Fall colors in North Carolina

North Carolina is not as famous as New England for foll foliage colors, but it's not too bad either. I took these pictures last Sunday along the Blue Ridge Parkway, which follows the top of the Appalachians between North Carolina and Virginia.

Unfortunately the extreme drought that hit the area in the last few months has caused the colors of many trees to be a lot less nice than they should be (see the yellows here on the right), so I will have to cheat and post some pictures that I took in the same place last year and that for some reason I must have forgotten to post before.

As you can see, I was not the only one taking pictures...

...and this is what everybody was taking pictures of: trees...

...a patch of pumpkins (just in time for Halloween), and more trees.

Glacier National Park (Montana)

It's time to catch up with the posts here.

Back in July we went to Glacier National Park, in Montana. The weather was very good, clear , hot and hazy - this is not a good combination for photography. Unfortunately even at sunrise and sunset the light was very bland and meaningless.

Anyway, first things first: the mandatory picture of the island on St. Mary's lake. This is the best known view in the park and everybody takes a picture of it, so here we go:

The park covers a vast mountaneous range that was shaped in valleys and lakes by glaciers; many of these glaciers are still there today, even though they are dwindling in number and size very quickly. They estimate that within 30 years there will be no more glaciers left, but they assure us that the park will not change its name.

The mountains are not as impressive as I had anticipated, but the lakes are all very nice.

The first here on the left is Hidden Lake; it can be reached with a fairly long hike from Logan Pass, the highest point of the Going To The Sun Road. On the way, even in the summer, you will find a lot of snow and some mountain goats enjoying the cooler breeze in the altitude.

The Going To The Sun Road crosses the park in the east-west direction and gives you access to St. Mary's Lake and Lake McDonald (both here on the right). The road has a lot of traffic in the summer, but if you take the time to do some hiking you will find a lot of very nice, quiet and secluded places to explore.

I took the same picture of Lake McDonald with my large format camera, but the result was sort of disappointing. The light was just not right.

Less disappointing was the wildlife: besides the mountain goats, we also had a chilling encounter with a very aggressive, large and dangerous snake (I wasn't able to take a picture of it because I was busy running for my life, but I assure you that it was a very dangerous species).

Outside the park, in a wilderness preservation area south of Flathead Lake, we also found several bisons, a very aggressive, large and dangerous greezly bear (hmm... maybe not) feasting on top of a tree, and an antilope that didn't have any intention of letting us continue on our way.

Death Valley National Park

We went to Death Valley National Park last May. It's a good trip to make if you are in Las Vegas and you are tired of the casinos, the crowds and the losses... We took two days for this trip. Even though you can stay much longer and not run out of things to see, 2/3 days are the ideal time, I think. It is definitely worth spending at least one night out.
Death Valley is about 3 hours from Las Vegas, north on route 95, then south on 373 and west on 190.
The first point of interest after entering the park is Dante's View, which offers a beautiful panoramic view over the southern part of the valley and the salt lake.
Further along is Zabriskie Point, home to very interesting rock formation - actually, the whole valley is home to very interesting rock formations: besides the rock formations, the sand and the salt there is very little. Each corner of the valley is different though, I would never have thought that "rock formations" could be so very different before I went to the Southwest.
Shortly after Zabriskie Point you'll reach route 178; turn left and follow the road until Badwater; this is one of the spots from which you can access the salt lake without too much effort. Especially in the spring and summer months, Death Valley is extremely hot, and even short hikes can be dangerous, so don't underestimate even the shortest walk. People actually die in Death Valley fairly often.It's easy to underestimate the heat after you've been driving around for hours in a comfortably air-conditioned vehicle.
Walking on the salt lake is like walking on April snow: the color and texture of the salt feel like snow, and in certain places your foot may break the surface and sink in a puddle of water. The water is coming from an underground system that, amazingly, even after thousands of years of desertification of the area, is still providing water. The salt lake is the lowest point in the continental US, if I recall correctly, some 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level. A sign halfway up the mountain marks sea level. Very impressive. It makes you want to imagine what it would look like here if there was water up to that level.

Back north on 178, there are at least 3 turnoffs worth mentioning.


