Friday morning I attended my first hanging. It turns out this event occurs on a regular monthly basis in El Dorado County's old gold rush town of Georgetown, when members of the Art on the Divide Gallery Coop convene to rearrange their works in their bright little gallery space on Main Street just south of Orleans Street. That's the part of Main Street that gets divided off into a quaint separate lane by a row of trees and shrubs from the main part of Main Street. Maybe that setup evolved to protect impaired folks emerging from the Miner's Club Bar just down the block, or to keep things quieter for gentle conversation in Betty's Barbershop next door.

Anyhow, I thought it best to show up to help this Friday for the monthly freshening of the exhibition, seeing as I am now a proud member of the group. It really was great fun to meet a few more of these friendly people, and see some of the new works they brought in. The photo shows Dick helping Chris hang her sweet watercolors. As the featured artist of the month, Chris gets a whole wall on which to display her work.

I got in some ladder time, myself. As one of only three men in the group of about 20, it is kind of my duty to help out with macho stuff like climbing ladders and hammering. At the end of the day, though, I felt my main accomplishment was avoiding breaking anything, having watched pottery teeter on the cabinets I tried to use as a boost into some awkward position. I did take a moment to peek at the garden out the back door, where I found a wonderful still life of a weathered broom and rusty garden implements.

C'mon up and see us - the gallery is beyond Cool. Really - just 12 miles further up Highway 193. And Cool is only about 6 miles off of Interstate 80 from Auburn. Albeit an interesting 6 miles.

This image was processed for enhanced for tone and color in Lightroom 4, enhanced detail in Color Efex 4, processed with the artistic filters Watercolor and Posterization in Photoshop CS5, then back to Lightroom for touch up of color and tone.

My kids used to get furious with me when I'd slow down hikes while leaning over flowers with my camera. At least this afternoon I restricted my vice to the garden as I took a break from my dayjob, compelled outdoors by bits of sun between clouds of a waning storm.



Most of these clips were shot with the 14-45mm lens wide open at f3.5 as an experiment in separating foreground and background with shallow depth of field.

Back in the day I've used a twin lens reflex camera quite a bit. This was a fairly large box of a camera held at  waist level, where you would peer down into the viewfinder. Twin lens because the lens that formed the image in the viewfinder sat above the taking lens, and formed an image on a ground glass. It was completely manual, of course, and used 120 or 220 roll film - which for me was usually Kodak Tri-X black and white. The camera produced 2-1/4 square negatives.

Because of its size and manual operation, using it was fairly contemplative, providing time to thoughtfully select and compose the image before the shutter was snapped. One needed to be able to visualize a scene in black and white, for starters, and the square format brought its own unique composition considerations into play. Because the number of exposures on a roll was limited to twelve, or twentyfour at the most, each release of the shutter was carefully considered - a fairly significant event, thus further adding to the thoughtful preparation for each exposure.

Recently I got a little nostalgic, reflecting on that particular contemplative photographic mood induced by my old Mamiya twin lens, particularly the square format and black and white images. A bulb briefly brightened in my head, reminding me that my Lumix GH2, in addition to providing the option of a 1:1 format, could also be told to restrict its jpegs to black and white. Would it bring back the unique "photo mind" once induced by the Mamiya? I had to give it a try.






Did my little afternoon outing bring back the feeling of using the Mamiya? Well, no. Gone were the acts of manually taking a light meter reading and setting the shutter and aperture, and the careful manual focusing. Gone also was the anticipation of time in the darkroom, first loading the floppy 120 film onto stainless steel Nikor reels, processing, drying, contact printing, and finally making enlargements of selected images.
But I did enjoy thinking in terms of black and white and the square format. And rather than feeling nostalgic about the manual settings and darkroom work, I realized the this little digital camera allows me to zero in on what really matters photographically. I'm proud that I once mastered the darkroom skills required to process film and make fine silver prints, but that is not really what photography is about. 
What I learned today is that my new little camera helps me distill photography to the essence of seeing. And finally I know that I can release all of my stored darkroom gear and film cameras to those that can take pleasure in re-enacting historical photographic techniques. 
www.TonysVision.com

A couple of short videos taken with the Panasonic Lumix GH2, and processed in Lightroom 4 and Sony Vegas.

This one was taken during a hike in Borrego-Palm Canyon, within the Anza Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California. We'd intended stopping in the park a few days on the way to explore southern Arizona. But the desert seeped into our souls, and we remained for three weeks.



Finally moving on from Anza Borrrego, we drove north a few miles and spent a night in Joshua Tree National Monument. Here we were treated to a delightful rain storm as we drove through the park, passing through the Ocotillo Patch, Teddy Bear Cactus Garden, and the wonderful rocks in the vicinity of Belle Camp.



I love my Panasonic Lumix GH2. It combines a compact, do-everything well body, coupled with pretty darn good lenses that don't cost as much as an automobile. Besides capturing quality stills with all the control options, it also captures professional quality HD video. An interesting video feature of the camera is that with its 2X focal length factor relative to full-frame 35mm film, a 200 mm lens becomes the 35mm equivalent of 400mm. But wait, there's more! An option allows for doubling that yet again with full HD. That means shooting with an 800mm equivalent lens. Image stabilization helps quite a bit with the jiggles. I didn't carry a tripod on either of these outings, but the combination of turning myself into a human tripod, the in-lens stabilization, and software stabilization in Vegas resulted in some very usable and exciting footage. The clip of the quail at the beginning of the Palm Canyon video was treated with image stabilization in Vegas, but the second clip of the Mountain Sheep ewe is straight out of the camera.

