America’s Newest National Park – Pinnacles

America’s Newest National Park – Pinnacles

This California Chaparral park is full of lichen covered boulders and high coastal mountain range views!! Some geologist say it’s the other half of the Santa Monica Mountains split into two different ranges long ago by the San Andreas and other faults. I’ve only been to the east side and found it very impressive from a landscape photographer’s point of view. Caves, canyons and high trails into a wilderness setting is what you’ll find there, check it out!! Park site

Pinnacles National Park is located 1 hour east of Monterey, 2 hours south of the San Francisco Bay Area and 4 hours north of the Los Angeles area on hwy 146, near hwy 101. There are two entrances to the park on the East and West Sides of the park. You may drive through King City to get to the other side of the park.

See more of images of the wonderful California Chaparral by clicking here.

Free Nature Photography Presentation

I’ll be making a presentation which is free and open to the public.

Saturday, October 15 at 1:30 pm at the Visitor Center for the Santa Monica Mountains Nat’l Recreation Area (Thousand Oaks, CA).

The lecture and photo critique will be held next door to the visitor center.
Directions

This presentation will be on creating dramatic landscape photography.

This presentation will help you focus and better connect with nature while in field with your camera.

This presentation will help you blend art into your photography.

This presentation will provoke thoughts and help you become a more creative photographer.

Stop by and show your support for landscape photography as art in Los Angeles.

Please bring your camera for a shoot afterwards!

Join me for an exciting afternoon!

Website: Portfolio
Workshop info: Scenic Photo Workshops
Private or small group workshop info: Learn.
Steve’s Photo Tips and How To Page
Steve’s Landscape Photographer Tools Page

Visualization Before a Trip Into the Mountains

©Steve Sieren 2011, all work in this blog is copyrighted and may not be used in other blogs with out my written permission.

I sketched out my Plan A idea as shown here. I knew getting up to this spot would take a lot of effort for just a one night trip and I didn’t have the extra amount of energy to climb the 800 ft up the ridge at 2 or 3am in the morning so there’s always next time. I had a plan B shot that turned out to be great but I’d rather spend the extra efforts in getting something not photographed yet. Of course it would of been a lot easier to photograph the lake that I rolled out of bed next to. Instead we walked a few lakes over for a more dominant peak to photograph that was just slightly out of view from our campsite. I pretty much had to trust my photographer friend Floris van Breugel who researched a great spot for sunset and vice versa for my sunrise options, anyhow the place was great for multiple options at both sunrise and sunset.

In California we don’t always have clouds so we learn to shoot with out them, it’s part of the plan. The location in the sketch was removed in photoshop because I don’t broadcast exact locations. The wilderness is too big to have us all flock to one certain place.

Plan B location

Visualization is only small bit of what goes into creating great photographs and you’ll find many other options along the trail, near the trailhead and at camp or off in the distance. I have come across many photographic opportunities that I’ve made mental notes of planning on coming back to photograph but in time I forget about many of them. For example I came across an interesting sea arch along the Central Coast of California and completely forgot about until I visited the area again and saw it. I really thought how could I forget about such a great opportunity? In long the run it will help you to keep all of your ideas written down during or at just after a trip. This really helps a photographer keep their views a little fresher in the landscape photography market.

A quickly composed photograph on the short dawn hike to another lake before sunrise.

An elevated view into the Earth’s Shadow from high in the Sierra Nevada.

You can’t always count on colorful fiery clouds at sunset or sunrise in the Sierra Nevada so you’ll find if you practice on working with design of elements under the sky you’ll soon realize you don’t need the sky at all.

I use visualization to maximize what I take home, some of the images were edited years apart but were all photographed within 10 hours of each other in the same one night trip into the mountains. Visualization is a great tool to take advantage of during short trips where you spending a great deal of effort to get to these far out of reach places. It also helps in so many other forms of photography and other aspects of everyday life.

Website: Portfolio
Workshop info: Scenic Photo Workshops
Private or small group workshop info: Learn.
Steve’s Photo Tips and How To Page
Steve’s Landscape Photographer Tools Page

Spot Connet GPS Device Upgrades Itself!!

