One day Northern California photo trek.

I was in California helping my brother photograph an event and we took a day and made a trek in the foothills and into the mountains of northern California. You can view more images from our trek here.

Monday, March 28, 2011 - started in Loomis, Placer County, California.

El Dorado Hills – Latrobe Road. Stopped to check out some large oak trees on hills with green grass. Spotted a hawk feeding in a field. The hawk flew to a telephone pole and wasn’t bothered by the passing cars. I was hoping he would stick around, but he made one fly over then took off over the hills.  Following the old photo adage of “always look behind you” I spotted a nice composition of green hill, trees, and muddy vehicle track.

Oak Trees on a Hill - El Dorado County, Calif

We got off the “highway” and went exploring on Cothrin Ranch Road and spotted a nice waterfall near Gold Creek Road. The water was really flowing thanks to all the recent rain that California experienced and we shot the waterfall from a good distance away as the waterfall was on private land.

We continued to explore along Bullard Drive and worked our way over to S Shingle Road. There are a lot of nice horse farms and few vineyards in this area that could provide nice opportunities.   We made a stop in Plymouth for lunch at a local pizza establishments and then continued to Fiddletown via Fiddletown Road. Fiddletown is a unique rustic, Gold Rush type town that also would be worth exploring. We traveled to Highway 88 via Shake Ridge Road.

Heading northeast on Highway 88 we started encountering snow along the side of the road around 3,000 feet elevation. By the time we reached the Mormon Emigrant Trail turn-off there was several feet of snow on the ground and we were traveling thru a plowed “tunnel” with the only view on either side being the snow bank that the snow plows keep cut back. We made a quick stop at the Kit Carson pass and the only thing visible at the parking area and ranger station was a path to the door of the public restroom. We took a few photos at Caples Lake where the lakeside resort and cabins was closed due to the vast amounts of snow. We also checked out the Kirkwood Resort area and my brother was amazed at the lack of skiers despite the abundance of great snow.

Snow at Mormon Emigrant Trail - March 28, 2011 

We continued on Highway 88 passing through Hope Valley which was a totally different scene than it was a few years back when we explored the area in search of fall colors. We headed northwest on Highway 89 and headed toward Echo Summit on Highway 50. We travelled down Highway 50 and made a short stop at a great Italian coffee and gelato shop in Placerville. Continuing down Highway 50 we continued back to Loomis via Folsom Lake and Granite Bay.

Of course, at the end of the day some of my favorite images were made right at my brother's house in Loomis!

Japanese Magnolia blooms - Loomis, California

Water drop photography

water drop photos - November 2010

I wanted to experiment with water drop images for a while and this past week-end I, along with photographer friend, Keith Misegades, decided to spend some time seeing what we could do. You can view more of the results at www.blackburnimages.com/albums.aspx.

The set up is pretty simple. Rather than replicate a bunch of information here, just check out the links below. Flickr also has a pretty large amount of images and information on the subject. I used a Nikon D300 with 70-200mm f2.8 lens with 20mm extension tube. My flash was a Nikon Speedlight SB800 that I triggered remotely with Paul Buff’s CyberSync transmitter/receiver. A sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release are vital for sharp images.

The basic idea is to let the flash be the shutter for the image. Setting the flash at a low power setting (in manual mode) will yield an extremely fast burst of light. With low ambient light not affecting the exposure it is pretty easy to capture the image. The trick, in our low tech set up, was to figure out the best time to trip the shutter and flash. You could get pretty elaborate with some sort of triggering device for the flash/camera, but I relied on the old “take a lot and I’m bound to get one or two decent ones” approach. I used a variety of colored gels, hand held in front of the flash, to experiment with colors. For all the images I used clear water except for a set when I dyed the water with red food coloring.

We tried capturing images with the flash in "stroboscopic" mode, but never could get the exposure and timing correct. That will take some more study and practice!

It was fun in the post-processing (Lightroom v3) to adjust the temperature and hue/staturation/luminance settings to get some of the dramatic effects.

I think my next attempts will be to try different liquids and to see if I can capture the “crashing” drops image.

Useful links:

http://www.amateursnapper.com/blog/post/photographing-water-drops

http://www.hypergurl.com/blog/photography/water-droplets-splashes.html

http://egablog.com/2010/01/how-to-photograph-a-splash-of-water-week-52/

Fall trek to the Smoky Mountains

Porters Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Fall sunlight highlights trees near Chimney Tops

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

See more images at www.blackburnimages.com

Sunday, October 24, 2010 – Arrived in Gatlinburg late afternoon and was amazed at the traffic coming out thru Pigeon Forge and Sevierville as we were going in. I’m glad we decided to avoid the week-end as I’m sure that everywhere was packed. After settling into our condo (The Highlands on Campbell Lead Rd) I headed to the Gatlinburg overlook to see if there would be any decent light at sunset. There were some nice clouds hanging around the peak of Mount LeConte, but the sunset was a dismal gray. I did meet a fellow photographer that actual lives in the area – Gordon Brugman (www.smokymoments.com) and he advised that the best color was to be found up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Driving from Nashville we were amazed with the lack of color along I-40. This year just seems to be an “off” year for fall color!

