Since my first climb  few years back to now,  traffic on trail increased dramatically. Even though I’m pleased and applaud the increased health consciousness in people, I constantly see some of us take short cuts and make new paths to the summit. These actions will result into land errosion and damage to already minimal  flora.
Volunteers and Rangers are ticketing people caught on these short cut paths, but I believe the change should/will come from individual’s self-conviction.  Current state of peaks does not look threatend, but hopefully we never get to that state.
 
Land preserves meant to preserve them to their natural state. I wish cattle are not allowed on the peaks.
 
Image (Mission Peak on right corner and Mt. Allison on Left corner)

As I mentioned in my journals last couple years, the original photograph was taken by Galen Rowell.
His image of this falls is still the best. You can see it in Galen Rowell’s Yosemite gallery (2nd page)

My image is from some where close to Cathedral Beach on South Drive.

As the color on falls slowly faded light, my focus turned towards the sky. Sunset was glorious.
Unfortunately there are lot of distraction in left corner in this image (below). Had we got enough time to get into the river, it would have been a great image.

We enjoyed sunrise at inspiration point. Following two images are from there. Point to note here is
First image was taken 30 minutes before sunrise, Peak color faded away with in a minute or two. So I guess, we need to be there way before sunrise here.

Following two are my personal favorites from the trip. This is one of the intimate images of Merced flow. I had to get into water for right perspective and zoom for this image. I had waterproof over-all on me, without which I wouldn’t  even dare touch winter cold river. Merced is cold even in mid summer.

Here is another original and personal favorite “Life Under Shadow of Giant”.

Here are three macros

Happy Clicking
Swamy

After weeding through multiple cancellations and postponements for a month, I finally took off on 4 day trip to Death Valley National Park on Thursday, Nov 11th. Its basically two full days  in the park that’s as large as 1.5 times of delaware state; good luck.
I spent most of the time at four places only. 

• Two important playas (Playa means flat-floored bottom of an undrained desert basin.)  in the park,
  • Salt Flats
  • Race Track.
• Mesquite Sand dunes
• Zabriskie point

I spent quality of time at each location and the experience at each location was exquisite. Name of this national park turns some people off, but the beauty that this place offer to its visitors is exceptional…Soaring temperatures in summers often cross 120 degrees Fahrenheit reminds the name is apt.

Salt ponds at bad waters: This is lowest point in North America, 286 feet below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous 48 states is 85 miles far from here.  Bad waters located 27 miles from furnace creek village.

I spend two sunsets here. Sunsets behind telescope peak (range), but you can turn any side that has good composition and sunset colors…that’s big advantage at this place. Just walk straight into salt ponds about 1 to 3/4 miles from parking lot for good undisturbed formations. Alternately, drive little more distance from parking lot and park on the road side and walk into the flats to avoid crowd.

Here are couple of images from this place. Click on each image to view largers

I stayed back after sunset to try star trails. I started clicking off one hour after sunset. I took 16 images in next two hours. More images makes skies more interesting…but I wanted to see how successful is my attempt first, before committing another hour or two in the night. I was the only one around in the salt ponds, three hours after sunset, no sound other than wind. Even though it was half-moon in the sky, it was reflecting off the light from complete white fields and sky with full of stars…its just pure beauty. Close your eyes for couple of minutes. Open your eyes and look around you. I’m not trying to be more poetic here, but an experience that this moment brings will stay for ever. At least speaking of me, it will.

This image shows how bad my star identifying skills are. My intention was to put polaris in the middle of the frame. Obviously I missed it big time. My exposure was also not correct. On top of all these, there were couple of passing clouds in the two hour period brought some noise at horizon. Anyways, for second attempt…not bad at all.

Race Track: Its a ancient lake bed. Its 32 mile drive on very rough dirt road from Ubehbe crater. A high clearance vehicle is required. 4 wheel drive is preferred, but not necessary. Inspite of engaging part-time 4 wheel drive, I did not drive more than 20 miles to ensure, my tires are OK. Rocks in this playa are moved slowly making their way marked in the clay  promptly. It’s believed that this rocks are moving due to wind. I reached here 3 hours  before sunset and surveyed the area and picked up my racing horse…na…rock and waited. I tried star trails after sunset. This was my first attempt and missed on exposure, position
completely. But again, experience at this location is great. No one around you for at least 40 miles distance. Whole playa, sky and stars are all yours. Pure wilderness experience.

I camped in a primitive campground two miles away from the playa for the might. This camp ground is not marked any where. It does not have electricity/water/rest-room, not even picnic bench. Just level ground for tents and some stones for camp fire.
 
Very unexpected, there are two other people already there at the site…non-photographers. After all, I was not alone there.

