My recent San Diego Magazine cover photo of the San Diego Coronado Bridge has generated some potential new clients for me over the past few days. I’ve assembled a gallery of Coronado Island photos for them to consider for related publishing projects. We’ll see if I make any sales! Thanks for looking.

San Diego Coronado Bridge, known locally as the Coronado Bridge, links San Diego with Coronado, California. The bridge was completed in 1969 and was a toll bridge until 2002. It is 2.1 miles long and reaches a height of 200 feet above San Diego Bay. Coronado Island is to the left, and downtown San Diego is to the right in this view looking north. Image ID: 22288   Location: San Diego, California, USA

This photo was made a few minutes after the sun went down, in Leucadia, California, an eclectic beach community in north San Diego county that is home to great surf, great taco shops and nouveau riche homes teetering on the edge of crumbling sea cliffs. I left the shutter open for 30 seconds to let the surf blur and allow the ocean to appear flat. I love living near the ocean!

Leucadia sunset, beautiful clouds and soft colors. Image ID: 27379

See more photos of San Diego.

During the holidays I joined my photographer friend Garry McCarthy at sunset to photograph the Hotel Del Coronado on beautiful Coronado Island in San Diego. During the holidays “The Del” puts on quite a holiday show, with a beachside ice skating rink and holiday lights. Garry and I waited until the “blue hour” kicked in and shot some nice images of this distinctive landmark San Diego hotel at dusk. If you like these, take a look at my gallery of San Diego photos. Thanks for looking!

Hotel del Coronado with holiday Christmas night lights, known affectionately as the Hotel Del. It was once the largest hotel in the world, and is one of the few remaining wooden Victorian beach resorts. It sits on the beach on Coronado Island, seen here with downtown San Diego in the distance. It is widely considered to be one of Americas most beautiful and classic hotels. Built in 1888, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. Image ID: 27396   Location: San Diego, California, USA

Hotel del Coronado with holiday Christmas night lights. Image ID: 27405   Location: San Diego, California, USA

Imperial Beach pier at sunrise,. Image ID: 27414   Location: Imperial Beach, California, USA

Imperial Beach pier at sunrise,. Image ID: 27411   Location: Imperial Beach, California, USA

Imperial Beach pier at sunrise,. Image ID: 27417   Location: Imperial Beach, California, USA

See also my photos of the other four ocean piers in San Diego County:

Ocean Beach Pier photos
Scripps Institute of Oceanography Research Pier photos
Crystal Pier photos
Oceanside Pier photos

My October 2011 release of new photography is fairly focused and includes some underwater images of blue whales, nighttime photographs of bioluminescence caused by red tide dinoflagellate plankton, a few close underwater photos of fin whales (the second longest animal in the world, after blue whales), experimental images using new techniques of surf and surfers, and a couple panoramas of Petco Stadium in San Diego (made with the help of my daughter who manned the popcorn and terrible towels while I took the pictures).

The whale images in particular were quite exciting to make. There is a small number of people in the world who have come face to face with enormous blue whales and fin whales in the open ocean and managed to bring home publication-quality photographs to document the encounter. In other words, not only were the images tremendously exciting to make, they represent some of my proudest moments as a natural history photographer. Photographing these giants has been an ongoing project of mine for 17 years, and in spite of having very few opportunities to see whales this year I managed to make some of the best images I have ever made of these spectacular creatures, alongside my good friend (and skilled marine photographer) Mike Johnson.

Thanks for looking! Below are a few, and the rest can be found in my “New Work - October 2011 gallery” (that’s your cue to click on it).

Fin whale underwater. The fin whale is the second longest and sixth most massive animal ever, reaching lengths of 88 feet. Image ID: 27594   Species: Fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus

Fin whale underwater. The fin whale is the second longest and sixth most massive animal ever, reaching lengths of 88 feet. Image ID: 27597   Species: Fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus

A humpback whale raises it fluke out of the water, the coast of Del Mar and La Jolla is visible in the distance. Image ID: 27142   Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Del Mar, California, USA

Blue whale underwater closeup photo. This incredible picture of a blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit earth, shows it swimming through the open ocean, a rare underwater view. Image ID: 27324   Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: California, USA

Lingulodinium polyedrum red tide dinoflagellate plankton, glows blue when it is agitated in wave and is visible at night. Image ID: 27064   Species: Lingulodinium polyedrum Location: La Jolla, California, USA

Blue whale underwater closeup photo. This incredible picture of a blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit earth, shows it swimming through the open ocean, a rare underwater view. Over 80′ long and just a few feet from the camera, an extremely wide lens was used to photograph the entire enormous whale. Image ID: 27325   Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus Location: California, USA

Athletic young girl underwater, performing isometric exercises. Image ID: 27057

Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres professional baseball team, overlooking downtown San Diego at dusk. Image ID: 27052   Location: San Diego, California, USA Pano dimensions: 3342 x 5982

Breaking wave fast motion and blur. The Wedge. Image ID: 27078   Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA

THE CAMERA IS STILL AVAILABLE. Canon 7D digital camera, excellent condition, still under warranty, one owner. Approx 8900 shutter actuations. Used to shoot indoor sports and one dive trip, no longer needed. This is a camera a lot of pros and serious amateurs are using topside and underwater. Asking $1425 (new is currently $1600 after rebate)

THE LENS IS NOW SOLD. Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom lens, Canon mount, DX bodies only. Mint condition, one owner, USA warranty. Lots of people are using this underwater as their workhorse wide angle lens now on Nikon and Canon crop bodies (7D, 60D, D200/D300, etc). I used it on one dive trip in Nov and did not take it off the camera for days. If you want to see images with this lens I can provide you a private link with some large examples. Asking $590 (new is currently $670-690)

If you buy both at those prices I will throw in the battery/vertical grip for the Canon 7D. You are welcome to come by my home in Carlsbad to look at the gear or take a few test shots.

