California

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• Pablo Picasso.

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One of my favorite locations in all of California is the Valley view outlook point at Yosemite National Park. I have posted many photos of this location which provides a stunning view of the majestic El Capitan to the left, the stunning Sentinels with Bridal Veil Falls to the right and the serene Merced River as foreground interest. It’s pretty tough to beat a view as spectacular as this but the real reason I fell in love with this location is the fact that I always got amazing light whenever I was at this spot. This was my go-to spot when the weather was bad or if we are providing a quick drive-by for our relatives or friends who are visiting.

This photo was taken in the past summer when we did a quick tour of Yosemite, As usual, the golden hour kind of coincided with our stop and I managed to get some good shots.

San Francisco celebrates the Giants in the World Series. 12 images using a 400mm lens on a 5D mk2. Taken from twin peaks. This image is 2.6G of data. 24 inches by 72 inches at 300 DPI. I printed one and it looks amazing!

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Nikon D810 + AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm @ 24mm F/16, 30 sec, ISO-100. pano blended with 3 horizontal shots. (taken on 05-14-2016)

USA 2011 - Death Valley

Yosemite NP, Tioga Road, in the morning, Half Dome in the background

Urban Light is a 2008 large-scale assemblage sculpture by Chris Burden that stands in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The installation consists of 202 restored street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s. Most of them once lit the streets of Southern California. The cast iron street lamps are of 17 styles, which vary depending on the municipality that commissioned them. They range from about 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters), are painted a uniform grey and placed, forest-like, in a near grid. The lights are solar powered and switched on at dusk. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Susan Freudenheim described the restored lamps as displaying "elaborate floral and geometric patterns" at the base, with "fluted shafts and glass globes that cap them...meticulously cleaned, painted and refurbished to create an exuberant glow. (From Wikipedia)

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• Sam Levenson.

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My wife and I lived in the Bay Area for about 6 months immediately after our marriage before finally settling in SoCal. During the six months stay we never ventured or explored any of San Francisco’s beautiful sights. We did Trips to wine country, San Diego, and Yosemite but no trips were made to explore the city where we lived.

We always thought we will be living in the bay area so there was no real urgency in the plans, but we got jobs in LA. So last Thursday was my birthday and we decided to head to San Francisco and give the new D850 some workout. This view is of the San Francisco skyline as seen from the Treasure Island view point. The wind was pummeling us during the shoot and I had to hold down my gitzo traveler lightweight tripod to get a steady shot.

• Sun Tzu.

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This is one my absolute pictures of the trip. I saw this little swatch of meadows purely by accident, I have a strong hunch that this is the Dana-Gibbs view but I am not sure as there was no one else and I drove past it and had to return. I had all the time in the world to set up my tripod and compose my shot. Half way through setting up my picture my wife started pulling my shirt and we saw that there was a doe Mule deer carefully watching us. She slowly walked across the meadow from us and kept on grazing. This was almost a shot out of my dreams and I was just so happy. The only thing that would have been better is if I could take the shot before the deer walked far away but I am very satisfied with the results on this shot.

• Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

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The week after 4th of July, like we did last year, my wife and I embarked on a 9-day long summer road trip across the western United States. We set off from where we finished last year, the Fern Canyon. It seems this location has made an impact on my wife and she absolutely wanted it as part of the trip. We really enjoyed the hike and the drive up to the canyon. I didn’t have many photos opportunities as the place was filled with people camping out for 4th of July weekend but it was a great place to start our road trip after almost 9 hours of driving.

Here is a panorama shot of the bend in the canyon which was made from stitching together 5 portrait mode shots with my new 24-70 Nikkor. Hope you all like it have a nice day..

I think the best time to visit Yosemite is February. There is still some snow around the valley. The trees and the snow shine mystically because of the sun rays through the patchy clouds. Certainly a sight to behold.

I found myself trekking through the dunes in the middle of 33MPH winds. It was early in the morning when the winds were less violent, but when the sunrise hit the winds took a drastic change for the worse.

Shot from the Tunnel View

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Half Dome is a granite dome at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California. It is a well-known rock formation in the park, named for its distinct shape. One side is a sheer face while the other three sides are smooth and round, making it appear like a dome cut in half.The granite crest rises more than 1,444 m above the valley floor.

Tioga Pass Yosemite National Park, California, USA September 2016

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• Edward Young.

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Zabriskie Point at Death Valley National Park. This is a wide angle shot of the previous image Iposted on flickr. Zabriskie Point is a part of Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in the United States noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago, long before Death Valley came into existence.

I had an amazing time here even though I had to wake up around 4:30 PM to witness the sunrise at this amazing location. The colors and patterns on these badlands formation is nothing short of spectacular. Please make it a must stop location if you ever visit Death Valley.

