September 1, 2018. Marin County Headlands, California. Standing on old gun emplacements that go back to the Spanish-American War. Sun going down. Fog rolling in.
This one spent hours in post-processing. Not one pixel was left untouched. The perfect balance that I so clearly saw in my mind was eluding me in the file. But it came. It crept up on me very slowly.
(Canon G7X II. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
More Fine-Art Photography at www.amagaphoto.com
December 24, 2017. The Sea Ranch, Sonoma Coast, California. Christmas Eve. A few hours before the previous post’s photo. The storm was coming in. The sky was threatening but the water was still flat calm. It all had a silvery glow that only winter can bestow.
This is the essence.
(Nikon D750; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
More Fine-Art Photography at www.amagaphoto.com
December 24, 2017. The Sea Ranch, Sonoma Coast, California. Christmas Eve. It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, to get my tenses correct, it had been a dark and stormy night. Now it was clearing.
Outside it was gray-black. Then a glint of orange. Then black.
Inside it was toasty warm.
(Nikon D750; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
More Fine-Art Photography at www.amagaphoto.com
December 22, 2017. Sonoma County Coast, California. On our way to The Sea Ranch for Christmas. The Pacific was living up to its name. Pacific. Peaceful. Mirror flat. The sky was calm. The temperature was mild. All was right with the world. Waiting until the clouds lazily drifted into position, I clicked.
I wanted the dreamy look that Nature suggested. I just helped her along a bit. Then in creative rapture I hit a wrong key combination in Photoshop. Embracing the error, I offer it to you thus. Voilà.
(Nikon D750; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
More Fine-Art Photography at www.amagaphoto.com
May 8, 2015. Sutro Baths, San Francisco, California. My general plan in shooting Horizons is to have water and sky and nothing more. In this scene I wanted the texture and pattern of light on the water juxtaposed with the soft clouds. Period.
But without a crane I wasn’t going to get high enough to get the rock out of the frame and the light was changing rapidly and then this huge RORO (Roll On Roll Off automobile carrier) lumbered into the frame and by my mental calculus it was going to take approximately fifteen minutes short of forever to get out of the frame and by then the light would be gone forever. Bah!
Ahhhh, but Grasshopper, one must be open to all.
I had to admit that the relative scale of the ship and the rock and their relative positions made a mighty handsome image.
And I must further admit that I was a happy grasshopper.
(Nikon D750; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
January 24, 2016. Nepenthe, Big Sur Coast, California. We were celebrating my birthday with a day trip to Big Sur, and what trip to Big Sur is complete without an Ambrosia Burger at Nepenthe?
Satiated, I turned to see what my prospects were for a sunset shot. Laminated clouds? Check. Sea calm? Check. No fog bank? Check. Free of shipping traffic? No. There was a ship on the horizon, heading south at a good clip. Mental calculus brought me to the inescapable conclusion that it would ruin my shot. Damn.
I decided to shoot anyway, thinking I could get rid of the offending tonnage in Photoshop.
The sun descended. This ship approached on collision course, the skipper cluelessly unaware that he was messing with my shot.
Fine. I’ll shoot anyway. Click. Check exposure. Small adjustment. Click. Click. Click.
What. The. Farge?
No, Marge, it’s not a barge. It’s a ship in the shot sighted by the sun.*
This image will never be part of my Horizons collections, where there are no ship shots.
But it’s too good to sit in the archives.
(Nikon D750; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
* Not quite perfectly framed, actually. Required a slight adjustment in Photoshop. Very slight.
I had been saving this image — taken from the end of the pier in Akaroa, New Zealand just after sunrise on an unbelievable July morning — to mark the anniversary of the trip to NZ that my wife and I took last year. I moved it up a few weeks because it is a fitting complement to a short message of thanks to New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.
Lots of people talk about “doing the right thing.” I have no idea how much talk preceded it, but in my view, Ms. Ardern has done the right thing. She has initiated the Christchurch Call to Action, which presents a voluntary non-binding agreement among national governments and tech companies to work toward curbing the use of the Internet to broadcast hate speech, acts of violence, and the incitation of violence. The Call is co-sponsored by French President Emmanuel Marcon.
At this writing it has been signed by eighteen countries and eight online service providers.
