El Matador cave Milky Way selfie, Malibu CA

Here’s a shot from the Matador cave. Little bit less light pollution glow in this cave facing more South and the edit is a little more natural with the sky being a bit warmer and not as blue as my shot from the Leo cave. I took some with a human element and some without and while the one without is great, the one with me standing here shows you how big this cave is. There are a ton of crevices you can shoot under at this beach looking like you are in a cave when in reality you are just crouched under a rock formation. This one requires a low tide and since it’s a bit of a walk plus you have to go around some inlets, you don’t want to get caught out here with the rising tide. Always be safe and check tide tables before you go. I’m glad I was able to check these caves off my list of MW shots to get. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, foreground: f/4, 120 sec, ISO-1600, sky: f/2.8, 15 sec, ISO-5000

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Elysian park wildflowers, Los Angeles

Amazing how you can find natural beauty right along side city elements. It’s one of my favorite juxtapositions to shoot as they go so well together in my mind. This spring time goodie is from Elysian with the coreopsis out in full force overlooking Dodger stadium and the LA skyline. The sky had some nice textures which I streaked a tiny bit with a ND filter.

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Half dome in sunrise fog

My friend and I spent some time getting shots of half dome during our trip. We spent one am around the bridge and the meadow looking back at the face. We came here in the early am hours but the cloud cover was real thick with only a glimpse of half dome here and there. After shooting Yosemite Falls for a bit we returned to a bit of a clearing. As the sun popped out it provided great light on the scene and also started burning off some fog from the valley floor. It was cool to see the atmospheric conditions change with the fog rising up and the clouds over half dome moving sideways. The two took on 2 slightly different tones as well. I framed in some trees but framed out the merced as there were no reflections to be had with how fast it was moving. Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200, f/14, 1/60 sec, ISO-50

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Malibu Mammatus clouds

Here’s one of the shots I took during Friday’s epic display of Mammatus over the Santa Monica mountains. I spotted some weird textures as I was on PCH and as I was winding up Piuma they were getting really wicked. I stopped at the main pull out to snap this formation before it blew away. I pretty much had time to snap some at 50, 70 and with my wide before they started breaking up and drifting to the right. I packed up, headed up to the dirt lot with the memorial to snap more as they kept shape shifting. I would have liked to be at the higher pullout for the original shots but I didn’t want to risk them loosing formation before I was able to get there and get setup. The formation reminds me of a genie with the tornado part on the bottom left that you see coming out of the magic lanterns with his head top left. My wife saw a dog’s head. What do you see? I’ll share the many shapes I saw in posts down the road. Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200, f/8, 1/40 sec, ISO-50

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Spring wildflowers in Palos Verdes

I came out to these spring wildflowers in Palos Verdes the sky looked promising but a burn never happened. I did get some really nice golden hour formations tho and the color palette went nicely with all the yellow. Took quite a few shots for both focus stacking as well as exposure blending. Not the easiest shot to blend with the mustard bleeding into the sky. Luminosity masks was the easiest to make the blend work. Wind was an issue so had to bump the ISO more than I like for landscape shots but it all worked out.  Very cool to see all the hillsides alive with color this spring. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, f/8, ISO-1000, multiple exposures.

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Sunrise burn - Half dome and fog - Yosemite CA

I realize I haven’t posted any fire shots as all of them have just been foggy ones. So here’s a nice colorful sunrise we were treated to on the way in from Yosemite West. Got some nice fog action hanging around the valley and a bit up near the peaks with only a portion of half dome peaking out saying good morning. We weren’t actually planning for any color this am but with how drastic the weather changes around here I guess it’s no surprise. We may have missed any intense pre-burn but this was still a great sight to see.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200, f/14, 1/5 sec, ISO-50

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