A surfer heading out during a summer sunset on a Southern California beach.

I recently lost another friend to cancer. I attempted to put up a tribute post two weeks ago, but decided to keep it private. Photographically speaking, I am hitting a motivational wall. My camera is sitting in a corner collecting dusts. I don’t even want to turn on my computer when I get home from work. This image is from my 2009 photo archive. This picture reminds me to get out there more often as I always find my escape and my balance on this beach.

Thanks for visiting, and have a wonderful summer should I don’t post again until the fall.

A two minutes twilight exposure of a frozen Twin Lakes – Eastern Sierra, California

I took this long exposure of Twin Lakes in the Mammoth Lakes basin after a wonderful dinner at the Tamarack Lodge’s Lakefront restaurant. If you are ever in Mammoth Lakes, I recommend an early dinner at the Lakefront restaurant before a sunset shoot.

I scouted around this area to see where and when I could set up my tripod. I walked near the base of Twin Falls on Lake Mary, but preferred the view from this side of Twin Lakes. From what I saw, this location should be good for sunrise also. I didn’t have enough energy for a sunrise shoot for this trip, but I’ll definitely return to this location next time.

A 100 seconds twilight exposure of a Southern California beach shot with a BW ND110 filter.

I haven’t been out on the local beaches as often as I did in the past years. I really missed shooting these shoreline twilight scenes.

Last Friday, I left work early and went straight to the beach. During my rush, I left my remote cable release and Lee filter holder at home. I ended up hand-holding a Lee GND filter with one hand and pressing down on the shutter release button for 100 seconds with the other hand. I wanted to make a longer exposure, but had to cut my exposure time short because I knew that I couldn’t make a sharp enough exposure without my remote cable release. I underexposed this shot by about 1 stop. Thanks to RAW and post processing works, I am able to salvage this shot.

Trying to find time to post … this was shot last December. I haven’t been able to do much sea-side photography lately. This was a two minutes exposure.

Looking West on California State Route 120 from a few miles East of US-395

This is a hand-held shot taken about half an hour after the previous shot, Motion in Stillness. I had my circular polarizer filter to its maximum and my lens image-stabilizer on.

Early morning winter light on Mono Lake, California.

There I sat frozen on the edge of Mono Lake in the midst of gentle snowflakes tumbling down, enjoying every second of my winter solitude. I could time the gentle ripples on the lake surface; I could sense the clouds moving; I could feel the early winter morning light dancing on the distance mountain peaks; yet the stillness of the landscape was unmistakable. As out-of-this-world as those terrestrial sedimentary rock formations appeared, I felt so connected to my surroundings. Moments like these remind me that I am sharing my time with a living and breathing planet.

I arrived at the lake well before first light, hoping to catch a red sunrise sky on Mono Lake as I once witnessed, but this time, it wasn’t meant to be: dark clouds blanketed the eastern sky. Didn’t want to waste my effort of driving 400 miles and waking up before dawn to get to this location, I waited in the freezing cold for over two hours in to get this shot.

Some might say that Mono Lake has been done to death, but I love to capture scenes that I enjoy being apart of – regardless of how many times they’ve been photographed. It’s not the pursuit of uniqueness that I am after; it’s the desire of being in the moment that I seek.

Cloud movement on the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range seen from the Owen Valley.

I rarely take out my camera in the middle of the day, but when I saw these clouds while traveling on US-395, I decided to pull over near Lone Pine to make this long exposure (150 seconds). The cloud movement were erratic as a storm was brewing further up North.

It looks as if this image was heavily manipulated in PS, but it is just a long exposure converted to black and white. I used both red channels (Image/Calculations/Red/Red) to really pop those clouds. I thought about doing a panorama, but with super long exposures, I knew that it would be impossible to line up those clouds in between frames.

If you are curious about how I shot this: 70-200mm lens @70mm, manual focus to infinity, circular polarizer filter, neutral density 110 filter, bulb exposure.

Another long exposure (120 seconds) made with a ND110 filter and a 2 stops hard-edge ND filter. I don’t have too much time to write a longer post, but I did update the previous post to show a comparison between an image shot with ND110 and one without.

I am heading up the mountains for a few days. Hope to bring back a good photo or two.

A 110 second winter twilight exposure on a Southern California beach.

This long exposure shows the cloud movements and the small pebbles rolling around the sand with the tides.

I shot this over a month ago during my experiment with ND110 filter. I also used a 2 stop hard-edge GND filter on this shot. The BW ND110 added too much saturation to my long exposures. The sky was colorful, but not that intense. The actual scene was much darker. I thought about toning down the colors, but decided to leave it. When I get a chance, I’ll post another version shot without the ND110 filter.

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[Edited 3/1/2010]

After the above long exposure was recorded, I removed the ND110 filter and took a 1/6 second exposure of the same scene at the same aperture (F16) and ISO (200). These two images were shot about 3 minutes apart (counting the 2 minutes exposure time for the first shot). Both raw exposures were converted to JPGs using identical steps.

First Light over Mt. Laurel, Convict Lake – Eastern Sierra, California

This is a color version of a similar shot converted to black and white I posted last week. I guess this is a “normal” view of the scene as opposed to the surrealism feel from the previous high contrast b&w version. The two were shot about an hour apart.