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After an overcast day, late afternoon sky started to clear on the west, which resulted in a phenomenal sunset.

• Muhammad Ali.

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San Francisco and New York have some of the most expensive hotel room rates which we have ever encountered in our travels. Thankfully due to our extended family and old college friends, we don’t ever have to look for hotels in these two towns. But staying with family and friends makes it difficult to go on photography endeavors on these trips. Usually, my wife gives me a stern talking to before the trip about how I should relax with the camera.

We lived in San Francisco for a short while after our marriage but never really spend any time exploring the city, and after being LA residents for five years, we finally decided to take a short weekend trip to explore the photographic possibilities of this beautiful city. I spend some time researching the landmarks of the city and the perfect positions for the shot. The problem was that we were there for only three days, and the best time for the city shots is usually during the blue hour, which happens after sunset. But we only had two evenings, and I had a ton of locations, we decided to dedicate the sunset towards the slacker hill hike and the treasure Island vistas, but that meant that the pier 14 shot that I had in mind would not be possible in the best light.

I knew that there was a blue hour in the morning as well, just before the sunrise and I decided to wake my wife up at 4 am and see if we could get a good shot. The day was unusually cold, and my wife agreed that she would stay in the car to guard it against the ever vigilant parking wardens. The blue hour was beautiful; the only problem was that it was way shorter than the evening version also it was much brighter due to the sun coming up rapidly. The brightness stole some of the contrast out of the city lights, but I liked having the opportunity to shoot at such a busy location with no one around me.

• William James.

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When I picked up the Lee Big Stopper, it was more out of curiosity rather than any genuine need. At that time, I was living on the east coast and it helped a lot in making those cloudy overcast days interesting. Soon it became one of my most used filters until I moved to the west coast. My usage stats for this filter basically fell off a cliff and the 2 stop ND grad gained its top spot back in my filter kit.

One of the coolest usages of a 10 stop ND filter like the Lee Big Stopper is during the predawn time period. Usually, during this time, the light is very even allowing for even lower shutter speed. Another aspect is that this is the period when color will start to appear in the sky and usually the colors are soft pastel in varying hues and in a longer exposure you will be able to see these colors much better than the naked eye ca. My theory is that since these color patches are the brightest areas in the whole scene they are rendered in a long exposure better while our eyes more tuned for the overall darker scene and misses the faint colors. This shot was taken at the Garrapatta state park just before dawn and I didn’t notice any color in the clouds when I took this shot but when I opened the image in the photoshop I could see the faint pastels in the sky. The added benefit is the smooth surf that provides an ethereal feel to the stunning coastline.

Big Sur

-Wilma Rudolph.

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Here is another old shot from our Oregon road trip. This one is a Panorama shot of the mighty Mt Shasta with a road lading up to the mountain while it is illuminated by the last rays of the sun. I love the this road where we took this shot as every turn and curve has awesome views of the mountain. I had almost forgot about this shot until couple of days ago when I was backing up my data files and saw this one.

This one is a pano stitch image of about 15 shots and was taken just seconds before the last light of the day was gone. I had seen a barn on this road the last time we were there and was driving around to find it but couldn't and my wife was yelling at me not to waste the sunset. so finally I gave in and pulled to the side to take this shot.

Hope you all like it, and Happy new Year!!

USA 2011 - Death Valley

• Augustus Hare.

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One more shot from Pfeiffer State Beach. Took this one as I reached the beach when I got about 2 minutes to shoot the bridge head on without anyone walking through the frame. I like this shot a little better than the one where the sun is setting through the arch.

Thanks for visiting. Hope you all have a good day..

Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence. The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.

Death Valley National Park

• Omar Khayyam

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Some of our favorite spots to photograph in all of California are connected by this wonderfully scenic drive called Rt 395. We have done so many trips up this highway and lived on pretty much every small town that dot the highway. This shot was taken at the south tufa beach of Mono Lake near Lee Vining, CA.

The pirate ship, which is the small island of tufa formations that you see in the middle is actually quite far from the shore and would appear quite small in wide-angle photographs. I wanted to convey a sense of size of the tufas on the shore compared to the pirate ship tufa.

• Marc Chagall.

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My hometown in India is known for an old arch bridge with unique architecture. Growing up, I thought it was one of the most significant bridges in the country, but it was a small bridge that was barely two lanes wide in reality. Maybe this is why I have a fascination for bridges, but every time I pass a bridge, I check out their photographic potential and often return to create images of them. In fact, on my first trip to San Francisco after finishing my work obligations, I drove straight to battery spencer to take pictures of the golden gate bridge before racing to catch my return flight.

