Tad Gielow Photography

Mount Rainier National Park In The Rain And Snow

Mount Rainier –National Park In The Rain And Snow

My wife and I were planning a road trip from our home in Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington to spend a few days visiting our daughter.   On my itinerary was a day photographing in Mount Rainier National Park with the goal of visiting Paradise high up the slope of the mountain.  

The day for our trip arrived with some rain and what I hoped might be some snow at Mount Rainer.   I set out early in the morning with Dan, who had signed on for an all day Personal Workshop to learn more about his DSLR camera.  During the two and a half hour drive from Seattle to Mount Rainer we talked about the fundamentals of exposure:

• Aperture - The amount of light to hit the camera sensor.  Its like adjusting the blinds of a window.
• Shutter Speed - The length of time the shutter is open allowing light to hit the sensor.
• ISO - The sensitivity of the sensor.  Sensors have improved greatly over the past few years  and the problem of noise at high ISO setting has been greatly reduced, making ISO much more useful.
• Depth-Of-Field - Using the Aperture to control the sharpness in front of the behind the area of focus.

As we entered the park, we found ourselves in a lush forest of moss covered pine trees and a scattering of other trees showing off their fall colors.  

We slowly drove up a valley looking for interesting areas, we must have stopped at every turn-out because of something fun to explore, like the photographs above and below.  

With the temperature in the low thirties, we would jump out the car, grab the cameras, rain gear, run into the forest, photograph for a while, and then get back to the warmth of the car.

As we drove further up the mountain the light rain gave way to welcome snow, making it much easier to photograph as the snow can be brushed off the camera before it melts.

 

Higher up the mountain we encountered this large field of snow covered rocks that I thought made an interesting abstract image of positive and negative space.

 

One of the most popular places in Mount Rainier National Park is Christine Falls, named after the daughter of P. B. Van Trump who made the first documented ascent of Mount Rainier in 1870.  Years later, in 1888, he guided John Muir to the summit.

A little farther up the road, Dan spotted a lone maple tree in the midst of snow covered pines seen in the photo at the top of the post.  We spent quite a while taking in the surreal scene before we headed up the mountain toward Paradise. During the summer, the Paradise lodge and visitor center are teeming with people there to take in the beautiful alpine meadows and cool mountain air.   With the snow falling, the parking lot was near empty and the lodge was closed for the season, but it was still a gorgeous place to be.

PHOTO TIP:

Photographing in the rain and wet snow can be challenging because one usually needs a extra hand to hold an umbrella over the camera.   A solution is the AquaTech Sport Shield.  It fully covers the camera and lens and has small windows so you can see the lcd window and other key controls.   There is also an sleeve for your right hand to operate the camera while keeping everything dry, even in pouring rain.

Cross Country Road Trip, Part 1

Cross Country Road Trip, Part 1

Recently, my wife and I took a road trip across the northern United States, from Washington DC to our home in Los Angeles.  I flew in to DC and met up with my wife and daughter after their 2,000 plus mile drive from Los Angeles to drop my daughter off at Georgetown University for her junior year.  

Their leg of the road trip took them through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, stopping along the way for thunderstorms in Oklahoma, Graceland (Elvis Presley's home) in Memphis, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home in Virginia.

After a couple of days visiting the Smithsonian and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, we headed west, driving through the mountains of Maryland and Pennsylvania which then gave way to flat plains of Ohio and Indiana and passing miles and miles of corn fields.  It was easy to see how the drought has affected the corn crop, the majority of fields were brown from lack of rainfall and too much heat.  

We made a pit stop in Chicago, staying in the historic Hilton Hotel on Michigan Ave,  to meet up with my sister-in-law and her husband from Indianapolis. We toured the Field Museum Of Natural History.  

There was a fascinating exhibit on the history and legacy of Genghis Khan, a three story recreation of an Egyptian tomb complete with numerous mummies, and of course, dinosaur skeletons.  

Summer evenings in chicago, (at least that part of town) are a true pleasure.  On our walk across Grant Park to the shoreline of Lake Michigan, we danced at an outdoor live concert.  Afterwards, we rested our tired feet at the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain water and light show.

 

The following morning, coffee cups in hand, we toured the downtown area to see some of the old architecture and the "Chicago L" Trains. I love finding old signs and abstract patterns in buildings.

 

On our way out of town, thanks to google maps and some old information from my dad, we were able locate my dad's childhood home and elementary school. We had steak sandwiches and a beer at Chicago Joe's, the eighty year old restaurant that still sits at on corner of the street.  We left Chicago in the pouring rain, headed north to Wisconsin and then west to Minnesota, passing mile after mile of corn and soybean fields.  

Next day, we checked off another life goal. After driving in the heat of the day through the badlands, we spent the late afternoon at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial outside of Rapid City, South Dakota.  

We hiked the trail that takes visitors throught the forest, ending quite close to the carvings.  During the summer season, Mount Rushmore is open after dark with a evening program in the large ampitheater that includes a historical film and an special ceremony to illuminate the memorial.  The photo at the top of the post is the result of trying about twenty different exposure and composition combinations. 