Sand Dunes:  Sand dunes are just a mile away from Stovepipe wells village. They look very small and hardly covered any area from the road. I started hiking one hour before sunrise. It took one hour to reach on top of the tallest sand dune which I thought is not too far. I was completely tired, disappointed. Almost all the dune edges are covered with foot steps. On top of that I could not previsualize the scene… I should be ready with camera setup on tripod by the time first rays hit the dunes. I was simply trying to shoot west side sky between cotton wood mountains and grapevine mountains with some pale sunrise color. I have no more sand dunes on west side of me. I have not interesting fore ground. My expectations were much more from the dunes. Then the first rays hit the sand dunes…I just stopped what I was doing.  I forgot about camera for a minute ( I don’t have a composition to work with anyway). The place turned in to amazing playground for light. I stayed there for 5 minutes and got down from that dune. I didn’t have to try hard for composing below images. I fortunately found this dune without foot steps in time. This was really great experience. After thought cleared my doubt on why I failed to previsualize the scene; it because, my expectations are blinding me. The sand dune images I have been seeing with great sunrise/sunset colors making me to look toward east all the time.

If you want to really experience the beauty of sand dunes, get on to the top of this tallest dune and wait.

On the way back to parking lot, I found a clambering man with walking stick. By the time I reached, he fell on his face twice. I helped him out to parking lot and found that he is suffering from balance disorder caused by  a brain disease. Seems aggravates when patient is under more physical stress. I asked him on the way, how did he find this place, thinking that it would be his first time and he underestimated the walk. He coolly told me that he comes very regularly here from LA and he can not resist coming here inspite of his health condition and the danger it involves. I just went “Wow” !…

Here are the images from Sand Dunes

Zabriskie Point: Zabrisky point is 6 miles frm furnace creek village. I took this from observation point itself. There is a trail that takes you down into the canyon, but you will not get the same perspective.

Happy Clicking

Swamy

Click on the image to see larger

This pregnant whale died after struck by a ship and washed to San Mateo County beach two weeks ago. There should be a way to avoid this kind of accidents. May be by using some kind of whale repulsion device in ships.  Blue whales are endangered and very likely to categorized into critically endangered in couple of years. These are giants, we can not keep them in farms and grow them in quantities in order to save this species. If we can not help, least that we can do is leaving them alone. This is another issue that shipping industry should consider. 90% of world trade is carried through ships. Almost everything that use in our daily life are brought here through ships. Its multi-billion dollar industry. Its hardly an expense for them to spend for research to find ways to avoiding this kind of accidents.

Anyways, I finally got my new camera 5D MarkII and started again where I stopped  photography early this year due to the mishap that costed my gear. Its unfortunate to start with new camera on a sad note ( this image) though.

If any bay area folks want to visit, here are the GPS coordinates and map. Bean Hallow beach is about 12 miles south to Half Moon Bay.

regards

Swamy

Its been very very busy month for me, personaly and  professional. After negotiating many priorities…I could able to complete the screen saver finally.    Here it is.

Installation:
 

1. Click on this link

2.  Following pop-up window appears, click “run”  (file size is about 84MB)

3. In some computers following “unknown publisher” warning window appears, click “run”

4. Following window appear asking for destination directory. Usually points to
   windows installation already. So just press “Install”

Enjoy the wildlife on your screen … but please remember that observing these amazing animals in  

wild is great experience. Many of these species need your help. Please support your local

 wildlife conservation efforts.

-Swamy

I’m not a savvy industry analyst in this market, but purely driven by my needs. I use my screen savers (or my gallery in my office) as an anchor point to get-out of intertwined or disorganized thought processes and refocus on tasks at hand. Even though I added music to enhance the experience, this screen saver has options to mute the music. It comes with plenty of options to play with, but one I like the most if F2 button. When the screen saver is playing and if you see an image that you like for moment or day, simply press F2 to make it as desktop wall paper.

Here is the link to download “Symphony of Nature” screen savers and feel free to distribute it.

(No free or online softwares used in creating this screensaver, so no danger of spywares )

Installation:
1.  Click on this link

2. Following pop-up window appears, click “run”  (file size is about 16MB)

3. In some computers following “unknown publisher” warning window appears, click “run”

4. Following window appear asking for destination directory. Usually points to
   windows installation already. So just press “Install”

Enjoy the nature on your screen !

-Swamy

I went to Yosemite for second time this year.  Although we knew that weather might not be cooperative  for sunset, just took a chance.

It rained most of the day. Even though rain spoils  photo opportunities, I love rain. Overcast days are really help bring out rich and vibrant colors in nature. So naturally my attention moved onto intimate  objects around me.

 Here are couple of them (click on the image to view large …first click take you to thumbnail and click on it again)

Almond Flower

Shimmering Almond Tree in Magical Morning light

Intimacy

Pachyderm

Patterns in Nature

Lonely at the Top

Yosemite Valley

As day progressed, fog intensified and made it clear of natures intentions for the evening. So we decided to return next week and headed back home. Hopefully more next week.

