Mono Lake and the Milky Way!

So.  I'm exhausted.  

Back to work and (mostly) happy about it, but it's emotionally exhausting dealing with Ms. Terminator (tm: Jackie).  But I signed up to go to Mono Lake with one of my Meet-up groups to shoot the Milky Way and I didn't allow myself to talk myself out of it!  

So, without further ado, here are my offerings.  

Oh, but first.  There are these amazing looking abandoned cabins off of 395 that I always want to stop at but never have.  And OH!  

Did I mention that we had our first snowfall already??  In mid-September?  And there was quite a bit still on the ground and in the trees as I went over Monitor Pass!  So exciting!  So then I HAD to stop at the cabins because the mountains in the background were covered with snow and it looked amazing!

I really hope this means we're going to have another wet winter!

So then I got to the parking lot at the South Tufa area of Mono Lake and met up with a new friend.  We were both late and so it was totally meant to be!  We ended up shooting together most of the night and having a blast. 

It was about 6:30 when we arrived and 7:00ish by the time we got to the beach and set up.  We met up with our group leader who gave us some basic info on what shutter/ISO/Aperture we needed and he helped me get my tripod into portrait mode, which I didn't even know it could do!  Yay!

Then we tried to capture some of the tufa with the golden glow from the sunset on them.  Mine were mostly blurry (damn my old, bad eyes!) but I still like this photo.  Just don't look at it too close. 

It's called the Shipwreck (or so I was told) and it was really windy (and freezing), so I like the motion on the water. 

And then, as the sky darkened into a deep purple and the new moon came out, I tried to capture those.

Just in case ya didn't know, these pillars are called Tufa and they were formed many, many moons ago when all of this was under water.  Mono Lake used to be a huge inland sea.  And beneath the lake, underground springs would push calcium-laden water through the lake bed.  When that water met the salty water of the lake, the calcium and carbonate salts formed the limestone towers.

The lake has been drained by drought and by man (mostly Southern California men I think) and now the Tufa Towers are visible around the lake.  If you watch closely at the waters edge, you can see bubbles where new tufa are being formed even now.  Baby tufa!

Anyway, another celestial sight to behold was the Big Dipper sprawled over the North Western horizon.

And then it was time to try to get the Milky Way.  There were clouds out just above the mountains and blocking parts of the galaxy center (or so I was told) but there were so many stars it was simply amazing!

Oh, I should probably say that I have NO idea how to edit the Milky Way to get the fabulous colors and lights that most other photographers do.  I know that most use Lightroom, which I don't have.  I don't even have "real" Photoshop!  So these efforts in my ancient Photoshop Elements 11 is the best I can do.  :-)

This first one was actually a happy accident when Candice turned on her flashlight just as I opened my shutter (I got yelled at for this same thing later.  Some people are very rude.)  It illuminated the tufa naturally and, I think, looks pretty cool!

I had brought some "props", most of which I ended up not using because there were too many people around and I was afraid of getting yelled at.  Maybe next summer I can do some more of my whimsical ideas.  

But I did break out a few glowsticks and place them on the back side of the tufa.  Cool Cool Cool!

These first photos I edited pretty dark and I think I actually took out some of the Milky Way because it was more visible to the naked eye.  But I hate my photos to look grainy!  

This one I adjusted the midtones lighter and you can definitely see more of the Milky Way.  And a plane! Or shooting star!  I don't know which and don't really care because it looks cool.  lol

And another one!  On this one the top and a little of the bottom of the tufa are red and that's not from a glowstick.  I think someone turned on a red flashlight.  You're supposed to use a red flashlight so it doesn't show up in people's photos (or so I was told) but obviously it does.  But again, cool!  It looked like a Superman tufa.

This is the same photo but with my original, darker edit.  There were pink and blue glowsticks (and the red flashlight). 

Now with this next one I went balls to the walls and lightened the hell out of the midtones! You can see all the freaking stars in the damn universe!  Sorry.  I'm really, really tired.

This is the opposite end of the galaxy with a silhouette of the Shipwreck.  So many stars!

And for my last photo of the night (pun intended! Ha!), we have a black and white (mostly) of the Northern shore of Mono with tufa in silhouette.  The streaks of light on the left are cars driving down 395 where it's just above the shore).  And two planes.  Because it can't be said enough...Cool!

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

from the celestial walls!

I felt her presence by its spell of might

stoop o'er me from above;

the calm, majestic presence of the Night,

as of the one I love. 

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

the welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

the best beloved Night!

~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

xoxo

Nikon D3300

Going Way, WAY back to 2015: Visiting Bodie Ghost Town!

A long time ago

In a County far, far away

GOLD RUSH

Prospectors, including W.S. Bodey, found gold in present day Mono County in 1859.  Together, they founded a little mining town that later came to be known as:  Bodie

The group's fearless leader, Bodey, didn't live to see the town flourish and be named after him as he died the following November in a blizzard.

May be a good thing since people could never get this name straight and the town was named Bodey, then Body, and finally, Bodie as a painter mislabeled a stables in nearby Aurora as Bodie Stables. I think that would be hurtful!

Bodie is quite an amazing ghost town to visit.  It is pretty large and it's said that it would take at least 5 hours to see all the buildings.  I can attest that on this visit in late October 2015, I got to Bodie at about 10:00 a.m. and stayed until about 4:00 p.m. and still didn't see everything!  Although I did visit a lot of the outlying houses and wandered around quite a bit so that might have had something to do with it. 

