Uploads from Xindaan, tagged blue, with geodata

Annapurna Sanctuary in Moonlight

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 06:01:45 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

This picture shows part of the Annapurna Sanctuary in moonlight. The destination of a wonderful trekking tour, I arrived there early November. Hiking up the last part to Annapurna Basecamp (4,130 m/13,500 ft) proved frustrating, as it was snowing heavily (20 cm/8 in) with virtually no visibility at all. I still set my alarm to midnight, removing the ice from the window - and saw mountains. So, out of the sleeping bag, and out into the freezing cold. I went through the fresh snow a bit uphill towards a frequently visiting viewing area. The moon was shining nicely (though ocasionally blocked by the clouds), and chose my composition to use it as my lighting source. I was out there for about two hours (luckily, with warm clothes). I took long exposures up to 16 minutes, short exposures, and this is the one I like best. The clouds were causing shadows that add texture to the area, and the clouds were not covering too much, but still being there.

The view is towards the east, around the prayer flags, you can see the Annapurna Baseamp. The prayer flags point towards Machhapuchhre (Mt. Fish Tail), a wonderfully photogenic peak with 6,993 m/22,900ft. Also visible are Annapurna III (7,555 m/24,800 ft) and Gangapurna (7,455 m/24500 ft). Behind me is Annapurna I, with 8,091 m/26,500 ft the world's 10th highest peak. I took this picture with a 16 mm framing and a panoramic crop, to make use of the scenery.

And that's what I've been up to the past time, causing some absence here.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas 2011!

North Peak, Yosemite National Park, California, US

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:49:47 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

I have been absent from flickr for a while, the reason were landscapes like this. :)

I spent a few weeks in the Sierra Nevada (again) and had a wonderful time. While the sky didn't have as much clouds as I would have liked, it was better than permanent rain, so I'm not going to complain. :)

This specific picture involved getting up from the campground at Tuolumne Meadows at 4:00 am, driving to Saddlebag Lake and then hiking in the dark to Greenstone Lake, setting up the camera, witnessing the earth shadow lowering, seeing the alpenglow starting - and then almost forgetting to take pictures because it was so beautiful. :) I am still glad that I remembered that, in the end, though.

Sierra Wave, Owens Valley and Eastern Sierra, California, US

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 22:25:09 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

The Sierra Nevada is prone to create lenticular clouds, forcing winds to rise, resulting in condensing water vapor. Due to the length of that mountain range, a really impressive sight, and hopefully combined with evening colours.

This particular picture was taken during our Eastern Sierra workshop which I mentioned before. Not happy with spots using reflections of the Owens River, I ended up shooting along the valley, horizon really low. I liked that group of trees creating a middle ground. And for a sense of scale, the Eastern Sierra range visible on the right rises roughly 3,000 m (~10,000 ft) above the valley floor.

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White Mountains Evening, California, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:33:54 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

Expecting awesome cloud-light at sunset (more on that later) during the Eastern Sierra workshop I attended in early May, everyone was exploring the shoreline of the Owens River to find some nice spots for the evening light. (See the photostreams of Jerry, one of the instructors next to David Muench, as well as Hank and Ralph.)

This is a shot I did during that time towards the east, not quite yet at sunset. Still, I like the clouds in this a lot, which kinda wrap around that tree in the middle-ground. At 1/3s exposure time, you also get a nice blur of the Owens River, which had (and probably still has) quite a lot of water this year.

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Sunrise at Convict Lake, California, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:54:36 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

This picture was taken at the first morning of my three-week-Owens-Valley-holiday. And it started right away with some nice alpenglow. I was at Convict Lake the afternoon before for a short hike and a general idea where I'd want to be in the morning. Graduated neutral density filters were necessary (there are actually two layers of filter here, one that darkens everything including the reflection, and another that darkens the actual mountain).

