From Skip: I have just returned from a week in the Sea of Cortez diving with a small group of friends off a private yacht owned by a good friend of ours. Our trip was interrupted by Hurricane Rick so we spent a day in port at La Paz rather than going up to Las Animas, but we still had a great trip, even though limited to the near diving sites. The temperatures reflected el Nino effects with the water at 84 degrees, and not as clear blue as it should have been in late October. However, the reefs showed large schools of fish (various grunts, sergeant majors, Mexican goatfish, and bigeye scad), and much better numbers of leopard grouper and yellow snappers than in recent years, thanks in part to the efforts of Sea Watch and the vigilance program. We were happy to see that buoys have been placed at Los Islotes to keep small boats from approaching the main sea lion rookery. Finally!

I hope to return again next year!

Click the image above to see some of the stills that Skip captured in the Sea of Cortez this year! You can also see a sampling of Skip’s past trips.

“We’re out of gear.” The props have stopped spinning and humpback pod 1994-181 has surfaced, heading directly toward our research boat. Slipping into the water I immediately sense their presence. An immense deep thrumming sound sets my hair on end, as if I were inside a huge cathedral organ. The mother-calf-escort trio appears 80 feet away and the male escort is singing, a behavior typically observed only in solitary resting males. As the escort glides below, the mother and calf come directly toward me while I hang motionless 15 feet deep. I am awestruck, alone with three enormous humpback whales, all of us breathholding in deep blue water. The mother brings her calf near to examine me, undoubtedly the first human it has seen. I must lift my legs to allow the mother’s 12 foot long pectoral fin to pass underneath. Her calf’s body coloration is just emerging and it is without significant diving ability, staying just below the surface and hugging closely to its mother but on my side, an indication of the mother’s acceptance of me. This calf is so close I could touch it! I take a few photos, recording the whales eyeballing of me as they pass. In contrast to the infant whale’s awkward swimming motions, the mother lifts her fluke in an easy kick, an uncommon opportunity for a tight underwater fluke shot as they move by.

North Pacific humpback whale, cow/calf. Image ID: 00140

Before losing interest and swimming off, pod 181 offered us four more close passes, enough to capture scientifically valuable video images and identifying photographs. In terms of information, this pod provided an ideal encounter. Photographs revealed the mother was previously seen in 1993 in the company of several identified males, one of which could be the father of this calf. This represents a rare potential escort-mother-calf link, a connection important to the study of the long-term social affiliation characteristics of humpback whales. In addition, the male currently escorting the mother in pod 181 may sire her next calf. Beyond the social affiliation implications, pod 181 also symbolized the assumed culmination of a winter social activity among humpbacks known in Hawaii as the heat run, a beautiful, violent and unique phenomenon believed instrumental in determining courtship and mating associations and ultimately resulting one year later in that most characteristic and endearing humpback group, the mother and calf.

Molokai and water pools, viewed from west Maui. Image ID: 00253

Once a single land mass of four volcanoes, the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe now seem like an enormous hand sunken so only the palm and fingertips are visible. Wild and lonely Pacific waters swirl through these fingers and temporarily find calm in the wind lee of Maui, dominated by towering Haleakala volcano and the cloud-ringed West Maui mountains. In this lee, tucked tightly against the coast from Maalaea to Olowalu, humpback mothers regularly bring their new calves to swim in the shallow nearshore waters, to nurse and to gain strength for their coming journey to Alaska. Lanai also has a lee shore where, in addition to mothers and calves, subadult whales are often found socializing, singing and lamenting after being rudely “dropped off” by a mother who has gone to find this year’s mate. But away from shore, calm frequently gives way to weather as the trade winds funnel through the Pailolo channel and streak across Maui’s low-lying midlands into the four island basin, creating shifting windlines that can change glassy calm water into whitecapped swells within minutes. It is here, on the open water among volcanoes and clouds, wind and waves and blazing sun, that Dr. Dan Salden studies the Hawaiian humpback whale.

Humpback whales a the surface, volcano and clouds. Image ID: 00425

Dr. Dan R. Salden steers our small zodiac towards a large pod of surface active whales, at least twelve in number, swimming quickly across the Auau channel. From the strength and frequency of the whales’ distant blows we had earlier determined, while still several miles away, that the animals were exerting themselves tremendously. Positioning the boat alongside and slightly behind the pod, we match speeds with them and begin observing their behavior. Over the past thirty-one years Dr. Salden has mastered the art of approaching humpbacks without disturbing them. When the lead whale blows and makes a shallow dive the rest of the pod follows. Underwater the whales slow, turn and move directly below us. As they return to the surface we find ourselves amid the pod with whales beside, ahead and underneath the boat. Two whales glide just yards below the keel, each almost twice as long as our skiff. One has ghostly white pectoral fins spanning 30 feet tip to tip. The whales are clearly aware of our proximity and make no overtures toward us, exhibiting exceptional body control as they repeatedly pass within feet of the hull while working amongst themselves to establish position. As whales surface to breathe and dive again, we situate ourselves to photograph identifying markings and scars found on the underside and trailing edge of their flukes. These photographs will be matched against the Hawaii Whale Research Foundation’s (HWRF) database of “fluke IDs” in order to establish individual histories and verify repeat sightings. Dan is now truly in his element, photographing new flukes and pleased to recognize animals from past encounters. Their sequential blows are heard over the boat engines, massive exhalations of breath mixed with atomized water and carrying a thick fishy smell. Dan points out the pod’s two focal animals immediately in front of us — the female seems to be dictating the direction of the pod’s travel while flanking her closely is the escort, a whale whose bloody head nodules and scarred, raw dorsal ridge attest to recent violent encounters.

Suddenly a challenging male rushes in from the side, lunging forward and out of the water, its head completely aloft. Crashing its chin down upon the back of the escort, this new whale tries to displace the escort. The challenge has been made, and a “heat run” has begun. Within seconds, the escort parries the challenger’s head lunge with a peduncle throw, a behavior as exciting to observe as a full breach. Converting his forward momentum into a crack-the-whip rotation, the escort pivots about his submerged head, thrusting his entire fluke and peduncle (the muscular rear portion of his torso) out of the water and laterally at the challenger. An opening behind the female forms as the fighting males move away from the rest of the pod. Before a lesser challenger can fill the gap, the female slows and waits for the escort to rejoin her. Whales begin trumpeting loudly as they surface to breathe, a series of rolling “harumph-umph-umph” sounds that may be attempts at intimidation or simply the result of strenuous exertion. Additional challengers draw in tightly behind the escort, determining among themselves who gets to make a new challenge when the current conflict is resolved. The escort repeatedly blocks the primary challenger, actually pushing him sideways across the surface, then quickly resumes his position beside and behind the female to await his adversary’s next move. Giving up after several failed attempts to displace the escort, the primary challenger breaks off from the pod and departs. Another whale in the pod, who has perhaps been waiting “its turn”, takes his place and the battle continues.

