This is what a drought looks like folks

This morning I was all set to walk along the San Gabriel River.  A lovely stroll along the river is what I envisioned.  Didn't happen.  The Azusa River Wildnerness Park in Azusa was closed because of mudslides 2 weeks ago, and to add insult to injury it was a high fire danger day so they didn't want us anywhere near the brush.

But I did take a drive into the canyons along the river today.  I was absolutely gobsmacked by how low the waters was at the dams.  One day in particular, the San Gabriel Dam, an earthen dam, was so empty all that was left was muck, flotsam and jetsam and general debris in the bottom.

For those of you not in the Los Angeles Area, or California, you probably aren't aware that we are in a severe drought.  Its been several years since we've had "normal" rainfall and our dams are really showing it.  This year we are down something along the order of 2/3 of "normal" rainfall which explains the pathetic condition of these dams.Doesn't bode well for us down the hill that rely on this water to recharge our aquifers.

I'll try next week to take a walk along the river in the Azusa River Wildnerness Park.  Again

These images were shot with my EOS60D.  They are photomergrned into panoramas with the help of CS5.  They click to embiggen.  If you want the full megapixel view check out my SGV & SGR set on flickr.

still on the lomo path

I love learning new things. Since stumbling upon a tutorial on Lomo have been just a bit energized with the tidbits I am learning on CS5 as well as producing Lomo style images.

In this case the Lomo process really makes it possible to allow the center to better highlight the single tree and bridge while blowing out details in the fringe. Makes it possible to give a sense of space via the negative energy on the perimeter.

I still need to learn to take a deft hand at the sharpening and unsharpening part of the process to better transition between the two. This is just a start.

Of course the learning to better control masks and adding grain has me thinking again about what I can do to make "autochrome" style images better in CS5 as well. Stay tuned for more on both counts as I meander down the impressionists path a little stronger in the coming weeks.

A little orton...of an area now burned out.

Concurrent to the Station Fire that wiped out so much of the Angeles Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains there was the smaller Fellow's Camp fire that did damage as well to the forest. I'll be heading up there in a day or so to see what wild flowers and other green has returned to the area. When I was last up there, much of the west side of the river was burnt to the ground and nothing but ash, but that was January before the rains really came in hard and washed stuff away.

Hopefully there was enough rain to ensure the wild flowers and stuff returned this spring. It will be many years before this view looks the same. Maybe I shall get a pic from the same vantage point and post as a comparison in the coming days? Maybe.

View from the River

The little stroll into the world of Black and White continues. Now to find a paper that will give the prints justice and be archival. A trip to Swain's in Glendale is like in order for a paper run.

Fresh Snow in the San Gabriel Mountains

The snow came down low(ish) during yesterdays storm. "Ish" as in about 2,500 feet which was not quite low enough to get me into real snow for shooting this morning.

I shot this with the B&W option on my EOS 20D, maximum file size for best detail. I opted to use the "red" filter option to darken the sky to increase the contrast with the clouds and snow details on the distant peak. That filter option made the green of the plants in the foreground darker in tone as well to further accentuate the bright white of the clouds and the snow.

This image is show on CA Highway 39 near where it is blocked off with barricades along the West Fork of the San Gabriel River. Aside from the stunning mountain views, this stretch of road is one of my favorites to just get in a car and "drive" and enjoy the twisties.

A little stroll along a running river

The San Gabriel River is running again. The powers that be in the Army Corp of Engineers that control the flow of the river opened up the spigot upstream and we have a river again. With this week being the hottest of the summer it is welcome relief to be able to just hear the rushing water while walking about and taking pictures.

This image was shot bracketed for hdr post processing to allow some of the waters movement to create off register portions to accentuate the movement in the final image. OF course being able to fine tune micro-contrast and your white/black levels helps with the final image. You'll note I still like a nice clean black in an image even when I'm working with hdr which in theory would have it a dark gray and details. That stark black for me creates an more anchor point for the brain as it processes the image. The final image was washed in Virtual Photographer to give it the look of the soon to be defunct old-timey Kodachrome.

