Morgan Fire Hike, Four of Four

To close this week's look at the Morgan Fire burn scar, here are some plants that fared well, are coming back quickly, and a bird that seems to be doing just fine. I was surprised that I saw no less life on this hike than I normally do -- lizards, birds, and numerous healthy plants.

I'm of the mind, and always have been, that fires are an important part of the natural cycle and should be controlled as they approach inhabited areas. However, fires in open spaces and wilderness remove fuel, provide opportunities for new life, and help restore an area. Yes, the side of Mount Diablo will be ugly for a year, maybe less. But that ugliness will yield to greener plant life next year, new growth which sequesters more carbon dioxide than old growth, and improved animal habitats.



A shrub protected by a rocky outcropping.



Grasses returning to a heavily burned area.



Macro of new grass.



I think this is a scrub jay, and it was doing just fine.

Giant Golf Balls

I took in dinner at Gordon Biersch one evening in Honolulu. The outdoor seating was nice (until it rained) and I got to watch them drive cars off a Matson freighter docked nearby. Before dinner, a little anole popped up on a nearby rock wall. 



It was super cute, and I like anoles -- left overs from having three as pets as a kid. And for a bit it looked like we were going to have a moment.


But instead, I think he just didn't want me around.



But, when it rained I headed inside. I did catch a nice silhouette shot, though.


After dinner, I snagged a couple of shots of the Matson freighter and a much more interesting ship covered with giant golf balls.


The Pacific Tracker


This ship has had an interesting and diverse life. If you'd like to read more, here's a really good article about this ship's history. And here is the ship's listing on Shipspotting.com.

Sterling Winery, Pretty Good Photos

About a month ago I visited Sterling Winery in Calistoga Springs, California, for the second time. It's a very well designed winery with great architecture and lighting. Specifically, the way the outside light interacts with the buildings is very appealing. Sometimes a structure feels like it was designed to be photographed. This is one of those structures.

All of these shots were with my Pentax K-7. For lenses, I used my Samyang 18-28, Sigma 35-80, and Quntaray (Tamron) 70-300. Post processing included minor unsharp masking (15% with a 20-pixel radius) and some color or shadow enhancements.


This winery building awaits after a brief tram ride. The tram ride is part of the attraction and great fun. This building, however, is the end of the tour.


Behind that wall the first greeter and taste presetner waits. The tour includes four wines for tasting and a free glass.


After the first wine, here is one of the glasses on a bench.


Here you can see how shadows work with the building structure to create an additional dimension. Without the shadow-wall interplay, the building would be little more than a nice mission-style building with great views.


Additional shadows on an adjoining outside walkway.


This image shows an open area. I'm not sure what it's for as it's been roped off, like a footballer's private club party, both times I've visited the winery.

A hallway and a junction. Up to now, all the images had been taken with wide-angle or standard lenses. This was a telephoto (the Tamron) shot. Telephotos tend to make images look flat due to their increased depth of field and the ratio of magnification versus object distances. Were it not for the tree in the middle of the shot, the building would look flatter than a wall. As for why it's in black and white? I forgot to take my camera off tungsten after we went inside so the original was blue.

More shadows working on the walls.


N.B. the vignetting and chandelier's shadows on the wall. This was the fifth iteration of this image and the intended look I had when I took this shot. To arrive at this image from an original that somewhat washed out the wall and had only faint shadows required multiple layers, blending, mashing, and opacity as well and opacity type changes.

Stag Night at the Bluet Damselfly Singles Bar

During a hike in the Castle Rock Open Space in Walnut Creek, California, I strolled down to a favorite place for my dogs to cool off, drink some water, and lie in the shade. As a sidebar, I don't recommend this any more because my Rhodesian Ridgeback got a very bad case of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis brought on by some bug in the water. Anyway, while one of my dogs was getting herself sick, I took some photos of some bluet damselflies -- all male -- handing around the water and reeds.


Complicating the shots, because this was in shade, I had to use 400 ISO, high by my standards. The lens is my Tamron-made Quantary 70-300. The lens is prone to purple fringing, exaggerated at high ISOs.



Purple fringing, however, isn't an issue in monochrome photography. So I converted one of the images to black and white in Photoshop. Here's the original:



You can see some purple fringing around some of the highlights, especially highlights that touch dark spots.

But I called this post "Stag Night at the Bluet Damselfly Singles Bar." Why? Because there were about eight or ten male bluets hanging around. Here I was able to catch a few of them in one shot.


Nature is pretty great. As much fun as buildings, bridges, and statues are to photography, not much tops randomly encountered nature. For me, Castle Rock is about the best place to hike in Walnut Creek. My dogs can go around off-leash, the hills have a nice array of flora and fauna, and with a keen eye there are nearly unlimited photographic opportunities. Plant leaves, for instance:


An adjacent hill in Brooktree. A red tail hawk or golden eagle circling above an old tree makes for a decent image.


Downed trees and myriad other natural objects provide great latitude for black and white photography.


And, if you're luckier than me, you can catch a spider or other, larger predators.

Lindsay Wildlife Museum

The Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek has a mission of connecting people and nature. They rehabilitate injured animals and release ones that can be set free, and provide permanent homes for ones that can't. If you get a chance, you should definitely visit. If you can support them, that would also be a great thing to do. Here are some of the residents.





























How would you like to be this little guy? You know he can smell all those birds that want to eat him. That's gotta be stressful.

Empire Gold Mine State Park

California is in a budget crisis and many of our state parks are at risk of temporary closure. Empire Gold Mine is not, to my knowledge, one of those parks, but I wanted to use this post to draw attention to this issue.

Closing the state parks would be exceedingly short sited and detrimental. The park system in the United States is our society's great equalizer. In the parks, all people -- regardless of wealth or class -- have equal access to inexpensive or free natural settings. Many of California's state parks charge $35 a night for camping, some being just fractions of a mile from multiple-hundreds-of-dollars-per-night hotels. Granted, for $35 a night you don't get a private shower or a bed which doesn't need inflating, but you do get a place to sleep, another to cook dinner, and 22 hours (check in is 2:00 PM and check out is noon, typically) in nature.

Closed parks also will likely attract more people who want to use the undisturbed spaces for squatting, growing illegal drugs, and supporting other criminal activities. Closed parks could increase the state's risk of catastrophic fire damage. If you'd like more information, or if you'd like to help (I hope you will do both), follow this link:

http://savestateparks.org/

























I thought I might end on a monochrome conversion of the first image. Empire Mine State Park is a place set up for taking great photographs. And that holds true for most if not all of our state parks -- California and elsewhere.

It is not hyperbole to say that our parks are in a crisis and we need to be active in making sure they remain open and public. And, hey, would you like a piece of trivia? If you visited one state park each year, how many years would it take to visit all of California's state parks? In 2012, it would take 279 years.

State parks are a great and communal gift to the American people. We must steward them and ensure our state keeps them public, safe, and open.