Landscape, Nature and Travel Photography

2007 Waiting Period Ends Without Surf

Word from the organizers of Mavericks is the season is over for big waves and the contest has been called off. Although sad I’m glad to see that there wasn’t a compromise with sub-standard waves fueling the contest. In that regard I feel the premiere status of the contest was preserved. Until next year.

A personal favorite from my recent trip to Yosemite…

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the more challenging things about day-to-day life is getting sucked into the minutia of our daily routine and losing touch with the amazing environment that surrounds us. Earlier this week I had the great fortune of being able to step away from my normal routine to photograph Yosemite National Park. Photographs will be forthcoming in the coming days, but I had to share that seeing fresh snow in Yosemite valley was breathtaking and on a personal level a much needed refresh to put everything in perspective.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. - John Muir

I guarantee anyone that has taken a sunset shot has seen a penumbra, but likely never knew the term for what they were seeing. After the sun has set, when it is dusk, and the sky is darkening there is a transition on the eastern horizon between the last bit of sky lit by the sun and that were darkness is falling. At this point of transition is the penumbra: a partial shadow cast by the earth onto the sky. Or as someone much wiser than I defined it in relation to the world of astronomy…

The shadow cast, in an eclipse, where the light
is partly, but not wholly, cut off by the intervening
body; the space of partial illumination between the umbra,
or perfect shadow, on all sides, and the full light.
–Sir I. Newton.

An example displaying the very early presence of a “penumbra” can be seen in the image found with in the following blog post “Yosemite Sunset“.

There’s nothing like seeing Yosemite in the winter. This was taken in 2002, back when I was shooting film. The valley floor was cold enough for the snow to stick around and everything looked amazingly beautiful. In this photo just as the days last light filled the sky and as the penumbra became visible everything turned magically pink.

As for tonight I’ll be prepping for another winter excursion to Yosemite. If all goes well a storm will be dropping snow on the valley over the next couple of days. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

A “grab shot” is a spontaneous capture of a scene or moment. Usually grab shots are far from polished. They may be at an angle, slightly out of focus, composed less than ideally or display other qualities of a rushed or incompletely thought through image.

There is nothing wrong with a grab shot to document a fleeting moment. A grab shot can have a negative connotation if the photo being displayed is being hyped or sold as well conceived or planned capture. As a photographer setting viewer expectation through description or title is key to managing viewer perception.

An example “grab shot” although humorously playing on the term can be seen in the following blog post “Grab Shot”.

Looking through some older images I caught this buried in a folder of early morning photos taken in Golden Gate Park. Look closely and you might just understand the title a little better.

Click To Enlarge

A very neat development to report this week. I’ve had some of my Golden Gate Bridge photos spotlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle, the largest newspaper here in the San Francisco bay area. They have a “Flickr Pickr” page as part of their “96 Hours” section where they highlight local photographers on Flickr.
The write up is quite flattering… Thanks John!
See the full write up on the San Francisco Chronicle’s “96 Hours” Flickr Pickr page

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