Spot has big changes coming at the end of this month!!!
You will be able to text message with it via your smart phone while connected via blue tooth which is great compared to the older version that only sent an SOS or morse code type single message to your contacts. Technology changes so fast it’s amazing!

Yes folks, you’ll be able to update your facebook & twitter if you’d like to.

Fall Color Photo Tips; Part II

• Certain iconic scenes haven’t been photographed to death in certain seasons. A little bit of seasonal touch can go along way. The scene here was made famous by Ansel Adams black and white photography.

• Everyone will tell you use a polarizer, but why use a polarizer? Without a polarizer these 3 images would be exactly the same. The first image is at full strength of polarization, the last is without any polaration and the middle image could of been created in two different ways. Gets you thinking doesn’t it?

• If you miss the fall color in the mountains don’t forget about other types of foliage that may change weeks and months later in different locations. You’ll be surprised at what you were missing and overlooked. Fall color is so much more then just aspen and maple trees or whatever first comes to mind.

• Somethings are easily forgotten so don’t forget to check below your feet. Try to vary your scenes by taking the large expansive landscape vistas, detailed close ups and much more in between these two vastly different views.

Website: Portfolio
Workshop info: Scenic Photo Workshops
Private or small group workshop info: Learn.
Steve’s Photo Tips and How To Page
Steve’s Landscape Photographer Tools Page

Replacing Mirror Lock UP with Live View

Here is quick tech tip, I generally do not use mirror lock unless I have a shutter speed near 1/15 of a second or if I’m shooting with a focal length of beyond 200mm. Before live view it took slightly longer get set up on mirror lock by going into the menu to activate mirror lock up and again going into the menu to exit the mirror lock up mode. Now with live the mirror lock up is availble in one push of a button. The vibrations from the mirror flipping up and down are down when you need it most. That’s just one extra reason why live view is one of my demands on a camera body.

Website: Portfolio
Workshop info: Scenic Photo Workshops
Private or small group workshop info: Learn.
Steve’s Photo Tips and How To Page
Steve’s Landscape Photographer Tools Page

Life at Badwater

Twenty thousand years ago Death Valley was submerged by a lake 600ft deep. Could you imagine a place such as Badwater to be actually green at one time in the past? Life did exist here and that is the feeling I wanted to capture in this image. The unique clouds in the sky and hovering planet float above the basin like a spirits in the sky.

When something is seen in the skies that is unusual or uncommon, it’s easy to just say that is not real or it’s trick. The photographer might be trying to fool us, “we’ll have to keep an eye him and catch him sometime.” I can’t blame anyone for thinking that way, I’ve seen some odd things and have thought the same thing myself. The only way I can find a way to relate this to anyone is if you have actually stood in the Owens Valley long after the sunset glow has dissappeared and seen the oddly shaped lenticular clouds catch their light so long after every other cloud has lost it’s color. If you have seen this you know the clouds must be so high up in the atmosphere for this to occur. At the time of this capture I was a hundred miles east of the Owens Valley so I’m seeing the backside of one of these so called UFO’s. We all know the most famous guy for photographing these lenticular clouds so I don’t need to mention his name but he does have a nice example on page 5 of his Eastern Sierra gallery in color.

There is a little bit of unnaturalness happening here, I did use my i-phone to light up the dead stems during the long exposure. That isn’t much light so I don’t know if we could call it light painting. As for that planet there in the sky, I’m not an astronomer and I do not know which one it is but I did take this a few days earlier this week.

If you have any questions on how this was photo was created or think it’s not real either way I would love to hear it. If you are into night photography or it’s not your cup of tea please feel free to voice your thoughts and opinions.

One last thing there is life on the badwater basin, it’s a microscopic bug called an extremophile, it thrives in the 120 degree heat of summer and it’s name suites it well. What kind of slang could we call them, fire lice maybe? hmmm.. .

Workshop info

Steve’s Gallery

Ever Wonder about the History of Landscape Photography?

One of the pioneers of color landscape photography passed away a few years ago. He left behind so much to be remembered, Philip Hyde donated his life to the enviroment. His photographs helped protect Dinosaur Nat’l Monument, the Grand Canyon, the Redwoods, Pt. Reyes, Kings Canyon, the North Cascades, Canyonlands, the Wind Rivers, Big Sur and many other national parks and wilderness areas.