North Pacific humpback whale, escort in competitive group makes fast close pass. Image ID: 06057

The “heat run” is a setting for spectacular acrobatics and provides an opportunity to study the humpback courtship process. The focus of the run is usually an adult female although there are all-male surface active groups. Typically she is without calf and swimming at speed so that the males pursue quickly, close to the surface. As the season progresses and calves appear more frequently, we encounter runs in which the pace is slowed by a mother with her calf. (In 1993 we observed a surface active group that formed around a sleeping mother / calf pair.) Today, the female is without a calf and has allowed an adult male to accompany her. This escort flanks her continually hoping ultimately to mate with her, wary of others who wish to usurp his position. Staying ahead of the female and escort and careful to keep out of the fray are three subadult whales just a few years old, not challenging the escort but instead apparently just observing the adult’s behavior in anticipation of their own future roles one day.

Humpback whale dorsal fin damaged during competitive group socializing. Image ID: 04334

The escort’s principal concern is a lineup of challenging males spread out behind him. Each challenger may attempt to displace him from his position with the female. Challenges are an escalating series of maneuvers that may stop at intimidation or culminate in physical injury. On rare occasions Dr. Salden has observed cooperation among challengers, teaming up to defeat the escort. Lesser challengers often engage in side skirmishes among themselves away from the pod, perhaps to establish a pecking order. A successful challenger may become the new escort if the female is accepting and if he can resist further challenges. Determining the gender and roles of the female, escort and seasoned challengers in an active group is straightforward: unlike the smooth skin of females who do not battle, adult males who have accumulated the skill and strength to challenge are scarred and often display dorsal fins that are merely stumps, sheared off by a past opponent’s attack. The dorsal ridge (the backbone leading from the dorsal fin to the fluke) is usually carved with gouges, rips, and white scars, grim testaments to the effectiveness of a humpback whale’s barnacle-encrusted chin as a hammering weapon.

North Pacific humpback whale, competitive male with wounded head nodules from colliding with other escorts during competitive interactions. Image ID: 02152

Interpreting heat run events from a boat can be difficult, especially with a large pod. The role of animals not directly involved in the conflict is unclear, and the gender of younger whales cannot be determined from superficial scarring. The role of each challenger is fluid, with males jostling for optimal position relative to the female. Whales with white pectoral fins are the most distinguishable underwater, even when 50-80 feet deep. Some individuals have other distinguishing features, such as dorsal fins — hooked, pointed, stumped or gouged — that are visible whenever they break the surface. The rest are usually known only by their fluke patterns, any unusual scarring, or perhaps by their maintaining a constant position in the pod throughout the run.

Humpback whale fluking up, ventral aspect of fluke visible. Image ID: 04150

When the whales have long down times we must enter the water with them to better witness how the skirmish is resolving itself. Allowed under HWRF’s research permit, underwater study offers opportunities to more fully assess the sex and social roles of key animals and to observe chance behaviors such as nursing and penile displays. (Although whales have internal genitalia, gender can be determined by observing the genital slit and surrounding features, located on the ventral peduncle anterior to the fluke.) Given a change in direction that results in the pod swimming toward the boat, Dan stops for us to enter before moving the boat out of the whales’ path. Only free diving equipment is used and special care is made to minimize water disturbance and to remain unobtrusive. Once the animals are in sight we swim parallel to them and do not dive below them unless they have already shown that they fully accept our presence in the water. For the fortunate few researchers allowed in the water these are often the most rewarding moments of our work, occasions to observe up to a dozen 40-ton whales at once, racing and jostling and flying by.

North Pacific humpback whales, socializing trio of adults. Image ID: 05933

Getting away from the departing boat’s prop wash is nerve-wracking — whales will be here in moments and I cannot see through the bubbles. Once into clear water I make out the female, leading the pod with four others some 50 feet behind her. Their sounds are a wild dissonance of low pitched calls quite different from the orderly singing of resting males. If they see me, as the female and two of the others do, the whales usually cruise by without changing their behavior. It is amazing to see them corkscrew in order to position both eyes for a stereoscopic view of me. The low contrast of grayish whale against blue water makes it difficult to see all the animals, especially some that pass behind or below. Battling whales that do not see me are a danger and I stay ready to move out of their path. The escort and primary challenger are now drawing near and are intent on one another, flukes pumping and heads driving furiously against each other. Diving, they leave a roiling footprint on the surface and pass within a body length of where I float. The escort has the advantage of bearing down on the challenger from above, pushing with his rostrum and using his pectoral fins to maintain position, while the challenger manages to twist and lash at the escort’s body with lateral fluke swipes. Although the combatants have not actively sought food since leaving Alaska in January, they are expending enormous amounts of energy. I feel insignificant in comparison. When they have faded from sight all that remains is a bubble trail that one whale left behind, a three hundred foot long contrail glistening in the sun, rising silently to the surface.

North Pacific humpback whale, male escort bubble streams alongside mother and calf. Image ID: 05926

Whales constantly enter and exit heat runs, some of which last an entire day. Distant animals may hear the activities and rush over to investigate. Defeated challengers and disinterested subadults often veer off and disaffiliate, perhaps later to breathhold (rest) or sing. On several occasions we observed two surface active pods cross paths. In the ensuing chaos whales shuffle between pods and wholesale changes in a pod’s temporal social hierarchy may occur.

In one sense, a breach is any behavior in which a substantial portion of the whale breaks the surface. But in practice, a breach is considered to be that most dramatic of events, when the whale launches itself headfirst out of the water with such force it becomes almost entirely airborne. Breaching associated with the heat run most often occurs when a humpback affiliates (joins the pod) or disaffiliates. In addition to the possibility that whales are visually scanning their environment while breaching, Dr. Salden feels the breach has a communication function as well, an opinion shared by other researchers and formulated from years of anecdotal observations. An expert in nonverbal communication, Dr. Salden suspects breaching is the humpback’s way of announcing It is I!, with any surrounding activities forming a context in which the breach must be interpreted. It may be an aggressive signal from an arriving whale (It is I, watch out!) or a parting shot from a disaffiliating whale (Remember me!). When accompanied by a breach, whatever the whale is communicating is “said” with emphasis. An adult whale’s full breach is the most exciting singular behavior humpback observers see. A mighty launch rockets 45 tons of twisting whale skyward, pectoral fins flinging sheets of water aside, ending in a slow motion body slam heard for great distances.

North Pacific humpback whale, breach. Image ID: 00205

Underwater, a full breach is a frightening thunderclap, a painfully sharp crack. Captain Jill Mickelsen and I experienced a particularly memorable breaching session one day while in the water observing a mother-calf-escort trio off the north shore of Lanai. Strangely, as the mother and calf slowly circled us, the escort unleashed a succession of more than 25 breaches quite close to our boat. Wind chop, combined with his splashes, reduced the water visibility to less than 60 feet, forcing Jill and I to search continually for the escort deep below as he prepared to rush upward for his next launch. Occasionally, we could see him spiraling and pumping as he approached the surface and we could signal to the boat where he would emerge. More often we would simply hear his breach and realize gratefully that he did not land on us. Researcher David Glickman was able to capture these breaches in a video record that shows the escort slamming one pectoral fin against the water each time he landed, as if to add to his impact. He eventually stopped after the mother directed several peduncle throws at him. Did she tire of his show, or was her calf becoming distressed? No sooner was the breaching finished than Galapagos sharks appeared, swimming erratically with pectoral fins lowered. Had they been attracted by the surface activity or had the breaching been directed at them as a warning? In either case, we were swimming in waters filled with many large pieces of humpback skin shed during the melee — a whale-scented chum line! Four sharks quickly approached me from below, nipping at my fins. I have been told a video camera was still recording as I yelled for the boat and scrambled aboard, rattled.

