Photoblog 2.0

Golden Gate Reflections, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

There was a strong wind blowing at my Angel Island campsite, and my tent puffed in and out like a bellows. But a little after midnight, the wind totally cut out and the surface of San Francisco Bay turned as flat and reflective as a sheet of glass. I grabbed my camera and tripod, put on a polarizer, and got a bunch of exposures before the wind picked up again and the glorious reflections vanished.

Some hours later, emerging from my sleeping bag, I saw the rising sun kissing the top of San Francisco’s towers.

[Above: Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 95mm (142.5mm in 35mm terms), circular polarizer, 30 seconds at f/5.3 and ISO 100, tripod mounted. Below: Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 26mm (39.5mm in 35mm terms), 2/5 of a second at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

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Campsite #4, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I spent a night last week camping on Angel Island. Smack dab in the middle of San Francisco Bay, wild in the midst of civilization, I had a great time. You can only reach Angel Island by ferry, and after the last ferry left I had the place pretty much to myself. I climbed Mount Livermore, and then settled down at my camp.

Perched on the southwest corner of the island, I had drop-dead views of Alcatraz, downtown San Francisco, and the Golden Gate. The show started at sunset, and did not stop. More photos will follow.

I took this one a little after midnight. There was a huge old Eucalytus tree stump at my campsite. I exposed for the Golden Gate Bridge, and lit the stump (which was in deep shadows) during the exposure by “painting” with light, using my headlamp.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 18mm (27mm in 35mm terms), 60 seconds at f/5 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Related stories: Alone in the City; Gerbode Valley.

Monochrome Shore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I’ve been thinking a good bit lately about making black and white prints from certain of my digital images. Actually, since the final output would be using my digital printer, printing via offset, or display on a color monitor, what I’m really doing is to use the RGB (or CMYK) color notation to create a simulation of a black and white image. So this is an intentionally retro endeavor. Worth noting: quality vintage black and white prints were not actually “black” and white, but toned to create a rich (but monochromatic) look.

I took this photo from a position some way off the Chimney Rock Trail in Point Reyes, look west at the setting sun and the rugged shore of the end of the Point Reyes peninsula. My intention when I took the photo was to convert it to monochrome, because there were hardly any colors anyhow. The shoreline seemed backlit to me, and I figured, well you can get a glamour backlit black and white of a model, why not a landscape?

Taking the photo took a fraction of a second, but converting this image took much longer.

First I processed it from the RAW as I would a normal color image, using several different RAW “exposures” in combination. Next, I tweaked each color channel used Color Channel adjustment layers with monochromatic check. I weaked the whole confection a bit, then added a few adjustments in LAB color and a tritone version of the original on top of my (by now massive) layer stack. Not to oversimplify, I used a variety of blending modes, masks, and adjustment layers.

If there is a moral to this, it’s that the key word is “simulate.” To get the “black & white” results I wanted, I needed to alter the color structure of the image, creating an entirely new look in the process. Well, honestly, that’s what I normally do with my photos much of the time.

Related story: Nautilus in Black and White.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 55mm (77.5mm in 35mm terms), 1/160 of a second at f/32 and ISO 100, hand held, image stabilization engaged.]

Scalloped, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I stood on the bluffs high above Drakes Beach just after the sun had dipped below the horizon. The high bluffs shadowed the beach below, while the light of sunset still reflected from the incoming surf. I shot a sequence of images at various shutter speeds.

If you are curious, the faster shutter speeds came out better than the slower ones at the same EV value. Across the board, I intentionally underexposed by about two f-stops (or by a factor of four) to make the beach go even darker while still picking up the colors in the water.

Back at home, when Phyllis and I looked at the sequence in Adobe Bridge, the thumbnail looked to us like a scalloped sea shell on a black background. I processed the photo in Photoshop to emphasize this effect.

Related stories: Wave Tangent, Patterns of Design.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 200mm (300mm in 35mm terms), 1/250 of a second at f/6.3 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Country Road, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

The verdant emptiness of the Point Reyes peninsula is achingly beautiful just after sunset.

On a recent weekday, there was no one around. On my way back from the Point Reyes lighthouse and Chimney Rock, I paused on a rise beside the road. The fresh air was redolent of the ocean, with a tang of dairy farm and fresh grass.

I set up my tripod near the road, with the assumption that no car was going to careen over the rise into me. Then a lone car came over the hill, went wide around me, and I pressed the shutter for this fifteen second exposure.

