I have included locations, technical details, and some notes on each picture. The photographs were taken with one of three cameras Jean’s FZ8, my FZ50, or my LZ-2. All are Panasonic digital cameras with Leica DC Vario-Elmarit ƒ/2.8 lenses and Optical Image Stabilization. The two FZs have 12x telephoto (35/36 to 420/432 mm). My two cameras have a max of 10 MP and Jean’s goes to 8 MP at full frame. All photographs were edited in iPhoto 6 and Photoshop Elements 4. (I do not bring the full Photoshop with me on my MacBook laptop.) I am not trying to reproduce the scene, but rather create a picture that can be appreciated on its own merits. I believe I succeed every so often, but nowhere near 100%.
01 Gathering Storm Over Mt. WhitneyThere are often clouds swirling around the peak of the “Lower 48‘s” highest mountain at 14,500 feet. Using the lens at near 400 mm, I was able to isolate the mountain and its surrounding peaks. When a beam of sunlight lit up the the ridge just in front of Mt. Whitney, I knew I had a real picture. I quickly grabbed the photo with the zoom set at 400 mm, hand-held; thank goodness for image stabilization!
Over the years (since 1950), I have taken hundreds of photographs of Mt Whitney (and the Alabama Hills) from this vantage point, “Movie Flat.” (A lot of Western movies have been shot here.) I think I like this one the best of all.
The swirling clouds on peak reminds me of 1952, when Jean, her mother, sister Marian, and I climbed to the top through misty clouds that cleared to bright sunshine and then closed in to hail. We took refuge in the small hut on top, but because we afraid it would get worse, we hurried back on the narrow trail (about 6’ wide with a 3,000’ drop on EITHER side) between the columns on the left (south) side of Whitney.
02 Quail Posing for HikersBill was well ahead of me up the trail when I heard the familiar “ci-quer-go” call of quail. A handsome male hopped on a boulder to guide his little flock of 4 or 5 others. I just had time to point and snap once before the group startled and disappeared. "Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds" illustrated the dark patch on the belly as Gambel’s Quail, replacing California Quail in desert regions of the Southwest.
03 Galloping Moose? PetroglyphAs we driving along the I-8 from Yuma, Arizona, heading for Oregon Pipe, Arizona just after lunch, we came across a brown sign announcing “Painted Rocks State Park.” Looking it up in in our guides, it sounded interesting, so we headed off the Interstate to spend the night there. It was still early, so when we arrived at the Park, we looked around at the petroglyphs—we were amazed! We had never seen such an abundance of rock pictures; every surface on the rocks seems to have been pecked.
04 The Menacing Superstition MountainsI had read about the legends of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine, the robber’s roosts, and Indian raids coming from the mountains, and so wanted to show graphically how I interpreted the name of the mountains and their bloody history. The photograph was taken from the Lost Dutchman State Park campground at sunset.
05 Bloody Sunset from Superstition MountainsAn appropriate sunset to go with all the tales of mayhem, murder, and mystery in the Superstition Mountains.
06 Delicate Flower of the
Strawberry CactusSo far in our trip through desert landscapes, there had been no cacti in bloom. Even the special cactus section of the Arboretum had only a few yellowish ones. Then walking a trail, I saw this lovely pink, large flower at ground level and knelt down to capture it. It even had a name label.
07 Dome of Sedona’s Own Cathedral RockAfter locating Crescent Moon Park and paying the usual Navajo fee (about double a typical State Park day-use fee), we wandered up and down Oak Creek, to find the best spot for a sunset view of Cathedral Rock. Since I was carrying the larger camera on a tripod, I grabbed this shot with my small camera (not in pixel-power, just in size); at first I didn't see much in the photo, but the picture has sort of grown on me. You can fairly easily climb Cathedral Rock if you are young, agile, and goat-like for good views of the surrounding country side.
08 Cathedral Rock at SunsetSince Sedona uses Cathedral Rock as its logo, I had to get something special. We were blessed by clear skies with just enough clouds—the night before we had been skunked trying to do a sunset over the town from the airport and the same sort of thing in the days following (by the time we left Sedona a few days later, it was raining and hailing up Oak Creek Canyon).
I set up my tripod at the edge of the river, snapped off a few shots to see how the scene looked (what professional photographers used to do with Polaroids in the old days of film), and then sat down on a nice soft boulder on the river bank to wait. Meanwhile Jean came to sit with me; she had been scouting up river for sites to view the spectacle, but hadn’t found what she wanted.