North Pacific humpback whale, peduncle throw. Image ID: 02153

It is in large surface active pods that the potential for a heat run lies and that courtship roles become clear, although no direct evidence linking such social behavior to mating has yet been found. In-water observations allow us to examine facets of behavior not observable from the boat, including actions carried out in conjunction with social sounds. Courtship, mating and birthing activities likely occur in the North Pacific humpback wintering areas of Hawaii, Japan and Mexico. Still, the reproductive lives of humpbacks remain a mystery. Do humpbacks mate in Hawaii or on the journey back to Alaska? Where are the calves born, in sheltered waters or open ocean? Although we have recorded an uncommon underwater humpback penis display and analyzed a sample of humpback placenta, no confirmed direct observation of either mating or calving has been recorded. Pods exhibiting courtship behavior are thus valuable as they provide information about which whales are together this year, in anticipation of calves next year. These data will help us to answer broader questions about whether humpbacks form long-term social affiliations and what factors might influence such relationships.

The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, designated by Congress in 1992, specifically recognizes the importance of the humpback whale and its winter habitat and will promote protection, research and education while monitoring both the whale and its Hawaiian environment. The Hawaii Whale Research Foundation studies humpback social affiliation and communication with the belief that if the behaviors of these magnificent animals are more fully understood, we may better offer recommendations that protect and preserve them. HWRF was founded and is directed by Dan R. Salden, Ph.D., past chair of the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. HWRF maintains a growing database of individually identified North Pacific humpback whales, including some that are known to winter in Japan and Mexico as well as Hawaii, and a video record documenting humpback behavior and social roles. HWRF is a publicly supported nonprofit organization staffed by a small group of volunteers. Five winter months of data collection and photo-documentation in Hawaii are augmented by year-round analysis, scientific publications, public service seminars and educational presentations. Field studies are governed by the provisions of NOAA Fisheries (aka, National Marine Fisheries Service) and State of Hawaii scientific research permits.

North Pacific humpback whale. Image ID: 00167

More information about Dr. Dan Salden and Hawaii Whale Research Foundation can be found on HWRF’s website.

Some humpback whale behaviors often observed in association with surface active groups (heat runs):

Breaching
Underwater bubble displays
Mother / calf pairs
Lunging
Peduncle throws and tail lobs
Pectoral fin displays
Crucifix blocking

Keywords: humpback whale, megaptera novaeangliae, surface active, behavior, rowdy group, maui, hawaii, pacific.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, see this kelp forest photo slideshow on Photoshelter!

Keywords: giant kelp, macrocystis pyrifera, kelp forest, underwater photo, california, pacific, image.

This WPOTY award is on the heels of Perrine’s Bryde’s whales photos appearing in National Geographic Magazine.

It should be noted that Doug Perrine won the overall Wildlife Photographer of the Year championship in 2004 with some amazing photos from South Africa’s sardine run, so you know he is no stranger to top ranks of the competition! He is a really nice guy too, and has helped myself and many other photographers in myriad ways over the years. Doug Perrine founded the marine photo stock agency Innerspace Visions in Florida in the 80s. Now known as Seapics.com, and since sold although Doug still maintains a close connection, the agency is a premiere source for worldwide marine imagery by virtue of having most of the worlds best marine photographers as contributers (and me too). I may see Doug on a trip in a few weeks, where I will congratulate him on his wonderful photo and award. I am certain he will reply in his usual modest way: “Oh, we just got lucky.”

Note: why don’t I show a copy of Doug Perrine’s amazing image? It would be easy to do, but out of respect for Mr. Perrine’s work, not to mention copyright law, I instead just link to those places where his work is displayed properly. I’m sure his photo will be copied and pasted around the internet, by kids and bloggers and people who just don’t respect a photographer’s right to control where his work appears. But you won’t see it done here. Please go check the links I mention above to see Doug’s work, you’ll be glad you did.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, see this Guadalupe Island photo slideshow on Photoshelter!

Keywords: Guadalupe Island, Isla Guadalupe, Mexico, stock photos, image.

Northern shoveler, adult nonbreeding plumage. Image ID: 23393   Species: Northern shoveler, Anas clypeata Location: Santee Lakes, California, USA

Keywords: northern shoveler, duck, anas clypeata, santee lakes, san diego.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, see this Galapagos photo slideshow on Photoshelter!

Keywords: Galapagos Islands, archipelago, Ecuador, stock photos, image.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, see this ocean sunfish photo slideshow on Photoshelter!

Keywords: ocean sunfish, mola mola, underwater, Pacific.

This particular picture is very appropriate to its context in the book, but I have found one just as appropriate among Wikimedia commons pictures, so I suppose I’ll go with that. I guess if I was a media-seller I would hate the wikis, but for an author like me they are a godsend.

Sorry we can’t do business

I considered pointing out to him that it would not have been “business” if I, or any other photographer, provided the image for free. Some photographers see a need to “educate” their clients in a situation like this. It’s a nice thought but I just don’t have the time so I generally just move on.

I have had good luck maintaining my fees over the years — even as stock photo prices in general have plummeted — probably because most of my saleable images do not have quality counterparts in the “commons” world. Yet. It is an uncertain time for stock photography. I think stock photographers (including myself) who wish to do well must further separate their images from the norm, otherwise they end up competing with the “crowd” and may lose sales to photographers who give their work away.

Postscript: five hours later I received a stronger-than-usual stock agency check in the mail (3Qtr2009). Hope remains.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, see this Wave and North Coyote Buttes photo slideshow on Photoshelter!

Keywords: the Wave, North Coyote Buttes, Arizona, Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, see this Florida manatee photo slideshow on Photoshelter!

Keywords: manatee stock photo, photo of Florida manatees.

Note: If you cannot see the slideshow above, then see this Yellowstone National Park photo slideshow.

Keywords: Yellowstone National Park, stock photography, pictures

For sale: Sekonic L-358 Lightmeter / Flashmeter. It is in pristine condition, hardly used, I am the original owner. I bought it thinking I would do more portrait photography with flash but never got into it (my kids don’t like having their photo taken). Asking $155.00. Paypal echeck and personal check is best. Contact me if you are interested.

Here is Sekonic’s official product page for this meter: Sekonic L-358 FLASH MASTER.

Included is the quick-start guide and original soft case. I think I also have the original box and paperwork so if I can find them I will include them too, but cannot guarantee it.

If you cannot see the slideshow above, then take a look at this Yosemite National Park photo slideshow.

Keywords: Yosemite National Park, Yosemite Valley

The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite

Disclaimer: I do not have any arrangement with Mr. Frye or the book’s publisher, other than I am an admirer of his photography and love his book.

Curious what I have been able to shoot in YNP? Here are my Yosemite photos. Most of these are drop dead easy to make and The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite will help you as it has me.

