Photoblog 2.0

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.]

I’ll be giving two workshops in 2008 under the auspices of the Point Reyes National Seashore Association. Please consider joining me on Saturday, June 14 for a one day intensive seminar in digital landscape photography (on-line course registration). The weekend of September 12-14 will see us rocking to the music of the stars in a great location for night photography (on-line course registration). You’ll find course descriptions below my photo of the Point Reyes Lighthouse at night.

View this image larger. Read the back story featuring this image.

Digital Landscape Photography

Saturday, June 14 • 1:30 PM - 8:30 PM
$95 ($90 members)
On-line course registration

Point Reyes provides one of the most spectacular and varied landscapes in the world. Bring your digital camera to this workshop and expand your creative horizons by engaging in a photographic conversation with a master of digital landscape photography.

Harold will present and discuss some of his own work, and explain concepts of light and exposure in the context of your personal creative goals. The special challenges and rewards of the Point Reyes landscape will be covered before heading out into the nearby fields for a guided photo shoot. We will then regroup to discuss our work in the light of our individual goals in landscape photography.

Night Photography

Sept. 12-14 • 7 PM Fri - 4 PM Sun
$230 ($220 members)
On-line course registration

Night covers the globe half the time and—surprising to many— photographic opportunities with digital equipment are as exciting at night as they are during the day. Night photography has always been an area for creative experimentation, but with the advent of digital photography, and its expanded dynamic range and light sensitivity beyond the visible spectrum, the time has never been better to experience the freedom of the night.

Harold will cover techniques, equipment, and night safety issues during an orientation session before moving outdoors, where we will create night-time captures. In the morning, we will regroup to demystify digital post-processing of night captures in Photoshop and to evaluate our work in the context of personal creative goals. A second night shoot gives participants the opportunity to put into practice the night skills they have learned.

We will learn to make beautiful images of the landscape after sunset, and take advantage of the extraordinary night environment and absence of light pollution within Pt. Reyes. You’ll go home with great images and skills to capture night photos while the rest of the world sleeps. Accommodations included at the Education Center.

Island in the Fog, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

In the sea of fog, the crest of the Point Reyes peninsula stands out like an island.

[600mm in 35mm terms, 1/5 of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

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

This photo looks north from Sculptured Beach, looking towards Limantour. The one second exposure creates a calm effect, taking the edge off the rather violent wave action, while still showing the waves in a recognizable fashion.

[225mm in 35mm terms, 1 second at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

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

Heading home along the night trail, I stopped to take this photo of a night beach on Point Reyes.

[27mm in 35mm terms, 180 seconds at f/5.6 and ISO 400, tripod mounted.]

Night Trail, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

On the night trail home from Sculptured Beach, I stopped to take a photo near where the Coastal Trail meets the Woodward Valley Trail. You can see the broad sweep of Drakes Bay and the outer Point Reyes peninsula in the background, also star trails and the lighthouse in the distance. With a three minute exposure at f/3.5 and ISO 400, this night scene appears as bright as day.

Related site: Digital Night.

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

From my rocky perch jutting out into the ocean near Sculptured Beach, I played with photographing the waves as the sun set. This tripod-mounted 1/4 of a second exposure caught the abstract expression of a wave crashing, while retaining some literal relationship to the play of warm light on the wave against the cool blue of the surrounding ocean.

[300mm in 35mm terms, 1/4 of a second and f/22 at ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Some related images: Wave (after Hokusai), Breaking Wave, Wave Tangent.

View from Sculptured Beach, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

In beautiful autumn weather, I hiked out to Sculptured Beach on the Drakes Bay side of Point Reyes, between Limantour and Arch Rock.

This was a thirty second exposure with my lens wide open, with the sun down below the horizon and lit by a waxing moon. My shutter was open for a long enough time that the pounding Pacific turned soft and feather-like in the foreground.

