Dunes HDR

Another one from my excursion to the Mesquite Dunes with Steve.

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Dune Sea

HDR from three images and then converted to black and white.

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Ripples

Another one from my excursion to the Mesquite Dunes with Steve.

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Tracks

Steve was kind enough to drag me along with him to Death Valley today.

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9th Street Bridge

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Water Wealth Contentment Health

The arch in Modesto, California.

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Leave Me Alone

Breanah has had enough photographs today.

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Another World

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Tarantula

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California Museum

The California Museum asked to use a couple of my images for their site and "Joshua Tree at Sunset" appears on their front page. Kinda cool.

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Round Valley Sunrise BW

Mt. Tom is on the left. I think that's Broken Finger Peak on the right.

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Chalfant Valley

Have to credit Mike Byrne for clueing me on the name of this valley. That's the White Mountains off in the distance to the right.

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South Lake Shore

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South Lake

The clouds on the peaks appeared out of nowhere. Ten minutes before, they weren't there.

I think I shot this with the Tokina, but I'm not certain.

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Lost River Rocks

Saw these rocks and they seemed really out of place given the location. No nearby streams or rivers, so I imagine they've been here for a long time. In the distance, there's Mt. Tom on the left, and I believe that the peak on the right is called Broken Finger. Not sure. In any case, this was taken near Round Valley.

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Bishop Creek

Mike Byrne saw this waterfall from the road and we hiked down to get some photos. The clouds were rolling in and within the hour it was snowing (again).

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Mt. Whitney

I watched Iron Man today and was surprised to see that "Bagram Air Base" was actually the Alabama Hills. It got me thinking of my last photo trip up there.

This is from last December. Mt. Whitney can be seen in the background.

This was shot with my 50mm f/1.8. It's a sweet SWEET cheap lens.

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Marty

My niece.

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Alone and Unafraid

I flew solo for the first time today. I've been anxious all week looking forward to it, but today even as I made my first approach, I was amazingly calm. All credit goes to my flight instructor. I was completely prepared for this day. My daughter took this photo.

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N781C

N781C, a Swearingen SA227-AC aircraft at Inyokern Airport.

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Rand Barber Shop II

Toyed with the lens correction tool. I found that I need to leave some more empty space around the subject to make the most of this tool.

This is the image as shot, before post processing.

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Vulcanizing

Randsburg, California. HDRish using a single exposure. This pretty much breaks all the rules of composition, but I kinda like the color.

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The Retreating Storm II

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The Retreating Storm

This storm spent the better part of an hour unloading on our city. I was hoping for a better sunset, but this will have to do.

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Young Killer

Caught this little guy lounging next to the pool. He's about two inches long.

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Cessna N2428Y

I got to the field a little early today and watched Allan work the pattern and do touch and goes. He's a young kid in his early twenties at the very latest, but he makes it look easy. He's got a little over forty hours.

I had a horrible day in the cockpit. Lots of things going against me today. I haven't flown in four weeks. It was hot and I'd always heard that heat changes the way the air feels when your flying. It certainly does. In addition, I was working right hand patterns for the first time.

So... I was behind the aircraft. I couldn't seem to hit my checkpoints with any consistency and I repeatedly entered into the approach with way too much altitude.

I felt beat up by the time I was done.

Imagine my surprise when my instructor says, "Get ready for solo. You're going to do it this month."

I'm too tired to be excited.

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Sierra Nevada Sol

Another smoke filled sunset.

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Sentinel

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Desert Tortoise

Spotted this guy yesterday in the Red Rock Canyon State Park.

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Twin Otter

After flying, I couldn't resist the urge to stroll around the flight line and take some photographs.

Here is a 1980 Dehavilland DHC-6-300.

Now that I'm thinking about it. I wonder why the pilot decided to park the aircraft with the flaps down. Seems like he's asking for trouble.

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Desert Tortoise II

I've lived in the desert for nearly twenty years. I think in all that time, I've seen one or maybe two desert tortoises in the wild.

Today, I saw three of them. They seem to like the weeds that grow along the side of the road.

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Touching Down

Student pilot landing practice at Inyokern Airport.

