Orange and Gold - Cub Lake

October 1, 2011

A warm weekend in Colorado - but the signs of Autumn are all around.

Sunrise and aspens on Fern Lake Road, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Aspens along Fern Lake Road.

Looking west towards Stones Peak and Nakai Peak.

Moraine Park.

Cub Lake.

Sumac along the Big Thompson River.

Glacier Gorge, Rocky Mountain National Park

September 12, 2011

Not much to say, except that it was another fine weekend along the front range of the Rocky Mountains.

Black Lake panorama.

The rocks surrounding Alberta Falls glow pink in the pre-dawn light.

Canyon above Alberta Falls.

Near Mills Lake.

Early in the morning, the sun reaches the eastern-facing slopes but the river bottoms remain in shadow.

Later in day, as the sun reaches deeper into the canyons and valleys.

Looking downstream from near the upper end of Mills Lake.

Looking down on Black Lake.

Cascade and flowers above Black Lake.

High country. Looking north back down Glacier Gorge.

Lakes of the week

August 28, 2011

It's a good habit, getting up early. I did it in Japan, too. Problem was, my ability to get anywhere before the first trains started running at 5:30 or 6:00 AM made it impossible for me to catch the sunrise any time except the dead of winter.

Japan lies so far towards the eastern edge of its time zone that the sun comes up at around 4:15 AM during the summer. Even in the dead of winter, I had barely enough time to get on the train to Izu Kogen station and then race down the path to the Jyogasaki Coast before the sun rose over the island of Izu Oshima.

Living in Tokyo I never wanted or needed my own car. Getting almost anywhere in the city is convenient, safe, and not too expensive if you are willing to use the trains and do a little walking. And getting a driver's license is a hassle for Americans. Brits and Kiwis and license-holders of other favored nations that have a national permit system can apply and automatically receive a Japanese license. But because licenses in the USA are obtained within the State of residence, I guess a such reciprocity cannot be arranged, therefore US citizens must take a written and vehicular drivers test to get their Japanese license. And you can't use the so-called "International Drivers Licens" you get at triple-A if you are a resident of Japan.

So I never bothered with a car, or the time and expense of getting a Japanese driver's license.

But down the coast in Ito, a car would have made sense and would have given me a lot more flexibility to explore - especially around the edge of the light where a landscape photographer take advantage of the changing contrast and color around sunrise and sunset.

Landscape Photography's Biggest Secret

I figure the biggest secret of "daylight" landscape photography is this: If you are not in place 30 minutes before sunrise or 30 minutes before sunset, you lose. Sure, there are exceptions. But in the great majority of places, the element that really makes the scene extraordinary is the light.

Take Saturday morning, for example. Here's a shot taken at 8:08 AM at Dream Lake:

8:08 AM: Dream Lake after sunrise.

A pleasant scene. But here is a shot from about the same place, exactly one-and-a-half hours earlier:

6:38 AM: Dream Lake as the rising sun strikes the mountain backdrop.

The orange peaks against the blue sky, the reflection in the dark surface of the lake, and the deep sloping shadows framing the scene make for a much more interesting and dramatic view. All thanks to the light.

More from the same morning

5:30 AM: Crescent moon - more like "sliver moon" actually.

6:26 AM: Mountain stream. Leaving the shutter open for a quarter of a second gives the flowing water a misty dreamlike quality.

6:46 AM: The sun appears.

Deadwood along the margin of Emerald Lake in black-and-white.

Well, just because you missed sunrise or sunset doesn't mean all is lost: there is still a lot you can shoot any time of day. On my morning hikes, I try to get the expansive landscape shots around the "magic hour" around sunrise, then do closer-in shots after the sun is up. Macro photography especially benefits from plenty of light.

Wildflowers and downed wood.

Stream, wildflowers, and peaks.

Trees reflected. Despite the harsh sunlight at the top of the image, there is lots of deep color in the reflections in the water.

Same planet, different world.

