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Beyond the comfort zone: sunset, full moon and light painting – Mare Island

Everyone has a different comfort zone. When it comes to photography, mine is on aperture priority and hand held. I’m just making peace with the tripod–I no longer feel like throwing it when I try to set it up! I’ve just started doing HDR, and have only mastered part of Lightroom. It’s safe to say that I’ve not gotten fully knowledgeable with my D7100. So with all this learning to be done, I headed back to Mare Island in Vallejo California with Mary Gromer and the “Shoot or Go Home” photo Meetup group.

We were going to shoot some buildings during the golden hours before sunset, catch the sunset, do full moon photography and end with light painting. I have never done full moon photography or light painting so I was really excited and knew I would be out of my comfort zone.

For today’s post, I’m going to show you some of the buildings. I know I’ve done the Mare Island buildings before, but not in the golden hours. My next post will go into the full moon and light painting photography.

 

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What was, isn’t: Hallberg Gardens, part 2

Continuing on the theme of “What was, isn’t,” we’ve made a lot of changes ourselves personally. For us what was–a 31 foot 5th-wheel trailer–isn’t any more. After losing a wheel and axel on our way to a star gazing trip, we decided it was time to sell the aging home away from home. We just bought a new, used 24 foot travel trailer. At our age, this makes more sense. We will use our time share for distance travel.

The Hallberg Gardens faces the same dilemma, Louise Hallberg needs help to revive her dream. She too, is aging. I wish I lived closer so I could get in there and work. I confess, I have a black thumb; but I could help clean up. I’m hoping Hallberg Gardens will survive.

Meanwhile, here are the rest of the images from the Meetup.

 

 

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What was, isn’t: Hallberg Butterfly Gardens

It’s sad when you know something that was once beautiful is in danger of going away. I’m talking about the Hallberg Butterfly Gardens in Sebastopol, California. Louise Hallberg’s garden officially became a non-profit organization in 1997. I say officially because she has lived in the same house on the property since a child in the 1920s.

Today, at 97, Louise still tends the gardens with help from a few friends. The grounds do need work and tender loving care. However, they are still a haven for butterflies and insects. The Meetup group that arranged this outing billed it as a chance to pull out the macro lens. I don’t have one, but I shot with my 55 – 300 lens some of the time and my 18 – 55 mm the rest of the time. We didn’t see too many butterflies, but there were birds and flowers to compensate. I do wish the butterflies would stay still for just a moment! We did have one that seemed to want to show off, and I was able to get some great shots of him (or her!).

I hope someone will come along and take over the property. It would make a great historical park. While we were there, I did meet Hallberg, who had a helper with her. She is frail and just got out of the hospital recovering from a fall. If you’d like to help, visit their website at http://www.hallbergbutterflygardens.org/. It would be great to keep Hallberg’s vision and this garden alive. This will be another 2-part post. There’s so much to show you!

 

 

 

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Meet me up Scotty: Ruth Bancroft Garden, part 2

If the cacti and their flowers weren’t enough for us to photograph during this Meetup outing, the addition of sculptures made it an outstanding experience. We were allowed to photograph the sculptures, which were for sale, if we gave credit to the sculpture. So, I put a system in place of shooting the name card before I shot the sculpture. Of course, there were times I forgot! I’ll do my best in identifying these amazing artists. My apologies if I didn’t get them all right!

The art forms came in all mediums. There were some sculpted from metal, glass, stone, and wood. Here are just a few.

 

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Meet me up Scotty: The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Which Meetup do I want to go to? Yes, if you belong to enough Meetup groups, you’ll have a choice. I joined my first Meetup group when I ordered my Nikon D3100–before I had taken my first digital SLR shot! That was 26 months ago, and I think I was excited about my new hobby.

Most photography Meetups try to do at least one outing a month. Some groups do more. They each have their own personality and leadership. Many of us belong to a few, so we run into each other as we travel. Through the Meetup world, I have met new people, made new photo buddy friendships, learned new information, have gone places I didn’t know about and have had fun.

On a recent Meetup, we went to the Ruth Bancroft Garden while they hosted their Sculpture in the Garden show. The garden features various cactus from Mediterranean climates and other dry regions around the world. Its founder, Ruth Bancroft, lives next door and is 105 years. The garden became the first preservation project of the Garden Conservancy, a nonprofit organization and has been open to the public since 1992.

Well maintained, this garden was easy to walk through. It was small, but still took us a few hours to take our images. The next outing I went on was to a garden that was not well maintained. But, first take a glance at the Ruth Bancroft Garden. I’ll show you the cactus in this post and the sculptures in the next. I was able to identify some of the plants from the garden’s brochure. Too bad, I did somehow catalog them by their numbers!

I wonder what Meetup I’ll be going to next!

 

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Second Annual San Francisco Bay Osprey Days, part 2

Don’t waste gas! Now that we’ve done our best to capture the ospreys and their nests, Laura, Jean and I decided to shoot more of Mare Island. I’ve shown you some of it in a previous post, but this time I’m working on mastering HDR.

The Island is being transformed into a multi-use area including a golf course, restaurant, museum and more. We went down to the dock to shoot some of the vacant buildings. This is a short post since I mostly wanted to show you the images that weren’t related to the ospreys.