I've enjoyed creating image and sound presentations for many years. I love it when the flow of images and the background sounds and music combine to create a synergy. The tools for doing this have come so far from overdubbing and splicing reel-to-reel magnetic tape, with bits of metallic tape stuck on to trigger a Kodak Carousel projector!

For these videos I got to dig into some of the video editing tricks in Lightroom 4. Though minimal, the developers got it right, and the tools are a great help in tuning up clips prior to pulling them into a full on video editor. In my case, the editor is the Sony Vegas Studio HD Platinum 11 Production Suite.
Lightroom 4, besides helping to keep files organized, provides a nice tool for trimming clips. This helps to reduce the file size when they are loaded into the editor, which on my system gets a bit cranky when overloaded with data. Although I am learning that short clips make for a more watchable video, I do like to let the camera roll - often good things happen when you do. Lightroom 4 allows for pulling just the sweet 8 seconds or so from a clip that may have gone on for a couple of minutes. Lightroom 4 also allows for some basic color and tonal adjustments of video clips in the Quick Develop section of the Library module.

Once I got the selected clips trimmed and tuned up as necessary in Lightroom 4, I exported them to a new folder, from which I grabbed them to import into Vegas. I've been using Vegas for a few years, and find it very flexible and powerful, as well as reasonably priced. Besides sequencing video clips, you can also add stills. Keyframing tools allow adding a bit of motion to them, either a slow zoom or pan, blending the stills nicely with the video clips.

I enjoy the process of finding the right background music and sounds. This is at least as important as the video clips to the final result. I will start adding in the sound once I have just two or three of the clips sequenced - it helps get me into the mood and inspired.

Speaking of background music, since my productions are merely for my pleasure, a few friends and family, and perhaps the three followers of this blog, I don't feel I am treading on copyright toes. Actually possibly helping along obscure musicians with a bit of a plug by crediting music sources.



www.tonysvision.com

Kumeyaay Indian Morteros and Pictographs, Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert State Park
Couple of Miles
© 2012 Tony Mindling

Actually, the desert isn't silent so much as it is quiet. In that quiet individual small sounds become distinct. The hiss of tires on sand, crunch of boots on gravel, the whisper of wind through grasses ... and the birdsong, so melodious that I imagined it could be made by the spirits of the people to whom this rich place was home for thousands of years.


Carisso along San Felipe Creek
Yucca baccata, or Spanish Bayonete, along a sandy desert road in Blair Valley
Teddy bear - or Jumping - Cholla. Watch where your feet go, or one of those cute little balls will be with you for a while.
A desert still life
Yucca and weathered granite boulder
Kumeyaay bedrock mortar (mortero), Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert State Park. A thousand years or more of women's conversation and children's laughter. Now the sound of the desert breeze, birdsong, and the crunch of hiker's boots in the sand.
Brittlebush
Agave, Pinon, Ocotillo, ancient boulders and ephemeral clouds
Kumeyaay pictographs
Phainopepia enjoying berries of the desert mistletoe
Wild Heliotrope
uh - it's a lizard. Look at those great colors - orange to turquoise
Desert Mistletoe
Apricot Mallow
Scarlet Bugler
Costa's Hummingbird
Costa's Hummingbird
Blair Valley
Desert Dandelion and Cholla
Kumeyaay morteros, Blair ValleyPhotos taken with a Panasonic Lumix GH2, 14-45mm and 45-200mm lenses. Processed in Lightroom 4 and ColorEfex pro.

Note that you can click on an image to bring it up full size and then view all images in sequence.

Fout's Point and Truckhaven Rocks
A couple of miles at most, but hey, it was cross country ...


The intention was to arrive at Fout's Point in time for the sunrise. In actuality, despite having set out clothes, camera, and coffee gear the night before, I rolled over once too many times and thus was able to enjoy the rosy fingered dawn (thank you, Constance and Homer) light up the sand and sage of Fout's wash as the F150 rumbled along the sandy washboard track which makes up the four-mile approach to the viewpoint. Never mind, the early morning drive was gorgeous and the coffee delicious.


This image, along the Fout's Point access road, strongly brings to mind my early days as a geologist, when I explored many desert roads like this one in my lone quest to map, sample, and describe all of the springs within a 10,000 square mile area in Central Nevada
The Borrega Badlands from Fout's Point, in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park

Clark's Dry Lake and the Santa Rosa Mountains in the distance beyond a portion of the Borrega Badlands. There is a 6,000 feet elevation difference between the lake bed and the mountain peaks - tectonics is rampant here. In the foreground is a good example of desert pavement - pebbles darkened by desert varnish and concentrated on the surface as wind and water remove the finer particles as they erode the underlying sediment.



Borrega Badlands from the vicinity of Fout's Point
Wind-rippled dunes, badlands, and the Santa Rosa Range from the Fout's Point RoadSeriously afoot now, I have driven east a few miles on highway S22 from the Fout's Point turnoff. A scramble up a broad, boulder-strewn dry wash provides a path toward the Truckhaven Rocks, the sandstone bedrock formations in the middle distance. A Diamond Cholla in the foreground 
Wind and water have weathered the sandstone bedrock of the Truckhaven Rocks into interesting formations which invite exploration. Here I am contemplating extending my exploration by circling back to the truck by the dry wash I'm inspecting. From what I can see, it seems to deepen and narrow as it goes, possibly blocking me with a non-negotiable dry waterfall. What then? - a scramble back up the slick rock and its coating of ball-bearing-like gravel is not attractive, nor is the vision of my desiccating body and circling vultures. Sanity returns and I loop back more-or-less the way I had arrived.
See that glint on the horizon? It is not a mirage - it is the interesting Salton Sea. Once, back in not-so-distant geologic time, it was part of the Gulf of California, but was separated by the huge delta formed by the Colorado River. All of that rock eroded from the Grand Canyon had to end up somewhere. The river decided to flow south into the Gulf, and the now separate northern end dried out. But then canals were dug for agriculture in the Imperial Valley, and in 1905 a huge flood occurred on the Colorado, dikes were breached, canals became a raging river, and for about three years the entire flow of the river emptied into the old dry lakebed, forming the Salton Sea.
A water stop by an Ocotillo while I contemplate negotiating the ball-bearing slope before me
Ocotillo next to the Truckhaven Rocks

The interesting growth pattern of the Diamond Cholla. It was also interesting trying to remove one of the spines from my boot sole - they must have reversed barbs. Interesting also to contemplate the nature of a higher power, should one exist, who would design a reproduction mechanism that would inflict such an injury on the mammals passing by used as a vector. Go figure.

