canyon was awesome, and the only place with good foliage as conditions were at peak. The fall color was way better on this trip than my previous trip three years ago. This photo was made during my first day there. It doesn't look as impressive in the blog but the real file is really nice.

I should have enough images to post on this blog for a while. I'm probably going to be backlogged for a while on the digital imaging and I also have a large batch of images at my stock photo agency that need to be keyworded as well. Hopefully once I'm done catching up I will have a brand new 5D Mark II to play with!

Scarecrow Park

Photo: Halloween Decorations in Scarecrow Park, Old Sacramento, California

My favorite part of Halloween while growing up was Trick or Treating an entire pumpkin full of candy from around the neighborhood. It doesn't seem like parents take their kids out as much these days which is unfortunate. If I ever have kids, then they will be raised the right way and be out there on Halloween enjoying the same tradition that I enjoyed and many others did as kids. Well I guess unless cavities start developing... I only had one cavity while growing up so that was not really an issue for me.

This photo was taken last Saturday in Old Sacramento. They have decorated the district including this entire alley with various fall decorations this month so that was cool to see something new during my recent visit. I don't know if this had anything to do with the Fall Festival but later that night there was a Zombie Walk. A number of people were dressed up as ghouls and acting the part while taking pictures with tourists.

One thing for sure is that Sacramento is a vastly underrated travel destination. People always talk about traveling to San Francisco or L.A., but Sacramento has just as good of tourism sights as either of those cities if not better. Of course you wouldn't want to go to Sacramento from June through September though. It's way too hot in the Central Valley. Unfortunately the Gold Rush Days and California State Fair take place in August / September, and are arguably the two most interesting annual events in the area.

Victorian Fall in the Gold Country

Photo: Historic Firehouse Number 1 in Fall Season, Nevada City, California

I think I have a new favorite place in California. The weather is so perfect in Nevada City during the fall season. The cool crisp feeling of 30 degree mornings with daytime temperatures in the high 60's - low 70's.

One of my goals the past couple years is to get some images with colorful fall foliage in scenes with a white picket fence. I certainly got those images on this trip but seeing the victorian-styled Historic Firehouse No. 1 stopped me in my tracks. I was looking for a place to stop and clean off my hazy windshield early Sunday morning when I saw this beautiful building so I abruptly parked the car and shot some photos before cleaning the windshield.

The firehouse building was home to Nevada City's fire department from 1861 to 1938. It has served as the Nevada County Historical Society Museum since 1947 when it was donated by the city council. The museum was closed for the season so I would definetely like to see the museum in the future.

This image would have been a perfect candidate for an HDR exposure since the top was slightly blown out but I don't really mind it this way either since the building is supposed to be white after all. Nevada City is such a beautiful place. You wouldn't realize it by visiting in the fall but it also gets very hot here during the summer.

I spent all day yesterday processing pictures from the Empire Mine but now I am getting to my Nevada City pictures. I plan to add a new web gallery once I'm done processing this next batch of images.

Empire Mine State Historic Park

Bourn Cottage, Empire Mine State Historic Park, Grass Valley, California

This weekend I did a quick fall season road trip to the Sierra Nevada Foothills which is best known as the Mother Lode or California Gold Country. My previous two trips to Gold Country were for whitewater rafting on the American River and the other was cut short due to a wildfire so this weekend represented my first serious attempt at photographing the Highway 49 region. It was a blast to photograph and I can't believe that I have waited this long to make the trip.

Empire Mine SHP was one of the most interesting places I've been to. (I love the name too!) The Empire Mine, which operated from 1850 to 1956 was the biggest gold mining operation in California. Most of the buildings had machinery in there and you can actually walk into the mine shaft. That was awesome. I think that is the first time I have ever been inside of a mine. The park is in the process of developing a mine shaft ride tour which promises to be an experience like no other.

