Fresh scans!

This first one is yet another of my friend Euell's and myself's excursions. We climbed alongside a roaring Horsetail Falls in Desolation Wilderness to get this view of Pyramid Peak.

Moraine Lake in the Alberta Rockies, near Lake Louise, just HAS to be one of the most picturesque places in the world. The lighting conditions there weren't too good but, I had to make do with what natures provided me with. I've been trying a little bit of "tweakage" on my scans to see just what I can and can't do. This one I just couldn't seem to improve that sunny peak enough to make a difference.

Now, here's a picture that never needed any "tweaking". This view of the Sierra Nevada and the Owens Valley from high in the White Mountains is dramatic and, again, is an example of the "Third's Rule". One of these days, I'll post a picture of the next morning's crystal clear view of the entire southern Sierra Nevada.

This part of a slide caught my eye and I wanted to see if I could zoom in and make a new picture of the people on Half Dome's cable ladder. This one you're going to want to right click on the picture and select "Open link in a new window". It was certainly rather intimidating when I first stood here and took this picture.

This last shot was a glorious morning back in March of '95. I had just stayed overnight on top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. The fresh snow was still on the trees and the hustle and bustle of everyday life was gone in favor of the wind, the sun, the snow and the sky (and the occasional belching roar of a shuttle bus 3000 feet below).

More new scans

I did a little experimentation with this next slide of Bear Creek Spire, in the central Sierra Nevada of California. I wanted to see if I could make a high quality scan on a smaller portion of the original slide. To my old tired eyes, there does seem to be a slight quality loss when zooming in.

Notice the tiny little skier who I tried to enlarge. Nature DOES have a way of making us all look very small. As I had skied up to the base of the peak, I was very uncertain of what lay on the other side. Luckily, I had total trust in my ski partner and we made good use of that rope, along with the piton and caribiner.

Crater Lake has been the site of many of my best pictures. I also feel that there's plenty more there, just waiting for me to come along and capture them.

Wizard Island truly is a magical place at Crater Lake. I've barely scratched the surface of what visual pleasures there are in this flooded caldera. About 10 hours will do the trick, methinks.

Ski Bare....errrrr.....Bear

I went up the hill to Bear Valley Ski Resort to get some more skiing in. If I want to "profit" on my season's pass, I'd better start getting up there on a regular basis. The snow was quite good and it wasn't very cold except for a persistant north wind, gusting up to 40 mph, at times. Luckily, it died down as the morning progressed. Unfortunately, my boots were giving me a problem, as I am still breaking both the boots and my feet in. Lack of circulation just doesn't go well with skiing. I felt I skied very well, and as agressively as I am used to but, the pain and fatigue were too much for my lazy and aging body.

I took my camera up on the slopes with me and did some experimentation. I set my digital camera into movie mode and attempted to take digital video of what my skiing looks like through my eyes. Scorcese and Spielberg have nothing to fear from my directorial efforts. In order for me to film while skiing, I had to hold the camera in one hand, the two ski poles in the other hand and try to ski without the benefits of pole plants, essential to perfect form and balance. On the steeper, upper-most parts of the runs I filmed, the camera swings wildly from side to side and isn't easy to watch. As I get down to the flatter areas, the image stabilizes and you get a better view of what skiing is like. It was fun! I'll try some more on another day.

I did find time for some still pictures. This one below is looking southward, towards the northern boundary of Yosemite National Park. As you can see, the High Sierra is a rugged and foreboding place that beckons to the pioneer spirit in some of us.

This other picture is the view looking northward, into the equally rugged Mokelumne Wilderness. I can honestly say that I could ski that slope across the canyon and would gleefully do it if there was enough snow and a road or chairlift serving that face. This particular canyon is merely a medium-sized one for the Sierra Nevada.

New scanner blasts from the past

Well, the saga of my new Nikon Coolscan V ED came to an surprising end and a bright new beginning. I learned this morning that my new scanner was on a truck and would be delivered today, a full two days early than they had promised. After making backup copies of the software, I proceded to install the scanner's applications and see what this puppy could do.

I've had 40 slides already picked out and I selected the following five to practice on. It seems that I'm going to need the practice, as the scans did not completely capture the vividness of the original Kodachrome slides.

This first one is from sometime during the early 90's, taken at Bear River Canyon on the Eldorado National Forest's Amador Ranger District. I stood on the edge of this huge rugged canyon, teetering on the brink, trying to compose this shot just right. There just was no way to take the shot without standing and looking through the viewfinder at the same time.

This next picture is also from the Eldorado National Forest in the early 90's but was taken from within the Desolation Wilderness. Twin Lakes is west of Mt Price, which I had climbed earlier that day. Usually, taking pictures into the sun results in exposure problems. Luckily, my subject was not the lake or the land but, the sparkling ripples of the windblown surface. Years ago, when I was in a camera club, this photo earned me a "Picture of the Month".

This long exposure of Oregon's Multnomah Falls is even older than the first two pictures. I was experimenting with my then-new tripod and seeing if I could duplicate the smooth water effects of other long exposure photos I had seen before. It took me a bit to set up, right in the middle of the stream but, as soon as I clicked open the shutter, I noticed that there were a father and son in the picture. I sighed, resigning myself to have to wait until they left in order to get a picture with no people in it at this popular tourist attraction. It turned out that this picture is a better storyteller than any of the other shots I took that day.