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Sunset at Mono Lake, California, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Tue, 24 May 2011 06:48:33 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

This is a picture I took at Mono Lake in early May. At South Tufa (and other places), so called Tufas emerge from the lake. Tufas are carbonate minerals which form underwater. In Mono Lake, they got exposed due to the ever sinking water level.

This picture was shot during a workshop with David Muench and Jerry Dodrill and a great bunch people (check out Hank and Ralph), which has been a wonderful experience.

Overall, I spent three weeks in the Sierra Nevada, doing a "photography vacation", meaning getting up at 4 am, heading to places for sunrise, getting out in the evening for sunset, getting a few precious hours to sleep. Included was lots of hiking, overnight camping, and a lot of fun.

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Monte d'Oro, Corsica, France

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:35:31 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

Taken during the same session as the previous picture, this one singles out a prominent mountain, Monte d'Oro ("Gold Mountain", 2,391 m), lit by the morning sun.

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Mountain Sunrise, Corsica, France

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:10:31 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

Coming back from a two-week trip to Corsica, and some more time to sort through pictures, it's been a very nice experience. We had very mixed weather, from floods to sunshine, seen wonderful places throughout the island.

This specific picture was taken on the last day, where we had a wonderful morning. The sun was rising, alpenglow hitting Monto d'Oro (on the left, 2,389 m) and the area of Monto Rotondo (towards the right, 2,625 m). This time of the year, they are snow-capped, which in my opion adds perceived height to mountains. I waited some more until the sun light hit my place too, to be able to work with the foreground for composition (light colour changed due to that, of course).

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Sass Maor & Cima della Madonna "5 Minutes Later", Pale di San Martino, Dolomites, Italy

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:24:06 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

A sister picture to my first one. This one was taken only five minutes later, it was amazing how fast the light changed due to clouds blocking the sun. The white balance (daylight) is the same in both pictures.

In this one, the light assumes an almost painterly quality. The peaks you see are Sass Maor and Cima della Madonna, and the mountain hut named after the latter one, "Rifugio della Madonna", can be seen at the bottom right of the picture and serves as a nice "base level" in terms of size. What this picture brings out more than its sister one is the intrinsic colours and textures of the rocks.

Taken with my Sigma 70-200 at 200 mm, f/5.6 and ISO 1100 on my D3s.

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Sunrise at Mount Tom, Sierra Nevada, California, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:41:59 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

Again, browsing through old pictures, and again, ending up with the Sierra Nevada/Owens Valley photo session. I am so looking forward to being there in May this year again.

The picture here is not from May, but February 2010. Like the previous ones (and here), it shows varying stages of the sunrise. What made this particular morning special was a band of clouds, forming illumination patterns on the snow covered mountains.

This is a shot that does not use a wide-angle, but a (short) telephoto approach, singling out Mount Tom (4,163 m aka 13,658 ft), one of the highest peaks at the northern part of Owens Valley (a bit further south, there is of course Mt. Whitney, with 4,421 m the highest peak in the "mainland" US (i.e. excluding Alaska, where you have the Denali)).

Due to its height, it's quite interesting how the light colour changes on the flank, i.e. at the lower part it's barely getting sunrise, whereas at the peak, the sun is obviously quite "higher". The shadow from the clouds emphasizes this, of course.

What is a bit missing is a foreground. I blame that on the one single morning I had, where I had to multitask running around in a barely scouted area, avoiding cow droppings, looking at the scenery, and force me not have my mouth hanging open by the sheer beauty of everything, while at the same time, light was always changing. For the next time, I memorized a few spots I noticed where I will have trees to work with in the foreground.

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Sunset at Rügen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:05:59 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

An old picture I rediscovered, taken in January 2009. The largest island in Germany, Rügen, has a very impressive cliff line, largely comprised out of chalkstone. It's part of the national park Jasmund, together with a large forest of beeches, allowed to develop into its natural state ever since it became a national park.