Here is a link to some images shot with this camera in the Sea of Cortez recently:

http://www.oceanlight.com/canon_7d_samples_photos.html

and here a few that I liked best from the trip:

California sea lion underwater. Image ID: 27418   Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico

Panamic Green Moray Eel, Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico. Image ID: 27466   Species: Panamic Green Moray Eell, Gymnothorax castaneus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico

King angelfish in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Image ID: 27470   Species: King angelfish, Holacanthus passer Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico

California sea lion underwater playing with sea star. Image ID: 27428   Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico

In a past “best of” post I stated that one of my goals is to make a handful of really strong images each year, images that could be included in a career retrospective portfolio. This year I will admit that another of my goals is to produce a body of photographic work that outlives me, that has relevance throughout not only my life but those of my children and grandchildren. That’s a lofty goal and, truth be told, I will never know if I have succeeded or not. My hunch is that, of the photos I have made so far in my 20+ years of shooting, perhaps two or three may outlive me. Anyway, enough musing. Here are my favorite images, my “best photos of 2011″.

A humpback whale raises it fluke out of the water, the coast of Del Mar and La Jolla is visible in the distance. Image ID: 27142   Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Del Mar, California, USA

Dusk settles on downtown San Diego with snow-covered Mt. Laguna in the distance. Image ID: 26716   Location: San Diego, California, USA

The Milky Way galaxy arches over Arch Rock on a clear evening in Joshua Tree National Park. Image ID: 26792   Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA

Boulders and sunset in Joshua Tree National Park. The warm sunlight gently lights unusual boulder formations at Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree National Park, California. Image ID: 26730   Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA

Earth Shadow lies over Point La Jolla at dawn. Image ID: 26444   Location: La Jolla, California, USA

Horseshoe Bend. The Colorado River makes a 180-degree turn at Horseshoe Bend. Here the river has eroded the Navajo sandstone for eons, digging a canyon 1100-feet deep. Image ID: 26635   Location: Horseshoe Bend, Page, Arizona, USA

Fisherman at dawn along the La Jolla coastline, waves blur as they crash upon the Boomer Beach boulders. Image ID: 26447   Location: La Jolla, California, USA

Water falling from the fluke (tail) of a humpback whale as the whale dives to forage for food in the Santa Barbara Channel. Image ID: 27029   Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Santa Rosa Island, California, USA

San Diego harbor and skyline, viewed at sunset. Image ID: 27146   Location: San Diego, California, USA

Breaking wave fast motion and blur. The Wedge. Image ID: 27079   Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA

Freediver photographing pelagic gelatinous zooplankton, adrift in the open ocean. Image ID: 26817   Species: Fried-egg jellyfish, Phacellophora camtschatica Location: San Diego, California, USA

Yosemite Falls reflected in flooded meadow. The Merced River floods its banks in spring, forming beautiful reflections of Yosemite Falls. Image ID: 26888   Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA

T.A. Moulton barn with Teton Range, on Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Image ID: 26914   Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA

Convict Lake sunrise reflection, Sierra Nevada mountains. Image ID: 26974

California sea lion underwater. Image ID: 27423   Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico

King angelfish in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Image ID: 27470   Species: King angelfish, Holacanthus passer Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico

Surf and sky at sunset, waves crash upon the sand at dusk. Image ID: 27234   Location: Carlsbad, California, USA

Torrey Pines balloon aerial survey photo. Torrey Pines seacliffs, rising up to 300 feet above the ocean, stretch from Del Mar to La Jolla. On the mesa atop the bluffs are found Torrey pine trees, one of the rare species of pines in the world. Peregine falcons nest at the edge of the cliffs. This photo was made as part of an experimental balloon aerial photographic survey flight over Torrey Pines State Reserve, by permission of Torrey Pines State Reserve. Image ID: 27271   Location: Torrey Pines State Reserve, San Diego, California, USA Pano dimensions: 5001 x 11896

Ocean Beach Pier, also known as the OB Pier or Ocean Beach Municipal Pier, is the longest concrete pier on the West Coast measuring 1971 feet (601 m) long. Image ID: 27387   Location: San Diego, California, USA

See also:

Best Photos of 2010
Best Photos of 2009
Best Photos of 2008
Best Photos of 2007

This is the third of three images I had that were Highly Commended in this year’s Windland Smith Rice photography competition.*

This is one of the famous or, depending on your political position, notorious Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardsi) the reside at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla, California. Some people really hate these seals and feel their presence on the beach has robbed people of the use of small cove and want to see the seals gone, forcefully or otherwise. Others love the seals and don’t want to see them bothered at all. I don’t really care either way, I just like to shoot photos of them. I’ve been photographing (and diving with) these seals since their colony first began forming in the ’90s. There are certain times of day when the light angles and water movement really work well here for photography. On this day, one of the more charismatic seals was moving about at the water’s edge and paused for a moment with its flippers raised, looking at me. I got off a series of photos and this was the most appealing of the group.