I just read a blog by one of my favorite photographers, Darwin Wiggett, about his grandmother. It was about how he appreciated her delight in the details of nature, in taking walks with no particular objective or destination, and her sharing those experiences with him when he was a child. He figured that her influence was largely responsible for his pursuit of nature photography, and shared some fine images he had taken in celebration of her spirit.

As always, Darwin's images are enjoyable and moving, and certainly worth passing on. But his blog also reminded me of a recent phone call with my brother. He had gotten in touch to remind me that our dad would have turned 100 years old in March. Our conversation reminded me that his influence has opened many of the doors to my enjoyment of life, including camping and photography.

Camping in the 1950's, when my brother and I were adolescents, involved canvas center pole tents, with that delightful odor of waterproofing, pump-up Coleman stoves and lanterns, and slippery blow-up plastic air mattresses that would go flat in the middle of the night if you hadn't already slipped off of it. While dad led us on some fun hikes in those early days, he really got into camping with the acquisition of an 18-foot travel trailer in the late '50's. Dad had always been into automotive pursuits, doing all the maintenance on his vehicles including top-end engine rebuilds, and he took pleasure in the maintenance of the trailer and solving the issues related to coaxing a 1950's era sedan into pulling it.

Inside the trailer was much like a wooden boat, with wooden paneling and cabinets that fit into its curves, Dad kept the inside varnished and the outside aluminum skin shining. He would tinker with the car's engine (a '52 Plymouth) and the hitch setup, then take the trailer "on a ride" just to test everything out. These rides would often become weekend day trips to the Marin and Sonoma County coasts and parks. When we got there, dad would often tinker with some tune-up or maintenance issue, while Tom and I would explore. In later years I came to realize that dad's enjoyment of the details of trailer travel was a way for him to share and overlap fun things for all of us to do.

In 1956 between my sophomore and senior high school years trailer travel culminated in a three-month cross-country trip. It was a hugely memorable family event, hitting most of the major parks, roadside attractions, and the cities of the east coast and southern Canada. All of this in the pre-freeway era. Through Kodachrome slides we shared this trip again many times in the following years. The slides were taken with my dad's 35mm Argus camera, which he had used during the '40's and had put into my hands when I had shown an interest in photography in the beginning of my high school days. The cost of processing came to about $90 when we picked them up at the Rexall drug store after the trip. A huge sum at that time, but with no questions from dad, and the slides repaid that many times over anyway in the pleasure they gave our family reliving the trip.

So, as I sit here with Hilda in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, on yet another enjoyable trailer camping trip, looking forward to a photographic outing this morning, I give thanks to my dad for introducing me to the pleasures of road trips and photography. I'll be thinking of that as I explore new places with my camera today.

Bill Kenyon Overlook, Cactus Loop, Yaqui Well, Narrows Earth TrailAbout 5.5 miles altogether, what with all the photo-meandering
South of the town of Borrego Springs where Highways S3 and 78 meet is a nice little campground within the Anza Borrego Desert State Park called Tamarisk Grove. Turns out it is the only shaded campground within the park. Turns out it is closed, with this wondrous sign at the entrance: CAMPGROUND CLOSED – NEAREST RESTROOM BORREGO SPRINGS. Hopefully you can hold it for another half an hour.

But no worries - the Cactus Loop trail that begins just opposite the campground entrance was completely deserted, and offers plenty of Barrel Cactus, Teddy Bear Choya, Ocotillo, and Yucca to crouch behind. This is a great little 1.6-mile loop, up and down an eroded alluvial fan. A very fine desert experience, albeit never out of the sound of the traffic on the 78. On a Sunday afternoon that road was busy with “Toy Haulers” roaring back from their sandy weekend at the off-road vehicle areas down at the Salton Sea. Hilda and I had driven past their dusty desert encampments the night before, where flags snapped in the wind over compounds of RVs and dune buggies. We half expected Mel Gibson, AKA Mad Max, to ambush us, leaving our old F150 beside the road with an empty gas tank and no rubber.
Earlier I had hiked the 1.5 mile Bill Kenyon Overlook Trail. The variety of cactus was impressive, and not only were the Ocotillo in bloom, but also many of the Yucca were sending up their tall flowering stalks. Really, it was like walking through a desert botanical garden. Here the early morning light spilling down the sides of the hills lit up the Cholla and Barrel Cactus, requiring many stops and off-trail wanders for photographs.

