Traffic jam, in Paradise, and a snowball fight, to make things right!

Isn't it ironic?!

The weekend trip to Seattle for 4th of July was interesting. Flew out Friday and came back Monday and we managed to visit Mount Rainier on Saturday and Snoqualmie falls on Sunday. 

We had a single goal. Get to Paradise point and let kids play in the snow. I was also dreaming of having a hot cocoa there after some snow play after our previous experience there. 

The trip was supposed to be 3 hours but it took us an extra hour because all of Seattle citizenry decided to visit Mount Rainier on that day. There were 50 cars stuck at the entrance to the park and by the time our turn came to pay and enter, we had spent an hour at the park entrance. Once in, we made a mad dash to Paradise point. My instinct is to stop at every pretty vista point to take pictures. But given the delay, it was going to be touch and go, so we drove straight to Paradise.

That is where my inner Morisette was awakened. There was a traffic jam, in Paradise! There was no parking for a good mile. Dropped everyone outside the point and parked 1.2 miles away and hiked back. 

Then we made it to the snow and all was forgotten! 

There were smiling faces all around. Given there were 2 males and 8 females in the group, the decision making on how far we hiked at what rate was decided by the ladies. Given the tension in the vehicles prior to the hike, we were all happy to play in snow. There were points where the snow had caved in and water was flowing underneath.. fortunately we did not have any fall in's! Here is a life saving tip for my fellow travellers who are driving the vehicle. Never come between a womans bladder and the nearest restroom.  

There were a lot of pictures and picturesque scenery. We made it back out after playing in the snow with a 10 minute stop at Narada falls and drove back towards Seattle. Given the 1.2 mile hike back to the car, there was no time for anything else. We are getting used to these rush trips on Seattle visits!

Here are some pictures in HDR. 

 

You can see Jr. and her grandma on the bridge. I was already in "let's go" mode as we had to get back in time for dinner. Here is another life saving tip for male drivers.. Never come between a woman who is perceiving her children to be starving and the proposed dining location!

We did have other little things that entertained us, like this baby squirrel which seemed to be comfy around people. That was a surprise given our backyard squirrels run away!

Or me amusing the family by doing Triangle pose barefoot on the snow. I am getting better at this as time goes by. All that pulling in your inner thighs towards each other to avoid slipping, works.  

On a side note, I did get pictures from the plane on the way back from above the cloud line. The camera was right under the seat and the zoom was put to good use. 

Don't think we can ever tire of Mount Rainier or Paradise. Even if we spend a couple of hours there, we always have a great time! 

The national parks should let us buy the pass ahead of time online or with our phones and let us keep moving if we show the pass on our phone. They should seriously try to go the app way, especially on long weekends.

A weekend in HDR among other things...

Last weekend my sister in law visited us and we went on a local bay area tour of sorts. While the people pictures end up on Facebook.. the Nature pictures and select pictures of me.. end up here! 

There is always an incentive to write a blog post to chronicle local travels, no matter how many times we have visited the place, if we have something new to show.. 

 While editing the pictures where yours truly is smiling, one thought kept coming to my mind.. I look like someone.. but it is not my dad. Six seven years ago, I used to look like a carbon copy of my dad when he was that age.. this time the smile was different. The percentages of "knowingness: sarcasm : resignation" was different.. It was like the basic composition of my face had changed to a different part of that ternary phase diagram. After staring at it for a long time, it struck me! 

I am slowly turning into the next version of my only maternal uncle aka "Ambi Mama"! At first I thought, it must be the receeding hairline, but NO! There is more to this than hairline. Going to take a shot of me with my rudhraksham and towel and match the color balance and you will see soon.. 

As always.. one thing leads to another and before you know it, a post that started off as a weekend in HDR suddenly changed to my facial resemblence to Ambi mama.. Let's get back on topic.. 

 HDR pictures.. 

 This was really one beautiful evening to be out there. Full moon, perfect weather and most important of all, great company! 

This time I took my camera, but did not have the filter kit.. Next time we visit, going to throw a dark ND filter in front of the lens and take a longer exposure shot to blur the waves.. 

That weekend hopefully starts off some travel with family and is a harbinger of better pictures to come this year! 

Boston in HDR.. and a few other shots

As most of you know, every trip presents subjects that are amenable to HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing. HDR does not appeal to everyone. In our house Jr. and my mom appreciate it. They think it brings things closer to "3D" or realistic view of detail. My wife and the little one think it looks too "made up" or artificial. 

To each his own. Nevertheless, here are some HDR pictures from the Boston trip..

but first, pictures of two plants that we don't see on California parks.. these two were on the sides of every walkway in the lighthouse parks.. 

This one reminded me of egg plant.. 

Clouds make a big difference on HDR shots of buildings. Not much luck this time.. 

another tip to self and others.. you get great shots in HDR just before sunrise or just after sunset.. 

A little movement of some folks and cars makes for better HDR.. 

Before I turn this post into a full blown "how not to do HDR".. this one was taken from a moving boat.. er.. moving duck.. that creates a better effect also.. 

City skylines will work only with clouds. Still worth a try, no?

Loved the Yacht's in the water. 

This shot had clouds.. but instead of trying Tone mapped HDR, I should have shot multiple exposures on this one and combined them into a single image. 