Looking east, you get sunset combinations of the chalk cliff being in the shadow, and hopefully nice clouds in the evening sun, which is what I got when we were hiking in the national park. Already at an ultra-wide angle (11 mm on my D300), you almost look straight down on the cliff. Compositionally, I would have liked to go even further with the foreground, but then, the sky would not have enough room anymore, so I settled for this.

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Sunset at Sella Group, Dolomites, Italy

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 02:07:31 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

At the Langkofel Group, there is the "stone city", the result of an older landslide, now with a few trees growing in between, which served as a nice foreground for this sunset picture.

The background is formed by the Sella group, an impressive, massive block of rock, and among the most famous features of the Dolomites. Part of this scene is this picture I posted a few weeks ago at flickr.

Taking the picture involved a graduated neutral density filter (I recently switched from Cokin to the Singh-Ray ones, as the latter ones are truly neutral in colour (and to be fair, Cokin doesn't claim to be neutral), keeping my Cokin filter holder, though). This was the only way to keep the foreground, being already in the shadows, _somewhat_ in balance with the lit background. Still, making the foreground too bright in post processing would be wrong, so I kept it this way.

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Canyonlands National Park, Utah, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:53:21 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

Definitely a calmer picture, I guess. I like this due to the wonderful quality of the light, showing in the morning mist, giving everything a nice, golden glow.

The place is Canyonlands National Park in Utah, in Winter 2010. One of the rare occasions where everything was in the clouds - and you wouldn't get a sunrise at Mesa Arch (which we got a day later). Still, this is an opportunity for unusual situations you don't normally get, so I tried to take advantage of that. The fog blocks out irritating backgrounds, allowing you to focus on interesting foregrounds, like that Juniper tree growing in this really barren world. Specks of snow do their best to add to the normally hot and dry scenery.

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Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:16:16 -0800

Xindaan posted a photo:

Shying away from traditional panoramas (of course I did them too), I did some closeups of Bryce Canyon when I was there in winter. I have been several times to Bryce Canyon, and I am always amazed by the structures formed through the erosion processes there. Quite special. Add to that the special colours, which just start to glow in the right light (read: sunrise), and you're in for a special treat.

Early morning gives you lot to play with light and shadows, since you get lot of shadows by Bryce Canyon itself, and you can have fun with composition, light and shadow, rock and trees, and, in this case, snow.

In this picture, I went for a square format, as it was fitting the scene the best, in my opinion.

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Sass Maor and Cima della Madonna, Pale di San Martino, Dolomites, Italy

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:09:32 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

A fairly recent picture as well, taken at the eve of a four-day trek through Pale di San Martino, located in the Dolomites.

The light in the evening was getting wonderful, the whole high plateau was lit with sidelight, while everywhere else, dark clouds formed, creating excellent contrasts as well as the shadows you can see on the mountains. So, I grabbed my 70-200 telephoto, zoomed in at 200 for these two prominent peaks, which are Sass Maor and Cima della Madonna. Take note that I didn't alter the picture in terms of saturation and whatnot.

At the bottom right, you can see Rifugio Vela della Madonna, a hut where you can stay overnight. That must have been a wonderful evening up there.

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Sunset at Sella Group, Dolomites, Italy

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:50:32 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

Two weeks ago, I was a on a multi-day trek in the Dolomites. This was great, and I just love the mountains. Rough, rocky mountains. The Eastern Sierra in February were great, and the Dolomites, which are significantly closer, were wonderful too.

In the mountains, you can make great use of light. And it's amazing how fast it changes. Of course, this means getting up early, to be where you need when the sun is rising. And being around at sunset, to be where you need when the sun is setting. Even if that means a missed meal. :)

A picture I particularly liked is this one. At the Sellajoch (Passo Sella), there is the "Stone City". The Stone City is the result of a huge rockslide off the flank of the Langkofel, creating a large area with seriously large rocks, over which, over time, trees settled. So, I decided to be there at sunset to try to get an interesting picture.