Cactus is a great subject for backlight, assuming you don’t have a pretty woman with beautiful hair available to pose for you. Handled right, it makes a great second choice. The spines of the cactus pick up the light and glow, like her hair would have. The trick is to keep the direct sunlight off of the lens, and avoid the resulting flare and loss of contrast. I do this by first making sure the shutter speed is high enough that I can get a sharp image holding the camera with one hand, and making sure the vibration reduction is switched on. The other hand is held up to shade the lens. I pull my eye away from the viewfinder enough to see that the lens is indeed shaded. You can also tell you have it right because when you do the flare goes away. Just make sure that your hand is not part of the image. Or if unavoidable, plan on composing the image so that upper part may be cropped away. The “right” way to do this, of course, is with a tripod, so that shutter speed is not an issue (even on a breezy day, cactus can be depended on to hold pretty still), and you can compose and shade more precisely. My tripod, of course, was safely back in the truck.
Following the Cactus Loop hike I headed down the 1.5-mile out and back trail from the Tamarisk Grove Campground to Yaqui Well. Yaqui Well is so named for an Indian who emigrated here from Mexico some time ago and married a local Indian girl. He must have been quite a fellow, as several places here bear that name. This hike was a bit of a bust. On a calmer day I would have hung around the Tamarisk trees by the spring, hoping to photograph birds, including the crowned Phainopepla, feeding on the berries of the desert mistletoe. But today the trees were bouncing around and shadows moving so much that it would have been difficult to spot a bird, let alone photograph it.
The day was wrapped up with a nice little half-mile nature trail called the Narrows Earth Trail, which is found a few miles east on 78 from Tamarisk Campground. A kind person had left the last pamphlet on the weathered box, held in place with a rock, which pointed out the evidence of faulting and presented some impressive ages for some of the rocks passed by the trail. Like 500 million year old Paleozoic sea floor sediments, originally laid down somewhere in central Mexico, and heaved up here by various tectonic forces including the old San Andreas Fault. I’m a geologist, and even so cannot begin to get my head around that length of time, let alone the concept of moving pieces of the earth’s crust that distance. Really, the Creationists have it so easy. I replaced the pamphlet and the rock in the box for their edification and confusion, got into the car and out of the wind, and enjoyed my liverwurst sandwich on the fine desert drive back to Borrego Springs.
Ocotillo and Cholla on the Bill Kenyon Overlook Trail
Cholla and Red- and Yellow-Spined Barrel Cactus on the Bill Kenyon Overlook Trail
Flowering Yellow-Spined Barrel Cactus on the Bill Kenyon Overlook Trail
A tribute to the trail builders on the Cactus Loop Trail
Teddy Bear Cholla on the Cactus Loop Trail
Flowering Red-Spined Barrel Cactus on the Cactus Loop Trail
Along the Cactus Loop Trail

March 29, 2012
4.8 Miles

Borrego-Palm Canyon, named for the Bighorn Sheep that frequent it and the palm oasis that comprise some 800 Fan Palms, drains the west side of the San Ysidro Mountains. These mountains form a 6,000 foot rampart on the west side of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. We arrived at the park via a pass through those mountains, and the change from verdant and lush agricultural land of Southern California to the Cholla, Yucca, and blooming Ocotillo of the desert was striking as we plunged down from the 4,000 foot pass to the town of Borrego Springs, 3,500 feet below in just a few miles.

The hike up the alluvial fan and into the mouth of Borrego-Palm Canyon took me into desert terrain much loved from way back at the beginning of my career as a geologist working in the desert of Central Nevada. Down here, though, in addition to striking geology and rocks coated with desert varnish, there is a greater variety of interesting plants, including the Ocotillo which are at their peak now, and several smaller blooming shrubs, including a bright red Penstemon. I was struck by the activity of bees, despite the fact that the winter and spring have been extremely dry. Another hiker on the trail pointed out a bee hive, clinging to the canyon wall 100 feet or so above the canyon floor. The walk was accompanied by nearly constant bird song, beginning with a covey of quail near the trailhead. A pause to rest for a few minutes would reveal small mammals scuttling among the boulders, and at one point, after fruitlessly scanning the steep canyon walls for Bighorn Sheep, happened on a lone ewe browsing the desert plants just off the trail.

But water was the most distinctive feature of the hike. Early on, the trail crossed a dry wash emanating from the canyon at the upper end of the fan. Very dry, and despite photos I'd seen showing flowing water at the oasis, I really didn't expect to see any on this very dry year. Nevertheless, about half way to the oasis, there was that pleasant burbling sound, and soon the sight of a healthy little stream tumbling around cobbles and falling from boulders into clear pools. Other signs of water were also around. In 2003 a huge flash flood ripped up palms and tumbled boulders to turn the once lush oasis into a scene of devastation. Much healing has occurred since then, but tumbled boulders and many trunks of large palms are scattered along the canyon bottom, where at one spot a boulder the size of a cabin rests on a trunk well up from the canyon bottom.

But the oasis is still impressive, with a cluster of at least 100 mature fan palms, skirted with decades of brown and rustling fans. From my perch on a large boulder within the oasis I enjoyed my liverwurst sandwich and watched the come and go of other visitors - this is a popular trail, and I heard several languages on the way up. According to the guidebooks, a second oasis can be found another mile or so up the canyon. But it is a boulder-hopping excursion, and I was worried about my old bones, and also pretty well used up from the rock and boulder hopping I'd already done, during many side excursions in my hunt for vantage points for photographs. I could see that the groups of other hikers were enjoying themselves, but realized that it is best that I hike alone - any companion would long ago have abandoned me, as with all of my pauses for photography, my GPS informed me that my overall speed made good on the way up the canyon was a measly 0.9 miles per hour.

Despite starting from the trailhead at about 8AM, the day was now warming up pretty well, my water was gone, and it was time to head back down the trail. But I did take the longer, alternate loop, which took me through an area of impressive cactus and Ocotillo, where I photographed a Cactus Wren, and was fortunate to come across that grazing sheep.