I spent about three hours wandering around shooting photos on the property. The landscaping was so beautiful around the cottages and contrasted with the industrial mining area what more could you ask for? Oh and a lot of the trees were a blazing yellow and red. I certainly wouldn't mind living here either. :-)

This panoramic photo was a four image stitch.

New Panoramic Photos

With the continuing advancement of digital photography over the past several years, many new techniques are at the disposal of photographers, as well as the opportunity to improve upon one's vision. With an awesome panoramic stitching program called AutoPano, I was able to stitch together this image with seven images. Initially I shot 11 images for this because it's better to have too much to work from than not enough, but seven ended up being sufficient for what I wanted.



To make this panoramic all I did was make sure I had enough overlapping parts of each frame in order for the software to stitch them together. A tripod is absolutely necessary, though I wouldn't be surprised if the software miraculously were able to stitch together handheld images as well on occasion.

I took this photo on Monday at Clifty Falls State Park, in Madison, Indiana, in order to take advantage of the overcast conditions, which the leaves often look their most vibrant in pictures with the use of a circular polarizer. The reason why this is, is because during sunny days there are harsh shadows and blown highlights, which only serves to detract from the wonderful color displays of fall foliage.

10/23/06 - 37 Degrees, Overcast, Windy, Leaves Falling Fast.

To visit my new gallery of panoramic pictures, click this link.

For the AutoPano Stitching Software, click this link.

Fall is Alive and Well in Kentucky

I took this shot today (10/20/06) at the Bernheim Forest in Clermont, Kentucky. According to the Kentucky Department of Tourism website, this is about 30% of peak fall colors. I can't wait to see what 100% looks like in that case!

My 27th birthday is this coming Thursday, October 26th so maybe I'll be lucky.

The Best Colors in the West

With all apologies to John Muir, the best colors in the West lie in Canyon Country. This past weekend (11/12 - 11/13/05) in Zion National Park and in the surrounding area I witnessed the most amazing display of fall foliage I’ve seen in my life. The Eastern Sierra is bigger and has more trees, but as for variety of color and sheer beauty it doesn’t come close to Zion’s fall season. Throw in the red rock walls and we’ve got the Garden of Eden. The Mormons were a smart bunch for sure…

At this time of year, the Zion Canyon seems to be in mostly shade which is perfect light for shooting foliage. The light allowed me to try my best Elliott Porter impersonation as my images would attest.

Fall Foliage Reports 10-10-05

I'm a week late, but at least this should make for good historical record.

Last week I went to the Eastern Sierra to photograph fall foliage. Leaf peeping has grown in popularity in recent years due to several websites such as www.calphoto.com which provides up-to-date fall foliage reports. I used that website to time my visit which was quite productive despite the heavy wind.

Bishop Creek Canyon 10-2-05: By far the best colors and most dense aspen groves I saw on the trip. The colors probably are fading if not gone by now due to the wind and cold conditions. There was mostly yellow with orange in places when I was there.



Rock Creek Canyon 10-1-05: The colors were peaking when I was there with mostly orange and yellow with some red near Rock Creek Lake.



McGee Creek Canyon 10-2 & 10-3-05: Disappointing. The canyon was in deep shadow during both sunrise and sunset magic hour. The creek isn’t all that accessible compared to Bishop Creek. Plus Bishop Creek has a lot more trees. The road is only partially paved.



Places on my fall foliage wish list: Nevada City- big leaf maples and liquidambars in a quaint New England-like gold mining town.

Grass Valley- Same as above, neighboring city.

Hope Valley- I heard that this is the place to go for fall foliage in the Sierra.

Lake Tahoe- Can you believe that I still have never been there before?

Volcano- Last year I saw a glimpse of what could be and I loved it!

"Shooting in Fire", Amador County 10/15/04

For two months I’d been anticipating shooting Fall foliage but I wasn’t quite sure where I would get my shots. Last year I’d found nice colors in Marin County so I called the San Geronimo Valley Cultural Center in September to inquire about Fall foliage. The leaves hadn’t turned colors yet, so the lady suggested I try Nevada City, which is up in the Sierra foothills.