Monday, October 25, 2010 – One thing I like about coming to the eastern time zone, especially this time of year, is that sunrise is so “late”. Official sunrise at 7:45a means I can get up at 6:30a and still make it somewhere in time for sunrise! However, this morning was a another “gray out” and so I hung around the condo and had a leisurely morning with Jamie. We headed out mid-morning as I wanted to drive up to Newfound Gap in hopes of some nice views of mountains and “smoke”. I wasn’t disappointed up at the Gap and captured several images of fog and muted fall colors on the hills. Driving “down” from the Gap towards the Oconaluftee entrance I was treated to some nice things happening around the Deep Creek trailhead. Waiting just a few minutes the whole scene (and feel) would change due to the fog moving in and out. We stopped at Mingus Mill, but most of the leaves were gone from the trees at that elevation.

We jumped on the Blue Ridge Parkway near the Oconaluftee visitors center and were treated to some of the best displays of color of the whole trip. I stopped several times and photographed everything from sweeping vistas to nice patterns of colors among the different species of trees. We exited the Parkway at Soco Gap and drove Highway 19 into Cherokee, North Carolina. A quick stop to scope out Soco Falls turned into a nice surprise for photos as I was able to get some nice shots with a 11-16mm wide angle lens. We re-traced our route back over Newfound Gap back to Gatlinburg. I found some interesting light on patches of trees neat Chimney Tops as this area seemed to have a good bit of color.

I tried some long exposure shots from our condo of Gatlinburg and the surrounding mountains well after dark, but nothing came out very impressive.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010 – We got up early as we had agreed to meet friends, Keith and Katherine Misegades, over at Big Creek campground for a morning hike. Of course, the morning I’m driving to be somewhere at a certain time is when the sunrise is magnificent! The sky was all kinds of pink and red as we drove thru Gatlinburg to pick up Highway 321 towards Cosby. At Cosby, we got on the Foothills Parkway and found magnificent views and lots of color. This will definitely be on the agenda for future trips with lots of possibilities for sunrise shots. We drove I-40 along the Pigeon River to the Waterville exit and parked at the Big Creek picnic area.

Keith and Katherine joined us and we hiked along Big Creek to Midnight Hole, a small waterfall with a big and deep pool. We continued on the trail into Mouse Creek Falls and spent time photographing the falls. The hike back out to the car gave me plenty of opportunities for different types of creek and fall color shots. We drove back via I-40 and the Foothills Parkway. We drove into the Porters Creek trailhead (past the Greenbrier campground) and I hiked in about a half-mile along the creek before some steady rain forced me to make a hasty retreat to the car. This is the trail where I had found lots of Spring wildflowers and the photo opportunities at this time of year didn’t disappoint me.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 – We knew rain was coming as the Midwest and west/middle Tennessee got hammered by some serious weather the day before. There had been a lot of wind during the night in Gatlinburg, but not a lot of rain (yet). After treating ourselves to breakfast out we headed to the Roaring Fork Motor Trail. We’d heard that there was nice color along the route. We hiked into Grotto Falls, but I didn’t even take my camera out of my backpack as there were lots of people and the rain had started while we were hiking back to the car. The rain continued steadily as we finished driving the trail, and were amazed at the number of cars… this is not the place to be if you are seeking solitude! We went back to the condo to dry out and decided to venture out again in mid-afternoon. Jamie wanted to drive the Little River Road and I decided to see if Cades Cove would have any decent photo ops. Again, we were amazed by the lack of leaves and color in Cades Cove. They must change earlier here. And, we were surprised by the number of cars driving the 11-mile loop. I guess everyone had the same thoughts of “getting out” after the rain stopped. We got back to the condo well after dark, and had a late supper.

Thursday, October 29, 2010 – I got up in time to catch the sunrise and once again nothing really dramatic happened. Just too many clouds to allow the first light to paint the sky with color. I did meet some more nice photographers at the Gatlinburg overlook (just down the bypass from our condo) and I enjoyed the early morning conversations. I did manage to get a couple of images with the sun just peeking over the mountain ridge and showing thru the small bound of sky between the mountains and sky. After cleaning up the condo we headed pack to Nashville and kept commenting about the lack of color (and remaining leaves) on the drive along I-40 back to Nashville.

All in all, it was another relaxing and enjoyable trip. I managed to get a few decent images and keeping thinking about some day in the future when I can do trips like this a much more frequent occurrence.

Bye Bye September...

The Blackburn Images crew at Blue Devil Invitational marching band competition.

Photo courtesy of Keith Misegades.

I guess I should re-describe my blogging as “monthly at best”… It just seems that writing a blog entry falls off the radar when I get really busy. I’m trying to better about keeping a presence on Facebook, but getting to this blog just doesn’t happen a lot.