   

 The two of us and a few presidents.

Part 2 of our road trip is coming soon.

Weekend In Mammoth

Weekend In Mammoth

My wife and I were able to get away from the heat of Los Angeles recently and spent a weekend at the Tamarack Lodge on Twin Lakes by Mammoth Mountain.   Things did not start out smoothly as we arrived late and spend almost an hour trying to find our cabin in the dark with a rather poor map.  After almost an hour of searching, we finally settled in after midnight.   We awoke in the morning to a glorious day in the Sierras and spent the day exploring the area and making use of the many miles of bike trails the run through the forest between the numerous lakes in the area.  The second night, we turned in early so we could be up at sunrise to take a walk around the lake in the morning light.

Just a short distance from the cabin we found this boat dock on the perfectly still lake. Normally when photographing a scene like the one above, if I set up to properly expose the sky at the top, the reflected image in the lake would be way too dark.  Setting the exposure for the reflected sky would create a almost white sky at the top.  

The answer, a Graduated Neutral Density Filter.  These filters are indespensible for situations like this.  In my camera bag, I always carry two Singh-Ray Galen Rowell Graduated Neutral Density Filters.  These filters are darker on the top and clear on the bottom with a transition that is either hard or soft.  The image to the left shows a three stop hard transition filter and a two stop soft transition filter.  I used the two stop soft for the photo about and set my exposure for the sky at the top.

Another way to accomplish this would be to take two photographs, one exposed for the sky at the top and one exposed for the reflected sky and use Photoshop the combine the two.   Coming from years of photographing with film, I still prefer to get it right in camera.

A little later at another spot of the lake, we looked across to see that smoke from fires at the nearby campground settling over the area.  Again, I used the two stop soft graduated neutral density filter and added a polarizer to control the reflection coming from the lake as I wanted to capture some submerged roots, logs, and rocks.

On our way back to our cabin we walked through a patch of beautful tiny flowers and I just had to stop, break out my macro lens and have some fun.

The size of these tiny, delicate flowers is very decieving, this clump is only about two inches wide.   To capture this, I very carefully set up my tripod so as not the disturb the many other plants around and oriented the camera so that the front of the lens was just a few inches away so the clump of flowers would fill the frame.

Although the weekend started out a little rough, it sure ended up being a wonderful and peaceful get away.

Rise Of The Sierras

Rise Of The Sierras

One of the great things about living in Southern California is the diversity of landscapes that are with just a few hours drive.  One can be enjoying the beach in the morning and be in an alpine meadow at ten thousand feet above sea level by lunch.  The rise of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from the Owens Valley along Highway 395 is an incredible example of this diversity.   The arid Alabama Hills just outside of Lone Pine are at an altitude of just over four thousand feet and then suddenly give way to ten thousand feet of mountains.   The photo at the top of this post shows this contrast.  I was in the Alabama Hills at an altitude a little above four thousand feet, and just eight miles away Lone Pine Peak juts up seven thousand feet to its height of thirteen thousand feet.  Mt Whitney, at over fourteen thousand feet, is hidden behind the cottonwood tree.

On this day trip, my wife and I had wanted to go up to Whitney Portal, but the road was closed for winter.  We decided to checkout the area around Lone Pine Campground and found this beautiful spot just before the creek goes under the road.

I moved around the area to get some different angles and perspectives of the creek.  The use of  tripod is crucial because of the desire to use fairly long shutter speeds, over one second.  I chose a longer shutter speed based on the experience gained photographing a waterfall at numerous shutter speeds a number of months ago. The previous post Water Fall Test shows the results.

When I got home and imported the days work into Aperture, I found I really liked the lower left area of the photo above.   The beauty of a digital workflow allows one to create copies of photo make artistic alterations.   In this case I cropped into an area the slow water movement around some rocks. 

Camping Trip To Joshua Tree National Park, Part 1

Camping Trip To Joshua Tree National Park, Part 1

I had been looking forward to this weekend as it has been many years since I have camped out in Joshua Tree National Park.   My brother-in-law and I arrived at the park visitor center on Friday afternoon with hopes that we were early enough to get a campsite for two nights, but unfortunately, all were taken.  Our choices were limited to some Bureau Of Land Management open space outside of the park boundaries, a hotel in town, or take a short hike from one of the backcountry parking lots and camp out.  Since both of us have a lot of backpacking experience, we were comfortable with the last choice if needed.  We set off into the park and stopped at the Hidden Valley picnic area to cook a great dinner of chicken quesadillas and then went up to Keys View for the sunset.  From Keys View there are views to the west of Palm Springs, Mount San Jacinto, Mount San Gorgonio; and to the south one can see the Salton Sea.  While enjoying the view I walked around the area looking for a Joshua Tree or something else that would make a nice foreground element to the coming sunset.   After about ten minutes of searching I returned to main lookout area and a nice Joshua Tree that would provide some framing for the sunset.  Knowing that the tree would to silhouette when exposing for the sunset so I set up the flash unit to try and get some detail in the tree.  

