Category Archives: landscapes

Huntington Library and gardens

I used to go fairly often to the Huntington Library, located in San Marino California, just below Pasadena. However lately I have only been able to go every so often, and in fact I had not been there for about a year or more, until now. I had a chance to go with my friend Greg, who got us in early in the morning, before the general public. Being able to get in early is really nice, first the earlier the better for me, and with the summer “June Gloom” going on made for some nice diffuse overcast light, which is great for flowers. The gardens always have a lot of flowers and they are very well maintained, so a target rich environment! I was hoping that the ponds would have some nice lotus blooming. I really miss the large lotus blooms at Echo Park lake, it really is too bad that people saw fit to steal the roots and not let others enjoy them, and I know they also had a disease issue, but it really was a combination of the two factors. The bloom there was really spectacular and now there is nothing, I sure hope that it can be restored at some point. Anyways back to the Huntington, there was some pink lotus flowers at the lower pond and some yellow lotus at the Chinese Garden, so that was really great. Also I can’t miss a chance to visit the large cactus garden there, always a treat to get some abstracts of the different cacti. So here are some shot from around the Huntington Library gardens. Hope you enjoy them.

_32E1077-web.jpghunt220110716.jpghunt320110716.jpghunt420110716.jpghunt520110716.jpghunt620110716.jpghunt720110716.jpghunt820110716.jpghunt920110716.jpghunt1020110716.jpghunt1120110716.jpghunt1220110716.jpghunt1320110716.jpghunt1420110716.jpghunt1520110716.jpghunt1620110716.jpg

Rockies revisited

_MG_2805-2807-Edit-Edit-web.jpg_MG_3002_3_4-Edit-web.jpg

 

I was going through some of my images to make up the galleries that I will have on the site and started to go back through an reprocess some of images. Why reprocess? The reason is that I continue to learn new things and try out new techniques and I think it improves my overall image quality. Here are a couple of images I took on a trip to the Canadian Rockies. Hope you like them.

 

Secret Canyon

The day after Greg and I got to Page, May 11, we went on a tour of Secret Canyon, which is just south of Page. It is somewhat near Antelope Canyon but in a different wash, I will bet that area has a lot of slot canyons. What makes this canyon nice is that only one tour guide has permission to go to it, and they limit the tours to a maximum of 6 people. We were fortunate to be the only ones in the canyon. The guide, Robert, was very knowledgeable and a good driver and he sure knew how to drive that Hummer. There was some interesting parts that really needed to have the 4-wheel drive and he was able to show off some of the abilities of the vehicle. Here are a few images from the canyon. Hope you enjoy them, click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger version.

_MG_7146-HDR_sfx2_lumi-web.jpg_MG_7172-HDR_sfx2_lumi-web.jpg_MG_7182-HDR_sfx2-lumi-a-web.jpg_MG_7191-HDR_sfx2_lumi-web.jpg_MG_7253-HDR_sfx2_lumi-web.jpg_MG_7300-HDR_sfx2_lumi-web.jpg

 

Quick trip to Page, AZ

My friend Greg and I decided to do a whirlwind trip to Page, AZ to do some photography on May 10 and 11. In particular we wanted to shoot some slot canyons. Greg had come across a relatively new and not well publicized slot canyon called “Secret Canyon”. After some discussion and review of our schedules we could not make a prolonged trip to the area, so we left on a Tuesday morning and drove the 8.5 hours to Page. Once there we had some time to kill and did some shooting around Wahweap Marina overlook and in an area near the Glen Canyon dam. The following day we headed to the slot canyon, to be documented in my next post. Here are some shots that were taken on the Tuesday late afternoon. Hope you enjoy them.

_MG_6922-web.jpg_MG_7092-Edit-4-web.jpg6935_6_7_HDR2_b-web.jpg6942_3_HDR2_sfx2-web.jpg6964_5_6_HDR2_sfx2-web.jpg6964_5_6_HDR2-web.jpg

Joshua Tree in HDR

Here is a 5 shot HDR shot bracketed at 1EV steps taken with a Canon 5D MarkII using a Zeiss 21mm f2.8 lens.  Taken in Joshua Tree National Park, a fun day with lots of clouds streaming through, we even got snowed on briefly. Too bad there were not more flowers out, some years are better than others. Still a fun day.

Misty Surf 2

Here is another shot from the Aliso Beach point, about 9o seconds exposure with a variable ND filter. I like this composition because of the channel leading out.

 

Misty Surf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

90 second exposure at ISO 100 and f22

Tried something a little different, I have seen pictures before with the ocean looking all misty, created by doing a long exposure, so I wanted to try it out. So went down to Aliso Beach and down to the point and tried it out with the variable ND filter. Here is one of the better images. Hope you like it.