I’d been to Nevada City before, but wasn’t aware that the Gold Country was a fall color hotspot rivaling New England. So I called the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce weekly over the course of a month and a half about local conditions. Each time the lady told me that the maples hadn’t turned yet because the temperatures were still too high.

At the same time, my friend Marc kept talking about wanting to make a trip to the Eastern Sierra for a photo workshop. I didn’t have time in my schedule nor the money to make such a trip so I told him about Nevada City. He mentioned that he was planning on spending a weekend at his in-laws cabin at Amador Station to get his mind off his job search struggles. We made plans to carpool to Nevada City then over to the cabin, but by the end of the week I still hadn’t received good word about the foliage yet so we just decided to go to the cabin instead and spend the weekend on Highway 88 photographing foliage at Hope Valley.

I drove to his place early in the morning then we took his car out to the cabin. An hour and a half into drive, we discovered that there was a huge fire somewhere. We decided to press on not knowing the story behind it all the while driving through increasingly thick smoke. It was so thick that the sun was crimson red despite being high in the sky. It would remain that way for the rest of the day.



Though probably unhealthy, the smoky conditions made for incredible light to photograph in. It was as if a golden reflector and super-warming filter was illuminating everything in diffused lighting.

We finally arrived at the cabin. Marc went to turn on the water and power, while I was in the back taking advantage of the lighting to shoot the forest. Normally, I’d volunteer to help but the light was too good to pass up. After dropping our supplies off, we decided to head off to Hope Valley. Luck would have it that the road was closed five miles beyond the cabin. The fire was located near the Bear River. In addition to that fire, there was a fire going on just north at Kyburz which shut down I-50 which is the main road South Lake Tahoe. How did we find out? At a newspaper rack at the former gold mining town, Volcano.

We went to Volcano disappointed initially because the fire cut our trip short. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I had never been there, so Marc wanted to show me the town. We got there and found foliage turning colors everywhere. Leaves draped on the “downtown” brick buildings were red, and yellow was decorating the trees throughout the residential streets. All while the yellow haze was around us. If the leaves weren’t already colorful enough, the golden diffused lighting put the colors over the top. I’m sure anybody who sees my photos from the trip would accuse me of Photoshopping my colors to an extreme degree, but I assure you I actually had to desaturate the images slightly. The light was that crazy.



We spent about an hour and half wandering the streets enjoying the spectacle. The few townsfolk outside must have thought we were insane. One lady in the post office was standing outside while we walked past and was wondering why we were shooting in such bad conditions. Marc replied, “It’s a perfect day for photography.” That was a bit of a stretch but we did have unique shooting conditions that day for sure. The lady was dumbfounded and went back to her business.

After enjoying a great, fire-roasted burger at a local market/cafe, we went on to pick up our stuff at the cabin not knowing if it would still be there if we had come back later. Afterwards we drove on the backroads to Sutter Creek. The scenery was great. I’d love to come back in healthier conditions in the future and explore the area more by foot.

Sutter Creek is supposedly the most beautiful town in Gold Country. I’m not sure I agree with that, as I thought Columbia and Nevada City were just as nice if not prettier. We saw nice foliage there but nothing as photogenic as Volcano. So we headed to Jackson. We walked through Main Street and stumbled upon the Amador County Museum because I saw some nice foliage right next to it. We went inside and browsed the museum. Very nice collection of artifacts and history dating to the Gold Rush era. The elderly woman at the front was very helpful as I inquired about my Chinese heritage in the region. She scoured the archives she had there and presented me with some facts and names. She also gave me the card of the Amador County Archivist. I bought a little book entitled “The Chinese in Northern California” by Barbara Pricer. It turned out to be packed with more useful information than Ronald Takaki’s 800-page “Strangers from a Different Shore.”

After thanking the woman and browsing the museum, we headed back towards home since it was already late afternoon by then. We went home on a different route and the air was clear as we approached Livermore.