We do try to get as much done during out outings–we don’t want to have to come back again. But, I have a feeling I will be back!

 

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Second annual osprey festival at Mare Island, California

We were told to bring our long lens–or rent one! That was one message that many of us did not listen to when we went to the San Francisco Bay Osprey Days Festival. 

During this two-day event, you could take a boat tour, car tour or walking tour. All tours allowed for seeing the huge osprey nests. The free car and walking tours were led by volunteer docents from the Mare Island Preserve organization. They also hosted a visitors center where they offered us drinks and delicious desserts, asking only for a small donation. The docents were extremely knowledgeable about the osprey and their annual nesting habits. And, fortunately, they knew where each nest was located. We were also shown a couple of abandoned nests. We may have been able to locate the nests on our own, but I do get dizzy when I keep looking straight up in the air! Yes, the nests are high and are typically on phone and/or utility poles.

Viewing the nests was a challenge. My 300 mm lens barely made it. I only captured one nest where the birds were in focus because I was standing on a bridge. While shooting that nest, we saw a mother bird fly in with a fish to the three babies, she puts it in the nest, dad flies in, dad sits with mom and the babies, and then he flies off with the fish! I caught it all with my camera. The docent said that many dads will eat part of the fish before the babies who get the leftovers. And, I’m wondering, when does the mom eat? Didn’t she catch the fish?

Fortunately, at the other nests, one of the docents had a small telescope and shared it with us. At least we could all see the birds up close. I am going to post some of the shots that did not catch the birds in focus because I do want you to see where and how high these nests are.

After both tours, we did some shooting down by the docks. Again, I tried some HDR. I’m doing this as a two part post. First, enjoy the action at the osprey nest.

 

 

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Gibson Ranch near sundown

What I love about the “Shoot Or Go Home” photography meetup group is the small, close to home opportunities they offer. Tuesday we ventured to Gibson Ranch (about 10 minutes away) for a photo walk and sunset shoot. I wasn’t feeling well, but I needed to do something I enjoyed after losing the trailer and missing out on a weekend away.

Gibson Ranch is a park where people board horses, organizations hold events and individuals picnic. It was a Sacramento County park, but is now being run by a private company. I think the County still owns the park but has leased it out. We met at 6:30 p.m. and proceeded to walk the area around the stables. It was a small group, so I had a chance to meet some of them. Mary and “Goose” helped me with my prime 50 mm lens. I’m still having troube getting the exposure correct. After enough frustration, I switched back to my zoom lens.

The setting sun created a challenge for exposure no matter what. I’m so glad I’m learning Lightroom. We all gathered at the small lake to shoot the sunset. This was my first time shooting a sunset for HDR, The sunset wasn’t all that spectacular, but I had fun processing the HDR and was pleased with the various results.

So, here are some of the images captured Tuesday night with the “Shoot Or Go Home” photo group.

 

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Self-taught photography lessons

Yes, I teach myself lessons all the time. However, they are never planned or easy! Yesterday, not feeling well, I decided I needed to go up to Dry Creek, practice HDR and work with my new prime 50 mm lens. I was bummed out because we were supposed to be in Adin, California at a star party. I was looking forward to trying some night sky photography. But our trailer lost a wheel and axle in Anderson and we came home with the truck loaded with our clothes, food, camera gear and telescopes.

So, you can understand why I needed to do some photography at my favorite, close-by creek. Dry creek which is usually quiet was teeming with families on every possible square inch of beach area. They were just enjoying the water, but it was difficult to find a spot to do some HDR. I did find a couple of areas, and set up my tripod. But, without photo buddy Jayne with me, it was a struggle (She helps me a lot!). Now I am totally one with the tripod, having won the battle. I do have tenacity! It wasn’t until I was taking the images off the SD card that I realized I was shooting JPEGs and not RAW files.

Also, I’m learning to speak up for the sake of a picture. I did ask a woman who was going to take an empty chair if she could leave it so I could take my shot. Then another woman, who didn’t own the chair sat in it. I politely asked her to move while I took my shot. They were very understand and obliging. I would have been faster if it weren’t for my struggles with the tripod.

I was only there an hour and couldn’t believe I had taken 72 pictures, but I did. What lessons did I learn? First, if you’re not feeling well, stay home. Second, practice with the tripod and check the camera before you leave. And, third, people are nice and willing to help you–just speak up. Here’s the result of my efforts.

 

Posted on by Anne Sandler

HDR: my first images

I finally did it! Yes, I downloaded some HDR software and processed my first images. I didn’t do much more than their presets, but it’s a beginning. Thank you photo buddy Jayne West who gently pushed me into taking bracketed shots on two separate outings. That gave me some photos to work with.

Why did I wait so long? I thought it would be too difficult to learn. But, it wasn’t–at least loading in the photos, choosing a preset and modifying the image slightly. I know the program, Photomatix Pro, has many more features, and I’ll learn them in time. In fact, we will be heading to a star gazing party for four days/nights in Adin California. It’s a cute small town so I’ll have more opportunities to practice HDR. I’m also going to try to do some night sky photography. I printed out many tutorials just in case we don’t have cell reception. Did I mention that we are dry camping in a cow pasture!

Since I finally did it, here are my first three HDR images. All advice is most welcome.