Same here.. but the trees made up for it..

Brick buildings really work for HDR.. 

as do Flags and really old stone buildings and shiny statues..

Photography is a continuous improvement project. You take the pictures, you process them a month later, try to connect your thought when taking the picture to what you are doing at post processing and hope to connect the right dots in your brain to get the result you were hoping for a month ago. 

The good thing is, you always learn from your shots and apply it another time. Some of these photos stand out in a black background. Have to figure out how to change background color for select posts on squarespace. 

On the plus side, almost felt like I was in Boston yesterday while going through the photographs. 

Red Rock Canyon - Nevada

On our recent trip to Las Vegas area, we visited Red Rock Canyon on two separate days. The first time we just drove through the 13 miles of scenic loop to stop at various parking lots and take pictures. We entered the park at 3:30 and had 90 minutes to leave the park. The sun was also setting there quite early. 

The second time we went there at 9 AM and did two hikes with mixed results.

Lightroom is installed and functional now on my Macmini but have not figured out quick ways to do HDR there. Continuing to process HDR photos with Photoshop CS5 (see below). Take 3 bracketed shots with one overexposed and one underexposed shot, then merge all three to pick up details in bright and dark areas of the regular photo from the other two. Takes around 4-5 minutes to process the final photo. 

but you get to see the detail in the clouds, the hills and the ground, the way your eyes see it!

You believe in a higher being when you see creation of this scale. Have said it before and will say it again. National parks are the real temples! Anyone can go there and get a glimpse of how miniscule we are in the scheme of things.

Here are a few pictures from the Calico trail. We got lost in this trail because there are no markers and it says "be prepared to get lost unless you have a good sense of direction". So we spent an hour and a half here wandering in the canyons in a zig zag motion. Our landmark was this small pool of water and we kept coming back to it! 

BB suggested the "high road" where we can always see the rock near the parking lot.. but we decided to take the "adventure route" and ended up where we started! We did get to see some awesome rock formations on the zig zag path.

Some photos are linked to a previous post here..

This is what you see when you are in the canyons.. Red Rocks everywhere. Occasionally you see a person with a blue jacket popping up between those crevices.. Otherwise you are easily lost!

Finally we went on the Lost creek Trail. The temperature was below freezing in that trail and again there were not that many markers, but we had another group ahead of us who knew the path. We followed them and were not disappointed. The trail ends in a closed canyon where water falls from the top. It was more of a trickle than a fall. A tree that had chosen that spot to grow (given it was the only place the water fell) had become frozen with icicles.. the falling water forms icicles everywhere. 

The ground was glistening with perfect ice nodules that looked like diamonds. The path to the falls was slippery as the ground had a sheet of hidden ice below it.

We spent a good 30 minutes there taking pictures and made our way back to the hotel for lunch.

It was a good morning spent hiking. If you are in the Vegas area and want to spend a good half day or day hiking through some amazing scenery, strongly recommend the Red Rock Scenic loop. It is one hour away from Vegas and it offers a perfect contrast to the smoke filled casinos!

Talk of getting your lungs back to normal again!

Something tells me that we might visit this place again in a few years...

Yosemite National Park - Photoblog

We went to Yosemite with the cousins for Thanksgiving. Finally got to edit the "non- people" photos from the trip.

A long trail to "mirror lake" which turned out to be a dry bed with no water! The board said "mirror lake is a misnomer. it is not a lake"

It is a photographers job to make do with whatever water comes our way while on a trail that promised "lake".. so started shooting reflections of the mountains on any and every large puddle.  So here is a series of photos from the puddle shoot. They are all reflections from small puddles.

Then it was time to see the "lake".. 

the views from this dry bed were fantastic. We had a lone buck grazing there..

We walked by a creek on the way back and I got to photograph anything that caught my eye..

from moss to mushrooms..

For once, a reflection from a creek instead of a puddle..

There must be a lot more water there now after the heavy rains from last week.. but it was a good thing we went during Thanksgiving break. Parking was easy to find, less crowded and the trails were not slippery. That helped us with the climb all the way to Nevada falls on the second day. We spent 6 hours on the trail and my legs were wobbling after the fast descent. Should have paced myself. In trying to catch up with the group after taking pictures, did some bad moves and it took a toll on my knees.

We caught both Vernal and Nevada falls. Vernal falls had a lot more water on our last visit. Still it was a pretty sight. 

On the way to our cabins we stopped by the Swinging bridge. There was some water, lots of clouds and the sunset turned the coulds bright red. It was an unforgettable drive but there are no pictures of the sunset. The legs were trembling and it was time to go drink tea in the cabins!

On the third day we visited two trails while heading out of Yosemite. One was the trail for a Carson falls and the other was Rainbow Push. They were both within 15 miles of the west entrance. It started raining heavily and we had to rush through both these trails. It was a vibrant early morning..

Even HDR images do not match what the eyes saw that morning. 

We made it back through pouring rain. It was a great experience to stay in Yosemite for a couple of nights and spend more time in the park. Our earlier trips have all been day trips with one 2-3 hour hike at the most. 

The cabins at Yosemite lake are strongly recommended. Nice, cozy and a decent kitchen. 

The kids thoroughly enjoyed playing board games and the whole cozy cabin experience!

A big thanks to all those who support the National park system!