Unfortunately, I had only one evening there, so I did not know exactly what it would like, I only knew that I wanted to use the shadowed Stone City (in the evening shadow of the Langkofel) while the Sella should be in the evening sun (and even of that I was not sure). I already had my eye on a lone tree which kinda stuck out. So, when the sun was setting, I could see the real light, and, I was starting to run around - through "run" is probably the wrong word - I was stumbling among smaller rocks, climbing on larger rocks in order to find an interesting composition. I tried wide angle, ultra wide angle, telephoto.

The picture I currently prefer the most is this one. My Sigma 70-200 zoom at 130 mm, f5.6 (I do not need a large depth of field), and basically a silhouette shot of that tree against the massive Sella stock in the evening sun.

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Sunrise at Zugspitze, Alps, Bavaria, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:10:50 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

Cliched, but working. I have a picture with and without that rock in the foreground, but the rock just works.

Other than that, we have a pretty straightforward composition. For reflections, I like to have the horizont in the center, unless with either the reflection or the "original" you can see more, such is often the case when you have a great (= cloudy) sky and you use the reflection to show more of it. In this case, there wasn't. Additionally, for reflections, I like to use graduated ND filters to keep the brightnesses about the same, though being careful that the reflection is not brighter than the original.

What I liked about this specific place was the framing, silhouetting forest in the foreground, which mirrors (pun intended) the reflection theme of the lake, so we next to horizontal, we get a vertical "reflection axis".

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Upper Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park, California, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:33:04 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

While we are suffering the heat in Europe, and I guess elsewhere in the world too :), I can't help but to think back to Yosemite in Winter.

Not the first Yosemite picture that I show, but hey, it's a great place. :) Visible here is Upper Yosemite Falls, being reflected in the Merced River. Compositionally, finding a good balance between the snow ladden forest in the shadow together with the mountain and waterfall in the wonderful morning sidelight was the thing to achieve. Add to that the work with the reflection, to have it appear reasonably. I wandered around Swinging Bridge a few times before settling for this spot. The decision helper was that single, snow covered rock and its relative position to the composition. A bit too left, and it is in the reflection of the shadowed trees, a bit too right, and it becomes too dominant, at the same time the perspective of the trees to the left in respect to the waterfall becoming disadvantegeous too.

Well, this is what I ended up with. Hope you enjoy it. :)

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Alpenglow, Zugspitze and Moon, Bavaria, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:20:29 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

A small picture, but I like it nonetheless. A wonderful morning in the south of Germany. Alarm clock rang at 4.15 am, getting up, heading towards the Eibsee, a lake directly on the foot of the Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Nice to hike there. Which I did, looking for photographic opportunities along the way. There are lots of different options, you got a lake, it's calm for good reflections, there are stones in it for your foreground. All the while the clock is ticking, Alpenglow, the literal alpenglow, of course, being on the mountains next to you. I took a lot of pictures. Lots of classical shots. Some not so. Like this one, which I ended up liking the most, despite all the other "classic" shots.

I was wishing for a ladder to put the silhouetted trees a bit down in comparison to the massive mountain range. I tried moving off trail a bit, to get a bit higher, but that shifted perspective too much. So, here we are. The moon was nice enough to be there at sunrise, as well as that patch of clouds clinging to the mountain top.

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Clearing Winter Storm, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, USA

nobody@flickr.com (Xindaan) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:05:19 -0700

Xindaan posted a photo:

February 18th, we went from Arches/Canyonlands to a stopover in Bryce Canyon National Park, heading on to Zion the next day. Near the end of the trip, weather got bad, and suddenly, we were in the midst of a snow storm. To our luck, a short one only, because as we pushed through the park, it actually cleared.

What a wonderful sight. Cloud rests clinging to distant hoodos, the sun breaking through, bringing out the magical colours of the sandstone there. Just wonderful.

Took lots of shots, trying to capture the storm. This one is one of my favorites, showing the clouds moving along in the distance, while having the snow covered Bryce Canyon with its Amphitheatre and the Sinking Ship in the foreground.

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