Aspens turn yellow in autumn, changing color alongside the south fork of Bishop Creek at sunset. Image ID: 23323   Species: Quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

The day I was in Bishop there were no clouds in the sky at all so contrast was a problem. I was finally able to find a composition with sufficiently low contrast after the sun had descended behind the peaks above South Lake. After that time the light passing through the trees and off the water was even enough to make good exposures without resorting to filters or any of that HDR / blended-exposure silliness. I simply set the aperature at its sharpest for this lens (f/11 on a 24-70 f/2.8 lens) and lengthened the exposure time until I nearly clipped the highlights in the stream. (Curious? See my post about Exposing to the Right and how to properly configure the camera to yield accurate histograms for this approach.) Correcting the white-balance, to account for the cool bias of the shady light, was about all I had to do in the RAW conversion.

Keywords: aspen, stream, creek, fall, eastern sierra, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, autumn.

2006: Aspen trees displaying fall colors rise above a High Sierra road near North Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon.

2009: A tunnel of aspen trees, on a road alongside North Lake. The aspens on the left are still green, while those on the right are changing to their fall colors of yellow and orange. Why the difference?.

The aspen tunnel spot is best photographed when the sun has risen fairly high in the sky. Go ahead and shoot the sunrise at North Lake from the usual spot. Then go for a walk around the lake (it’s a short and flat walk!) and kill some time wandering through the grove on the northwest side of the lake as you do so. When other photographers have departed (”the light is too harsh”, “I don’t shoot during midday”, blah blah), you can make your way over to the aspen tunnel and have it largely to yourself. If you choose your angles properly you will find that trees on both sides of the road are richly colored by the strong backlighting of the mid morning sun. A polarizing filter will drop the sky to a deep blue. Keep in mind, the wider your lens, the more of the color you can pack into your composition and the more accentuated the effect of the polarizer will be. I tend to use lenses such as a 15mm fisheye and 16-35mm superwide zoom in this spot in an attempt to find compositions in which the viewer feels immersed inside a grove of intense color and tall thin trees. (A 24mm lens, often considered “wide”, is definitely not wide enough here.) It is not a good idea to change lenses here, in fact you’ll see the dust from the dirt road hanging in the air all around you. When a car or horse trailer drives past I cover my lens and step off the road for a few minutes until the dust has cleared.

Keywords: aspen tunnel, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, autumn.

For instance, while I was tooling around the Bishop Creek watershed photographing fall colors, I took along my Panasonic Lumix LX3 that has been converted to shoot true infrared. What this means is that I can whip this tiny but high quality camera out of my pocket and blast off some infrared shots spontaneously. Infrared photography using external infrared-pass filters on a conventional digital camera typically requires long exposure times and a tripod, making for cumbersome shooting. However, if the camera is modified internally to allow only infrared light to reach the sensor, then long exposure times are no longer required, and one can shoot infrared photos handheld. This really makes having an infrared camera along sensible and productive. Several companies exist to perform these modifications, and they are reasonably inexpensive. Plus, you can always have them convert the camera back to visible light again (for a fee) if you don’t like the results. Probably the most popular cameras for infrared conversation right now are the Canon G9/G10 (and soon to be G11) line, but I prefer the wider angle of the Lumix LX3 so I bought a second one and had it infrared-converted. This particular image comes from the Table Mountain area, when the late afternoon sun was dropping behind the cliffs, leaving much of the hillside in shadow but the aspens in side light.

Aspen trees in fall, eastern Sierra fall colors, autumn. Image ID: 23320   Species: Quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Here is another example I was quite happy with, a single Joshua Tree framed against a deep black, cloud-free, mid-morning sky. In this case, having an infrared camera along allowed me to shoot longer than I would normally have done. The light in Joshua Tree is really only good for about 30-60 minutes after sunrise, beyond that it is too harsh to shoot good images. However, the harsher and stronger the light becomes, the greater the amount of infrared light that is reflected by certain subjects such as plants. For this reason, infrared photography is usually at its best — in midday — when visible light photography is often at its worst. The two compliment one another well.

Joshua tree, sunrise, infrared. Image ID: 22888   Species: Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA

I’m pretty happy with my little infrared-converted LX3 and its ability to shoot quick and reasonably high-quality infrared images. (Not to mention that we love our regular LX3 for snapshots and family photos.) However, I should mention there are some limitations to shooting infrared this way. The optics of todays digital cameras are designed for visible light, in particular, the wavelengths of light in the visible spectrum and how they pass through lens glass-air and glass-glass interfaces. Infrared light passes through the lens and into the sensor in a somewhat different way than visible spectrum light. I have found that this manifests in images that are softer than one would expect with visible light, and are sometimes prone to a vague “hot-spot” in the center of the image. The hot-spot seems to be in the blue color channel only, in my experience with the LX3, and only presents when the lens is at its widest angle (24mm-equivalent). By zooming in even a little bit, the hot-spot issue is alleviated. From the information I have read on some of the internet infrared photography websites, I think other cameras may exhibit both of these issues (soft focus, hot spots) as well but I am not sure as I have only used the LX3 in infrared. I believe the hot spot is a property of the camera sensor and the angle at which the light reaches the sensor, while the soft focus (most notably corner softness) is a characteristic of the optics and their transmission of light (infrared) in wavelengths quite different from those for which the lens was designed (visible). Usually I pull out either the red or green color channel to produce a black-and-white image, so the hot spot in the blue channel is not a great problem, but in those images in which I think I want the blue channel I just zoom in a little and all seems to be well. Also, the hotspot is not present in all images, it seems to have something to do with the direction of the sun and how intensely the subjects in the center of the image are reflecting infrared. Image softness is a property of infrared photography in general, and seems to me to be ameliorated somewhat by the strong contrast that infrared images typically have. In other words, the strong black-white contrast of an infrared image seems to more than make up for the soft detail, when the image is viewed as a whole.

Like this? Here are more infrared photos.

Keywords: infrared, joshua tree, yucca brevifolia, aspen, populus tremuloides.

Giant sequoia tree towers over surrounding trees in a Sierra forest. Infrared image. Image ID: 23304   Species: Giant sequoia tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum Location: Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Like this? Here are more infrared photos.

Keywords: giant sequoia, infrared, mariposa grove, yosemite national park, Sequoiadendron giganteum.

North Lake sunrise alpenglow, three frame panorama, 1DsIII / 24-70.

Lake Sabrina had plenty of yellow aspen stands around the lake, but I spent little time at Sabrina this visit. I did go to my favorite stand of very tall aspens near Sabrina to shoot epic wide stuff but the trees were still somewhat green so, while the angles look good, the color is less than epic. In fact, in many areas the taller aspens in all the basins are holding green while the scrub aspen are the ones going full yellow/orange right now. The grove above Aspendel looks good for that “up the basin” shot with the grove in the foreground. However, Cardinal Pond in Aspendel is totally green at this moment, as is Intake II. The most impressive swaths of color are in the South Fork, especially from Table Mountain campground up to South Lake. If weather cooperates and no blow comes through, lower parts of South Fork will come online and turn full yellow in the next week or so, already there is a mix of lime green / yellow in the lower parts of South Fork. And the good thing about South Fork is that the aspen stands are so accessible there is a lot of easy shooting to do, and they are so large that when they turn full color it will look great. Cross your fingers for no wind. Give it one week, two at the most, maybe less if the cold snap forcast for midweek materializes. On one weather source I heard mention of a second front suspected for next weekend (10/3-4). Some shots from Saturday and Sunday: Rock Creek Lake 9/27 and Bishop Creek Canyon 9/28 (North Lake, Sabrina, South Fork). All these images were shot in about 24 hours starting with a couple hours at the end of the day in Rock Creek, then from 5:45am until 5pm on Sunday with a short break to eat a tasty monster-sized burger and some delicious and heart-smart spicy fries at the Bishop Creek Lodge. After returning to Bishop I stoked up on caffeine and drove straight home. I always hate to leave the Sierras and hope to see the show again next fall.