Next, it was on to Inverness to photograph the star trawler.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 18mm (27mm in 35mm terms), 15 seconds at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Pole Star, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is the last of a sequence of twelve photos of the wrecked Point Reyes trawler near Inverness. I took these photos the other night over the course of a couple of hours. The sequence started with The Long and the Short, and included Star Trawler. Like Star Trawler, this last capture in the series is a 1,204 second (20 minute) exposure.

As I was taking this photo, I was interested in the reflection of the boat in the water. I’ll admit I was pretty bored with all the waiting around during the long exposures and the in-camera noise processing, so I augmented the reflection with a little discreet light painting on the hull with my headlamp.

I also angled my camera so that it was facing due north and the Pole Star. The Pole Star, also called Polaris or the North Star, is almost stationary in this photo while all the other stars trail around it. This is because the Pole Star lies nearly in a direct line with the axis of the Earth’s rotation “above” the North Pole.

It has been rudimentary night-time navigation for thousands of years in the nothern hemisphere to determine north using the Pole Star (and is still useful if you are lost in the wilderness at night without a GPS or compass).

To determine north, first find the Big Dipper. Next, locate the “cup” part of the dipper so you can draw a mental line extending from the star Merak and extending beyond the star Dubhe (you’ll find a diagram in the Wikipedia article). The extended line will point at the bright Pole Star (it’s about five times as far from Dubhe as Merak and Dubhe are apart). Draw a line from the Pole Star to the earth, and you’ve fairly accurately found north.

This explains why I was excited when I spotted the Big Dipper pointing to the Pole Star directly above the wreck of the Point Reyes. I was hoping to capture the stars whirling around the single still point of Polaris above the boat.

[Nikon D300, 12-24mm zoom lens at 13mm (19.5mm in 35mm terms), 1,204 seconds at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Star Trawler 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is my first, and shortest, exposure of the Point Reyes boat the other night. As I explained in my original story about the star trawler, I was surprised to find the apparently monchromatic moonlight producing such vibrant colors.

The longer exposure was intended to produce star trails, but I like the effect here too: of stars more the way we see them.

The pair of photos illustrates a spread of aperture-shutter speed combinations, both at essentially the same exposure value: from 1,204 seconds at f/22 at the long end to 30 seconds at f/3.5 at the short end. (”Long” and “short” refer to time.) Since depth of field is not an issue in these photos, the contrast is a good illustration of the differing way exposure time treats objects in motion (the stars).

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 18mm (27mm in 35mm terms), 30 seconds at f/3.5 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Star Trawler 1, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is a 1,204 second (or about twenty minute) exposure of the wrecked fishing trawler Point Reyes. I’ve photographed this boat before, but never at night.

There was a bright moon in the sky, and as I walked across the mud flats behind the Inverness General Store, my fear was that all that moonlight would detract from the starlight. As I set up my tripod, polka music came faintly from the Czech restaurant in Inverness. Vladimir’s, it seems is still run by 78-year-old Vlad, and according to this review sometimes features live music from the old country, which must have been what I was hearing. Somehow, the music seemed to fit the slightly sad scene of the wrecked boat forever grounded on the mudbank.

As I began running test exposures, it became clear from my review in the LCD that my fears that moonlight would render colors monotonic were misplaced. It’s true that the stars were not as bright in the sky as they would have been on a moonless night. But the moonlight brightly lit the dark mass of the trawler (helped along in this exposure, I confess, with a little judicious light painting with my head lamp). The moonlight also created the reflections in the water in the foreground. If you look closely, you’ll even see reflected star trails.

And the astounding thing was that to my eye the world lit by moonlight was close to monochromatic, but the sensor picked up things with the vivid colors you see here.

For this long exposure, I stopped the lens down to f/22, with the idea of picking up as much star motion as I could.

[Nikon D300, 12-24mm zoom lens at 13mm (19.5mm in 35mm terms), 1,204 seconds at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Lupine along the Trail, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Coming back from Alamere Falls, I photographed this lupine bush with two exposures, one for the sunset in the background, and one for the foreground which was already deep in twilight darkness. Within the curve of the sky, you can see the far end of the Point Reyes peninsula, silhouetted against the sunset.

Related story: Hike to Alamere Falls.

[Nikon D300, 10.5mm digital fisheye, 1/5 of a second (sunset background) and 3/5 of a second (foreground) at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Alamere Falls Looking North, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Alamere Falls is sited dramatically, tumbling over a sheer cliff to the beach and ocean. My compositional problem was to show the waterfall in the context of the site: if you take a photo of Alamere Falls against the cliff, you don’t see the ocean or beach.

To solve this problem, in this photo I snuck up to one side of the falls, and got the waterfall and the curve of Point Reyes in one composition.