I was not aware of the other famous bridge of the town, the Bay Bridge, until we moved to the Bay Area. Then it took me another five years, but I finally got the opportunity to take some photographs at pier14 a fantastic location with a stunning view of the Bay Bridge. I had plans to photograph the city skyline and wanted the foreground to have a minimal number of people, so I decided to leverage the morning blue hour for the shoot. Blue hour is my favorite time to photograph subjects where artificial lighting plays a significant role, like cityscapes and bridges. Usually, at blue hour, the ambient light is so low most of the lights on the buildings stay on. Add to that the nice contrast of the warm city lights against the sky's dark blue, and you have all the ingredients to make a stunning architectural image.

• Henry Morton Stanley.

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When I was about to move to Los Angeles 6 years ago, like anyone else undertaking a cross country move to a city you have only visited once as a child, I googled Los Angeles. The Wikipedia entry for the city had an absolutely stunning image of the Los Angeles skyline with the snowcapped mountains in the background. It took me a year to finally figure out the location from where you can take the photo.

The first time I visited this location, I was introduced to the bane of photography in Socal, the everpresent smog. I couldn’t even see the mountain and the smog also robbed the skyline image of their sharpness. I later learned that rain would take care of the smog for a short period of time and just after a rainstorm is when you take that beautiful image of LA. Now that sounded straightforward to me until we realized that it didn’t rain for the first two years, we were in LA. Another aspect was the traffic, this park is in the busy Culver City area which seems to be always under construction.

Eventually, this image went away from my mind until last week when I was coming home and suddenly remembered about this spot. Traffic was still nasty, but I was on my motorcycle so decided to quickly see if rainy winter of 2019 has any effect on the view. The recent rains we are having meant the mountains were finally visible and they had a decent bit of snow on them, there was very little smog and I was excited to get the image finally. So I returned in the evening for my sunset shot of the beautiful skyline of Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, by the end of the day, the cloud cover became thick and robbed the sky of any color during sunset and a bit of sharpness during the blue hour. I am now thinking of returning on a morning after a rain to see if I’d have any better luck.

Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence. The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Sorry for posting another shot from the same location but the light was so beautiful in shot that I feel compelled to post this shot from behind the Hollywood sign. I took this shot just before the sun started going down, just before the light dimmed. The whole valley was bathed in golden light. Hope y'all like this shot as much as I did making it.

• William Wordsworth.

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Mobius arch at Alabama hills area near Lone Pine, California. I have been to this location multiple times but my attention was always drawn to the larger than life presence of Mt Whitney. Its only quite recently that I was aware of this stunning arch and the view through it. So the last day of our tip to Big Pine while we were coming back we started well before sunrise and hiked through the small hiking path to reach this stunning location.

We had the company of two other photographers and it was fun to realize that we were all from the same neighborhood in LA. We waited for the sun to light up the mountains and then shot this beautiful rock formation. It’s a really easy location to get to and an absolutely must visit if you are ever in the Eastern Sierras.

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• Charles R. Swindoll.

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Todays shot is of the wonderful pinnacle tufas of Trona Pinnacles at sunset. This photo was taken just when we reached the location as the light on the hills was just perfect. I originally didn’t plan on a sunset shoot that day and was hoping to just scout for a suitable milky way photo spot. But once I saw the light that was happening in front of us, I forgot all restraint and ran out with my camera and tripod for a nice sunset shot. What I liked about this composition was that the tufa pinnacles were in the shadows while the hills in the background were lit perfectly by the setting sun giving the whole scenes a nice depth.

When I started photography, I had lots of trouble correctly exposing images with dark shadows and bright sunlight. I used to rely heavily on my ND grad filters to balance the light and it was not unusual for me to take images with all three of my ND grad filters in use. This was a habit from my film days when recovering clipped dark tones was not an easy task. But as I spend more time with DSLR cameras, I learned that they are far more forgiving on recovering dark parts than recovering clipped highlights. So now when I meter a scene, I make sure that I am exposing for the brightest part of the image and then use the live histogram along with the exposure compensation dial to avoid any clipping. I would also like to add that the D800 I had earlier didn’t accurately show histograms but the D850 has a perfectly accurate histogram.

So this image which would have otherwise required at least a 3 stop nd grad filter is made without any filters by just exposing for the strengths of the modern digital sensor.

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• Voltaire.

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This shot was taken from the Pacific coast trail/Slackers hill trail on our way back after taking the shot that I posted earlier. By the time we reached the viewpoint, the blue hour was almost ending and we could see the sky turning way darker than it was before. I also wanted to get a nice streak of light trails to use as leading line to the bridge. For some reason traffic was unusually light at this time of the day and we had to try many more shots than normal to the trails that I liked.

I think this was the best one of the bunch when also considering the fact that how many airplanes and helicopters are also present in these skies. Personally, I would have preferred to take this shot a bit earlier but I like the way it turned out.