Lario Trail Bicyclists

The Lario Trail Park in Azusa is right on the San Gabriel River Bike Path.  You can ride that path nearly 30 miles from the mouth of Azusa Canyon all the way to Long Beach and the ocean.  Pretty nifty and if I had knees that worked again I would be doing it.  Until then I usally use this as a spot for hikes where I can shoot and just enjoy the quiet of the river.  That is providing the river is "on" at the moment either by the magic of nature or help of the Corp of Engineers that control the flow from dams up stream.

The image is an HDR image.  I bracketed the exposures +/- 2 stops and used Photomatix to generate the HDR files.  The same program was used for the file tonemapping then Virtual Photographer was brought in for final image adjustments.  Enjoy.

Last chance to shoot before it rains?


I can't help it...but a little pun: "Los Angeles Rocks"?
Quick post, I actually wrote more for blogging.la HERE earlier today. No need to be duplicating efforts. Short is that it's about to storm, I hope as we are so dry around here we need it. Actually am a bit selfish about it too, I miss the river and the quiet other than ducks and water softly flowing.

How dry I am?

It's interesting how things can change so fast. So Cal had one of the wettest winters on record with storms dropping rain measured in feet not inches in the San Gabriel Mountains during January, February and early March 2005. 2006 was near normal, this last year ended with it being the driest winter since record keeping began in the area. (We measure our year for rain from July to June hence 3 years being referenced).

The San Gabriel River went from rushing torrents, to steady river to finally being turned off this spring. It is so dry that the land has become dust inches deep. Kind of scary, but the western states have been in a very persistent drought the last 9 or so years so we were lucky to get what we got I suppose.

Walking the river yesterday I noticed for the first time how bad it has actually gotten in terms of dryness. Cacti, in particular the "beaver tail" are drying up. Dessication isn't pretty. Once plump and green they are slowly withering and yellowing. Wrinkling like some old prune.

Fortunately these are very drought resistant and even if the mother plant dies there are ample seeds and rootlets to bring the area back once water returns. It may take years to repopulate the washes and ravines but the historical cycle for the area is very wet followed by many years of drought. They adapted to it. Just sad to see it all drying up and dying off when it was so green a few years ago.

Enjoy the pics. Shot raw, 3 files bracketed 2 stops. Post processed with HDR and Tone mapped with the Photomatix programs. After that its dumbed back down to jpeg for final processing in virtual photographer and resized for here.

Fall is coming....and we're getting some color


Before I forget there is another Artist Meet and Greet to go along with the extended run at California Wine and Cheese. What better way to spend a nice end of summer evening than with a nice glass of wine, some cheese, conversation and art?

The details: The details Friday Sept 21, 2007 5:30PM to 8:30PM. California Wine and Cheese, 115 W Foothill Blvd, Monrovia CA 91016. They are located ½ block west of Myrtle Avenue on the north side of the street.

Today I took off late morning for some walking and shooting along the San Gabriel River. (Yes, folks we really do walk in LA). This time of year the color of light starts shifting to the yellow end of the spectrum and the shadows start to lengthen.

I like shooting on the bridge this time of year as the plant material and the bridge make an interesting series of contrasts. First is the man vs nature, precise versus feathery edges, textural differences and the hard cool colors vs the warming fall colors of nature. All good and plenty to keep the eye entertained. The bridge is also a great way to work on composition using large graphic elements to work with the natural elements framing each other while violating each others space. It's all good.

I shot this short series RAW bracketing +/- 2 stops from center average metering knowing I would post process with Photomatix HDR generation and tone mapping. After that process was done they were converted back down to 8 bit jpeg with minimal compression and run through virtual photographer. I like the way these turn out as the process of preserving shadow and highlight detail allows the other elements in contrast to stand out more.

Anyway enjoy the 3 versions of Encanto Park Foot Bridge.

Urban Art in the wild

Living at the edge of the LA Metro area I do have a lot of wilderness close by. I'm not the only who ventures a few blocks from home to enjoy the outdoors.

In Duarte at their Encanto Park there is an old railroad bridge that connects it with the San Gabriel River Trail that you can use to bike all the way to Long Beach if you desire. The bridge is all nicely paved and now that the river has been off for nearly a year (not sure who or why they did it, but its LA Baby and you roll with nature being shut off) so its possible to walk under it. For years even when the river ran the Duarte East Side Gang and some other groups have been decorating and putting their own mark on the undersides of the bridge. I think DESG is gone as the incredible murals are painted and tagged over. Sad to see their art go as the tagging usually doesn't bode well.

