Most people often have a lot of things they say they’ll “get back to” when they have the time.
Well I’ve got tens of thousands of those things.
And right now I’m getting back to a few thousand of them… from May of 08 when I drove down to Caliornia to do a wedding and proceeded to spend a week traveling around California.
I went through several deserts, including mojave, anso borego and death valley.
I went to the san diego vild animal park.
Traveled up the PCH all the way to San Fransisco.
Visited the Salton Sea.
Spent some time in the Sierra’s including Yosemite.
And made lots of other random stops along the journey.
I will proceed to edit them nice and show them off over the course of a few posts.
The first set is from the first couple of days. Gallery Here
(above) Some Highlights from wild animal park.
(Below) I can’t even remember the name of this place… I don’t think I owned a GPS for my camera at that time either.
Big sand dune.
I wanted to relax and edit a really short shoot.
Well I only took about 45 pictures on my drive from Utah to Oregon.
I stopped to take a couple of pictures near the salt flats, then later a random mountain cuz it looked cool (not sure I stopped for this one)
Then luckily in a repeat of last year I came accross a pack of wild horses in the middle of no-where nevada.
I suppose many of you do not realize how much a fan of “Car Photography” I am.
No, not pictures OF cars… but pictures FROM cars.
I find a great satisfaction from taking an awesome picture while being really lazy, and that means taking it while in my car.
Some of my favorite images and favorites of others were taken while in a car.
I’ve turned it into a science… I could go on an on for a couple hours about the finer techniques of “driving photography”
Of course I do consider myself somewhat of a documentive photographer, I’m more concerned with capturing the image and capturing LOTS.
I don’t have a pressing need or desire to come away with the ONE shot… I like lots. (motivated by one of my future projects)
When I travel I’m always wanting to see what’s around the corner… I don’t want to stick around here.
(Above) For this picture I stopped and rolled down the window, because I just couldn’t handle not stopping… the light was too amazing
(BELOW) For the following I didn’t roll down the window… I shot through the window… no… actually it wasn’t clean.
But I couldn’t worry about it, it was clean enough and the site was drawing me in so much I just had to.
So I shot straight through the front window.
In fact I didn’t stop for this one… I suppose I was still going pretty fast, but these pictures were taken at 2.8 pushing the shutter speed to 1/8000th
Here you can even see the outline of my dashboard.
Warning: Do not attempt at home – I am not only experienced at this, I’m a long time veteran and very cautious, and a tad crazy.
I’ll try to do more posts talking about my travel photography and driving photography if people are interested.
This is pretty much all I took pictures of this day… on the road back from San Diego
So I went to Magic Mountain with a friend (Dustin) and a girl he knows.
We went on rides.
I took my G11 (point and click) into the park
Because it turns out my DSLR doesn’t fit in my pocket and you can’t ride the rollercoasters with a big honking camera.
So these were a few pics I took with the little guy.
It was a fun challenge to shoot on something I don’t usually use.
I appreciated the challenge, but of course i still loved having the manual functions of the G11
Yes the lines are long… so I occupied myself sometimes.
The parking lot to entrance transportation had me a little bored so I looked down and made use of my time.
I felt like seeing how far the G11 raws could be pushed in editing.
(Below) Not as easy to sneak off random friend pictures with a point and click… but I wanted to try anyway.
I did two weddings in Alaska this year… on the first trip I went up to Denali National Park.
These are the pictures I took.
I know i’m gonna put a bunch here on the post … but there’s some really fun stuff on the Full Gallery So go there
This was pretty darn cool when the bear walked past us.
Yes we were in a car, we’re not crazy and I don’t own a super telephoto.
I kinda chased this guy around for a while.
Denali is all about Mountains and Animals i’ve decided
So apparently this was an exceptional time to go. It’s not usually this clear. (So they tell me)
Maybe clouds would be fun sometimes but I guess it’s fun to go in abnormal situations.
Good things happen when the sun goes down… twilight is often more exciting… and then there’s a clear evening with the stars coming out and some nice palm trees.
In this post I’d love to drive home the point:
Make wherever you happen to be work for you.
And get good at seeking out spots and SEEing the spots you’re at.
Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity… make it the perfect opportunity.
(Above) As you see these pictures you might wonder why they call it Sunset Beach… haha
This day was proof-example, after example, of why going out with a set purpose (set picture) in mind is in many (not all) ways is retarded.
But having a “way point” can be smart.
Yes have plans… but be open to all the amazing things that surround you.
In this case we penciled in Sunset beach for sunset.
When you’re on a road trip with me you realize I’m using a pencil and that pencil has an eraser.
But beyond that when you are wherever you are… be ready to shoot them when they happen. (know how)
And be ready to SEE them.
It makes me wonder how/why those photographers who set out with one specific shot in mind do it.
That would drive me batty… and doesn’t seem like a good idea. (Open for discussion, as long as we’re trying to understand eachother)
(Though perhaps having fewer pictures would sure cut down on processing and make picking easier)
Going back to the car to grab the tripod… low and behold, I saw the light.
I was saying to myself… how do these things like this keep happening to me?
I really couldn’t have planned the mist, the sunlight angle because of clouds, the color of the sunlight is beyond our control as we know.
Yes I put myself in a situation where i could get back lit pictures of surfers when they came out… but I certainly wasn’t expecting this.
I can’t move this dude I’m not in charge of the posing.
I just frame it up to tell the story and wait for the elements to be in a good spot.
This is a big example of just wandering around searching and being in the right place at the right time.
We didn’t write Hawaii 2009 in the sand but we came by literally seconds before the wave washed it away forever.
I barely had time to aim and spray fire shoot it as it got washed away.
The lighting was hardly what people aim for, but I knew that it would make it unique and that I could add back some of the contrast from shooting towards a setting sun.