Pacific harbor seal, an sand at the edge of the sea. Image ID: 26315   Species: Pacific harbor seal, Phoca vitulina richardsi Location: La Jolla, California, USA

* I was fortunate to have three of my photographs receive Highly Honored recognition in this years Windland Smith Rice photography competition sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. The first was a photo of photographer Garry McCarthy working in the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. The second was a composition of the Giants Marbles in Joshua Tree National Park. 21,000 images were entered in the competition, 500 made it to the final round of judging and 131 were winners or highly honored and appeared in the most recent issue of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I am crossing my fingers that one of mine will also be featured as part of the competition’s six-month exhibition next year at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

Click any of the images to see them larger. In their full resolution form, all of these panoramas are quite large, made from 20-45 individual iPhone photos that are stitched together in Photoshop. Sizes range up to 10,000 pixels in length and 3800 pixels in height. In the images that include waves, there are stitching errors in the waves which are largely unavoidable. However, in the images that face away from the ocean there are few if any stitching errors and in my estimation the images are clean enough to print up to 30″ or more in length .

Torrey Pines seacliffs viewed at sunset from Flat Rock, Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, California

Torrey Pines seacliffs viewed at sunset from Flat Rock, Black’s Beach and La Jolla at far right, Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, California

Torrey Pines seacliffs viewed at sunset from Flat Rock, Del Mar and Solana Beach at far left, Torrey Pines State Reserve, La Jolla, California

This is the second of three images I had that were Highly Commended in this year’s Windland Smith Rice photography competition.*

I made this photograph in Joshua Tree National Park just as the sun was setting, at a series of granite boulders that is quite popular (being near one of the campgrounds). The sun had already left the first of the Giant’s Marbles in shadow in front of me, but the warm light was still kissing to the topmost Marble perched atop the rocks. These nearly spherical marbles are natural anchors for any landscape photo of this boulder group, and indeed one sees various compositions of these rocks in many landscape photographers’ portfolios. This is my rendition. Thanks for looking!

Boulders and sunset in Joshua Tree National Park. The warm sunlight gently lights unusual boulder formations at Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree National Park, California. Image ID: 26720   Location: Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA

* I was fortunate to have three of my photographs receive Highly Honored recognition in this years Windland Smith Rice photography competition sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. The first was a photo of photographer Garry McCarthy working in the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. . 21,000 images were entered in the competition, 500 made it to the final round of judging and 131 were winners or highly honored and appeared in the most recent issue of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I am crossing my fingers that one of mine will also be featured as part of the competition’s six-month exhibition next year at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

I was fortunate to have three of my photographs receive Highly Honored recognition in this years Windland Smith Rice photography competition sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography. 21,000 images were entered in the competition, 500 made it to the final round of judging and 131 were winners or highly honored and appeared in the most recent issue of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I am crossing my fingers that one of mine will also be featured as part of the competition’s six-month exhibition next year at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.. Here is the first of the three, taken in a bend of the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. This is an utterly fantastic hike with spectacular photography possibilities at every turn, and a place to which I am anxious to return in 2012. My buddy Garry McCarthy serves as an “anchor” to lend some perspective to the scene and create a little tension from the corner of the composition across to the beautiful cottonwoods in the Narrows.

Photographer in the Virgin River Narrows, with flowing water, autumn cottonwood trees and towering red sandstone cliffs. Image ID: 26106   Location: Virgin River Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah, USA

I and five friends had an 8-day diving charter out of La Paz in the Sea of Cortez in early October. We had no “set your hair on fire” moments, but great weather, fabulous food and company for sharing, and good sea conditions. The largest waves we saw were 6-10 inches! We visited all of our usual places, and found a couple very good new ones (see photos), and went back to Las Animas for the first time in several years. We didn’t see much there, but had nice clear water to appreciate the beautiful setting. All in all, a very pleasant and relaxing trip. The water was unusually warm this year 84-87 degrees F everywhere, so the visibility was a little off, but we never got chilled on dives, no matter how long. I still remember this one sunset…

Click on the image for more great underwater photos!

Q: If I shoot raw, do I need to worry about getting my exposures correct anymore? I remember when I took photography in high school, the teacher had us bothering with confusing settings like shutter speed, apartachure and film fastness, and all of that was very hard to understand especially because I was really in photography to meet chicks and sniff the fixer tank fumes. Now I have decided that I am going to travel the world and take glamorous photos like a pro, teach glamorous photo workshops, and get a glamorous job at Life magazine where I will meet chicks, so I have decided to buy a camera and get started. I have been told that with today’s super smart digital cameras I don’t even need to be concerned with exposure settings anymore. Is that true? Sincerely yours, Nubert Eye’essoo.