It will be (and has been) criticized by some as an affront to free speech — and ensuring that it won’t block free expression will be an extremely challenging job. Others will probably say it doesn’t go far enough. Still others will (and do) say that it’s impractical — and it might be.
But it’s a start. And nothing happens without a start.
So, thank you, Prime Minister.
(Nikon D850, Tamron SP 24–70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
For people who are new to my blog, please take a look at my March 15 and March 17 posts:
April 4, 2014. Marin County Headlands. My seascape horizon photographs are devoid of any vestige of land, for the most part; and they show no man-made objects at all. So this image will never be part of my Horizons collections.
But this scene intrigued me in 2014 and it still intrigues me today. The first draw was and is the subtlety of color on the water. And the sky. But then there’s the ship.
Container ships can be more than 1,200 feet (365 meters) long. That’s almost a quarter of a mile. Take a walk past one at the dock and you’ll be walking for about five minutes. To my mind, that qualifies as large. But (with apologies to Douglas Adams) that’s peanuts compared to the Pacific Ocean. All things are relative.
This ship is headed for somewhere in Asia — some exotic far-away foreign land. Many might think it would be romantic to crew on such a ship and travel to such places. But from those I’ve talked with, it’s a sometimes back-breaking, sometimes dangerous, and often boring job. It’s work. And heading out to sea is just another day at the office.
All things are relative.
(Sony RX100. RAW processing in DxO Pro; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
A volunteer poppy at Filoli, easily as arresting as anything in the manicured gardens.
Thanks to Oliver for the push. Not motion this time, but depth.
(Nikon D850; Nikon 28-300 f/3.5-5.6G Zoom. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
More fine art photography at www.amagaphoto.com
November 22, 2007, 2:03 p.m. Multnomah Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon. We were visiting our sister-in-law’s sister in Portland for Thanksgiving. In that household’s tradition, complementing the turkey was a board of barbeque so nuanced that only years of practice can produce such a fine result. The feast lasted for hours. That plus a welcoming group of people would have been more than adequate, But I had more.
In addition to the customary seasonal gratitude, I was thankful for a brand-new Canon EOS 40D and the opportunity to visit the Columbia River Gorge and the waterfalls that line its southern cliffs. It’s the greatest concentration of falls in North America — more than twenty within a few miles. Chief among them is Multnomah falls: all 620 feet of it.
Multnomah has two cascades connected by a pool and short stream. A picturesque bridge crosses the stream and affords a view of the pool at the bottom of the upper falls. In the pool is an ever-changing array of rocks. I’ve been back to the falls several times over the years and the rocks are always different. Old rocks are gone or moved or broken and new rocks are always there.
(Next time you play rock-paper-scissors, add water — symbolized by holding your hand out and wiggling your fingers. It won’t be fair, though. You’ll always win. Water moves and eventually dissolves everything.)
At the base of the falls, wafting cascades of water make constantly changing patterns on the rocks, providing hours of entertainment (or frustration) for a photographer who is holding out for just the right look. Finally it came. And here is the reward.
But that exact moment is not the throwback I’m talking about this Thursday. No. We’re looking back at the innocent times when I allowed the camera to make important decisions on my behalf.
In 2007 I didn’t understand the freedom that a RAW file provides in its flexible bits and bytes, so I didn’t set the camera to save a RAW file. That means that the camera gave me an image determined to be acceptable by a consensus of the computer programmers at Canon’s headquarters and not a lot of post-processing by the photographer was possible. Nor did I understand the fine points of color balance and color management and the effect they can have on the final image. So the blue cast that — in my eye — makes this image work was the luck of the digital draw. And I did get lucky. What you see is what I got.
It was a great Thanksgiving.
(Canon EOS 40D, Canon 24-105mm f/4 L lens; Final crop in Adobe Photoshop.)
May 4, 2019. Crystal Hermitage Gardens, outside of Nevada City, California. When we went to visit our friends in the Sierra foothills, we were prepared for some landscapes. Alas, the sky was blue. From horizon to horizon it was utterly devoid of texture. Not the best for landscapes. But little did we know that our friends had something else in mind anyway.
Two weeks ago, they were exploring Highway 49 and stopped in Nevada City. By chance, someone asked them if they were there for the tulips. Tulips? Oh, yes — at Crystal Hermitage Gardens about twelve miles out of town. They went. They saw. Two weeks later, we all went and saw.