Related story: Hike to Alamere Falls.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 18mm (27mm in 35mm terms), circular polarizer, 1/10 of a second at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Alamere Falls, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Alamere Falls tumbles down a cliff to the Pacific Ocean in Point Reyes National Seashore. This awesome waterfall lies north of the Bolinas plateau and south of Arch Rock. From the Bolinas side, it’s about four miles on good trails, then a half a mile scramble down to the falls and beach, so a total round-trip hike of about nine miles. The Point Reyes southern district trail map shows the route pretty well (look towards the bottom of the map).

Julian, my oldest son, and I started in mid-afternoon with a good lunch at Robata. For the record, Julian inhaled 18 gyoza (Japanese potstickers). Then we stopped in Mill Valley and picked up a slab of bread and some gourmet chocolate to take along for dinner, and headed for the trailhead. Our plan was to get to the falls an hour or so before sunset when the photography would be good, and hike most of the way back in the dark.

It was a pleasure hiking with Julian, who enjoyed the sights and sounds of birds, flowers, and bullfrogs. The only real disappointment was when the trail passed Bass Lake, a possible swimming spot. But poison oak made the approach to the lake too tricky to attempt.

When we got to the turn-off from the Coastal Trail down to Alamere Falls, Julian particularly took pleasure in the Park Service’s “Dangerous and Unmaintained” trail sign. This path does tunnel through poison oak in places. You reach the top of the falls by jumping across the creek as it approaches the falls, and are then standing 150 feet or so above a sheer cliff to the beach. It’s very dramatic and a bit vertigo inducing (photo from the top of Alamere Falls to follow).

From the top of the falls, we made our way down a crack in the cliff to the beach. This is a reasonably steep climb, and I decided I didn’t want to go back up it in the dark.

On the beach, the sun was heading down and a rainbow played in Alamere Falls (above). I let Julian take off his clothes for a dip in the creek (below) while I photographed.

On the trail home, as it got dark, we switched on our head lamps and talked about a wide range of topics. Julian said, “When I’m grown up, I’ll take my oldest son here.” Back in the parking lot, Julian was asleep almost as soon as I cranked the engine. There was no traffic, and we were home to a sleeping house by midnight.

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Solitude, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

The fishing trawler Point Reyes is forever aground on a Tomales Bay mud bank behind the Inverness, California general store. Along with the Point Reyes Lighthouse, this wrecked ship is a cannonical photostop on the Point Reyes tour, just as McWay Creek Falls attracts photographers visiting Big Sur. In the same way, Tunnel View in Yosemite is nearly always crowded with nature’s paparazzi (but not at night!). I’ve photographed the wrecked trawler before, and she’s even landed on the cover of one of my older books.

Crowds at Point Reyes feel far less crowded than at most other places of comparable world-class beauty. Despite the notoriety of the spot, every time I visit the old, wrecked trawler I get a positively wonderful tingle of schadenfreude. The sense of solititude here is palpable and bracing.

Coming home from McClure Beach, the light was perfect as we drove through Inverness, and I had to stop for a photo. The kids were annoyed at me because I didn’t let them wade across the channel and climb around on the boat. Then again, they had no change of dry clothes left after wading at McClure, it was getting late, and Julian had already spent many hours climbing around on the Point Reyes in days gone by. It’s hard to maintain that sense of schadenfreude when you have whining kids you need to get home safe and dry.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 32mm (48mm in 35mm terms), circular polarizer, 1/2 of a second at f/29 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

McClure Beach, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Over last weekend I took the kids out to Point Reyes. We explored Pierce Farm, and hiked along the Tomales Point Trail, observing wild iris and Tule elk. Then, about an hour before sunset, we headed down the path for McClure Beach.

The big draw for Julian and Nicky at McClure Beach was the creek that flows across the beach this time of year in a series of shallow pools. Turns out that reflections in these pools were interesting to me as well. The boys thought it was hilarious when I planted my tripod in the water. Tough getting them to stop splashing long enough for the water to still and for me to capture these reflections.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 20mm (30mm in 35mm terms), circular polarizer, 1/6 of a second at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

San Francisco Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I was able to get away the other day for an hour around sunset. The clouds viewed from Indian Rock were very special. Watching a sunset with serenity without kids leaping all over me like a bunch of puppies is a simple pleasure.

Who knows, had I taken this photo prior to going to press, this might have been one of the 100 Views of the Golden Gate!

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 44mm (66mm in 35mm terms), 1/100 of a second at f/5 and ISO 200, tripod mounted.]

Rocky Shore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This is another grab shot from along the Big Sur coast.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 62mm (93mm in 35mm terms) with image stabilization engaged, 1/125 of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 100, hand held.]