A: Yes, Nube, it is true! You can pretty much take any photo at any exposure setting you wish, and fix it later in raw.* I do it all the time. Let’s consider an illustrative example…

I was editing some images I shot this summer to get them organized for a copyright submission and found a sequence of a blue whale that I had forgotten about. It was underexposed by at least three stops, perhaps four stops. I must have pressed the exposure-hold button while the camera was pointed up at the sky or some other lame-brain move. In the days of film a bluewater four-stop underexposure surely would have gone straight in the trash as fast as possible. Keeping something like this around, dwelling on it and thinking about the “what if”, is like remaining friends with an old flame — the tears, regret, and tequila gnaw at your gut. Better to put such things behind oneself, make a clean break and move forward. However, for some reason this sequence stayed on my hard disk, so today I took a look at one of the frames to see what image was buried in there. Low and behold I was able to pull out decent color and detail, enough for a half-page repro or web use. Yet again I am amazed at what we can do with a raw image — even a vastly underexposed one — with today’s software tools. Note also this is not even shot on a modern digital camera. The body that made this image is a six-year-old Canon 1DsII. I wonder how much better it would have been shot on a 5DII or 1DIV. Shown here are two frames in the sequence, one of which is “saved” and the other of which appears in its straight-from-the-camera form. Raw is amazing and can fix just about any mistake you can make. So go ahead and blast away and don’t worry about details like exposure settings or focus. As you can see, I certainly don’t!

Blue whale, spectacular underexposure, California, Balaenoptera musculus, copyright © Phillip Colla / Oceanlight.com

* Ok, there are elements of poetic license of that answer. Actually, it was pretty much a total lie.

A few years ago I visited Bodie Ghost Town, aka Bodie State Historic Park, near Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra to photograph the old buildings in early morning light. It was a great experience. I had heard that Bodie is one of the the finest examples of an old Western mining town and after seeing it first hand I can see why. I got to the park gate about 30 minutes before sunrise, and to my delight found that only two other photographers were there that morning. Solitude, at sunrise, in one of the finest ghost towns in the country. (OK, granted, Bodie is not technically a “ghost town”, but I think of it that way.) I effectively had the entire town to myself and did not bump into another person for at least an hour. It was quiet, cool, with clear skies and dew on the grass. I spent about two hours wandering around, peering around into the old homes, barns, shops and town halls. To see some of my favorite images from that morning, see my gallery of Bodie State Historic Park photos. Thanks for looking!

Wagon and interior of County Barn, Brown House and Moyle House in distance. Location: Bodie State Historical Park, California, USA

I’ve updated my collection of blue shark underwater photos. Most of these blue shark photographs were taking freediving (breathhold diving) with a few friends in the open ocean near San Diego or just below the border in Mexico. In days gone by, a small bucket of chum would bring in 5-20 blue sharks, sometimes more, and they were big beautiful sharks, sleek and long and graceful. Longliners and the fishing industry has decimated the blue shark (Prionace glauca) population in the eastern Pacific (along with many other shark species) and today a bucket of chum might attract a few sharks which will typically be small. Some of the best days of my life have been spent swimming around a small boat under the hot California sun, in clean blue offshore water, trying to keep track of the sharks swimming around and frame up a few good images. Life is good! Thanks for looking. Click the image below to see my gallery of blue shark photos.

Blue shark, Baja California. Species: Blue shark, Prionace glauca

I have assembled my favorite Antarctica Photos into a stock photography gallery. The Antarctic Peninsula is perhaps the single most photogenic place I have ever been. The photographs nearly take themselves and every direction one turns holds a scenic view. Some of Antarctica holds a stark beauty, while other regions are so chock full of life it is unbelievable. I cannot wait to return to the Southern Ocean and sea Antarctica again.

Click the image below to see a selection of my favorite Antarctica photos. Thanks for looking!

Pack ice, a combination of sea ice and pieces of icebergs, Weddell Sea.

When I was doing a lot of diving in southern California, some of my favorite subjects were gorgonians. Gorgonians are colonial invertebrates that, as a group, form flexible calcareous skeletons several feet across. The tiny individual polyps positioned on the branches of these “sea fans” wait for planktonic animals and small bits of food and debris to pass by in the current, at which time they grasp the particles with anemone-like tentacles and consume them. The overall fan-like shape of the gorgonian colony is usually oriented at right angles to prevailing currents to maximize the amount of plankton the polyps are able to capture.

Click the image to see a selection of my favorite gorgonian photos.

Red gorgonian on rocky reef, below kelp forest, underwater. The red gorgonian is a filter-feeding temperate colonial species that lives on the rocky bottom at depths between 50 to 200 feet deep. Gorgonians are oriented at right angles to prevailing water currents to capture plankton drifting by.

Joshua Tree National Park is a stone’s throw from my mom’s home (ok, a long throw) and only about 3.5 hours from where I live in Carlsbad. In the last five years I’ve made a number of visits to JTNP. It is easy to find solitude in Joshua Tree National Park; even on weekends in spring when the campgrounds are full much of the park itself is empty of people. I have finally put together a collection of Joshua Tree National Park photographs that I am happy with and, reviewing them this morning, I am motivated to get out there again soon. Thanks for looking!

Sunrise in Joshua Tree National Park.