Georgia, or someone like her, tagged along. And me without my macro lens. Did pretty well anyway.
PS — After a stroll through the gardens, which was like a warm spiritual shower, we went back through Nevada City and stopped at Three Forks Bakery and Brewing Company. Best pizza in my life. And one of the best IPAs. So in case you’re in the area, you have two places to visit.
(Nikon D850, Tamron SP 24–70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
More fine art photography at www.amagaphoto.com
All you can hear is the breeze, the waves, the birds.
Silence promotes calm. Calm brings about refection and realization.
Recognized many times before but confirmed through repetition: Although there are those who try to create chaos in the world, it’s up to me to decide whether I want to respond in kind or to disagree with an automatic knee jerk and maintain my own conviction that the basic good in the majority of people can prevail.
Not doing anything but commenting.
(Nikon D850, Tamron SP 24–70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
There are almost 850 species of wildflowers at Point Reyes National Seashore. This Douglas Iris is one of them.
More to come.
(Nikon D500, Tamron 100–400mm F/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
Friday, April 26, 2019. Point Reyes Peninsula. One of the best things about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that no matter where you are, you’re not far from nature. This is a place where you can finish your morning chores and still make it to Point Reyes for an afternoon of hiking and photography, have supper at the Inverness Park Tap Room, and be home at a reasonable hour.
We went for the wildflowers — having sent a fellow blogger there a couple weeks earlier — and ended up with more than we expected. The wildflowers were bountiful, but more subtle and intimate than at the Carrizo Plain. My wife had a heyday — and not too much hay fever — shooting them.
I found myself more drawn to critters.
Why did the coyote cross the road?
To give me a better angle, of course. Pierce Point Road crests just before you get to Pierce Ranch on the northern end of the peninsula. After the crest is a spectacular panorama of the Pacific, the northern peninsula, Tule elk, the ranch, and right in the middle of the road, a very handsome coyote. I stopped to get a photo. He sauntered off the road into the meadow overlooking the ranch, leapt over the taller flowers until he was framed by the barn, and stopped and tuned and posed with a smile. Then wandered off to sniff the flowers.
Swallows are very difficult.
They’re fast. They’re agile. They change direction at the whim of the insects they’re chasing. And they’re small. Tiny. 600mm (equivalent) lens? Ha! What’s that blurry speck at the edge of the frame? A swallow? Might be. It’s hard to tell. Shoot. Swallow equals black smudge. Again and again and again. Until Friday. There must’ve been a convention. A small flock of four barn swallow conventioneers were taking turns bombarding a flower for its tasty contents, and as they approached their buffet, they slowed down and hovered. The four shots below of one of them were all taken within seven seconds. Although it may not look like it, they are in sequence. They kept at it — and I kept shooting — until a turkey vulture glided down from a ridge, altitude six feet, and sailed right across the swallows’ food fest, gave me the evil eye, and flew off. The swallows scattered. Wouldn’t you? But I got my shots and they got their goodies.
Crows are easy.
But no less impressive because of it. Pierce Point Ranch is only about ten miles as the crow flies from Bodega Bay, where Hitchcock’s The Birds was filmed. This one was not making any effort to intimidate, however. This one was making repeated straight-line passes parallel to the trail so I could get a perfect shot. Why else?
More to come.
(Nikon D500, Tamron 100–400mm F/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
April 11, 2019. Mojave Desert west of Lancaster, California. Cause of death of this once proud (okay, probably never proud) shed was most likely neglect. But it might have been electrocution. We’ll never know. It is a little too close to some menacing power lines as it sits forlornly by the road that leads to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. So there’s that. This photo is possibly the first time in a long time that anyone paid any attention to it.
I rarely venture into the world of monochrome. I leave that to the experts. But monochrome seemed appropriate here for a couple of reasons, one of which is that this is the obvious genre to prove that not all decrepit buildings are on the High Plains of Texas.
Which leads me to the following: If you want to see some really excellent monochrome photography, you’ll enjoy exploring the work of Melinda Green Harvey of Lubbock, Texas.
She has two different photography blogs. Check them both:
https://melindagreenharvey.com
https://thepoetryofphotography.wordpress.com
Let me — and her — know what you think.
(Nikon D850, Tamron SP 24–70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2. RAW processing in DxO PhotoLab 2.2; Editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
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