Ocotillo
Within the palm oasis
Cactus Wren

Penstemon
Ocotillo

March 19, 2012
4.5 Miles

It had been sunny in the morning. But by the time I got enough of the to-do list checked off to assuage  the guilt of going for a ramble they were darkening. Foreboding, like. Eerie light and odd colors. It was as if I had stepped into a parallel universe where the light, or my perception of it, reacted to my brain waves. Maybe I hadn't drunk enough water. Thankfully everything returned to normal once I had looped back to the parking lot and slumped into the seat of our Explorer.

One of the ancient oaks between Cool and Pilot Hill
Oaks near Cool
Goldfinch, pondering the odd weather
I love the copses of oaks, like this one ...
... and this one
Sandhill Cranes on another ordinary epic adventure
Mule Ears
Journeys are best with company, whether down the river, or through life
Kayakers head down the SF American River
Cronan Ranch cow camp
Images captured via Lumix GH2 and processed minimally in Lightroom 4, and to 11 in Nik Color Efex Pro

I had mixed feelings about entering a juried show. Rejection is no fun, and I didn't like the idea of needing to fight feelings of ill will toward judges too lame to recognize my brilliance. I was about 18 when I last entered a show - some sort of camera club exhibit in San Rafael. My image, star trails with the superimposed track of the Echo I satellite taken during a family camping trip in the Sierra Nevada, was rejected in favor of a horribly trite image of a ballet dancer tying her slippers. I have avoided contests, and especially camera clubs, ever since.

But I had learned of this show, a celebration of the Centennial of the Mountain Quarries Railroad Bridge, through the folks of Art on the Divide, a cooperative gallery I recently joined. The Mountain Quarries Railroad Bridge is more commonly known as the No-Hands Bridge, a name applied by equestrians in the time before guard rails for reasons only they can fully appreciate. It was built in 1912 to transport limestone from the Cool Cave Quarry. At that time the limstone was used as part of the refining process of Sprekels Sugar. Now the bridge is part of a fine hiking, equestrian, and cycling trail along the river within the Auburn State Recreation Area State Park.

A few others in the AOD group were entering paintings and photographs. So what the heck, it was an opportunity to print and frame a couple of photos. Putting aside my anxiety, I went to my photo archives to find an image of the bridge that I recalled from a couple of years ago.


Thanks to Lightroom and keywords, finding the image, and one other that pleased me, was un-painful. I had post-processed the image after I had taken it, in the fall of 2006, using Photoshop, and saved it as a TIFF. I also had the original RAW file, taken with a Nikon D80 with the Nikkor 24-85mm lens. While working over the image a bit more, I recalled taking it. 
The photograph was no snapshot. The bridge is just downstream from the Highway 49 bridge that crosses the American River between Auburn and Cool - a well-beaten path for us Coolies. As the leaves turned I had been watching that tree for a couple of weeks, and knew the time of day when the light would be right. When I felt that the little tree was at its peak, I packed up my camera and tripod and headed out in the late afternoon, when the low sun would backlight the tree and set it a-glow. From a parking area just upstream from the Highway 49 bridge a trail leads back under the bridge to a good vantage point for the No-Hands Bridge. Dissatisfied initially with that point of view, I went closer to the river and clambered over the rocks looking for the right spot, and eventually came back to a spot under the 49 bridge, where I found a point of view providing a shadowy backdrop for the tree, and also include a satisfying curve in the river leading to the bridge in the background. I stopped the lens down to f/20 and used a shutter speed of 1/4 sec. Post processing this time around included local lightening and darkening in Lightroom, and general and local use of the Warming/Brightening, and Detail Enhancer filters in Nik Color Efex. Printing required a trip to Fry's to replenish a couple of the ink cartridges in my Epson R3000. The print was made on Ilford Gallerie Silk Gold, and at $120 for a box of 50, 13X19 inch sheets, I was pleased when the first one out was right on. 
My mat cutting process is very simple. Cut out the mat to fit the frame, in this case 18X24, with the blade. Laying the rule over the print  determine the window size, and write those two dimensions on the back of the mat. I subtract those dimensions from the width and height of the mat and divide by two. The math of dealing with those fractional inches is the trickiest part. Two marks for each margin and lines are drawn for the window on the back of the mat. I lay the print over those lines as a double-check, then use my three-foot aluminum ruler as a straight-edge to guide the cut. The tricks are to use a sharp blade in the cutter, and to begin and end the cuts a fraction beyond the window corners. And keep the straight edge parallel to the line - I set the cutter down with the blade in the line, then bring the straight edge up against it, measure the distance of the straight edge from the line at the cutter, then adjust the straight edge as necessary to equal that distance near the end of the cut.
The End of a Tale That Has Become Too Long
So the deal was that we were to drop off our entries this morning, then wait for an acceptance phone call by 8PM this evening. If we did not get a call that would mean our work had been rejected and we were to pick it up in the morning.

When I had given my little presentation talk to the Art on the Divide folks I'd said that I was old enough now to take rejection in stride, that it didn't mean our work was bad, just didn't fit the needs at the time, and yah da yah da. Bullshit. By the time 6:30 rolled around I was so anxious that my old stammer gremlin had returned and I could barely answer the phone when it rang. Turned out my photo had not only been accepted, but was a prize winner. I am now to show up at the show opening next Friday for the awards presentation.

As I had been washing dishes when the phone rang, after the call I tried to convince my wife that as an artiste, it would no longer be appropriate for me to wash dishes. Not getting anywhere with that, I pondered the purchase of black attire and which ear to puncture for a diamond stud as I scraped the leftovers into the trash.

