Going Wide
A friend on Facebook just asked me for advice about wide angle lenses, and rather than relay what I know to another individual, I thought I’d post here for him and anyone else who’d like to hear my thoughts. My experience is based on having owned the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Nikkor Wide Angle […]
When All Else Fails…
You can always rely on Tunnel View for a great Yosemite photo, right? Well, not always, as it turns out. Even the perspective on Yosemite Valley that Tunnel View offers can be rendered fairly un-photogenic by bad light. Sorry, but even this old faithful spot is subject to the same weakness as every other spot […]
What’s Safer Than an Airbag?
When I was flying from Frankfurt to Doha, Qatar, I met two Italian members of the Clinica Mobile, the M*A*S*H unit of MotoGP. These guys travel to each race to tend to any injuries the riders suffer during the weekend. We talked about many things, one of which was their experience treating rookie MotoGP rider […]
So Nice To See Your Friends Do Well
I have no closer connection to any MotoGP team than the French Tech 3 squad, having interviewed Guy Coulon several times for MotoMatters.com and gotten to know the press officer and team principal fairly well last season. Now that they have two of the premier class’ three American riders, I watch their progress with even […]
Cathedral Rocks
This image of Cathedral Rocks in Yosemite Valley is interesting to me because it has become one of my favorite photographs of the trip, and I almost didn’t bother to get out of the car to take it. We had spent the morning camped on the shore of the Merced River, waiting for the sunlight […]
From Salt Lake to Mono Lake
Going back in time a bit, here is a post I wrote as we arrived in Yosemite on June 7th. Trading Armco and asphalt and granite and waterfalls, I’ve moved from the racetrack to Yosemite for the week. The late summer and recent snows mean that the waterfalls in the valley should be in full […]
Going for the Silver
It’s quite an odd experience to go to Yosemite for the purpose of making photographs. Everywhere you go, whether in direct sunlight or in the shade of an iconic granite structure, you are under the shadow of Ansel Adams. I know of no photographer who has staked such a claim on a place as Mr. […]
Milky Way over Mono Lake
A proper landscape photo trip is something like a marathon, an endurance test to determine how badly you want the chance for another good image. This test is easier to pass at the beginning of the tip, before consecutive nights of 3-4 hours of sleep have caught up with you.
Yosemite Valley from Sentinel Dome
When I was in graduate school one of my professors said something like, “The thing about Shakespeare is that in spite of all the people who say how great he is, he really is pretty good.” I was reminded of this comment at one point last week as I was thinking that Yosemite is the […]
There’s a storm brewin’
These spring snow storms I mentioned last time can come in pretty quickly. On Saturday evening I was on the east shore of Lake Tahoe hoping for something amazing to photograph and was pleased, at first, to see a snow storm coming down over the mountains and heading right for me. It’s not every day […]