Keywords: eastern sierra, 2009 fall color report, bishop creek canyon, rock creek canyon, aspen, photo, picture, image.

Update 9/24/2009: some reports are showing up. The most informative are from Inge Fernau, Greg Boyer, Cory Freeman and Parcher’s Resort. If you are a weekend warrior and trying to assess which weekend will be “peak”, keep in mind that the color change is a continuum that generally moves down from the higher altitudes as the days go by from late September to mid October. All one really needs to shoot good aspen photos is to find one good grove that can be worked from hours. Chances are good you can find something worthwhile to shoot during the next 2-3 weeks, provided a front or big blow does not come through and clean out all the leaves across the eastern Sierra. You can read between the lines in these reports and guess which dates many are focusing on.

A few years ago I made one of my banzai photo outings** to catch some of the fall colors in the Eastern Sierra. I managed to pull off two mornings’ shooting in the Bishop Creek Canyon basins, and one sunset run up to the Bristlecone Pines in the White Mountains, on a jam-packed weekend. The key was paying close attention to the reports coming in from other photographers, making an educated guess as to what area along Highway 395 would be most productive, and going for it. The fact that 2006 was a super year for fall color in the Eastern Sierra, and that my weekend was just about at peak for Bishop Creek Canyon, certainly helped. I’m hoping to make another run up there sometime in late September or early October. And, as I did before, I’ll be paying close attention to advice and reports from several sources, foremost among them the list below. Note that two photographers, Greg Boyer and Cory Freeman, currently live in Bishop and are basically eyes-on-spot for those of us outside the area; I give their reports more credence than others, especially their comments about timing. Thanks Greg and Cory.

• Inge Fernau / MagicalGlow.com. I first noticed Inge Fernau’s photography as a result of her incredibly rich fall color reports on Calphoto. How does she do it? She gets out there to so many places, then fills us all in with exactly what the conditions are. Inge’s blog is loaded with huge, beautiful images of the Eastern Sierra, and I’m hoping she publishes more of her fall color reports this year. Here is a two-part summary of her 2008 efforts, some spectacular images shown: 2008 Fall Color Summary Part 1 and 2008 Fall Color Summary Part 2.
• Greg Boyer / One Horse Studio, a photographer in Bishop, has some great posts about the Sierra Nevada near Bishop, including several recent color reports.
• Eastern Sierra Fall Color Reports, a thread at NaturePhotographers.net started by Bishop photographer Cory Freeman / Sierra Impressions.
• Carol Leigh’s Calphoto.com. This is where many California photographers exchange information, especially timely, detailed reports concerning spring wildflowers and autumn foliage.
• Steven Bourelle / SierraVisionsStock.com. Steven Bourelle gave me advice prior to my last visit to Bishop for fall colors, and he was spot on with his recommendations. He now has an e-book guide about photography in the Eastern Sierra and Bishop Creek Canyon packed with good information. Furthermore, his blog features the recent post “Eastern Sierra Nevada Fall Colors” about planning for a fall foliage shoot in the Eastern Sierra. Update: I purchased Steven’s e-book on Bishop Creek Canyon. If you are planning a first visit there this fall, and you want to make the most of your time, this e-book lays out the key places to stop for photos. A real time saver.
• Dave Henry’s reports and tips at the Sacramento Bee are really good.
• G. Dan Mitchell. G. Dan Mitchell’s Sierra Nevada photography is superb (especially his Yosemite images), and his blog is informative and well-written. Dan has made a number of recent posts advising on E. Sierra fall color, including “Sierra Nevada fall color season – coming sooner than you think!” loaded with good information about what to expect and how to plan for autumn in the Sierra Nevada.
• John Wall’s California Nature Photographers. With John Wall at the helm, this blog features periodic posts from a wide variety of talented California nature photographers. I am sure there will be some fall color content appearing soon.
• A Flickr group was created by Kahlee Brighton to discuss Eastern Sierra color, with a meet-up being considered.
• Michael Frye, one of the best photographers around who focuses on Yosemite and surrounding areas, has a nice blog post about Autumn in Yosemite. (Michael Frye has THE BOOK on photographing in Yosemite, I own a copy and have referred to it often.)
• Parcher’s Resort, near South Lake in Bishop Creek Canyon, maintains a fall color report in season.
• Bishop weather forecast. (NWS)
• Pictures of Fall Color in Bishop Creek Canyon on Google Earth. If you have Google Earth installed, this provides a map with 18 of my favorite aspen images appearing superimposed where they were taken in Bishop Creek Canyon. You can zoom around and click any of the tiny thumbnails in Google Earth to see the image large along with captions. In a perfect world I would offer to actually walk around with your camera and shoot the photos for you, but in lieu of that this is the best I can do.

Shameless plug: I’ve got a nice collection of fall color photos. Check them out, they really are pretty good if I do say so myself. (Heck, when the colors are peaking its hard to take a bad photo of turning aspens.)

If the peak color does not conflict with my daughter’s volleyball tryouts and I can get away from Southern California for a day or two, perhaps I will see you in the Eastern Sierra under some aspen trees this fall.

**banzai photographer (n): a photographer with a working spouse and multiple kids each of whom have lots of activities that require driving them all over the place during the week, help with homework in the evenings, and then driving them all over the place on the weekends; a photographer who crams five days of photography into a single weekend; a photographer with a banzai attitude about life; a photographer with a niche business of photographing banzai trees.

Keywords: eastern sierra fall color, aspen, report, foliage, photography, picture, bishop, photo, autumn, image, information, description.

Note that this post is primarily intended for photographers who shoot RAW. (If you shoot JPEG you may benefit from what follows simply by having a better understanding of what is going on inside your camera, but you probably do not want to use this technique.)

Exposing to the right. Many photographers trying to maximize the amount of data collected in their captures expose to the right, pushing the histogram as far to the right as possible without clipping the highlights. The idea is that by doing this the signal-to-noise ratio in the capture data is maximized. In practice, when determining what the correct exposure is for a given situation, one takes a shot, considers the resulting histogram and then increases exposure until the histogram nears or just touches the right extreme, indicating that pixels are about to be clipped. By shooting to the right one is deliberately increasing the signal (RGB values) as much as possible without clipping them. Since noise is somewhat constant, the resulting signal-to-noise ratio is maximized by exposing to the right in this way. Granted, there are some esoteric reasons for not exposing to the right, but by and large it is an accepted and effective technique for today’s digital cameras.