They arrived in the eastern Sierra Nevada about 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, moving into the mountains from the Great Basin as the climate warmed at the end of the last Ice Age. They included the Washoe, the Yakut, and the Paiute. An even greater population of native Americans inhabited and tended the warmer and moister western flank of the Sierra, among them the Nisenan. They tended the land by pruning and selective burning to increase the productivity of useful plants for food and basket weaving, and maintain open, park-like forests free of deadwood and underbrush.

The Nisenan inhabited the Great Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada Foothills west of Sacramento, including the area around my home here in Cool, and the town of Coloma, a few miles to the south. I've photographed the Nisenan bedrock mortars in Coloma several times, and keep coming back. Here Nisenan women prepared acorns by pounding and grinding them with stone pestles. The relatively homogeneous nature of  granitic rock resulted in mortars that likely lasted for generations, as mothers took over their mother's places, while their children played in the meadow or the nearby river.



But lying in the gravels of that river, eroded from bedrock veins higher in the mountains, lay flakes and pebbles of gold. Winter storms, occasional doozers, would turn the river into a roiling, sediment-filled grinder that pried the metal from its home in the high mountains and swept it away to finally lie in the riverbed down in the foothills, gleaming innocently for many thousands of years, while the Nisenan, unaware of its "value", tended their lands sustainably for generation after generation. That all ended in 1848, when James Marshall walked out one morning, within sight of this spot, to inspect the race of a new sawmill being built for John Augustus Sutter, a gleam caught his eye, and the Gold Rush displacement of the Sierra Nevada natives began.

Inspired by a Kolby Kirk, I've become a bit more consistent in maintaining a written journal. You may note I have not used the word "journaling". It just irks me a bit, like chalk screeching on a blackboard. I write in a journal. I try to keep at it every day. I draw pictures, too. In the past these have been sketches of ideas or plans for cabinetmaking, remodeling, or landscaping projects. Inspired by Kirk, I've begun to add little maps and sketches. Like this one.

As the drawings have become incrementally more sophisticated, so have the tools. To a fine-point india ink felt tip and my treasured Pelikan fountain pen, I've added a few graphite pencils of varying hardness, a set of Prismacolor Watercolor pencils, and a water pen.

What the heck is a "water pen" was my reaction when I read Kirby's blog about one. Turns out it is a nylon brush attached to a barrel that serves as a water reservoir. A squeeze of the flexible plastic barrel moistens the brush. It can then be used to pick up color directly from the tip of a watercolor pencil, or to smooth out and enhance the color of watercolor pencil that has already been applied to paper. Very fun. To me it kind of feels like those fun children's coloring books where the color was already on the page in the form of water soluble ink dots that you brought out with a brush dipped in water.

Why does a photographer write about drawing and watercoloring? It turns out that, in my brief association with a group of artists, that it is not unusual for photographers to be closet painters, or the other way around. And I find a sort of meditative experience comes about through spending more time with a subject, and seeing it a bit more deeply.

Anyhow, the drive to create doesn't need an excuse, so this is how I've organized my drawing stuff.


So there is all of my stuff - the colored pencils, graphite pencils, pens, and the nifty water brush. There are a lot of colored pencils. To apply some organization I grouped them into warm colors and cool colors and corralled them with a pair of asparagus rubber bands. It's the season, so we have been enjoying a lot of them lately. The asparagus, not the rubber bands. The pens and graphite pencils all go into another pair of asparagus rubbers.


And there you have it. And the whole thing (including the little pencil sharpener that came with the Prismacolor set, altho I think I will add a single edge razor blade as well) fits right back into the tin that the pencils came in, minus the flimsy plastic trays.

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Hey - did you know that you can click on an image in this blog to see if full-screen in all of its glory, then forward arrow through the whole set?

I dropped of five photographs at the Art on the Divide Gallery today. They will go on display once we complete the monthly "hanging" the end of this month. Note the "we". I'm already feeling part of this kind and creative group. I took a few photos to show how well-displayed the works are, and the variety, from jewelry to pottery to large metal sculptures. Oh, and some great photos, too.

The hills of the foothills are just beginning to green up. Soon the oaks will leaf out, and we will be launched into our best season. Come up and see us. From I-80 at Auburn, head south on Hwy 49. Take it easy and enjoy the vistas of the American River Canyon on the six-mile stretch to the town of Cool.Take a left in the heart of town (you will know you are there because of the stop sign), and head out Hwy 193 for another 12 miles of serene rolling oak woodlands dotted with barns and grazing critters to Georgetown. You will love historic Georgetown. It's, like, "beyond Cool". Down the street from the gallery there is an antique shop where you can get lost in annexes filled with books and other treasures. Lots of places to eat and drink, too.

March 7, 2012
2 miles

Errands to Auburn, especially on a fine day, are hugely enhanced by a brisk run down and up the canyon in the TR6. Add in a quiet ramble of a couple of miles along the river from the Confluence, and the head noise developed through a couple of weeks of preparing for my vetting by the Art on the Divide folks was soon damped down into the mellow zone.

The walk started on the north side of the Old Foresthill Bridge. Old, to distinguish it from the New Foresthill Bridge, that splits the sky some 700 feet above the N Fork of the American River. The walk passes the abutments of at least two other NF bridges - The Old Old Foresthill Bridge and the Old Old Old - well, anyhow, lots of gold rush transportation history is littered around this spot in the bottom of the canyon where the North and Middle Forks of the American River convene.

It was a relaxing walk, filled with the beginnings of spring, and lots of stuff to aim the
Panasonic GH2 at, as I continue to try to learn its tricks.