Happy Clicking

Swamy

Tide Pool

Should I title this image … “Good bye my dear Canon-5D” ?

I knew this place from long time and have been waiting for right time. Along with the kids, while filming the movie “Animals of Tide Pools” last year, I learned about and admired fascinating eco system of tide pools (I attached the movie at the end).

I wanted to shoot this tide pool in same composition as this but with sunset clouds reflecting in the pool. As clouds above does not have much color, shortly after taking this shoot, I moved other end of tide pool where I found some star fish. To get nice perspective and get starfish right size in the frame, I had to setup the camera little lower than I usually do near ocean. I had been watching wave average reach and thought I can retreat the camera in the event of big splash. All was set and I was doing my final adjustments then came first wave, I lifted the camera high and was trying to stand-up and then came next splash drenched me from the head all over. I ran back to my back-pack for dry towels which I always carry…and to my dismay, there are no towels in my back-pack. I ran back to my car and cleaned camera. All compartments of camera looked dry, but camera goes on continues shutter release for about ten/twelve times and freezes with ‘err 99′. I guess, water leaked in somehow… my lens seems to be fine, no visual water effect (yet). But salt water exposure is very dangerous, so I don’t want to take any chance. Both camera and lens are on the way to canon service center. I heard many stories of reviving completely drowned cameras, this one is just a big splash, so I’m hopeful; until my 5D got repaired, I have to rely on my beloved 20D.

I’m writing several articles covering basics to advanced techniques of photography. But meantime give short notes on this image artistic and technical details.

My story in this image is just portraying the importance of tide pools and connecting it to ocean. So I angled the camera in such a way that tide pool occupies more than half of the frame and rest of the space for ocean and sky. Composition basic guide lines is to place horizon at one-third of the frame. I also made sure the edge of the tide pool curves through the frame and leads to the sky (please see below picture). I’ll talk about composition in detailed in separate article.

Tide Pool

Technical side its pretty simple; for controlling exposure between foreground and sky, you need GND filters (I’ll cover details in exposure article). Water reflects light, so you will not be able to see details of anything in the water in general. You need a circular polarizer to eliminate this glare.

Here is the movie “Animals of Tide Pools”.

Animals of Tide Pools

Happy Clicking
Swamy

Symphony of Nature

Symphony of  Nature is a place (blog) to share  my admiration of nature.  Small moments that I capture through lens connects me to the whole experience that lead to these images for ever. This is the place where I want to share my experiences,  knowledge of places I visited and techniques learned behind the camera.

I posted last 3 trip reports already in the blog. While reviewing the content of these posts I realized that its more about planning and events of the trip. I hardly covered the three important topic that I mentioned above. Well, I’m not a writter and I’ll try not to pretend to be one (going easy on readers, isn’t it? ).

I have two main section in the blog, one to cover my trip reports and other to cover different articles  about different techniques of photography, details about locations/places and etc…

In main page of the blog, please enter your email-id and click “sign me up”  for (auto subscription) receiving email notification of new article postings.

There is a “Leave A Comment” link at the end of each artcle. It always nice to hear your comments. I’m very open for critic, good or bad

-Swamy

Light on El Capitan is not as red as what I saw earlier (since it was late February), but now I got good foreground and light covered El Capitan more. I stayed up late after sunset and turned around and saw the opposite cliffs are illuminated (partially by moon, I think). So I took this image from the logs that I have been sitting on. 

Next morning sunrise was rained out, so got good full night sleep.  Next day, same exercise with kids… pull the tube all the way up slope and back, fetch them and go again. But I couldn’t buy my free time that day. Kids wanted to build a snowman and do more sledding on wild slopes (non-groomed). After struggling with sled for sometime, I tried to push some snow up and call it a snowman and thought to steel some time for sunset. While I was hurrying, my consciousness gave me a bonk.
I hardly had anytime to search a location or even to drive to any known locations before sunset. So instead of doing two mediocre things and sure to fail, I decided to do one thing atleast right and turn the situation to my favour. So kept our snow-modeling skills a test and used it as subject for my sunset picture. So here we go with Mrs.Frosty….   

Next morning , got up at 5AM and hurried to tunnel view. Slipped on frozen deck out side our cabin and did a half somersault and landed on my back. Good thing about cold weather is that you don’t feel pain until you are warm again But sunrise was good. This was my third/fourth attempt at this place. Even though I reached at 5:30AM, colors peaked just few minutes before sunrise (7AM) Its pretty classic image from Yosemite. Composition inspired by Ansel Adams, few people before him and million others following him till yesterday.

 I did about 45 minutes walk-up in merced river bank after sunrise to shoot three-brothers, but with lot of debris around…did not get nice location.  So just these four images from this trip.

Happy Clicking…
Swamy