Clipping highlights. Key to shooting to the right is one’s ability to discern when highlights are being clipped. This is where the in-camera settings for contrast and saturation play a part. Current digital cameras base the histogram on an in-camera JPEG, even when shooting RAW. Typically, the in-camera JPEG has a greater spread in its histogram than is contained in the RAW data, due to the fact that the in-camera JPEG has contrast and saturation enhancement applied to it. Think about it: when you look at your RAW files they have low contrast and saturation, and really don’t come alive until after you have bumped these up a bit. Well, a similar difference occurs between the in-camera JPEG — upon which the histogram is based — and the underlying RAW data. The default in-camera JPEG has, by design, increased contrast and saturation compared to the RAW file, which translates into (among other things) a histogram that is “more spread out”, with tails reaching further to the left and right.

Now consider this: if the in-camera JPEG has a histogram that is more widely spread than the RAW data, it will show clipped highlights “earlier”. In other words, you won’t push the exposure as far to the right as you might, because the in-camera JPEG — upon which the histogram is based — is indicating highlights are clipped.

The solution is to turn down the contrast and saturation settings for the JPEGs that are created in-camera. On my Canon cameras I turn them each down two notches below the middle setting. Doing this produces an in-camera JPEG that more closely approximates the distribution of the actual RAW data, resulting in a histogram that is more accurate for my purposes. Since I want to maximize the information in the RAW file, I want a histogram that depicts the RAW data not an in-camera JPEG.

The bottom line is that by using lower settings for contrast and saturation I obtain a histogram that is more representative of the data in my RAW file, I can push that exposure further to the right and be confident that I am not clipping the highlights in my RAW data. If I were to use the default settings for contrast and saturation, the histogram would indicate clipping before it was actually occurring, leading me to unnecessarily underexpose the image.

Don’t guess, don’t approximate: take control of your exposures. As we all know, underexposure with digital cameras leads to noise. If you underexpose your RAW file, and you plan on compensating for it later in the RAW conversion, you’ll get some noise in the shadows. Perhaps not much, but as the ISO increases and the amount of underexposure error increases, the noise just gets worse. Why tolerate this at all? By understanding that the histogram is based on the in-camera JPEG, and taking control of the contrast and saturation settings that are used to create the in-camera JPEG, you can obtain a histogram that is more representative of the RAW data and eliminate a potential source of systematic exposure error.

Give it a try.

Thanks to Master Photographer Charles Glatzer for originally pointing out this important exposure issue in the Naturescapes.net discussion forums.

Keywords: exposing to the right, exposure, highlights, clipping, signal to noise, digital, photography.

You can also see a tiger shark photo slideshow in case the one above does not appear in your feed reader.

Tiger shark. Image ID: 10648   Species: Tiger shark, Galeocerdo cuvier Location: Bahamas View this Image in Google Earth!

Keywords: tiger shark, picture, photo, Galeocerdo cuvier, underwater, stock photo, image, photograph.

You can also see a Caribbean reef shark photo slideshow in case the one above does not appear in your feed reader.

Caribbean reef shark, ampullae of Lorenzini visible on snout. Image ID: 10550   Species: Caribbean reef shark, Carcharhinus perezi Location: Bahamas View this Image in Google Earth!

Keywords: caribbean reef shark, picture, photo, Carcharhinus perezi, underwater, stock photo, image, photograph.

You can also see a lemon shark photo slideshow in case the one above does not appear in your feed reader.

Lemon shark with live sharksuckers. Image ID: 10752   Species: Lemon shark, Negaprion brevirostris, Echeneis naucrates Location: Bahamas View this Image in Google Earth!

Keywords: lemon shark, picture, photo, Negaprion brevirostris, underwater, stock photo, image, photograph.

You can also see a bull shark photo slideshow in case the one above does not appear in your feed reader.

Bull shark. Image ID: 12718   Species: Bull shark, Carcharhinus leucas Location: Great Isaac Island, Bahamas View this Image in Google Earth!

Keywords: bull shark, picture, photo, Carcharhinus leucas, underwater, stock photo, image, photograph.

OK, last post about Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra. I am looking forward to getting up there and am optimistic this year will be a good one for turning aspens (Populus tremuloides). A couple photographers whom I follow have already remarked they have their reservations already. I was going through some of my favorite aspen shots from a few years ago, reminding myself where I shot them so I can be sure to revisit some of the same spots again. I put them on Google Earth (all of my images are geotagged so they feed automatically into Google Earth). If you have Google Earth installed, you can click either of these links. What **should** happen is that Google Earth should launch and soon after the 18 images will appear superimposed where they were taken in Bishop Creek Canyon. You can click any of the tiny thumbnails in Google Earth to see the image large along with captions.

I am now offering a new service: I will physically walk around with your camera and shoot the photos for you, process them and email you the best ones. It’s a win-win situation: you don’t need to ask your boss if you can ditch work in the middle of the week, you don’t need to make any tiresome hikes in the thin, cold, clean mountain air, you won’t make that long drive up 395 which cuts down on pollution, and the area is less crowded for me.

OK, that part was a lie, but in lieu of that showing you where I stood to take some nice photos is the best I can do. Enjoy.

Bishop Creek Canyon Fall Color on Google Earth (click to launch this map in Google Earth)

I also recently posted some links where one can soon see reports about Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra. I don’t have reports to offer (I live in San Diego so its hard to just get up there for a day or two this time of year) but there are many talented California photographers who do share detailed and timely reports.

Shameless plug: I’ve got a nice collection of fall color photos. Check them out, they really are pretty good if I do say so myself. (Heck, when the colors are peaking its hard to take a bad photo of turning aspens.)

Keywords: fall color, eastern sierra, photo, picture, image, aspen, populus tremuloides, bishop creek canyon, google earth, geocoding, geotagging.

I recently posted some links where one can soon see reports about Fall Color in the Eastern Sierra.

Besides my collection on Photoshelter (from which the slideshow above is sourced), my website — the one you are looking at now — has a nice collection of fall color photos.

Keywords: fall color, eastern sierra, photo, picture, image, aspen, populus tremuloides, bishop creek canyon.

Guadalupe Island Diving Trip

Note: this is not a shark diving trip. This is an open water SCUBA and freediving trip designed to offer our guests opportunities to appreciate the unique inhabitants and explore the underwater scenery of Guadalupe Island. This is the only open-water diving trip to Guadalupe Island, this year (or probably ever), that we know of. The dates are July 21-29, 9 calendar days with 7 fulls days of diving and two travel days.

Cortez chubb. Image ID: 01020   Species: Cortez chubb, Kyphosus elegans Location: Guadalupe Island (Isla Guadalupe), Baja California, Mexico View this Image in Google Earth!

Keywords: Guadalupe Island, Mexico, Isla Guadalupe, scuba diving, free diving, dive boat Horizon, Baja California, San Diego.