(Video here: https://vimeo.com/38208268)

Canyon Live oak
Gold panning 


Belly Blossoms (technical term for tiny flowers requiring a prone position to photograph)
Parachute Man was no doubt launched from the Foresthill Bridge, 700 feet above.
A quiet spot along the North Fork
Hand-stacked stone still supports a 150-year-old roadbed along the river
The Buckeye always fascinates me with its unique adaptation to foothill summers by getting the jump on the season, leafing out early, flowering, producing seeds, and going dormant by July.
Buckeye leaves a few days old

Today I was welcomed into the fold of the Art on the Divide Cooperative Gallery. I'm proud to have been included among this fine group of artists who produce exceptional work. I'm looking forward to getting to know and learning from them. The gallery is located in a historic building in Georgetown, California. Fortuitously off the beaten track, Georgetown has escaped the "quaintifying" transmogrification that has blighted so many of the old gold rush communities. C'mon up and see us sometime.

Here is a sampling of the work that I will be showing there beginning March 30:

Loon Lake
Bud's LaSalle
Codfish Creek
Backyard Maple
Snowy Egret, Cool, CA
Winter Oak, Knickerbocker Flats, Cool, CA
The Red Caboose, Portola, California
Bufflehead Pair, Newport Bay preserve, CA
Morning Paddle, Eagle Lake, Lassen County, CA

February 24, 2012
5.5 miles


It was much too beautiful a day not to play hooky. So after dropping Tanner, our 10-year-old Shi-Tzu off at the vet in Cool for teeth cleaning and to have a few cysts removed, I drove south on 49 to Auburn State Recreation Area (ASRA) State Park Gare No.128, which is perhaps 1/4 mile on the right after you pass Northside School. There is room for perhaps four cars there, but no problem at 9AM on a Friday. I hung my Golden Poppy Pass on the visor, and headed off with my Panasonic GH2 and two lenses: a 14-45mm and a 45-200mm. On this camera the focal length factor is 2, so in terms of a full frame, or 35mm camera, they provide a focal length range of 28mm to 400mm. The whole kit weighs only ___ ounces. The camera with even the long lens is a barely noticeable weight around my neck.


From the Journal

The trail winds through an ecoregion I have seen referred to as rolling oak woodland, which to me is descriptive of the low, rounded grassy hills dotted with copses of oaks. But Wikipedia refers to the foothill grasslands and oaks as blue oak woodland, consisting of Blue Oak, interior Live Oak, Valley Oak, Canyon Live Oak and California Scrub Oak. I've not yet learned to identify the various oaks, but I did also see pines on the slopes of Knickerbocker Creek Canyon, possibly Ponderosa, and some large Manzanita, one in full bloom.


Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Taken with the 200mm (400mm as 35mm equivalent). And cropped quite a bit. The 16 megabyte images tthe GH2 produces are clean enough to survive considerable enlargement.Cattails near one of the creek crossings. It has been a very dry year so far, so I was able to keep my feet pretty dry.
Rolling oak Woodlands. These beautiful, open grasslands and groves will be a brilliant green for a while in April and May.
I just can't resist rustic fence posts
Oaks in winter mode
Horses are thankful for this spot in the summer. Even in February, I could have used a second bottle of water.
Manzanita
It was a treat to come upon the pond, which I hadn't seen before. 
There were a few Coots and a pair of Mallards. But they hid in the rushes and over-taxed my photographic patience this day.
My "secret" pond. There is a fine grassy meadow sloping down to the water here - perfect for an afternoon of reading, napping, and photographing birds. I flushed a covey of quail near here, with a thunder of wings. I also encountered a couple groups of Flickers, and saw A red-Tailed Hawk, and the ever-present Turkey Vultures soaring in the distance.

A fine day to be out
My Ruby-Throated Hummingbird again

February 15, 2012
2.5 miles


In which I go in search of the annual bloom of the Wild Narcissus garden at the abandoned Knickerbocker Ranch and try out my new Panasonic GH2

A nice 2.5-mile ramble among the trees, creeks, and ponds of the rolling oak woodlands of the Auburn State Recreation AreaThe commercial hub of our little town of Cool, about 6 miles south of Auburn, and 40 some miles east of Sacramento, backs up to the Auburn State Recreation Area, or ASRA. From my chair in our dentist's office I can look out across meadows to rolling hills doted with copses of oaks. A graveled parking, or staging area, located behind our firehouse, provides access to the trails in our portion of the park. When I rolled in on a Wednesday afternoon and hung my Golden Poppy pass on the rear view mirror there was one truck and horse trailer and one other car in the parking lot. On weekends there are normally a couple of dozen vehicles here, and many more during the many equestrian, cycling, and running events held on the trails. Since this access point is less than five minutes from our house, I get a lot of use out of that pass here. Today was exciting as it was my first outing with a new camera. After much interesting reading of reviews and perusing of specification, the micro-four-thirds Panasonic GH2.

I pause under an oak to let a pair of equestrians by From the staging area I headed down the broad and well-paved road once used as a haul road to the dam site on the south side of the river. But I quickly left it for the parallel trail that criss-crosses a small creek, and photographed a couple of equestrian groups.
A multi-use trail - bikes, boots, horses, and dogs.
This pair of riders kindly paused for a photo with their dogs.
Stepping stones and rustic bridges provide crossings as the trail meanders back and forth over this little creek.
Leaving the creek, crossing the road, and heading up the side of a ridge along an old fence line, I played a bit with one of my favorite subjects - weathered wood. Here I framed a distant oak between a pair of fence posts since I kind of liked the whimsical composition, and wanted to test out the Panasonic 14-42mm lens at f22.