I’ve lived in California and travelled throughout the western United States my entire life, but it was not until 2006 that I began to really look for autumn color in nature. Since then I’ve made a few trips to see turning aspens in the Eastern Sierra Nevada and plan to return to Bishop and the Mono Lake Basin for another look in a few weeks. Easily the most beautiful fall colors I have seen, however, have been in Zion National Park in November. I cannot wait to get back there! However, another look at autumn in Zion will have to wait until 2012, since I’ll be tied up sipping cerveza in the Sea of Cortez in early November this year. Click the image below to see my Gallery of Fall Color Photos to which I hope to add some fine new images in a few weeks. Thanks for looking!

Aspen trees cover Bishop Creek Canyon above Aspendel.

Aspen trees in fall, eastern Sierra fall colors, autumn. Image ID: 23320   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains

• G. Dan Mitchell’s Sierra Nevada photography is superb (especially his Yosemite images), and his blog is informative and well-written. Dan has written a super primer about fall color in the Eastern Sierra “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.
• Carol Leigh’s Calphoto.com. This is where many California photographers exchange detailed reports autumn foliage.
• Inge Fernau / MagicalGlow.com. I first noticed Inge Fernau’s photography as a result of her incredibly rich fall color reports on Calphoto. She gets out there to so many places, then fills us all in with exactly what the conditions are. Her 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 and Cory Freeman / Sierra Impressions are two very talented photographers in Bishop, California who post timely info about conditions and their recent photographic works.
• Steven Bourelle / SierraVisionsStock.com. Steven Bourelle gave me advice prior to my first visit to Bishop for fall colors, and he was spot on with his recommendations. He has written an e-book guide about photography in the Eastern Sierra and Bishop Creek Canyon packed with good information along with a 2009 post “Eastern Sierra Nevada Fall Colors” about planning for a fall foliage shoot in the Eastern Sierra.
• Dave Henry’s reports and tips at the Sacramento Bee are really good.
• Michael Frye, one of the best photographers around who focuses on Yosemite and surrounding areas, has a 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.
• Eastern Sierra Fall Color Reports, a thread at NaturePhotographers.net started by Bishop photographer Cory Freeman / Sierra Impressions.
• 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.

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

Aspen trees display Eastern Sierra fall colors, Lake Sabrina, Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17497   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA

Aspen trees turn yellow and orange in early October, South Fork of Bishop Creek Canyon. Image ID: 17532   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA

An explosion of yellow and orange color, aspen trees changing color in fall, autumn approaches. Image ID: 23325   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA

White trunks of aspen trees, viewed upward toward the yellow and orange leaves of autumn and the blue sky beyond. Image ID: 23337   Species: Aspen, Populus tremuloides Location: Bishop Creek Canyon, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA

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

One of my goals in January 2010 when I traveled to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica was to make a series of good iceberg photos. I think I succeeded! It was wonderful cruising around the Antarctic Peninsula and witnessing the variety of shapes, sizes and hues of the thousands of icebergs that we saw there. We also saw impressive icebergs in the South Orkney Islands (Coronation Island) as well as a few around South Georgia Island. Click the image below to see my Gallery of Iceberg Photos. Thanks for looking!

Tabular iceberg, Antarctic Peninsula, near Paulet Island, sunset.

My latest sampling of new photography originates from a variety of great outdoor experiences, all with my family and a couple of good friends. All of these images were produced during family travel (with kids alongside!) or on weekend-warrior outings, which means all of these photographs are attainable with reasonably little effort. If you like these, hopefully that will be encouraging and you can go out and make your own similar outdoor photos! However, I am holding back one image in particular shot during the last 8 weeks. It is truly a lifetime image, and represents the very best that I can do with a camera in the wild. It was an opportunity presented to me after about 18 years of waiting, and to my surprise I did not screw it up, and came home with a real keeper. I need to consider how best to market and publish it along with others from that same sequence. I look forward to sharing it on my website someday, but that may not be for some time. So, with that curious exception noted, the best images from the last two months for me are found in my “New Work” gallery (that’s your cue to click on it).

Thanks for looking!

Old Faithful geyser, sunrise. Reaching up to 185′ in height and lasting up to 5 minutes, Old Faithful geyser is the most famous geyser in the world and the first geyser in Yellowstone to be named. Image ID: 26939   Location: Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA

Water falling from the fluke (tail) of a humpback whale as the whale dives to forage for food in the Santa Barbara Channel. Image ID: 27029   Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Location: Santa Rosa Island, California, USA

Sky Rock petroglyphs near Bishop, California. Hidden atop an enormous boulder in the Volcanic Tablelands lies Sky Rock, a set of petroglyphs that face the sky. These superb examples of native American petroglyph artwork are thought to be Paiute in origin, but little is known about them. Image ID: 26979   Location: Bishop, California, USA

UCSD Library glows at sunset (Geisel Library, UCSD Central Library). Image ID: 26908   Location: University of California, San Diego, USA

This months new work originates from the following locations:

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, White Mountains, California
The Pacific Ocean, Offshore of Southern California
Mono Lake, California
Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, California
Convict Lake, California
Volcanic Tablelands, Bishop, California
University of California, San Diego
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, California

Yesterday I went on a whale watching trip in the Santa Barbara Channel. This is a good time of year to see whales along California as they are moving generally northward along the coast and foraging for krill and schools of small fish. The trip was organized by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society using the boat “Condor Express”. We saw a few dozen humpback whales and a half dozen blue whales, and the seas were nice and flat. The weather was heavily overcast which is terrible for photography, so I resigned myself to use the longest lens I had and focus on practicing making fluke ID photos. I made clean fluke ID photos of 16 different humpback whales, so all I can say for certain is that there were at least 16 humpbacks that we saw. Some on the boat commented that we saw many more humpbacks than that, but looking closely at the fluke ID photos (as well as dorsal fins, which are good secondary ID devices) along with the corresponding times at which they were taken I figure that I personally saw about 18-22 humpbacks. It’s tough to know for sure when 80% or more of the animal is underwater 90% of the time. I totally made up those percentages by the way.