A few minutes later the sun was once again visible between the two layers of clouds, so I switched to my 400mm lens to get closer

After the beautiful sunset we drove through a couple of campgrounds on the off chance someone had left.   Unfortunately everything was full, so we made our way over the Desert Queen Mine trailhead, grabbed just what we needed for the night; sleeping bags, tent and pads, hiked out under the star filled sky for a while and enjoyed a very quiet nights sleep in the backcountry.

Saturday became a day of hiking and enjoying the sights.  First we took in the Barker Dam area and with the air so still the half full lake was perfect for reflections.

In the afternoon we hiked the two miles to the Lost Horse Mine, for forty years prior to 1931, this mine produced significant amounts of gold and silver until an earthquake damaged and shifted the mine shaft and the once plentiful spring water almost completely dried up.  These titbits of information came from a Ranger at a campfire presentation at Jumbo Rocks campground.

More on the trip in Part 2, coming soon.

Station Fire A Year And A Half Later

Station Fire A Year And A Half Later

It has been eighteen months since the devastating fire that burned to over a third of the Angeles National Forest and now that one of the main roads is now open I decided to drive up and see first hand how how the forest is recovering.  I had intended to go to one of my favorite spots, the Chilao Campground area that is at the transition between the lower altitude chaparral and the higher elevation pine forest.  I never made it up there because I kept stopping because of something interesting.

First I stopped a few hundrend yards from the Monte Cristo Ranger Station to take in the almost full moon rising over a rock outcropping with a yucca tree on its summit.

A couple of miles farther up, I hiked out a few hundred yards from the road to Big Tujunga Creek.   It was great the see a lot of water flowing indicating a good amount of winter show and rain.   

Continuing my journey up the canyon I pulled over when saw a ridge of burned pine trees with the moon rising over them and thought there might be an interesting composition with those two elements.   Within a few feet of leaving the road on foot, the ground was still black from the fire, but the forest is slowly coming back with a lot of new growth of the native manzanita, oak and numerous other flora.   I made my way to a point where the ridge of burned pine trees was directly below the rising moon and a other burned out trees were in the foreground.  I made the photo at the beginning of this post by purposely underexposed by about two stops so that the sky would darken to a deep blue and the trees would be in silhouette to give the photograph a lonely, spooky feeling.

 

The Station Fire Visits Our Street

The Station Fire

Southern California has a fifth season in the year, from mid summer through mid fall known as “Fire Season”, when the weather conditions can so hot and dry that fires can ravage the area. This year had one of the largest fires hit the Angeles National Forest in history, over 250 square miles were burned, that’s ten times the size of Manhattan.  The fire started in the mountains above the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena.

My family and I were under mandatory evacuation orders for three and a half days, so we gathered up all the important items; the pets, pictures, computers, cameras, and such. Not knowing what to do with ourselves, we spend a fair amount of time at the local park getting know neighbors in the same situation.  We also found out that the outdoor movie screening set for that night got canceled.

 

While at the park I got to talking to a resting fire fighter who came from the San Francisco area to help out, and learned that they were going to be lighting back fires designed to burn away from homes and towards the advancing fire.  The National Forest Service firefighters systematically shot flares up into the the dense, dry, brush so that it would burn up the mountain side.

 

 

 

 

 

With in a few minutes the entire mountain side was ablaze, just a few hundred yards from my front yard.   All the firefighting and law enforcement personnel did a fantastic job at protecting all the nearby homes.

 

 

 

 

 I’ve titled the photo at the top of this post “The Dog Thinks We Should Evacuate”.   

 

 

Sierra Wave

Sierra Wave

I have just finished a great workshop led by Paul Renner (see the previous post for some details), we were enjoying lunch at Erick Schat’s Bakery in Bishop, CA and got to talking about the Alabama Hills outside of Lone Pine. I mentioned enjoying photographing one of the arches, sometimes called Mobious Arch in the past and a couple of folks in the group asked if I would show them where the arch was located.

We drove down Highway 395 to Lone Pine and turned onto the Whitney Portal road into the Alabama Hills. After spending some time at the arch the rest of the group had to head on home, but I decided to stay because I thought the cloud formations might end up being interesting at sunset. I got to witness and photograph a spectacular Sierra Wave, a lenticular cloud formation created when the wind blows from west to east over the Sierra Nevada mountain range and then suddenly drops 10,000 feet into the Owens Valley.

I waited a couple of hours for the sun to set and when it did the sky all around was deep blue with spectacular pink clouds to both the north and south along the heights of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

On A Clear Day

On A Clear Day

I often take a drive up into the Angeles National Forest to get out of the city and enjoy the alpine air and the scenery. Yesterday I went deep into the Forest up Angeles Crest Highway all the way to Islip Saddle where the slope of the mountain range changes from towards the ocean to towards the Mojave desert.   The view was incredibly clear, something very rare in the Los Angeles area.   Beyond the mountains lies the Pacific Ocean and way out there is Catalina Island and even beyond that is San Clemente Island, a distance of over 100 miles.  Oh yeah, the sunset was pretty good too.

Camera: Nikon D300

Lens: Nikon 18-200 AF-S VR @ 52mm

Exposure: ISO 800 - f8 @ 1/50