Black and white conversion in Light Room 3
The pond on Salt Creek
I can't resist weathered stuff.
The bedrock mortars next to Salt Creek Pond
Approaching the old Knickerbocker Ranch site
Knickerbocker narcissus with the pond in the distance
Narcissus at the Knickerbocker Ranch
At the Knickerbocker RanchAlthough no quite so exuberant this year because of the dry weather, the narcissus are still a nice surprise at the old ranch site. Below, a bit of the Olmstead Loop trail as i head back toward the firehouse parrking area.
On the Olmstead Loop Trail near the firehouse at Cool

February 6, 2012
1.2 Miles


OK, calling a 1.2 mile dog walk a hike may be stretching it, but we both enjoyed the outing, and returned relaxed and refreshed. That's what it's all about.

It was a gray day, portending the rain that came a few hours later. I had a goal in mind, which was to bring home an image I could play with in my new software toy, Nik Color Efex 4. This software consists of a long list of filters, which can make strong changes to images. You can use them to enhance an image within whatever you consider "traditional" photography, or you can go all out, and create images only seen in your mind's eye.

As you can see, with this one I went all out. What I like about the program is that it loosens up my vision, getting me out of the Ansel Adams and David Muench modes that I hold so dear.

What the camera saw ...
... and what the mind's eye saw - with a little help from Nik.

February 3, 2012
3.2 Miles






I accessed the trailhead, located where the Ponderosa Way Bridge crosses the North Fork of the American River, by dropping down Ponderosa way from the Foresthill Road between Auburn and Foresthill. You can also zig-zag down Ponderosa way from I-80 near Colfax. Either way you are dealing with switchbacks, dirt roads that are rough in places, and some fine views of the canyon of the North Fork. You would probably make it fine in your Miata, but feel most secure in a high-centered, AWD vehicle.

The frosty Ponderosa way bridge over the North Fork off the American RiverI crept carefully in our venerable Explorer across the frost-covered wooden planks of the bridge, still in the shade of the deep canyon at 10 AM. The rusty cable railings didn't look like they would help much if we began slipping sideways. The river ran clear and cold below, carving into bedrock strata of seafloor sediments tilted to nearly 90 degrees. A light jacket over my fleece vest felt good as I started down the trail, but as it emerged into sunlight I stopped to stuff it in my daypack. Also in the pack was my Sigma 10-28mm wideangle lens, and around my neck on a comfortable strap was my old Nikon D80, extracted from retirement today to see if its lighter weight compared to the D300 would make it a good hiking camera. Attached to it was my not-quite-do-everything Nikkor 18-200mm VR, with which I have a conflicted relationship. Conflicted, because the designers were unable to figure out how to keep the zoom from slipping to full extension as the camera dangles from the strap. Or when angled downward to frame a photo. A bit of duct tape goes into the pack next trip. In my hand I carried a tiny Velbon tripod. I lust for a carbon fiber, but but have not yet gathered the gumption to spend the required $600.*

The trail to Codfish FallsAny lustful or negative thoughts regarding photo gear were totally buried by the delight of the trail, which makes its level way downstream on the sunny side of the canyon, always within sight and sound of the river. Casual slip-and-slide side trails make their way down to the river, where sandy beaches and swimming holes would be attractive in the summer.

The morning light spilling down the opposite slope of the canyon outlined the tall Grey Pines in delightful backlighting. Until recently these trees had been know commonly as "Digger Pines", a name applied with reference to the Nissenan, or Southern Maidu, by the gold miners of the 1800's, based on their observation that they commonly dug up roots for food and other uses. The miners also left behind piles of cobbles on a bar along the opposite bank, washed clean by hydraulic mining. The resulting sediment carried down the American, and other rivers, into the Central Valley built up there, causing flooding and damaging agricultural land. A temporary solution on the NF was to build the Clementine Dam downstream a few miles, solely for the purpose of trapping the sediment before it could be carried further downstream. Shortly thereafter the release of sediment was outlawed by the nation's first environmental legislation.

Grey pines backlit by the morning sunWhat with several photo stops it took me about 45 minutes to walk about a mile to the point where the canyon could be seen through the trees to open up into a side canyon, cut by Codfish Creek. About here, as the trail began to turn into the side canyon, a shallow, overgrown canal could be seen paralleling the trail. It was likely used by gold seekers to carry water from Codfish Creek for the hydraulic mining.

Codfish Falls
Walking into the tributary canyon the rush of the river fades and is replaced by the gurgle of Codfish Creek, and soon the cascading flow of the falls can be seen through the trees. I stumbled around on the rocks a bit taking photographs of the falls and the fern and moss-lined grottoes just downstream. My legs were a bit shaky after spending about an hour crouching here and there behind the camera, so I bypassed the trail heading a bit further to the top off the falls - I'll return there with grandchildren to complete the exploration in the spring.

Not far back down the trail I came upon a dad with three young daughters and a Shi-Tzu heading toward the falls. The scene took me back to our days in Susanville, when the kids were in high school and we often made treks like that.

So I'm going to try to kidnap some grandchildren for another trip to Codfish Falls, this time all the way to the top. But we'll do it no later than April, as this will be a warm trail later in the summer. But then, there are those inviting side trails down to swimming holes carved in the rocks by the river.

Back in the Explorer, and a bit disappointed that I'd missed Science Friday I headed out of the canyon continuing on Ponderosa Way which switchbacks its way in fairly spectacular fashion back to pavement, scattered homes, and finally I-80. Joining the rush of traffic, I still carried some shreds of the relaxation I had felt on the trail and while photographing Codfish Creek, and reflected on how easy it is to access places like that once you let your feet carry you away from roadways.

*At home I checked the weight of a $40 aluminum Sunpak tripod I picked up once for travelling. Turns out it is lighter than a Gitzo Mountaineer carbon fiber with head. $600 saved.

Codfish Creek. 1.3 sec at f/20, ISO 100

Codfish Creek. 1 sec at f/20, ISO 100