Here are the 16 humpback whales that gave it up for me on this trip: http://www.oceanlight.com/log/img/humpback-whale-fluke-id-identification-photos/ along with a few select ones below.

Perfect view of the ventral surface of a humpback whales fluke, as the whale raises its fluke just before diving underwater. The white patches and scalloping along the trailing edge of the fluke make this whale identifiable when it is observed from year to year.

This whale is easily identifiable by the extensive scarring and injury of its fluke. However, any match against photographs of this whale that were taken prior to its (presumed) injury must be made using pattern and trailing edge scalloping.

Another example fluke ID photo that uses injury characteristics, this time on the dorsal surface of the fluke. This scarring appears to be from a boat propeller. If this whale were never to show the ventral surface of its fluke, its unique dorsal surface might still allow for a match against a previous sighting.

This summer I’ve been fortunate to get out on the ocean a few times, and each time we have seen an incredible abundance of pelagic tunicates, in particular the species Cyclosalpa affinis. These open ocean planktonic animals largely drift with ocean currents, although they do have the ability to pump water through their bodies and propel themselves to a certain degree. Typically, the salps that I have seen are in some colonial form, either in rings or in chains of rings. Sometimes an individual salp is observed reproducing, producing a much smaller chain of miniature salps. A few of my salp photos were shot some years ago on SCUBA, but most of the ones on my website now were made freediving (snorkling, breathholding diving) so you can see they are often quite shallow. Salps will often be at or near the ocean surface at night or if the weather is overcast, and will sink 20′ or 30′ when the sun comes out.

Colonial planktonic pelagic tunicate, adrift in the open ocean, forms rings and chains as it drifts with ocean currents. Image ID: 26819   Species: Salp, Cyclosalpa affinis Location: San Diego, California, USA

Salp (pelagic tunicate) reproduction, open ocean. Image ID: 01263   Species: Salp, Cyclosalpa affinis Location: San Diego, California, USA

Freediver photographing pelagic gelatinous zooplankton, adrift in the open ocean. Image ID: 26818   Species: Salp, Cyclosalpa affinis Location: San Diego, California, USA

Freediving photographer in a cloud of salps, gelatinous zooplankton that drifts with open ocean currents. Image ID: 27012   Location: San Diego, California, USA

Sarah and I recently made our somewhat-annual hike up the Mist Trail in Yosemite, enjoying the heights and sounds of Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls, as well as the Panorama Trail. It was not a serious photography outing since I was huffin’ and puffin’ just keeping up with Sarah who is a serious hiker and in better condition than I. We did make a stop just below Vernal Falls where we made the photo below. This is a place at which I always stop for a photo, and often there is a rainbow in the composition (see bottom of this post). On this day, however, breaking out the camera was especially difficult because of the enormous amounts of spray produced by near-record flow in the Merced River. I had about a second to get the shot before the lens would fog over with spray. I tried a dozen times and then gave up not wanting to damage the camera. I got this one keeper frame out of the attempts.

Vernal Falls and Merced River in spring, heavy flow due to snow melt in the high country above Yosemite Valley. Image ID: 26878   Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA

While we were hiking, we discussed the potential pitfalls of the hike, the short sections of the steps leading up to Vernal Fall which are most dangerous, where a simple slip can lead to a deadly fall down the steep and slippery rock apron and into the raging Merced. We also discussed the danger around the top of Vernal and Nevada falls, each of which has seductive and exceeding risky brinks. She got the message and I didn’t browbeat her too much, but quietly kept her within arms reach during some of those more nervous sections of the hike.

A few weeks later I had a somewhat unsettling experience. After enjoying a family reunion in Yellowstone during which I had the phone and email turned off for a week, I returned to my office to find that the most popular images on my website for the previous week were all images of Vernal Falls. Then, catching up on messages, I found two urgent calls from news organizations asking for images of the falls to run in breaking news stories. “Uh oh.” Indeed, with a quick search of recent headlines I learned that three young people had tragically died after slipping into the Merced above Vernal Falls and going over the edge. What a terrible event, for the three young hikers but also for all the others present on the brink of Vernal Falls at the time it happened. I felt sick in the gut, knowing Sarah and I had been there just a few days prior, walking those same steps and having one of the most enjoyable days together we have ever shared. With just a small misstep, the Mist Trail can turn deadly, and indeed it does almost every year. This year the Mist Trail has claimed at least four lives. Yet, it remains one of my favorite trails and I will continue to hike it with Tracy and the girls as long as they can tolerate my slowing pace and lame jokes.