Devil’s Postpile, a spectacular example of columnar basalt. Once molten and under great pressure underground, the lava that makes up Devil’s Postpile cooled evenly and slowly, contracting and fracturing into polygonal-sided columns. The age of the formation is estimated between 100 and 700 thousand years old. Sometime after the basalt columns formed, a glacier passed over the formation, cutting and polishing the tops of the columns. The columns have from three to seven sides, varying because of differences in how quickly portions of the lava cooled. Image ID: 23266   Location: Devils Postpile National Monument, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Devil’s Postpile, a spectacular example of columnar basalt. Once molten and under great pressure underground, the lava that makes up Devil’s Postpile cooled evenly and slowly, contracting and fracturing into polygonal-sided columns. The age of the formation is estimated between 100 and 700 thousand years old. Sometime after the basalt columns formed, a glacier passed over the formation, cutting and polishing the tops of the columns. The columns have from three to seven sides, varying because of differences in how quickly portions of the lava cooled. Image ID: 23267   Location: Devils Postpile National Monument, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Interestingly, in spite of my having spent lots of time in Mammoth, I had never before seen Devil’s Postpile until last August. It is without a doubt the finest example of columnar jointing I’ve ever seen. The only previous example of such geologic columns that I have ever seen is in Yellowstone: the columns that make up Sheepeater Cliffs.

Sheepeater Cliffs, an example of columnar jointing in basalt due to shrinkage during cooling. Image ID: 19794   Location: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Devil’s Postpile is much larger and more impressive, but Sheepeater Cliff’s is somewhat more accessible, being immediately adjacent to a road and picnic area. Both are pretty cool!

Trivia: Devil’s Postpile was originally part of Yosemite National Park, but the discovery of gold near Mammoth Lakes led to Devil’s Postpile being removed fromt the National Park and being placed in public land. A plan to dynamite the structure so that it would collapse into an adjacent creek to create a hydroelectric dam was proposed, but citizens managed to persuade President Taft to instead create the Devil’s Postpile National Monument to protect the spectacular geology and surrounding environment in 1911.

Keywords: Devil’s Postpile, photo, picture, Sierra Nevada, image, photograph, Mammoth Mountain.

I’m looking forward to seeing the aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) again in the Eastern Sierra. Here are a few of my favorites, all photographed in the Bishop Creek Canyon watershed at the peak of the 2006 fall color season.

Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17547   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Aspen trees displaying fall colors rise above a High Sierra road near North Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17501   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Aspen trees cover Bishop Creek Canyon above Aspendel. Image ID: 17528   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17498   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

keywords: fall color, eastern sierra, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, autumn, photo, image, picture, photography.

I just learned that I am one of Photoshelter’s 20 Featured Photographers for September 2009. Photoshelter choose one of my wave photos to add to the Featured Photographer slideshow. Check out all of the images, there is some real talent represented in this group and I am glad to be included. I like Brian Cleary’s in-your-face photo of a dog biting a toy the best:

A giant sequoia tree, soars skyward from the forest floor, lit by the morning sun and surrounded by other sequioas. The massive trunk characteristic of sequoia trees is apparent, as is the crown of foliage starting high above the base of the tree. Image ID: 23260   Species: Giant sequoia tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum Location: Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

My website also has many giant sequoia tree photos (Sequoiadendron giganteum).

Keywords: sequoia, giant sequoia tree, photo, picture, image, Sequoiadendron giganteum, Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, California, sierra nevada.

Glacial erratic boulders atop Olmsted Point, with the massive granite monoliths Half Dome and Clouds Rest in the background. Erratics are huge boulders left behind by the passing of glaciers which carved the granite surroundings into their present-day form. When the glaciers melt, any boulders and other geologic material that it was carrying are left in place, sometimes many miles from their original location. Image ID: 23264   Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Glacial erratic boulders atop Olmsted Point. Erratics are huge boulders left behind by the passing of glaciers which carved the granite surroundings into their present-day form. When the glaciers melt, any boulders and other geologic material that it was carrying are left in place, sometimes many miles from their original location. Image ID: 23265   Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

See also: Yosemite National Park photos.

Keywords: glacial erratic boulder, geology, granite, Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, glacier, rock, stone.

A giant sequoia tree, soars skyward from the forest floor, lit by the morning sun and surrounded by other sequioas. The massive trunk characteristic of sequoia trees is apparent, as is the crown of foliage starting high above the base of the tree. Image ID: 23259   Species: Giant sequoia tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum Location: Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

Giant sequoia trees, roots spreading outward at the base of each massive tree, rise from the shaded forest floor. Image ID: 23258   Species: Giant sequoia tree, Sequoiadendron giganteum Location: Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

See more giant sequoia photos, Sequoiadendron giganteum, Mariposa Grove.

Keywords: sequoia, giant sequoia tree, photo, picture, image, Yosemite National Park, Mariposa Grove, Sequoiadendron giganteum.

Cardiff morning surf, breaking wave. Cardiff by the Sea, California, USA. Image ID: 23293   Location: Cardiff by the Sea, California, USA

Cardiff morning surf, breaking wave. Cardiff by the Sea, California, USA. Image ID: 23294   Location: Cardiff by the Sea, California, USA

Cardiff morning surf, breaking wave. Cardiff by the Sea, California, USA. Image ID: 23297   Location: Cardiff by the Sea, California, USA

** With apologies to Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Keywords: surf, wave, photo, ocean, sea, morning, picture.

Triple the Memory == Bloat

It appears to me that recent programming changes in Wordpress have caused it to use quite a bit more memory than it did before. It could be that one change is responsible for much of the bloat, or that many small changes are each responsible for their own small shares of the problem.

Let me give an example to illustrate how significant the issue is. When a browser requests my most recent blog entry about humpback whale pictures, a PHP memory allocation on my web server of only 2.8 MB is required when using Wordpress 2.7. However, if Wordpress 2.8.3 is installed the required allocation balloons to 10.1 MB. That’s a factor of 3.6, or 260% more memory. (See below under “Instrumenting …” for how you can determine the memory allocation of your own Wordpress installation, its quite simple.) Visitors to my site don’t see ANY difference with the blog content yet by virtue of upgrading to 2.8.3 the web server was forced to allocate more than triple the memory. That’s crazy.

To see how widespread this problem is, Google “Wordpress + 2.8 + Fatal + Error” or keywords like that. You’ll find that many people have reported problems with memory allocation failures occurring on their web servers after upgrading to Wordpress 2.8. Now, here’s the curious part. The common wisdom in these online discussions seems to be to allow PHP (the scripting language upon which Wordpress is built) to use more memory. For instance, a typical installation of PHP and Wordpress might allow each instance of Wordpress serving up a page to use, say, no more the 32 MB of memory. The Wordpress community seems to recommend raising this limit to 64 MB to make the memory allocation failure problems of Wordpress 2.8.3 go away. Raising this limit can be done in a few ways: 1) by modifying wp-settings.php so that WP_MEMORY_LIMIT is initialized to 64M rather than 32M, and/or 2) by setting “php_value memory_limit 64M” in your .htaccess file.

As I searched the net on this issue I saw some comments essentially saying “This is just a server configuration issue, increase the memory to 64M”. Hello? Just a server issue? No, this is in fact a coding issue. If one requires 64 MB to display a page of text with a few widgets around it, something is wrong.