Anyway, September was one of those super busy months for me and photography. I assisted with a wedding over Labor Day week-end, did group and individuals for the Independence High School marching band, and photographed 3 marching band competitions. All that amongst working my day job, and getting Jamie thru rotator cuff surgery for a nagging shoulder injury she has put up with for the past few years. Oh yea, and get a print, from my World Wide Photo Walk shoot in historic downtown Franklin, ready to hang with the “court of honor” at the Williamson County Library.

The wedding was at the historic outside of Gallatin, Tennessee. It was fun to shoot with my friend Donna, but I wondered why people schedule afternoon weddings outdoors in early September? It was hot, the wedding party was “glowing” with all the perspiration, and the guests looked fried. The light was very harsh with either blown-out highlights or dark, dark shadows. Luckily there was enough shadow near the historic home’s porch that the wedding party portraits could be taken in full shade. I know Donna was going to spend a ton of time post-processing in order to try and balance out the light in a lot of the shots we did.

The group and individual portraits for Independence High School band were fun as I shot 70+ band members in a little over an hour. We had to pose the group shots outside in the football stadium and once again, a cloudless sky was my enemy as I had to deal with bright highlights and harsh shadows. I tried bracketing in order to see if I could work some photoshop magic and get nice looking light on the faces!

The marching band competitions were a lot of work, but fun. My brother and sister came from California to help with one and my good friend, Keith Misegades helped me out on the third. We’ve posted about 20,000 performance photos on our on-line photo store (www.blackburnimages.com) and I hope that the sales are decent. We got a lot of good comments about our previous work at the competitions and I hope that translates to sales for this year. One thing I was I could convey to some people is that we don’t really have any control over who we photograph during a performance. We don’t avoid photographing some performers for any reason except that I know the type of photos that work well, have instructed the photographers to focus on those shots, and we do our best. Unfortunately, sometimes we just miss capturing images of some of the performers. I want to tell the parents, jokingly of course, to tell their kids to not wear the “don’t photograph me sticker” next time! Ha!

In all my free time, I decided to buy a new software package to run the on-line photo store and it seems to be working well. As a software developer I know the effort it takes to produce good, reliable software and the folks at PicturePros (www.picturepros.com) have hit it out of the park with their photo cart software.

I’m looking forward to October and getting out to do some fall photography. I’m heading to the Smoky Mountains late in the month and I hope that I’ve timed the peak colors correctly.

What I did on my summer vacation.

Two members of Music City Drum Corps (Chelsea Blackburn, Thomas Bowling)

express the satisfaction of a great performance at DCI World Championships.

Well, it really wasn’t a vacation! But one of the activities near and dear to my heart is music & music education. My whole family has been involved with the performing arts and especially with drum & bugle corps. I was part of a grass-roots effort in 2008 to get a drum & bugle corps started here in Nashville and have been heavily involved with the Music City Drum & Bugle Corps over the past couple of years. My role has included developing/maintaining their web site (www.musiccitydrumcorps.org), helping instruct their brass players, and helping document their activities and achievements with quality photography. It is a great activity, a great organization, and a great group of people to be around. It is truly amazing what these young people (all under the age of 22 years) do for a chance to perform in front of appreciative audiences all over the country during the summer.

I try to always have a camera with me when I’m around this group as there are always good photo opportunities. I’ve put together an album of photos from the 2010 drum corps season (starting with auditions in November and going thru the world championships in August) and kindly invite you to check out the photos. www.blackburnimages.com/albummaster.aspx?g=mcdc2010

To all the members, staff, and volunteers that are part of this organization, I humbly thank you for a great summer and many wonderful friendships that were formed. I just wish I could join you for the full summer, but as I always answer the “where have you been” question… “someone has to keep the real world churning”! Enjoy the photos!

2010 Worldwide Photo Walk

Church doors, downtown Franklin, Tennessee

For the second time I participated in Scott Kellby's Worldwide Photo Walk on Saturday, July 24th. This year I photographed in historic downtown Franklin, Tennessee. It was an extremely hot Saturday morning, but I joined 50 other photographers and walked around downtown Franklin capturing images. I really tried to force myself out of my usual photographic "box" and spent some time looking for images that would be out of my normal "repertoire". A bluegrass music jamboree was also taking place in downtown Franklin and I spent some extra time photographing the performers and spectators that were there for the music.

You can see my favorite images from the historic Franklin walk at http://www.blackburnimages.com/albummaster.aspx?g=wwwalk2010

There were 1111 official worldwide "events" with over 32,000 photographers registered to participate. You can find more information about Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk at http://worldwidephotowalk.com/

What a month!

Whew! It’s been a busy month for me and Blackburn Images. Family portrait sessions, graduating senior portrait session, helping with a local baseball league’s “picture day” (70 teams), team and individual portraits for a travel baseball team and learning all the new features of Photoshop CS5. And that’s just on the photography front. On a personal note, my daughter graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of fine arts from University of Evansville. All in all its been a fun month, but I didn’t really get to do as many personal photography projects as I was hoping for… oh well, there’s always next month!