Cirios, Boulder, Baja California, Mexico by Philip Hyde

With so much left behind his son, David Hyde whose articles have been nationally sydicated, will begin a new blog journal with a launch date of January 15th, 2010 at 10:00am (that is right now). The blog will contain, Philip and Ardis Hyde’s travels, fine art landscape photography, enviromental campaigns, straight photography, photography collecting, green economics and more!

The image above is copyrighted and permitted for use here by David Hyde, please respect all copyright laws.

You can find it at PhilipHyde.com. Anyone thats find the history of landscape photography important or is interested in giving back to the enviroment will love the site and any art lovers as well, you have my word!

California’s Unknown Sea

Ok, I’m kidding about an unknown sea in California. There isn’t one. These are just some rocks in a grassland and nothing more causing an illusion that helped my think of a title. The atmosphere just gave it a mysterious feel and a view I hadn’t seen before or anything similar at the least in California.. . .

One thing that I will always remember about this place before venturing in is that it is full of snakes and spiders and that you will not be able to see them because the grass is so high. Great, add mountain lions to that. I accidentally stepped on a poor little defenseless rodent walking around these parts. How easily could that have been a rattlesnake? I still haven’t seen one yet ever after hiking so many miles and miles. I have seen plenty of snakes but never a rattle snake unless it was crossing the highway as I was driving by probably over the speed limit. I should be shooting wildlife if I can see like that, however that is a different kind of patience I do not have. Waiting on the sun to do it’s thing is easy just like what happened here.

The Processing:

This was reprocessed 4 years after an older version, that I decided to replace. This is 2 bracketed exposures blended together in CS4 combined with the use fo a GND soft filter moved up and down during the exposure to reduce flare from the sun. The blending is not that difficult and the hardest part is adding the contrast to where the horizon meets the sky. Photoshopping images can take some time so if you don’t want to spend the time don’t take it out on me for being HONEST about it. Anyone that mentions only spending a couple of minutes in photoshop could be pulling your chain and revealing thier character. We shoot in RAW format which lessens contrast and color so we can adjust things to the look and feel we are aiming for.

Camera used Nikon D70, shot way back in 2006!

The Portfolio www.SierenPhotography.com

Learn to see in a different way www.ScenicPhotoWorkshops.com

Landscape Photography My Best of 2009

2009 was a great year! Here are a few images from throughout the year. Enjoy! I’ll give a little more detail on some of these in later posts. Thanks!

1. Wild California lilacs in the Santa Monica Mountains Los Angeles

2. Cold Toes

3. Warm Light from the south

4. This one above is kind of odd but I love it!

5. A bend in the Virgin River, Zion National Park

6. Nevada’s Great Basin Desert

7a. Mountain Shapes

7b. Beer Gut Star Fish – Northern California Coast Mendicino County

8. “Lupine Island” Trinidad, California

9. 10 minutes away from home – Newbury Park, California

10. Death Valley

11. Death Valley

12. Abandoned Mine – National Trails proposed Monument

13. Treasure Peaks, Eastern Sierra

14. Backpacking at White Sands

15. Antelope Valley with the glow of Los Angeles in the background.

16. Royce and Feather Peaks, Eastern Sierra

17. A new arch hidden out in the Mojave Desert

18. The one shown above is part of my new minimalist series. White Sands, New Mexico

19. Took the one shown above the night I slept on California’s 20th highest peak w/ out a tent and sleepbag

20. A spring snow storm in late April in Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay

21.Gaint sand storm in Death Valley, there is an RV in the large photo for scale.

22. Galen Rowell’s famous Milpond rendered in my own way.

23. Neopolitan Ice Cream – Artist’s Palette, Death Valley.

24. Red Rock Canyon State Park, California – I hope to photograph more black and whites in 2010!

25. Finally decided to broaden my horizons with abracts in 2009

26. Iceberg Lake, Eastern Sierra

27. Joshua Tree at Night. There is more I just didn’t have the time to process them all. It may look like I get out often but many of these were taken in the same day.

Let’s see what 2010 has in store for all of us. Make it a great one!

Death Valley workshops – www.ScenicPhotoWorkshops.com

My official website www.SierenPhotography.com