Simply put, increasing PHP’s memory limit is a short-term fix and is sidestepping the true problem, which is code bloat and inefficient programming. Allocating 64 MB to serve up a blog page is overkill, in fact 32 MB is more than enough. Realistically, a lean and mean blog should only require a few MB to do its thing. Think about it, how much memory does it take to query an entry from a MySQL database, run some ancillary functions to surround it with headers, widgets, titles, blogrolls, etc., format it and then present it to the output stream? If your Wordpress pages require more than 32 MB to serve, you had better have very few visitors, a powerful server or an expectation that you will periodically crash on your visitors. If you allow PHP to use up to 64 MB to serve up a single blog page, and you suddenly have a rush of visitors (say 10 at a time), you need plenty of memory on your server, or at least plenty of burst memory, or you stand a chance of have a failure of some kind that one or more of your visitors will see.

My hunch is that prior to Wordpress 2.8, few Wordpress users had to fiddle with the memory limit.

Traffic

My weblogs say I get about 5000-6000 unique visitors to my site each day, in addition to search engine crawlers. (There are fewer in the summer when students aren’t raiding photos for their reports). There are times when 100+ simultaneous instances of the httpd daemon are running on my server. Each page view (not just each visitor) invokes a new instance of the Wordpress software which, using 2.8.3 on my installation, would need 10 MB just to serve up the page. My server currently has about 400MB of real memory available, and up to 1 GB in “burst situations” (its a virtual private server). Using Wordpress 2.7 I rarely observed occasions when too many simultaneous page views caused an out-of-memory situation. In fact I figure it would take roughly 125 simultaneous views to use up the real memory and 300 or so to exhaust the burst memory. However, immediately after I installed Wordpress 2.8.3 on Friday I began to see PHP fatal errors and server daemons (services) dying due to lack of memory. They continued to occur at least every hour, at times when lots of people hit the site simultaneously. At 10 MB per page view using Wordpress 2.8.3, it would only take 40 simultaneous views (including search engines which are constantly pounding my site) to eat up the physical ram and start causing problems for the server.

After installing 2.8.3 and encountering problems, I first tried raising the WP_MEMORY_LIMIT and PHP memory limits to 64M as recommended by other Wordpress users, but the problem continued. I’ve made lots of custom tweaks to my installation of Wordpress, and am not afraid to fiddle with the code to get things to work better. So I set out to make some changes to the code in an effort to figure out what was going wrong.

Instrumenting Wordpress

To learn how much memory was being used by PHP to serve up a blog page, I added a few well placed calls to the PHP functions memory_get_usage() and memory_get_peak_usage(). memory_get_usage() reveals how much memory is in use at the moment the function is called, while memory_get_peak_usage() shows the maximum amount of memory required up to the point the function is called. In the index.php source file in the main Wordpress directory, I added the line

echo memory_get_peak_usage();

just before the final “?>”. This produced an additional line at the bottom of the blog, showing the peak memory use (in bytes) required by PHP to run the Wordpress scripts that generated the page being viewed.

(Note: calling this simple line of code instrumentation may be a bit rich since it is nothing more than one line of debug code. I actually instrumented wp-settings.php, adding memory checks before most of the require and require_once statements. Doing this allowed me to watch the memory accumulation ratchet up as each require statement is executed. I did not see a single obvious point where the memory ballooned, rather the accumulation was steady across all the require statements.)

It was in this way that I learned that Wordpress 2.8.3 was using over 10 MB to serve up a single blog entry in my installation. This was the default installation of 2.8.3; the only change I made was to the theme (I use classic) and one plug-in. I tried uninstalling the only plug-in (WP-Geo) but it made virtually no difference. It appears the bloat is in the Wordpress code itself. I made the same one-line addition to index.php in my 2.7 Wordpress installation and was pleasantly surprised to see how little memory was required, only 2.8 MB. The solution was obvious: revert to my prior Wordpress version. Since I had kept a copy of the entire Wordpress directory structure on my server before upgrading to 2.8.3, reverting to 2.7 was just a matter of renaming directories and running a few tests.

Conclusions

I wrote the code for the non-blog part of my stock photography web site to use between 1 and 3 MB of memory for any given page. For instance, this page of bald eagle photos requires about 2.5 MB of PHP memory to load. I’m comfortable with that. But 10 MB, which is what Wordpress 2.8.3 was requiring for a simple blog page, is simply too much. So I have reverted back to Wordpress 2.7 for now, and am keeping my fingers crossed that the talented Wordpress development community can make some improvements in the memory usage. My sense is that the community development for Wordpress focuses on adding “features” and little energy is devoted to improving existing code so that it operates more efficiently. However, if enough users experience the bloat problems that I have seen, Wordpress developers may take the issue seriously. We’ll see what happens. I am hopeful.

I’m also doubling the amount of memory on my server. Just to be safe.

A few related links:

Blue Anvil Journal » Blog Archive » Wordpress 2.8 Memory Usage
Seven Reasons Why Wordpress 2.8 Is Better Than Ever | Clint Maher
Allyn Gibson · On WordPress Woes
Google Search on “Wordpress” + “2.8″ + “64M” finds hundreds of comments on this problem.

Keywords: Wordpress, memory usage, upgrade, bloat, blog, software, version, server, PHP, fatal error, allocation failure.

Do you like these photos? I hope so! I’ve gone to a lot of effort to not only take these photos but put them on the web for you and others to enjoy. If you like them, please consider linking to my web site. That’s right, make a link to my site (OceanLight.com) from your Facebook page, MySpace page, your Twitter account, your favorite internet community or from your school’s website. Linking to my site is a cost-free and effective way to support my photography efforts since your link will raise the visibility of my website and, hopefully, lead a few more photo buyers to use my images in their publications. If you do link to my site, drop me a line and let me know. I’ll do my best to respond personally and say “thanks”.

I you want to link to my site, here is some HTML you can use. Just put your cursor in the box below, hit Control-A (”select all”), then Control-C (”copy”), and then paste it. Thanks!

Student Questions About My Photographs and Requests to Use My Images

Since this site was first published on the web in 1996, I have many questions from students worldwide regarding my photos and the animal subjects I photograph. Regrettably, constraints on my time do not permit me to respond personally to all questions these days.

I also receive numerous requests from students and well-meaning organizations to use my images in school reports and on school or personal web sites. Please know that these images are costly to produce and I cannot give them away in high resolution form without a fee. However, you may use a printed copy of one of my images in your printed report, see below.

Printed Reports:

Students may use the images appearing on my site (OceanLight.com), in printed reports only for use in an elementary school, middle school or high school setting, provided:

• The image is not altered in any way. This means that the watermark credit embedded in the image (if there is one) remains intact. I hope you understand, the watermark embedded in the image really needs to be there. The reality of the internet is that if I don’t put my name in the image, people will use it without even mentioning me or the fact that I worked hard to produce the image.
• The image is reproduced in printed form only. It may not be copied to another web site, emailed to others or stored on a computer server.
• A link to my website (Oceanlight.com) is created on your Facebook or MySpace page, Twitter account or your school’s website, and a written acknowledgement is included in the report, with a statement like “Blue whale image copyright Phillip Colla / Oceanlight.com.” See above for how to make a link to my website.

If you are really curious about the copyright, you can see my Full Copyright Statement.

North Pacific humpback whale, breach. Image ID: 00205   Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Maui, Hawaii, USA View this Image in Google Earth!

You can also see them in a nifty humpback whale photo slideshow.

Keywords: humpback whale picture, megaptera novaeangliae, stock photo, image, photograph.