Muir Beach Overlook

Muir Beach is north of San Francisco on Route 1. It's a great place to stop and look around on a trip up the coast (in our case, on the way to Point Reyes). It's classic Northern CA coastline at its best... spectacular views and natural beauty. And we were lucky to have beautiful blue skies and warm weather.

My wife walking out to the end of the overlook... we were treated to a great view of whales (mother
and baby) in close to shore, just below the point.

View south towards San Francisco

View north towards Point Reyes

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Have a great weekend!

B&W Memorial Day Weekend

Friday afternoon we drove up Highway 18 to Green Valley Lake (near Big Bear in the S. CA mountains) to take care of some business, then continued down the back side of the mountain on 18 to 247 and out to 29 Palms. Such an interesting drive! I remember taking a plant ecology class years ago at Cal State Fullerton, and my professor (Dr. Jack Burke) took us on this same route for a field trip. Much of my scientific knowledge has long since been forgotten, but it's a radical change from one ecosystem to another (pine forest and mountain oak on the front / wet side of the mountain to pinyon pines, yuccas and even Joshua Trees on the back / dry side of the mountain). The transition is abrupt and incredible and is driven by moisture (or lack of), which I think is the key point Dr. Burke was trying to help us appreciate and see first hand.

I like the way some of these photos look in black & white (especially the desert vistas), so I decided to do the post in b&w.

Fog rolling off the surface of Big Bear Lake... made it look like a big jacuzzi!

Deer along Highway 18, North Shore

Back side of the mountain... agricultural area at junction of 18 and 247; incredible cloud cover!

Abandoned desert cabin along Highway 247

High, lonesome desert along Highway 247, view south.  My favorite shot from the afternoon.

As you can probably tell, I used Photoshop to help create the photo above. I took a photo of the crescent moon on Friday night, and combined it with the photo of this old desert road and landscape. Fun stuff!

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Desert Skywatch!

Some additional photos from last weekend. I was using my 70-200mm telephoto with a 2X extender, so 400mm max telephoto. My wife and I were hiking out behind our house at sunset, and the late desert light was awesome! As you can tell, I was shooting a lot right into the sun, which is fun to do with a telephoto lens. I enhanced the color on a couple of these in Photoshop, but pretty close to straight out of the camera.

A favorite of mine... silhouette of my wife. I like the light coming through her hat and on her jaw.

Yucca sky

The creosotes are done flowering and have these puff balls that catch the late afternoon light.

Unknown weed silhouetted by the sun.

Desert hills and sky to the west of our house

Happy Skywatch Friday, and have a fantastic weekend!

Back To The Desert!!

Wow, feels like forever since I've shared any desert photos! Our San Francisco / Point Reyes trip resulted in sooooo many great photos, I've been posting on that for a while (I think I may yet have one more post from that trip). We did get out to the desert this weekend, so it feels good to be posting on desert topics. I think I'll focus this post on desert critters.
1. Humming Birds

F 5.6,  1/3200, 200mm focal length; iso 800 (oops, that was a mistake, but I like the way it froze the wings!)

F 5.6, 1/500, 200mm focal length, iso 160

The desert willow trees are blooming, so lots of hummers! For some reason, the desert hummers are less afraid of me than the city hummer! I was able to get closer, tighter shots... lots of fun and good photos.
2. Desert Dove

OK, admittedly not too exciting... these birds are common, but hey, just documenting what I saw (and this guy/girl was very cooperative!).
3. Coyotes

Yup, more exciting than the dove. My wife spotted two right up at the house while we we sitting on the patio (we had water on the trees so I'm sure they came down for a drink). Of course, I didn't have my camera with me, but they were in no hurry. I went in the house, got my camera, walk out and still managed to get a few photos. I like this photo because if you look really closely, you will see a second coyote on the left. And that little out-of-focus homestead behind our house is one of my favorites! There were a total of four coyotes, which is unusual. We usually only see one or two at a time.
4. Rascally Rabbits
Again, not too exciting... these guys are everywhere!

Oh, I almost forgot... there was a bird sitting on eggs in a nest on our front porch. She was very nervous. Every time we would go in or out the front door, or even walk by the window inside the house, she would fly away in a huff!

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