I do have to admit that this is my favorite time of year to shoot. Now through the end of October the sun isn't as high and the resulting color shifts to the redder side of the spectrum really accentuate the warm tones of a scene. Add in the natural fading of greens as fall approaches things really warm up a bit. Late afternoon and early morning this is most noticeable and is the reason I do so much shooting at those times of day.

I shot these bracketed with 2 stops over/under exposure using the EOS 20d with an ultra wide angle to capture as much of the scene as possible and add some linear distortion. I used the 3 RAW files to generate HDR files that were tonemapped and run through Virtual Photographer to get to the final images seen here.

DESG* You're slacking off....

*DESG is the Duarte East Side Gang and that band of arists had been doing some really amazing work under the trestles of the pedestrian path between Duarte and the San Gabriel River Trail in Irwindale. Don't know what happened but all their art has been pretty much tagged over and erased into oblivion. Of course the constant over painting is nothing new which is why urban art in the wild is so transient. Those boys need to get busy and entertain me again.

Interesting, but a trend I've seen more in the inner portions of LA has appeared up here. That's stencil art and here it says "monkee love". Don't know what it means and not sure I'm curious enough to google it.

HDR works really well here in bringing in all the detail under the trestle and still not blow out to oblivian the highlights from the light sand in the burning sun. Shot with the trust EOS20d, Raw bracketed +/- 2 stops with the trusty 20-35mm wide angle, HDR and tonemapped in Photomatix then run through the Virtual Photographer in CS2.

Anyway...here you go urban art in the wild along the dried up San Gabriel River

Rattlesnakes sure put a damper on things...

I took a run up to the West Fork of the San Gabriel River and Canyon late this morning just for a break from the gray skies of the LA Basin socked in again with June Gloom. Very nice day for a hike and to enjoy the warm sun up in the mountains. The downside is that every rattlesnake and its young'ns had the same thought. It is just no fun walking around when all you see is those critters, or worse hear them but don't see them. Ended my visit short as I was not dressed appropriately for meandering around snake country.

I did however have enough time before discovering those critters to get out a bit and enjoy the sounds of the river rushing over rocks and the winds whistling up the canyon.

HDR can go so many ways. Real or Surreal. Today I used it to fill in the shadows with detail normally lost when shooting realistic landscapes. Short version is I shot all today with the Canon EF Ultrasonic 20-35MM, mostly at max wide angle for the all encompassing view and distortion in angle to get as much of the scene as possible. I used Aperture mode for the metering, f16 and the camera took care of the 3 images +/- 2 stops to get me the Raw files needed. After running through Photomatix, CS2 and Virtual Photographer I dumbed them down and resized to fit here.

Enjoy 3 views of the West Fork of the San Gabriel River Canyon.

May Gray slides into June Gloom..What a month its been, will save you the boring details but the short of it is I was swamped the last few weeks of May. Just as well as May was a lot grayer than usual and June is keeping true to form as well. The 'puter is back up and running (2 Gigs of RAM now to better handle the HDR stuff) and picked up an interesting sidebar activity as a writer on blogging.la

Anyway today I finally got my self out of the house and ventured out to the San Gabriel River along the bike paths in Duarte and Irwindale. Nice place to hang even if the river has been turned off for 8 months already.

This spring was so dry that there is virtually nothing blooming. Even the cacti are barely going this year. Not even the usual gaggle of geese and duckies around as everything is baked dry.

What was blooming was some of the Century Plants, members of the aloe and agave family, but you can't make tequila or anything good from them, they just look cool. Interesting plant, kind of like a spiky leaved palm at ground level and at the end of its life it sends up this 12-15 foot tall flower spike. After the bloom is done it dies and as it rots provides nutrients for the seedlings that will come in subsequent years.

Today's pic is one of those flower spikes, all fluffy and soft. I did a little color correcting after converting it from raw to tiff. Then I ran it through the virtual photographer to give it more of an old timey slide look (Sorry no HDR this time around). For you technical types I shot it RAW with the EOS20d, no noise suppression on. Shot it with my trusty 28-200mm zoom at the 28mm focal length, ISO 400 at f8 at 1/1250 second.