When the color began to change about 7 p.m., I was at my post, electronic release in hand, exposing (I guess I should say, “recording”) every few minutes. This particular shot was taken at exactly 7:03:35 p.m. (amazing what the digital cameras record). And that is the exact time; I synch the three cameras with my atomic, radio controlled watch every so often so our pictures taken at the same time come together in our storage program, Apple’s iPhoto.
Then I saw the bird land on the rock, I immediately shifted the camera slightly, recorded the scene, and then mentioned the bird to the other photographers lined-up along the river bank—I don’t know if they got the bird or not, for it soon flew away.
09 At the Edge of Horseshoe Bend Canyon in Page, ArizonaThis is another example of when I have the larger camera on a tripod and I see a possible photo op; I pull out the little LX-2 from of my pocket to snap a candid shot. I had been shooting down at the river bend from various angles with my widest lens, 24 mm on the FX50 mounted on a tripod, when I saw these colorfully dressed Japanese tourists heading for the edge—quickly I pulled out the little LX-2 and waited for developments. The tourists wandered around on this large rock over-looking the three thousand foot drop and I’m snapping like mad, finally, they assume this nice arrangement and I have my picture!
Because the two cameras have the same Leica lens and the same 10 MP, Image Stabilization, etc., I can use them interchangeably. The larger one goes from 35 mm to 12x (420 mm) telephoto and has an electronic viewfinder (through the lens), but the smaller one fits in my breast pocket, has a wider angle lens of 28 mm (to 4x or 112 mm), and uses the monitor on the back as a view finder.
THREE IMAGES FROM PHOTOGRAPHER’S HEAVEN
10 Antelope Canyon SpotlightWhen I was trying to choose my ten favorites from the May blogs, I ran into a problem: I wanted to choose all of them from Antelope Canyon! So I settled on three from there; those along with an extra one from Sedona made my Ten Favorites into thirteen.
The first time you go to a slot canyon like Antelope Canyon , you don’t know what to expect. You are told to mount your camera on a tripod, to watch out for the fine dust, especially, if you are changing lenses on an SLR or wear contact lenses, and listen closely to your guide. OK…what exposure do you use? What length lens works best? What ISO? Flash? Etc.,etc.
It turns out, you have to trust your instincts (fly by the seat of your pants): you have to work quickly, you check your images from time to time (assuming you have digital), you try different focal lengths—I tried from 24 mm to about 100 mm, bracket the exposures—I went from -2 to +2 stops (in general it’s hard to over-expose), and no flash. Because the color for the most part only shows up when you bring up the contrast in your picture adjustment program (like Photoshop), you point where the form of the rocks looks good and bracket away like mad until you are trampled by the other groups coming and going in the narrow canyon. One thing for sure, if my guide, Irene, is typical, the guides know their stuff: they know how and where to point the camera, they know when the light is good for photos and when it isn’t, and then know where the Life, National Geographic, and other professional photographers have shot.
11 Orange & Violet SwirlWhat’s in a name? I could call it Antelope Canyon No.34 or even its file number, P1000664_2.JPG, but at least Orange & Violet Swirl gives some idea of what it’s about.
The combination of the striations, curves and sharp edges is what I saw in the dim light of the canyon—so I shot hoping the colors would match—I think they did.
12 Magnetic WaveI was tempted to name this picture The Purple Wave, but Magnetic Wave sounds a little more exotic in the way I think of Antelope Canyon. Why “Magnetic?” I see force…hey, I’ve got to keep some things on a mysterious level.
The interesting back story here is that Irene, our guide, grabbed my small camera to demonstrate to the group how sometimes to take the best shot you had to lie flat on your stomach in the dirt. And this is the picture she took—she proved her point!
For a larger collection of pictures from Antelope Canyon see blog 30.5/28 World-class Photographic Location, “a Photographer’s Dream”—Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona.
13 Square Tower HouseI shot this house in 2002 when we were going to a Winnebago Caravan at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival (with film of course). I always liked the picture and still do. There is nothing very dramatic about it, just a home peacefully waiting these hundreds of years for its owners to come back: men calling from one building to another, the singing of the women grinding maize, and the happy sounds of children playing—and of course someone to repair the roof that fell in 500 years ago.
