Whitney Portal

One of the best places we got to visit during the photography workshop was Whitney Portal. Whitney Portal is the parking lot for all those that want to climb Mount Whitney. We arrived in the parking lot and walked 5 paces and there was this amazing waterfall surrounded by amazing Fall colors. During my pursuit of the best photograph I climbed all over that waterfall and a couple of times risked life and limb (well at least falling in it and getting wet). What was nice is that I had about 90 minutes to capture a photograph with other like minded souls.

An Artist At Work

Our first photo session on the Lone Pine photography workshop was Lake Diaz just outside Lone Pine. When we arrived there it didn't look very exciting, but we quickly learned that you could create some beautiful photographs here. As I was walking around looking for an interesting photo, the instructors friend Judy was setting her camera up for a photo. Judy is a retired middle school teacher that taught Art. I just saw a moment to photograph her doing what se loves the most. Click on the image for a larger version.

How I Spent My Weekend!

On Friday I went to the small town of Lone Pine in Owens Valley. Lone Pine is the gateway to Mount Whitney, the highest summit in the contiguous United States. The reason I went to Lone Pine was not to climb Mount Whitney, but to photograph Owens Valley. I met up with a like minded group and an instructor for a workshop to improve our photography. So over the next few days I will post some photographs from this workshop.

The photograph above is of Lone Pine Peak on the left and Mount Whitney on the right. Mount Whitney is set a lot further back, so it's perspective makes it look smaller. Mount Whitney is in fact 14,505ft high. This photograph was taken first thing in the morning as the sun rose over the mountain range to the east of the valley. As the sun appeared so the mountain tops lit up as this wonderful orangey red color. And as you can see they have already had a dusting of snow.

Walking The Planks

This is a photograph of the Prom Deck on the Queen Mary berthed at Long Beach, California. I thought it appropriate for this to be a Black & White photograph because of how old the RMS Queen Mary is. She started sailing the North Atlantic in 1936 until 1967. As I looked down the Prom Deck I wondered just how many people had walked the planks of her deck during those voyages. People that were heading to a new life or just on a vacation. See if you can imagine that, I can.

Where The Land Meets The Ocean

This is a photograph of the coast of County Clare meeting the Atlantic Ocean. The rocks here are part of The Burren, the unique land form of that part of Ireland.

This past week has been tough to find good photographs to post as i have been remiss in my time dedicated to taking photographs. Anyway this weekend I intend to make up for that as I'm going on a Photography Workshop to Owens Valley, in the Eastern Sierra Nevada's. It'll be a weekend of nothing but photography of some of the most beautiful landscapes in this part of the USA.

Tower Bridge

It's been a while since I posted a photograph from the homeland so Tower Bridge gets to be that photograph. I lived in England up to the age of 29 and I had never seen Tower Bridge open and it wasn't like I didn't visit there often. As a kid my mum, dad and grandmother would take us to London to see the sights and the history and to learn about our capital city. As an adult I drove trains into Liverpool St. Station, a 10 minute walk to Tower Bridge which we would do during our longer breaks in London just to kill time and get some exercise. So imagine my surprise as we walked around the Tower of London and heard the warning sirens coming from the bridge. We looked over and the next thing we saw was the bridge begin to open to let a boat through. I didn't get a photograph of the bridge opening but I did get a video and when I've cleaned it up a bit I will post it on here.

Final Destination?

I was sitting here looking at this photograph wondering how to improve it, when the story it was telling just hit me. The photograph is of a switch (points to my British friends) at Rice in South East California.

The story this photograph was telling me was how life is like a train running down a track. As a train comes to a switch it's route to it final destination is being controlled by someone else and that route is generally predefined. In life we come to switches every day, some can be predefined, some take us on a detour but still eventually take us to our destination and the big ones change everything we thought we were heading towards. As we reach those switches in life some are controlled by us, some by others, some by circumstance, but most a combination of all three. So at the point life reaches a switch we have to make a decision, hope it was the right one and make the best of it if it was the wrong direction until we reach the next switch, where we can change to a new final destination.

My First Pano

This is the first panorama photograph that I created so I thought I would put it on here for you all to see. It was created with two HDR photographs that overlap a little bit and then Photoshop combines the two into one image. This is a larger view of Artist's Drive in Death Valley. Hopefully I'll figure out the technique of panoramas a bit more and I'll post some more on here. If you want to see a larger version click on the image.

Ireland Revisited

So I thought it had been a while since I put a photograph from Ireland up. The only problem is I cannot for the life of me remember what this tower was called. All I do know is it's in County Clare and you come across it while driving around The Burren. I probably over emphasized the effects on this photo, but I thought hey it looks cool so what the heck. The funny story was while we were there I was wondering around taking photos and I hear this voice shout my name, I look everywhere and can't see where it's coming from. Then I hear "Up here" and i look up to see Janet has found her way to the top of the tower.

Good Looks & Charm

So if anyone ever wondered where I get my good looks and charm from, today's photo will show you. This is my dad and me in Death Valley, 282ft below sea level. Every year my parents and aunt come over for a vacation and I'm always trying to think of interesting place to take them to, of course all they really want to do is gamble on the penny slots in a casino and shop. Believe it or not my dad just turned 70, I hope I wear that well after 70 years. It feels great to have parents that I get along so well with and that I think raised me the right way. My dad and I used to work together on the railway, he was a Conductor and me the Driver, it was a good working relationship and only once did we ever really have an argument at work and that was over a sandwich! I always try and tell both my mum and dad how grateful I am to have them as my parents, but being a Brit with a Stiff Upper Lip sometimes that's hard, so mum and dad I love you both and thank you both for being my mum and dad.