I hiked back to my car along the Coast Trail by light of the moon and stars. In the dark, I passed elk and deer, got close enough to an owl to feel it fluttering, and watched the green glow of coyote eyes as they tracked my passage. Nine miles later, foot weary but exalted: late night drive to a sleeping home.

Trawler on Tomales Bay, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Julian and I spent a fun afternoon yesterday, hiking Steep Ravine and the Millerton Point trail in Tomales Bay. But it didn’t seem like a great day for photography, although we did get to examine a bull up close, and study a grotesque half-eaten deer carcass. What fun!

In Marshall, we wandered around the old boatyard, with wrecks of boats up on blocks, and then shared a chowder and oyster dinner at Tony’s. The food wasn’t much to write home about, but the view of Tomales Bay, Point Reyes, and the Ann Marie (the trawler shown in the photo) were great.

As the sun set, I tried a variety of shutter speed and aperture combinations, taking care to underexpose relative to my light readings because meter readings into the sun have a tendency to overexpose. This exposure caught a wild prismatic effect from the sun’s rays.

[105mm, 157.5mm in 35mm equivalent terms, 1/15 of a second at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Point Reyes Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

What’s a photographer to do? With the sun setting along the coast, however you expose the image the sun is going to blow out. True, in real life the sun blows out when you are looking at it with your eyes as well, and most people therefore practice not looking directly at the sun, even when it is setting. But the naked eye doesn’t perceive the unattractive sharp gradation of color, looking like a solid line, from the sunset sky to the white area of the blown-out sun. Any reasonable exposure for the oceanscape does exactly this awful sharp gradation when processed by a digital sensor.

I don’t really think there’s much choice with this one. You’re not going to salvage it with HDR or multiprocessed RAW, the exposure difference between the sun and cliffs in shadow is too great. So your only move is to expose for the ocean and shore, and let the sun go hang.

I think the photo pretty much works anyhow, and I like a couple of small details, like the bird flying in the sunlight and the small yellow flower on the lower right.

[12-24mm zoom lens at 24mm, 36mm in 35mm terms, 1/200 of a second at f/7.1 and ISO 100, handheld.]

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

This is the most western point of the Point Reyes peninsula, and therefore the most western spit of land in the continental United States. If you could see around the corner in the photo, you’d find the Point Reyes lighthouse.

I took the photo from along the Chimney Rock trail a few days ago. The sunset was blood red because of particles from a forest fire a couple of hundred miles to the north.

[105mm lens, 157.5mm in 35mm equivalent terms, 1/125 of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

In a significant way, photography is about time. A photograph freezes action and captures a moment. Looking at photographs we see the past, perhaps our past. Photographs become memories. Unlike the wizard photos in Harry Potter’s world, the people in our photos don’t move around to get our attention. The time slice is static, and the time capture is usually created with shutter speeds that are a small fraction of a second.

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When shutter speeds get longer, and are measured in seconds or even minutes, then the capture of time changes. Moving cars become streaks of light and people are featureless blurs (unless they hold really, really still like they did at the beginnings of photography). Water in motion becomes ethereal, like the action of the surf in the photo above and below. The waves crashing on the rocks have been tamed and gentled. The rock and arch almost look like mountain peaks peering through clouds.

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In both these pictures, I combined two exposures. Each exposure used the same aperture (f-stop). I used twice as long a shutter speed for the rocks as I did for the surf. I combined the exposures manually in Photoshop using layers, masking, and blending modes. This is not exactly High-Dynamic Range processing, as I explain in Multi-Raw Processing Versus Automated HDR.

The photographic trick is to absolutely and completely not move the camera between the two exposures. A tripod is, of course, required. But absolute camera stillness can be harder than one thinks it will be, particularly when the fierce wind that drives the surf is raging. Even the slightest motion of the camera will show up as a registration problem when you try to combine the layers. A solution can be to anchor your tripod with something heavy (like your camera bag).