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Bristlecone Pine, White Mountains, California

photograph by Evan Robinson

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Tulips, Seattle, Washington

photograph by Evan Robinson

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Fireworks, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

photograph by Evan Robinson

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Old Engine, Bodie, California

photograph by Evan Robinson

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Periwinkle, Half Moon Bay, California

photograph by Evan Robinson

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Bishop Creek near South Lake, Bishop, CA

photograph by Evan Robinson

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Watson Lake Reflection, Prescott, AZ

photograph by Evan Robinson

Prescott is not the "look everywhere and see spectacular landscapes" location that the Eastern Sierra is this time of year, but there are places...

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Eastern Sierra Fall Color Photo Workshop at Mountain Light Gallery

I took my very first photography workshop last week.  Sara and I went to her home town, Bishop, California, between Death Valley and Mono Lake on the east side of the Sierra.  It used to be Galen Rowell's stomping grounds, and his business the Mountain Light Gallery is still there.  Last time we visited Bishop I noticed that the gallery had workshops and signed up for this one.  It was led by Gordon Wiltsie, a noted adventure photographer who did a great deal of fantastic work for National Geographic and many other publications.  He was ably assisted by Jerry Dodrill, also an adventure photographer and climber, who used to work for Galen Rowell at the Mountain Light Gallery.

The workshop ran from 2 October to 5 October with an evening kickoff and an afternoon finish.  Each day in between we were up and out before sunrise to local locations to catch the morning light and Friday and Saturday nights we were out late for sunset shooting as well.  We shot at North Lake, on the road to South Lake, out by the Owens River on 5 Bridges Road, near Big Alkali Lake off Benton Crossing Road near Lake Crowley, Convict Lake, Bishop Creek, and up in the White Mountains near the Schulman Grove.

In between Gordon and Jerry provided instruction via slideshow, critique, and Lightroom training.  On location they were very hands on, suggesting locations, shots, techniques, and always answering questions.

It was great.  Here are six images I took:

North Lake Dawn, Evan Robinson,
near Bishop, California

Sunset Tree, Evan Robinson,
near Bishop, California

Mountain Rays, Evan Robinson,
Owens River Valley, near Bishop, California

Dawn Mirror, Evan Robinson,
near Mammoth Lakes, California

Mounts Morrison and Laurel, Evan Robinson,
near Mammoth Lakes, California

Ancient Sunset, Evan Robinson,
near Schulman Grove, White Mountains, California

It occurs to me that each of these pictures is looking west.  That's where the light is, I guess :-).

I took about 700 images.  I have 30-ish that I think are pretty good, many of which I think are among the best images I've ever taken.  I look forward with trepidation to going over my ~30K previous images with my new eyes.  To be fair, I was going to have to do that anyway since my workflow is moving from Aperture to Lightroom because of Aperture's demise.

Right now I feel like I learned a lot.  But the real test will be what images I'm creating next month.  Regardless, this workshop was a test of whether I would enjoy workshops and learn from them.  I did and I did, so I'll be doing more of them.

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Testing

Seattle Panorama 20110716 by Evan Robinson

I've updated my camera gear for the first time in years (my previous camera is a Canon Digital Rebel aka Canon 300D which I purchased in 2003 IIRC). So I've been out playing with the new equipment (which there will probably be more than one post about). The above is an example. The original is 9583 x 2358, made from 18 images, is 6.6MB as a JPG (pretty small!), and nearly 60MB as a TIF. Pretty much everything on it, from camera settings to Hugin settings to Aperture settings, was default.

(cross-posted from my personal blog Mischievous Ramblings II)

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Denver Welcomes Democrats

What do you know? Someone in Denver, who doesn't like Democrats, can spell "sycophant". Do you suppose they can spell "democracy"?

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GNB Art Break; Summer Bubbles

Jason Tozer: Bubbles

Photographer Jason Tozer was asked to take some pictures of bubbles by Creative Review magazine, using the new Sony Alpha camera.

I have always LOVED bubbles. I like the kid-toy plastic bottles where you make bubbles with the tiny wand. I played with SUPER BUBBLES for a while. I even like the teeny tiny ones that sometimes pop out of the dish soap bottle when you squeeze it lightly. This photo series is amazing. What a fun way to spend some time... photographing bubbles. Here are some of the behind the scenes how to shots as well.

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