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UH-60 Blackhawk

After some suggestions at the Digital Photography School forum I went back for another try at this image.

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Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk

I spent a few hours today at the Inyokern airport. I shot this while I waiting to go fly in a Cessna 172.

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Dead Cholla

I haven't been out shooting in a couple of weeks. The sunset looked like it might be promising. Turned out... not so much, but I decided to try combining sunsets with the flash.

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blogged

Not sure why they chose this image, but it's blogged at How To Split An Atom.

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Snow Geese

Made a few attempts getting closer to the birds. Same result every time. They can't relax while I'm closer than 150 feet or so. Eventually, they just fly off.

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First Dance

Bride and groom share the first dance.

I fell into the trap. My wife's best friend's daughter got married yesterday and the inevitable request came my way. "You're into photography, we're having a wedding. Can you shoot it?"

My photographer friends advised that it was a dangerous undertaking. A wedding! A one shot attempt to get it right WEDDING! Four hours, and four hundred images later, I found one or two that I'd like and I hope I'm the picky one... I'm at least smart enough not to be doing this sort of thing for money. I'll leave it to the professionals.

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Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney

It's an older shot that needed some post-process attention. I shot this using the very sweet 18-200 VR lens that Steve let me borrow.

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Locomotive Breath

In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all-time loser,
Headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping --
Steam breaking on his brow --
Thank God, he stole the handle and
The train won't stop going --
No way to slow down.
He sees his children jumping off
At the stations -- one by one.
His woman and his best friend --
In bed and having fun.
He's crawling down the corridor
On his hands and knees --
Old Charlie stole the handle and
The train won't stop going --
No way to slow down.
He hears the silence howling --
Catches angels as they fall.
And the all-time winner
Has got him by the balls.
He picks up Gideon's Bible --
Open at page one --
God stole the handle and
The train won't stop going --
No way to slow down.
-- Jethro Tull

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Racetrack Playa

Mike, Roger, Steve and I made a trip yesterday to visit the Devil's Racetrack in Death Valley.

It's HDRish... I used the same image but played with the exposure in Camera RAW and then selectively merged.

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Sailing Stone

Made a trip yesterday to visit the Devil's Racetrack in Death Valley.

This is just one of the many moving rocks we found there

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Desert Fence

I decided to drive up the Panamint Valley today. Saw a dirt road with a sign saying, "Indian Ranch Road".

Near the soggy dry lake I saw this fence. It wasn't more than a couple hundred of yards long.

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East Kern Valley

This was just a few miles down the road from the snow picture I posted previously.

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Around the Bend

I'm not thrilled about how this turned out, but I really liked the detail in the rocks.

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blogged

The Sun and Signs photo has turned up on an a blog in Austria, of all places. If you speak German, you'll be able to make sense of it. I used the Google translator and it's enough to figure out that the modification was part of a online thing called the "band meme."

Desert Castle Magic (revisited)

The first time I did this, it was HDR from three images. This time, just the primary exposure and Photoshop.

This was a sunrise shot. At the time, I couldn't see the sun, but it was already starting to make the clouds glow.

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Tufa Sunset

Mike Byrne was kind enough to ask if I wanted to go out to the Trona Pinnacles late this afternoon. He wanted to catch the moonrise. It's not really my thing, but sunsets and sunrises at the Pinnacles can be sorta fantastic. We met Roger Moorehead there.

A bit windy and cold and the sky was far too clear for my tastes, but here's one.

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Sun and Signs

After finishing the lessons in Scott Kelby's "7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3", I had to go back and revisit some of my older stuff.

I started with this JPG image, adjusted the foreground using Camera RAW and then made another image in Camera RAW and adjusted the sky.

I merged the two images in Photoshop and then darkened the sky, lightened the foreground, desaturated the blues and yellows a tad, etc.

It's not remotely realistic. The sky is pretty dark for an image that's looking right at the sun.

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184 x 184

I just finished going through Scott Kelby's book, 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Great book and the results using the images provided were nothing short of incredible.

Now for the challenging part. Figuring out when and how to use these tools on my own images.

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