I got to Mono County at the crack of dawn as I wanted to take photos at Mono Lake and hopefully catch the sunrise.  You can see those gorgeous photos by clicking on this sentence!  Mono Lake and it's very cool Tufa is an amazing place to visit in and of itself. 

Word of caution:  Bodie is at the end of Highway 270 off of Highway 395 and 270 becomes a very rough road about halfway there. And currently, the restrooms (which are amazingly nice normally) are closed due to the December 2016 earthquakes.  They do have porta-potties set up though.  

Click here to go to the Bodie State Park website for more information.

And now on to the photos. 

I'm going to warn you that I have 90-something photos.  So of course I'm not going to put them all in this post.  I'm going to split it up into categories.  And this first category is:

The 'Burbs

I was pretty into weird self-portraits on this day.  I call this next one "Self-Portrait of a Ghost".

I called this the "Fancy House" because it has a really cool porch and just looked, well...fancy!  

But even so, the outhouse is miles away!  Especially when you have to go at 2:00 a.m.

This was another house that was mostly intact, but obviously had a fire and general damage.  Most of the windows/doors had wide chicken wire over them which I was able to shoot through.

 Same house with bowed walls. 

 This is the water spigot and pail for the Fancy House.  It was about 30 feet in front of the porch. 

Rusty saw and tin can top I found on the ground near the Fancy House.

Self-portrait on the porch of the Fancy House. 

 The leaning outhouse of the Fancy House. 

Tin Can Dump near Fancy House

Rusted old car - love the steering wheel sticking up!

Getting closer to town. 

We'll end this post with another outhouse because they're so fun and fascinating!

In the next exciting post, we'll explore the history, equipment, and remnants of the mining.

TTFN!

xoxo

Nikon D3000

Shooting the Living at Preston School of Industry Ione, CA Part II

Welcome back!

In my last post, I was telling you all about Preston Castle in Ione and how I came to FINALLY start learning how to work with models.  This post continues my adventure but, instead of focusing on the Castle itself, it's going to contain what I feel were my best photos of the day.

Caveat: Some of the photos/poses were somewhat or complete duplicate of another shot and I couldn't really tell which was better.  So I split some of the photos between posts so as to avoid too much duplication in either post.  So you may experience some deja vu (or deja VIEW)! And actually, there are still some similar photos in this batch...some with a wider view or different edit - but in all cases, a different photo and all taken by yours truly.

And, just to help you remember where these photos were taken...

This is one of those similar photos I was talking about.  In my last post, you will see a photo that I took where a couple people happened to walk in front of the window just as I snapped my shutter. 

I asked Aubrey and Sarah to recreate it by holding hands in front of the window while I shot from two rooms over (sitting on the dirty floor I might add!)

While shooting Aubrey in the ambient light of the basement, I loved how the light shown on her face and thought it would be perfect for a "low-key" treatment.  So I shot this photo and only had to adjust the darkness around her a little in Photoshop Elements 11 (yes, I need to upgrade!).

Tim, the photo docent, helped me with this as I having some trouble with the light when Aubrey wasn't facing the window.  He had me adjust my ISO to 1600 which helped with the shadows.  The graininess works for a lot of these photos, although I wish had had remembered to readjust it when we went into the brighter rooms upstairs.

 More similar photos.  But I love how Sarah just literally matches the walls.  And the walls themselves, along with the angles of the rooms, are amazing!

 I edited Sarah with some luminosity to make her slightly ghost-like.

 I like to fool myself into thinking that these next two photos of Aubrey could be from a fashion-spread.  haha!  This one is for an accessories line...

 And this is a high-fashion ad for boots!

And I just love this one! Again, there is one in the last post almost exactly like this. But I had had her turn her head just a little and I think that makes the picture better.  

Original edit (different colored clothing on reflection in last post)

 This is one of my favorite shots of the whole day.  I was sitting on the floor and asked the girls to skip down the hall towards me.  I added some motion blur into the back to enhance the motion of their hair, feet, and clothes.  Flove!

This is a closer shot of a portrait-style shot in the last post.  I actually really like the way that the line of the banister leads to Aubrey's face and the direction in which she tilted her head (her idea) mimics the lines in the holes in the wall.  By that one thing she made the photo better!

 Here I shot Aubrey through holes in the wall as she sat in the next room.
You know I love my gimmicks!

 The ambient light in this room was very blue.  I like it and the way the sink point up to her.  Again, using your props and surrounding to enhance the object of the photo.

Me trying to get my damn Helios 44 lens to work!  Love the soft focus it created though.

 Ditto!  I had trouble getting that Russian knockoff to focus.  Just to be clear, I'm talking about the Helios lens.

 Steampunk vibe in High-Key edit.

I confess that I saw another photographer shooting a model in the infirmary and it gave me the idea for these last few photos.  She had her model's back to the window and was shooting down on her face, which was lifted up to catch the light.  But I saw the 'light lines' on the floor and asked Aubrey to sit mimicking the lines.  I then tried to catch the line on her eye while keeping the rest of the photo interesting as well.

 Definitely called for a "Low-Key" edit!

But the natural light looks just as awesome, if not better!

My unending thanks to Sarah and Aubrey for making a great day amazing.  Especially Aubrey who let me follow her around and ask her to do some really awkward things!

xoxo

Nikon D3300