The first is the Devil's Golf Course. It has been thus named because, if it were a golf course, it would be the most difficult one in the world. I don't doubt that, but it also would be the most difficult basketball court, or baseball field, or soccer field... I don't know why they went for the golf course. Anyway, it's an apparently interminable field of dirt and salt lumps. Very strange. In retrospect, I think it would be a good subject for a view camera, with the front tilted down and the back tilted backwards, to increase the proportions of the lumps. Unfortunately I didn't have my view camera yet. Maybe next time - the place is certainly worth a second visit.
The next turnoff is Artist's Drive; it is so named because of the pictoresque colors of the rocks and mountains; the highlight of the drive is the Painter's Palette, a group of orange, red, green, blue and white rocks. However, even more than the colored rocks, I found interesting the small colorful flowers and bushes that somehow manage to grow in this inhospitable environment. Purple, green, yellow, white, they are a sight in themselves.
The third turnoff is salt creek; how much of the creek you'll be able to see depends on the time of year, but it's a very amazing view: in the middle of the desert, rocks, sand and salt, there is a small creek surrounded by lush (relatively speaking) vegetation. Many millenia ago, the creek used to be full of fresh water; now the water is salty, and one species of fresh water fish, having little choice, adapted to the salt in the water. This species (Cyprinodon Salinus, or pupfish) exists only in this creek. You should be able to see quite a few of the little fishes. The Park has built a wooden boardwalk along the creek, so that the delicate environment is not spoiled by the tourists.
Back on route 190 in direction west, just before Stovepipe Wells, you'll see on the right the famous Death Valley dunes. You can park the car on the side of the road and walk to the dunes. The best time to do this is just before sundown: the heat is not as bad and the light is fantastic on the dunes. It took me about 2 hours to get to the tallest dune, walk around taking pictures, and come back to the road. If you attempt the hike, don't forget to bring lots of water: I brought about a gallon, drank all of it, and at the end I was dangerously close to dehydration. At dinner I drank a glass of water after the other, but I think the pictures were worth it.
We stayed at a motel in Stovepipe Wells; very nice place, with a view over the desert (see picture on the left), a cool saloon where you can enjoy a cold beer, and even a small swimming pool. At night I played with some long-exposure pictures. As you can see from the star trails, the exposure was a couple of minutes long.
At the north end of the valley the main points of interest are Scotty's Castle and the Racetrack. The latter is well worth a photographic visit, but unfortunately our SUV had defective shocks and we weren't able to make it all the way to the end of the 30 mile long dirt road. If you attempt to get there, make sure that you have a good 4WD vehicle and plenty of time - the going is very slow.
We didn't find Scotty's Castle particularly interesting, so we didn't take the guided tour, and instead headed back towards Beatty; we wanted to see the ghost town Rhyolite; it used to be a prosperous mining town at the turn of the last century, with even its own casino, but now it's just an agglomerate of empty shells of buildings.
From Beatty it's about another 2 hours to get back to Las Vegas.
The park is actually rather large; we didn't make it to the western part, and we skipped all of the canyon hikes. These may be more interesting than the things I wrote about, so make sure to find out about the other points of interest before you go.

Wright Brothers National Memorial

During the Outer Banks trip, we also visited the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk.
This is where Wilbur and Orville Wright attempted to fly for about 3 years, until they finally succeded in December of 1903.

There isn't much to see there: some markers that show where the plane started, took off, and landed again; a re-enactment (with mannequins) of the moment of flight (see picture above); and a nice futuristic monument to flight (see picture below - I tried to add a futuristic painting touch to it because the regular picture looked too much like a postcard).

There is also a small museum in the visitor center; it's pretty interesting, with a lot of information on flight and the work of the Wright brothers. Their story is fascinating, so don't miss out on it.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore (NC Outer Banks)

I'm starting to catch with this year's trips, after I stopped posting back in February.
First in line is the trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, in March of this year. The Outer Banks are a string of very narrow islands out in the Atlantic Ocean, several miles away from the North carolina coast.

It was still rather cold, so there were very few people around. Good.

The highlight of Cape Hatteras National Seashore is obviously the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. Unfortunately, a few years ago it was moved inland because the coast's erosion was threatening it, so it has become a much less interesting photographic subject. A lighthouse in the middle of a field surrounded by woods is not exactly spectacular. You do hear the ocean in the distance, though.

Fortunately the local fauna can help give a little more interest to the pictures:

Not far north of Cape Hatteras, there is another interesting lighthouse, on Bodie Island. There are actually several lighthouses in the area: North Carolina was one of the first states to be colonized, and in the 17th and 18th centuries many routes went by this part of the coast. Most of the lighthouses on these isalnds are well worth a visit.

You may have heard about the "lost colony", the first English colony in America, which was settled in 1587 by 120 people who then vanished without a trace within 3 years. To this day nobody knows exactly what happened to them. The lost colony was situated on Roanoke Island, just a couple of miles north of Bodie Island Lighthouse.

The area is also an important stop in the migratory path of many birds, so with a little patience you can spot some interesting birds. The best place to find migratory birds are two lakes in Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is technically not part of Cape Hatteras NS, even though it lies in the middle of it.

I had just bought the ZD 40-150 and I was hoping to come home with some spectacular bird pictures, but it's actually a lot harder than it seems.