About the Hike: Spring is the time to visit Vernal Falls and the famous Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park. Vernal Falls is at peak flow in late May and June, the weather is usually pleasant and the dogwoods are in bloom on the valley floor. We try to make a springtime visit to Yosemite each year to hike the Mist Trail with our daughters. We get soaked by the falls on the way up, soak in the sun and dry off at the top, enjoy a lunch of trail mix and Clif bars alongside other hikers, and leisurely make our way back down the trail later in the afternoon. If one times his visit to Vernal Falls at midday, a rainbow is often visible in front of the falls when viewed from the trail just 100 yards away.

Vernal Falls at peak flow in late spring, with a rainbow appearing in the spray of the falls, viewed from the Mist Trail. Image ID: 12634   Location: Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park, California, USA

For some years I’ve wanted to see the Sky Rock Petroglyphs, a secluded and unusual set of petroglyphs located in the Volcanic Tablelands near Bishop, California. The Sky Rock Petroglyphs sit atop of an enormous volcanic block. The petroglyphs — dozens of them in many shapes and forms — face the sky, thus lending Sky Rock its name. My understanding is that Sky Rock’s orientation toward the heavens is unusual, but also curious is that this set of petroglyphs sits alone, isolated some 5+ miles from the rich Chalfant, Chidalgo and Red Rock petroglyph collections. Chipped into the rock, through the darker “desert varnish” that typically covers the exterior of such rocks, the Sky Rock Petroglyphs expose the lighter-colored rock underneath. The history of Sky Rock is not clear to me, although I have seen a number of published suggestions that the Sky Rock Petroglyphs were perhaps created by ancestors of what are today known as the Owens Valley Paiute (or Shoshone-Paiute) people.

Sky Rock petroglyphs near Bishop, California. Hidden atop an enormous boulder in the Volcanic Tablelands lies Sky Rock, a set of petroglyphs that face the sky. These superb examples of native American petroglyph artwork are thought to be Paiute in origin, but little is known about them. Image ID: 26979   Location: Bishop, California, USA

Sky Rock is a special place, indeed. It was fascinating to see it firsthand and consider the artist who, probably many hundreds of years ago, composed the intricate petroglyph forms. While looking at it we realized very few, if any, of the shapes were recognizable. In the way that other famous artists in history have done, Sky Rock’s talented creator produced a work that captivates and intrigues and will outlive him for centuries - a distinction that most artists (and photographers) hope to achieve.

Thanks for looking! I have a few more Sky Rock Petroglyph photos. Also see my gallery of California photos and Sierra Nevada photos.

If you like these, be sure to see my first set of iPhone Panorama Photos and a second set of iPhone Panorama Photos.

Why do I shoot photos with the iPhone when I have a “real camera”? Quite often we are out and about scouting locations to shoot later in better light. The iPhone lets me take a record of the place so I can better plan my return. Sometimes the iPhone panorama results are pretty good in and of themselves. And simply put, spinning off a panorama with a phone camera is fun, my kids love it and I don’t blame them. The Autostitch iPhone app ($2.99) lets you make a panorama in the phone itself and then upload it to Facebook or email it to friends. I usually keep the original photos on the phone until I get home so that I can stitch the panorama using Photoshop CS5 on cylindrical or spherical photo merge settings. Then I judge whether its worth keeping or not. Below are some new iPhone panoramic photographs, made on a quick trip up the Eastern Sierra Nevada to photograph Mono Lake and Sky Rock. These are all shot with the iPhone 4 and stitched with Photoshop CS5. Each of these panoramic iPhone photos links to a 2000-pixel version, but the full size of the largest of these is about 5000 x 11000 pixels — pretty big. Last weekend I also made a mosaic image — like a panorama but not quite — consisting of 125 iPhone photos blended together, and the resulting composite image weighs in at a whopping 600+ megabytes!

I’m processing “real” versions of these images and they will be included in my main stock photography collection soon…

Mono Lake Sunset, California

Mono Lake Sunset, California

Ellery Lake, Yosemite National Park, California

Lathe Arch, Mt. Whitney and Lone Pine Peak, Alabama Hills, California

Whitney Portal Arch, Alabama Hills, California

Eastern Sierra Nevada viewed from Alabama Hills, California

Small meadow tarn, Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park, California

John Moulton barn at sunrise with Teton Range, on Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Image ID: 26965   Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA

Once a working farm and part of a small group of early 1900’s Mormon settlements, the John Moulton Barn was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 along with nearby T.A. Moulton Barn located just to the south. We visit Grand Teton National Park today in ease and comfort, staying in nice hotels and driving SUVs at the foot of the Teton Range as we admire bison, antelope, bear and elk. However, ponder how tough it must have been to maintain a homestead in this very place 100 years ago, especially in the harsh winters that saw the surrounding sage brush land covered deep in snow. Quite a view, yes, but quite a lot of work as well.

Thanks for looking! If you like this, please see more of my Grand Teton National Park photos.

T.A. Moulton barn with Teton Range, on Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Image ID: 26914   Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA

Along with the equally picturesque John Moulton Barn just to the north, this barn was once a working farm and part of a small group of Mormon settlements. This quintessential Western building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The T.A. Moulton barn’s orientation — facing the rising sun — and spectacular backdrop of the Teton Range makes it a popular early morning photo subject year-round.