August 13, 2011

Relocation

In the last 5 weeks, I have:

Moved out of my apartment of 6 years in Ito
Left Japan after 10 years, two-and-a-half months of residence
Shared goodbye meals with some good friends with the hope that it won't be too long before I see them again
Been living out of a suitcase, a hotel, and a rental car

During my residence in Japan, I had the chance to visit the USA at least a couple times a year, and during my years working with the Reno Air Races, I usually spent about two weeks in September immersed in American culture.

While in Japan, those visits to America always seemed like a dream, and while in America, Japan seemed like a dream. Maybe that's because I have so few friends who have straddled both worlds.

But I have always felt like both places had their special strengths and weaknesses, their unique attractions and flavors. And as I reached the decision during the early months of this year to leave Japan and return to the US, I began to focus more on those things that were hard to do in Japan, but easy to do in the USA:

Take photos before sunrise: Japan lies at the eastern edge of its time zone, and the sun rises during mid-summer before 4:30 AM. And because I never owned a car, and always used public transport in Japan, it was impossible to be where I wanted to be at sunrise. So, I missed half of the magic hours that photographers cherish, only being able to shoot sunsets, but no sunrises. And since I lived on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, with a tall range of mountains to the West, shooting sunsets required some travel. In the USA, I can drive to where I want to be whenever I want.
Play music: we'll see how this goes. But my apartment in Ito was electronically very noisy. My building being one of the tallest in town, there were a lot of antennas on the roof, and I suspect they were the source of all of the hums and buzzes that I could never get rid of whenever I tried to do some recording in my apartment. I am hopeful that this won't be a problem when I move into a place here. And I also expect I can find some opportunities to play out in town - there were very few live music venues in Ito, and moving equipment was always a problem - it's hard to lug a guitar, much less an amp or anything else, on the bus or train.
I can express myself: even after 10 years in Japan, I don't feel like I have the cultural context to express myself the way I can in American English. Not surprising, but still it is a pleasure to be able to speak with shades of meaning, and be playful with my native language, where I may have been only slightly better than, "See Spot run. Run, Spot, run!" when speaking Japanese.

Do I miss Japan? Every day.

Will I go back? I certainly plan to.

But in the meantime, there is lots to do here to get settled again. I feel lucky to be where I am in Colorado - from here in Boulder west across the Rockies into the Four Corners and down into Arizona is an area that contains some of my favorite territory in North America. I am lucky to be able to live here.

Exploration

I have already had some great hikes, and although my best camera gear is in storage awaiting delivery when I am able to receive it, I have been able to scout some places that I want to return to again.

This morning, I left my hotel at midnight, and drove an hour to the trailhead leading up to Long's Peak - one of Colorado's 53 so-called "14-ers" - mountains whose summits exceed 14,000 feet above see level.

I met up with two new friends from Denver [thanks, Glenn and Marble!], and we climbed through the darkness starting at 2:00 AM. By 3:00, we had climbed from about 9,400 to 11,000 feet and were above the tree line.

We were not alone: the parking lot was nearly full and there were lots of other hikers on the trail, getting an early start for the summit. I took this photo at 3:04 AM - the light traces from the headlamps of climbers bobbing in the darkness like giant fireflies.

3:04 AM: Headlamps of hikers appear like giant fireflies as they pass a stela marking the route to the summit of Long's Peak. Orion's Belt (three equally-spaced stars in a vertical line) floats above the horizon at right.

By 4:00, we had reached 11,500 feet elevation, and the point where the trail to Chasm Lake, our destination, separates from the route to the summit. And by 4:30, we were approaching the Lake, and I turned around to shoot this image of the approaching sunrise.

4:34 AM: About a quarter mile from Chasm Lake, looking east, and back from whence we came, towards sunrise.

I had just enough time to climb the last 500 feet or so over a hump of slickrock to race around to the east side of Chasm Lake to be in position to shoot this panorama as the sun hit the face of the Longs Peak range.

5:15 AM: The rising sun hits "The Diamond" - the east face of Longs Peak - in the distance at right, reflected in Chasm Lake.

After so much climbing in the dark, it was nice to have the sun, and I shot a few more photos during the descent back to the trailhead, arriving there at about 9:30 AM. From there, it was an hour's drive back to Boulder and a nice nap!