A couple of hard-learned lessons:

• Set the exposure manually, or at least use manual compensation to significantly increase the exposure: unless the bird is pretty much filling the frame, the camera is going to expose for a nice full blue sky. Unfortunately, this means that the bird is going to look like a black spot with no detail whatsoever.
• Use continuous autofocus, follow the bird in the viewfinder (harder than it seems) and keep shooting.
• Take lots and lots of pictures, in the hope that one of them will turn out ok. This is not a situation where you can visualize a picture, take it, and know that you have it. Don't try to finess it. Go for brute force.
• Use a relatively high ISO speed to keep the shutter very fast. Enough shots will end up out of focus anyway, you don't want the others to be motion-blurred.
• Use the longest and brightest lens you can afford. The birds are not going to come there for you.

Unfortunately I learnt these lessons after I came back and looked at the pictures. This is pretty much the best I have (the first is a White Ibis, the second a Blue Heron):

Blue Ridge Parkway in winter

Last week we went back to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A couple of inches of snow were enough to transform the dull scenery of a few months ago in something a lot more interesting.

I'm glad we gave the place another shot.

Thanksgiving in Chicago

I hadn't been in Chicago for a few years and I returned there over Thanksgiving. There wasn't a lot of time for picture taking, but I did manage to shoot something.
The day after Thanksgiving we went in town for a late lunch at a nice local pub (Southport Lanes and Billiards, which, interestingly, is housed in an old bordello); after we came out, it was starting to snow and the streets were getting nicely covered in snow. We drove around a bit and ended up at the Planetarium. This is my favorite spot for taking pictures of the Chicago skyline.

Tip: when you take pictures while it's snowing and you want the snowflakes
to be visible in the picture, use the flash: the light from it will bounce on
the flakes and add a certain feeling to the picture.

The following day we went to Grant Park (click here to see it from a satellite). It offers some new attractions and interesting photo opportunities, located in the new Millennium Park (also here). By the way, a sign at the entrance says that Millennium Park is Mayor Daley's gift to the populace of Chicago... hmm... did he really pay for it, or was it the populace that actually footed the bill for the "gift"? Anyone in the know, let me know.

One of the photo opportunities is the Cloud Gate sculpture, which offers the possibility of shooting some pretty nice reflections. This must be on its way to becoming the most photographed thing on the planet. Everybody is there taking pictures. I suspect you could achieve the same effect in Photoshop, but the real thing does have its attractiveness. It almost looks like an alien spaceship.

The other cool new thing is the Crown Fountain. This is basically two units of what is probably the biggest TV set in the world. They both constantly show the faces of different people and intermittently spit water out of the mouth of the people being shown. They appear to be just regular people, not models or celebrities. The effect is pretty hypnotic, but at first also somewhat creepy.

No spitting water in winter, but pretty cool nevertheless. Lots of people taking pictures here too.

Read here all about the symbolism of the fountain.

Here is a close-up of the big TV's mega-pixels (pun intended - if you didn't get it maybe it's better). They are pretty big. Find out here what digital photography gear heads have to say about (low, in this case) pixel density...

Even if you're not a techno-geek, though, it is interesting to see up close how pixels of just 3 colors are able to create a natural-color image.

Last stop in our Chicago Thanksgiving tour was Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I guess most people see it in summer, but from a photographer's perspective it's much more interesting in winter.

History of the American Soldier at Guilford Courthouse NMP

Today, the day after Memorial Day, the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park hosted the event "History of the American Soldier".
The park is the site of a major battle of the Revolutionary War, and it is a fitting place for displays and story telling about the life of American soldiers.

From the National Park Service website:

The "History of the American Soldier" is a unique interpretive program conducted as a tribute to all veterans, past and present. This living timeline of history represents eight major periods of United States military history, from the French and Indian War of 1755 to the present day. Park visitors are invited to tour its displays of equipment and weaponry ranging from the flintlock musket to the M16. Park volunteers, properly uniformed to reflect the flashy redcoat of the 18th century, the blue (and gray) of the 19th, and the subdued camouflage of the modern eras will be available to answer questions and describe their displays.

At the same time, there was also the recreation of a 1781 military encampment:

The militia was the citizen-soldier of the Revolution. The Guilford Militia, a
re-created Revolutionary War militia company, will present demonstrations of
period camp life, cooking, military demonstrations and drill, and talks
throughout the day for park visitors to their weekend encampment.

The chicken looked pretty yummy, better than the McDonald's that we ended up eating at.

Blue Ridge Parkway

Yesterday we drove a few miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. It was supposed to be the peak weekend for the foliage color, but it wasn't as impressive as I had anticipated.

More importantly, the pictures that I came home with are a bit of a disappointment too.

It's not the first time that this has happened to me after a promising trip, and it has prompted me to think and try to understand what makes a good or a great landscape photograph.

I don't know if I have the answer, but at least I have a good theory and I have a better plan for the next time, which makes me feel better.

More about this later...