T.A. Moulton barn with Teton Range, on Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Image ID: 26918   Location: Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA

Thanks for looking! If you like this, please see more of my Grand Teton National Park photos.

Enjoy…

I’m gradually revisiting my website galleries and improving them, removing images of lesser quality (unfortunately a lot of those!) and updating existing galleries with new material. If you enjoy penguins please take a look at my collection of Penguin Photos. With one exception**, all of these penguin photos were taken on a single long trip I made to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and the Antarctic Peninsula (see my lengthy PDF trip journal if you want the deets, or you can view the same info as a series of blog posts). I was thrilled, nearly everyday of my trip to the Southern Ocean, to see penguins in the wild, sometimes in vast numbers, and I cannot wait to return to those places again. Within a few months of returning, one of the images was selected as the cover and inside spread in Nature’s Best, which was a real treat as I had not had an image published in that great magazine in some years. Thanks for looking!

King penguin colony. Over 100,000 pairs of king penguins nest at Salisbury Plain, laying eggs in December and February, then alternating roles between foraging for food and caring for the egg or chick.

** The exception is the Galapagos Penguin underwater photo which was made in, you guessed it, the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.

I’ve updated my collection of Yosemite photos, including the one below which I made at 2am a few evenings before the last new moon. One of the spring lunar rainbows that form in upper and lower Yosemite Falls — which are a lot of fun to see but which attract considerable crowd of people and cars that remain throughout the night — took place on the full moon a few weeks prior. I was not able to get up to the Valley for the lunar rainbow event, so instead took my daughter on a Sierra roadtrip a few weeks later to hike the Mist Trail as we try to do each spring. She elected to stay with Grandma at Bass Lake while I went into Yosemite Valley for some night and sunrise photography. On this night, with a nearly new moon, I did not encounter a single person in Cook’s Meadow between 11pm and 4am. The light that the crescent moon shed onto the upper waterfall was quite thin, but I was still able to make a clean image by using a 40-minute time exposure which rendered the stars as arcs in the night sky. Polaris, the “North Star”, is the bright star that lies nearly at the center of those arcs at upper right. My main interest interest in photographing in the valley was in making a few very high resolution reflection panoramas of the flooding Merced River, for potential printing 10′ wide or more. In several places I waded into the Merced to find perfectly still water and the composition I was looking for, since my 6′ tripod allows me to work waist deep or more if needed. The water was not as cold as I expected so I did not even bother with waders. Boy how I love Yosemite in early summer, so green with cool shadows and crisp water contrasting the warm dry air and blue skies! After a sunrise and morning of landscape photography I (mostly) put away the camera, spending the remainder of the trip hiking a couple favorite trails with Sarah and making iPhone panoramas with her. She really likes the immediacy of iPhone photography and enjoys seeing how in-phone panoramas turn out just moments after making them. I can’t blame her as the results are often surprisingly good. Anyway, back to my stock photography: if you like the image below, be sure to see more Yosemite National Park photos. Thanks for looking!

Yosemite Falls and star trails, night sky time exposure of Yosemite Falls waterfall in full spring flow, with star trails arcing through the night sky. Image ID: 26853   Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA

The above image is a single image, not a composition. There is no masking or blending used, just a judicious choice of exposure along with curves, saturation and white balance in Lightroom. What looks sort of like a halo just above the cliffs is actually the faintest hint of sunrise I believe, since I ended this exposure just as astronomical twilight was beginning in order to obtain a true blue sky (rather than natural black sky, or a blue sky created by manipulating the colors of the sky). The Photographer’s Ephemeris app on the iPhone is a great help in determining such times, if you like apps.

Click the photo below to see the latest edition of my gallery of “New Work July 2011“. Thanks for looking!

Yosemite Falls reflected in flooded meadow. The Merced River floods its banks in spring, forming beautiful reflections of Yosemite Falls. Image ID: 26887   Location: Yosemite National Park, California, USA Pano dimensions: 5256 x 11469

Here’s a tip for photographing Yosemite Falls in spring and early summer: wait for the sun to rise high enough that it lights the falls directly. This occurs about 9:30 to 10am. Earlier than that and the falls will actually be in shadow. Once the light hits the falls directly, they visually “pop” off the rest of the shadowed wall making for a more striking photograph than that taken just 30 minutes earlier. When Yosemite Falls is fully lit, it will also appear with greater contrast when reflected in the Merced River. The easiest, and one of the best, reflection images to make of Yosemite Falls is from the middle of the Swinging Bridge at the west end of the Leidig Meadows area. Swinging Bridge is sometimes closed when the Merced River is too high, but when that occurs there are plenty of other reflection pools you can use.

We flew from Paris to Florence on May 9, picked up a rental car (EuropeCar) and headed out to the small hill towns of Umbria and Tuscany. These photos are from about 18 days there and include the following towns we stayed in or visited: Cortona, Spoleto, Bevagna, Gubbio, Assisi, Porto Santo Stefano (Monte Argentario), Orvieto, Pitigliano, Savona, and Lucca. We mostly stayed in small hotels and B&Bs and in agritourismo hotels (small hotels on working farms). We had fabulous meals but had done considerable research on places to eat before leaving. However, several times we asked hotel staff to recommend local places with ”typical food” and these usually turned out to be excellent.

Click the photo for more great images!