This was not planned it was a result of waiting around for other people to be ready to go and getting bored and saying… hey why not take pictures of the palm trees.
If only I had my cable release to take longer than 30 second exposures. But that’s what I could do…
and I set the White balance to 2500 kelvin to bring out the blue because the street lights were throwing off the colors.
On this trip I discovered the joy of setting my white balance to Shady A2 to really bring out warm colors
I think any white balance could have worked for this evening and the camera itself would have been stumped with the colors of the sunset at sunset beach.
Don’t just take good pictures and call it good… add spice.
OK obviously the above picture was taken a while before sunset colors hit… but I wanted to show the kind of waves they were looking at.
You’ll see some better pictures of waves coming up… but I take pictures to document what was going around a whole lot.
Now planning your shots ahead of time is not a bad thing… don’t misunderstand.
I planned on being at sunset beach at sunset.
And when I got there an hour before sunset I said I wanted to  be on such and such side of the water/beach.
But the point is: Up until that time (your way-point time) and after and maybe even instead be willing to let your hunches, ideas and the light take you where they will…
Kinda like the waves of see, they go here and there and wherever the wind and tide takes them.
Yes there could have been other paths… but make the path you decided on, or were thrust into work for you
You’ll find some amazing things start to happen.
And you’ll learn to deal with (photographically) what you’re given… and not just search for what you want and always see the green green grass just beyond reach.
I’m saying both things can be good when done correctly.
But don’t wait for the perfect opportunity… make it the perfect opportunity.
A lot of my pictures are a testament to my laziness… i was shooting sunset here and just didn’t feel like moving.
I was hoping more surfers would just walk past me. (They’ve done it in the past)
So i just sat around, not being pulled in any other way.
So I made where I was Work.
Instead of perhaps finding another better location. (Which might have been good too)
People almost seem to refuse to take pictures when the light is not perfect for them.
I say learn how to deal with the light no matter what it’s giving you.
Use it to your advantage… take the pictures the present light situation is giving you.
Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity… make it the perfect opportunity.
Even better if what’s been given is pretty darn nice!
I know I did a post with a link to all the pictures from the trip in a recap… but I’ll continue with the 3 remaining days with a post for each
So this is post 12 of 15
Above – Sunrise
Below – Sunset
We did sunrise on the north end of the island and couldn’t really find a good spot so I focused mainly on the sun itself with the waves in commotion.
We found some of our best sunset (in this case twilight) at the south end of Oahu.
Small parks with no one at them that had a good view of stuff in the distance.
It was nice because they had some good palm trees and there were a couple surfers who came in right before dark.
I think some of our best spots for sunrise and sunset on oahu were at random, non-popular parks on the south of the island.
Probably not having a ton of sand and with waves braking way off in the distance this made it so.
But we seemed to be in a bay with land jetting out, right to where the sun was rising (in this case)
At sunrise and sunset there will be surfers either entering or exiting for the day.
It’s fun to shoot both.
We then went to one of our favorite beaches and that was Sandy Beach.
Skim borders (or whatever they’re called) are great to photograph because they ride the shore breaks… and that means they’re close.
Palm trees are Hawaii Iconic … we often added them into the shots.
Seems like we took so many pictures of the sun coming up or going down adding a great foreground became the search.
Having an extra wide 14-24 was nice because these trees were practically straight above me.
Again changing up the foreground can help spice up something that everyone takes pictures of.
This was probably the most eclectic day on Kona as we spent most all our time on the south of the island and ended at the volcano.
We saw the moon set minutes after the sunrise.
We were in jungles and on green sand and black sand beaches.
We took pictures of surfers, horses and windmills.
This day we took it easy only leaving later in the day to pick up two more photographers from the airport and then shooting in two locations in town (Kailua Kona)
The plan was go up the mountain… but they didn’t let us… so we went around.
They closed the mountain because of snow and ice, so we decided to take a small dirt road accessible by 4wd only.
This is the same road we played on, on a previous day. So thus we were back on the road.
Probably one of my favorite places on the island and for sure one of the least traveled areas of the island.
You’ll also see some pictures of the north east coast of the island where we went later in the day.
You’ll recognize it as the places with water, ocean, waterfalls etc.
This day seemed like several days all rolled up into one!
I guess that happens when you get up at 4am to go shoot sunrise a ways away and then shoot all the way until sunset.
When you are taking pictures and think back to that previous day when you were shooting near the lighthouse… oh wait that was earlier today.
Or when at the end of the day you can barely remember the beginning of the day because it seems like you’ve done sooo much since then.
That’s when you know you were pretty effective with the scheduling of your day.
The First “day”
Sunrise on the north point.
It included quite few miles of driving along along the coast line on fun dirt roads.
This was the longest day and we were in a bunch of different towns all along the northern coast.
“Day” 2
This day came in two distinct parts, but felt like they should be combined.
We went snorkeling in a bay and then met up with the wedding family and friends for some lunch and fun on the beach.
Using my little G11 to take some fun underwater shots.
The final “day”
We scouted out the location for the wedding and did sunset shots.
I don’t usually go visit the location before hand to figure things out, but we usually look for a place to do sunset and this was a phenomenal location.
I enjoyed being able to spot the possible locations and possible routes for the sunset since it comes and goes quite suddenly.
Turns out that info came in very handy for the wedding day and being overly prepared helped move things along smoothly.
I was also glad the element of spontaneity was still very much there and the pre-visit didn’t spoil it at all.
Sunset at this beach is pretty crazy awesome, but I thought i’d highlight some late twilight pictures taken a while after sunset.
Tripod required for this long exposure.
Look at the bunch of other “Day 3″ sunset pictures later in this post.
– I am not only experienced at this, I’m a long time veteran and very cautious, and a tad crazy.
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