Inconsistent
So, what normally happens with me whenever I want to start writing consistently happened again.
School.
I like teaching, for the most part (and this is another subject entirely that I think I’ll start writing on) but it does take some effort to be effective in the classroom. And even then, sometimes you feel like you’re not effective enough.
But I digress.
This space is solely focused on photography and the like. So let’s show a few captures I’ve managed over the past few months . . . err . . . almost six months now since I last posted.
Wind and the Waves - October 2020
I’ve definitely mentioned how much I like shooting at Tahoe when there’s a storm inching it’s way above the basin or when the wind has picked up enough to create some decently sized waves on the shoreline. It just makes me think about the coast and how much I love to shoot seascapes. And having an opportunity to make Tahoe look like a seascape also highlights how incredibly large the lake is.
Pano from the Eastern Shore - Dec. 2020
This is a pano I took with the idea that the light wouldn’t get any better than this. Of course, in the back of my mind, I’ve seen Tahoe light up when the conditions were like this, but I wasn’t too sure about it this time. I was also lucky enough to have had a friend call me up, Glenn Lee Robinson (go check out his work, amazing photographer), who wanted to see more of the Eastern Shore.
Of course, Tahoe then decided to show off with the picture below.
Tahoe Glow - Dec. 2020
I remember Glenn asking me if this was one of the best sunsets I’d seen at Tahoe.
“Definitely a Top-3 for me,” I said. Maybe even a Top-2.
First shot of the New Year. Taken on New Year’s Day - 2021
Lastly, here’s a shot of Bonsai Rock from the New Year. This capture was mainly due to my reluctance to really work around crowds. I’m pretty introverted by nature and if I see a large amount of cars parked in some of the pull-off spots on the eastern shore, I’ll probably drive by to find something with less people. Bonsai happen to have only 2 - 3 cars parked around the normal pull-off area and even then, I was really the only person here when I shot this.
I have a few more to post, but I’ll save those for later and see if I can get back to some consistency. I might try to get back up to Tahoe this weekend after the recent snowfall and get a good winter capture of Tahoe for the first time this year.
Milky Way.
I couldn’t remember the last time I took a milky way photograph, though I think it’s been about 15 - 16 months. I think I was in Bandon, Oregon and woke up very early (though not on purpose.) So I thought to myself then, “why not see about a capture?”
The result of that is below. Not the best capture, but still something I could call “okay.”
Not too bad of a capture at 5 am in the morning. I also shot this at f/4 on my 16mm. Not sure why I did that when I had my 14mm f/2.8 with me. Or so I think. I’m too sure at this point.
So fast forward to June of 2020, a Monday to be exact. I had taken a nap in the late afternoon (I had been working on rebuilding a desk top - not a computer but an actual desk top) after doing some work around the house. And since it was summer, I figured that I had earned a bit of a rest and a nap, since I normally wouldn’t during the school year (though that would be fun - I do miss nap times).
Now, I didn’t plan on sleeping for an hour or so during a nap, but hey, it happens.
It was around 4:30 in the afternoon so I set an alarm for around 4:55. What I didn’t realize was all my alarms were set for the “am” so I set it without checking the “am” part. So at around 6-ish, I woke up, stretched, groaned and moaned with each cracking of my wearied joints. I mean, some of it sounded like marbles rolling around in a felt bag (still does). Despite all of that, I will admit I was feeling pretty refreshed after waking up. Of course, I also silently cursed myself for sleeping that long, knowing that I’d be up all night.
But, I thought it was a good time to take advantage of that error.
Roll with the punches. Go with the flow. Be like water.
So at around 10:00 pm, I packed my camera and gear, thought about making coffee, but was already pretty wide awake, grabbed my water bottle and off I went. I also figured that social distancing at 11:00 pm at Lake Tahoe wouldn’t be too much of an issue, especially as it was a Monday going into Tuesday.
I parked at the pullout before Hidden Beach (plenty of parking obviously), got my headlamp on, slung my backpack around my arms and off I went. The night was crisp, but it wasn’t unbearably cold. In fact, it was calm and rather pleasant, filled with stars and . . .
. . . bugs.
Lots of bugs. Bugs that wanted to use my headlamp as an opportunity to zoom around right in front of me. At first I thought it was just dust and dirt lingering like clouds in front of me, but I came to realization that some of the wispy, darting specks of white were actually tiny insects floating and flying about on my artificial light.
It wasn’t too bothersome, but I made sure to watch myself and my breathing.
I made my way to Hidden Beach, traversing several newly spun webs (my apologies arachnids!) as I saw a few lights on the beach. People were already there, just hanging out and watching the stars. Awesome place to do it, honestly. It’s the reason I was there too.
So I found a deserted part of the beach and set-up near the water’s edge. I decided to use my 14mm (haven’t been using that lately) since it does have a fast aperture of f/2.8. At first, there was cloud cover as I snapped a few test shots (one of which is the picture you see to the right. This is actually a blend of both beach and night sky).
Now, I also realized how much out of practice I was with Milky Way photography. Thinking about composition, thinking about foreground, what elements needed to be in the picture, all that jazz. Should I use my headlamp for some light painting? Should I just get a super long exposure for that?
I opted for the super long exposure for the foreground elements, though even then, I don’t think I did it long enough. I also wanted a relatively clean shot/silhouette of the mountains, not wanting a light trail from the cars to intrude within the frame. That was tough to do, especially if I were to leave my shutter open for a long time. The image I did get still had some light from people chilling along the shoreline of Tahoe, but that’s okay. I was thinking about cloning out that section, but decided to leave it. The Milky Way itself, I stacked around 6 pictures for that (using Sequator) and I’m actually okay with that part of the image.
So to the picture itself, here’s the picture once I blended the stacked photos of the Milky Way and the foreground picture as well, which I did in Photoshop.
So here’s the first Milky Way capture of the season.
Beach and Rocks - 14mm - 75 seconds | ISO - 3200 | f/2.8
Milky Way (6 images stacked using Sequator) - 14mm - 20 seconds | ISO - 3200 | f/2.8
Looking back at this, I definitely want to use a lower ISO (1600 maybe) and maybe do a bit of light painting for the foreground next time. We’ll see though!