Whenever I go on a mountain trip with my good buddy Euell, I ALWAYS get good conditions and great pictures on those trips. This trip in the early 90's to Yosemite's Grant Lake was a very memorable one. The late afternoon light was electric and the calm of the lake was magical. Alas, the scanner did not capture the vividness of the light reflected off both the rocks and the lake.

This last picture is one of my treasures. It was again, sometime in the early 90's when I took a hike up the Snow Creek Trail leading out of Tenaya Canyon in Yosemite. The warm spring day was melting snow at a fantastic rate. I had heard and seen (and even captured) snow avalanches during the day. After a full day of climbing up to the snowline, I was on my way back down the trail and stopped for rest and refreshment. I had just loaded my last roll of film and was relaxing in the warm afternoon sun when I heard another rumble. With my camera around my neck, I looked up to see another small avalanche falling alongside the flank of the mighty Half Dome. I grabbed my camera, taking a split second to conciously compose the right shot and then clicked the shutter, hoping I had done everything right.

Yes, it turned out that I had done well with the lighting and the framing of both Half Dome and the avalanche. Unfortunately, there was a jet's contrail across the upper lefthand corner of the picture. In scanning the slide today, I cropped out a majority of it but, couldn't eliminate it completely. I then experimented with trying to digitally remove the rest of it. I used the "clone tool" to paint over the jet trail with the same sky color. Can you tell where it was??

I can tell that I'm going to be having "flashbacks" while scanning photos from my now-distant past. Except for having to clean the dust off all my slides, this is going to be fun!

More "artsy" pics

I decided to try my luck at pictures with different palettes. Zion National Park has all these great colors and I wondered if they would be suitable for some of these "artsy" manipulations. Zion tends to to take your breath away right as you enter the park. It takes its place amongst the greatest of our National Parks and, luckily, it's far enough away from the hordes of tourists that it is still quite unspoiled.

This picture below used the dry brush technique. Again, I recommend that you right click on the picture and open it in a new window to see the nuances of this image.

This next picture doesn't really look like it was manipulated with the poster edges effect. The rock formation always reminds me of a church steeple and that really shouldn't surprise anyone, as it is located in a place called the "Temple of Sinawava", across from "The Pulpit".

Here's another picture with the poster edges effect, obviously a favorite technique I use. This time, I excluded the sky from the technique and boosted the effect a tiny bit in the rest of the picture. I definitely like how it worked out.

The watercolor effect can have its moments, as some have a fondness for paintings. I tried to use the "Third's Rule" in this picture, balancing the shadow, the cliffs and the sky with each other. I hope you all like it.

Finally, here's the Yosemite picture that escaped me in yesterday's posting. I also excluded the sky in this picture from the poster edges effect. It seems to be a little on the dark side and I couldn't quite get the brightness and contrast just right.

Winter Doldrums

During the winter, while I'm laid off from work, I sometimes feel like a kid during summer vacation saying, "Mommy! I'm BORED and there's nothing to do!" Of course, as an adult, I know that's bullpucky. There's ALWAYS something to do. Yes, I do have my new skis and that season pass to BearValley Ski Area but, I'm more of a spring skier. Yes, I could've gone to Yosemite and taken more pictures but, my car needs some servicing. Yep, ALL of those are excuses for not living my life to the fullest. I finally reached an impasse in my winter layoff, bored of all the dumb things I've done so far since I've been out of work. Sooooo, without further ado, here's some samplings of something I've thrown together out of boredom.

I did order a fancy new Nikon film scanner but, it's been backordered since my birthday in January. Only just now has it arrived at the mail order company I ordered it from and they're fumbling around, taking days to even get it on a truck to me (GRRRRRRR!!). In the meantime, I've decided to play around with the more "artsy" functions of Adobe Photoshop Elements. A good thing to do to see my photos bigger and better is to right click on the picture and select "Open link in a new window". That way my entire blog doesn't refresh when you go back to it.

The "poster edges" effect seems to go well with my pictures and I'm going to be using it a lot to try and produce some "fine art" photos suitable for framing and sale. Below is one that I think will be a winner. It is the bottom of Lower Yosemite Falls and I really like the stark contrast and the isolation of just these two elements of Yosemite.

This next one below is Cathedral Peak, so aptly named by John Muir. I used the watercolor effect on this photo, softening and smoothing the jaggedness of the High Sierra. The original series of these pictures has climbers on the face of this popular rock climb.

This scene of both Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls was altered with the "dry brush" effect. Many of these techniques require that you use restraint in the strength of the alterations, as the details go right out the window with heavy-handed manipulation. Maybe someday I'll get around to making psychedelic abstracts (grin).

Here's another view of Cathedral Peak with the "poster edges" effect again. Somehow, these seem more detailed than the original images. If you look VERY closely by clicking on the picture, you can see the climber near the top of the peak (and use your imagination). Someday, I'll climb dat sucka!!

Here's one that didn't come out all that good. I had another one ready to go but, saved it to the wrong folder. Notice the tiny bridge all the way on the right side of the picture. Zooming in even closer you can see the tiny people on it.