Artists Palette/Artist Drive - Death Valley National Park (Part 33)

At the end of November last year (2012), I took a trip to Death Valley National Park. This is the second trip there in my life. The 1st time I went, I was still a little kid, and I didn't start taking photos yet. This time, I have a pro camera and I am ready to shoot the scenery. Death Valley National Park is known for its "out of this world" scenery, UFO sightings, and many other things. The desert is a very mysterious and beautiful place. In this chain of blog posts, I will be showing you mainly photos of Death Valley National Park, but also photos from surrounding areas like The Mojave Desert, Alabama Hills, and Rhyolite Ghost Town. I have picked out over 400 photos from my trip to show you guys and I will be dividing them into many blog posts. Unlike blog  post chains before, I obviously can't put a link of ever blog post on every single blog post, so instead, I will do the same thing I did for my Yellowstone National Park photos before, by sticking a link of the Next and Previous post on each blog post instead.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best work from Death Valley National Park, use this link. To see all of the photos from my Death Valley National Park trip use this link.

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Today I continue with the photos from Artist Drive and Artists Palette. Today, I also have a day time shot of where I saw the potential UFO. I actually did not notice I shot a  photo in the same place until I got home and started looking through my photos. How weird is that! Pretty much as I saw the photo, I was like, this photo looks similar to something I saw before. So after some comparison of the photo I shot the night before, I knew it was the same place. If you missed the blog post where I talked about my possible UFO sighting, you can view it here. Also, here is my intro to Artists Palette again for those of you who missed it. Artists Palette is famous for its colorful rocks caused by chemical reactions of the mineral rich soil. Definitely visit the area as the scenery is very beautiful and you don't really have to hike a lot. To get there, you take Artist Drive, which is a one way paved road. For the next few days, I will be showing you photos from Artist Drive (road leading to Artists Palette) and from Artists Palette itself.

Scenery

Artist Drive. One-way road through Artists Palette. 

There are 2 dips like these on the road. Note that my camera is leveled. Pretty much you have to drive down and then up. It was actually pretty fun to drive on.

A sign alerting you of the dip. 

2 cars driving through the dip. 

A closer shot of the dip.

HDR composition of the side of the dip. If you are wondering why there are two dips in the road, it seems that before Death Valley became a desert, the area had 2 rivers or small streams. 

Here is the view from the other side of the dip. From this photo, you can see clearly that a small river or stream used to run through the area. 

Another photo of the dry river or stream.

This was the exact spot where I saw the potential UFO the night before. If you missed the blog post where I talked about my possible UFO sighting, you can view it here.

The colorful rocks of Artists Palette. 

Panorama of the colorful rocks at Artists Palette. 

These are all the photos for today. I hope you have enjoyed viewing them! Next time, I will post the last of the photos from Artists Palette and Artist Drive. Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

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Natural Bridge Canyon - Death Valley National Park (Part 24)

At the end of November last year (2012), I took a trip to Death Valley National Park. This is the second trip there in my life. The 1st time I went, I was still a little kid, and I didn't start taking photos yet. This time, I have a pro camera and I am ready to shoot the scenery. Death Valley National Park is known for its "out of this world" scenery, UFO sightings, and many other things. The desert is a very mysterious and beautiful place. In this chain of blog posts, I will be showing you mainly photos of Death Valley National Park, but also photos from surrounding areas like The Mojave Desert, Alabama Hills, and Rhyolite Ghost Town. I have picked out over 400 photos from my trip to show you guys and I will be dividing them into many blog posts. Unlike blog  post chains before, I obviously can't put a link of ever blog post on every single blog post, so instead, I will do the same thing I did for my Yellowstone National Park photos before, by sticking a link of the Next and Previous post on each blog post instead.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To see my best work from Death Valley National Park, use this link. To see all of the photos from my Death Valley National Park trip use this link.

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Today, I have 9 photos from Natural Bridge Canyon in Death Valley National Park. Some of these photos do have bad lighting because I arrived there during sunset. I hope you enjoy viewing the photos. :) This place would have been a lot better during the day so if you do visit Death Valley National Park, try to keep it during the day. The temperature in Death Valley National Park drops very quick during the night because there is no "moisture buffer" because it is a desert. I actually got a bit cold at night, but I continued. If you plan on taking photos when it is late like this, make sure you have a good tripod for those long exposures.

Panorama of Death Valley at the trail head. 

HDR composition of the sunset capturing the colors and the foreground. Didn't turn out as well as I hoped it would be. Maybe I should try some other HDR software than just using Photoshop... 

Landscape in the canyon. 

Dry waterfall in the valley. Many of these can be found throughout Death Valley because the area used to be a huge lake before climate changes turned the area into a desert. 

A photo of Natural Bridge the main view of Natural Bridge Canyon.... Obviously.

Here is a HDR composition of Natural Bridge. See how the blown out sky is now visible. This is when you should use HDR. Obviously, I need a better software than processing them in Photoshop. A lot of people say the HDR portion of Photoshop is not that good. 

After seeing Natural Bridge, I turned back as there was 1 more view point I wanted to visit. Here is a HDR Composition of the sunset seen through the canyon walls. 

Another HDR composition.

One more HDR Composition at the trail head. 

These are all the photos I got for Natural Bridge Canyon. Next time I will continue with some night shots at Artist's Palette Drive. Also, if you have read my intro at the very top of every blog post, you would have probably noticed I said UFO sightings are common in Death Valley National Park. Artists Palette Drive was where I had a potential sighting and I will tell you what happened next time. Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

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Squirrels/Yosemite Village/Lower Yosemite Fall - Yosemite National Park/Mono Lake (Part 6)

Yosemite National Park is a national park located in California that stretches eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in the central eastern portion of California and covers around 761,268 acres or 3,080.74 km² of land. Yosemite National Park is best known for its waterfalls, deep valleys, grand meadows, giant sequoias, giant wilderness area, and much more. Mono Lake, a salt lake east of Yosemite National Park that is located in Mono County, California, covers a total of 45,133 acres or 182.65 km². The lake is famous for its high salt content and its tufa formations. I have visited both of those areas and are here to show you some of the photos I took at these two places along with some other photos I have taken along the route. These photos will be divided over several blog posts. I hope you enjoy the photos! If you would like to get notifications when I do post, you can Like/Follow me on the following fan pages: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Full Resolution Photos and Prints: If you want to see full resolution photos or buy prints of any of the photos you see, they are up on my portfolio for viewing. To view my best Yosemite National Park photos from 2012, use this link. To view my best squirrel photos from 2012, use this link. To view all of my photos from Yosemite National Park photos from 2012, use this link.

Parts: Yosemite Falls Comparison | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | HDR Compositions | Panoramas | 

Now let's introduce you to the photos for today. Today's shots are all from Yosemite National Park. It will cover some shots I did in Yosemite Village and at Yosemite Falls. This includes squirrel photos, landscape shots, and a few photos of Yosemite Falls itself (well kind of). If you remember from my first blog post, Yosemite Falls was dry this year. Let's get started!

It's all like: "Who's at the door?!"

The squirrel photos before the first landscape shot is all done in Yosemite Village near the motel room I stayed at there. 

Looks like the squirrels just burrow anywhere they want, including under the stairs... 

The squirrel was probably like: "Maybe if I lie as flat as I can, I'll blend in and he won't see me!" XD That's what went through my mind when I first took this photo. 

This was a view of Half Dome and North Dome (left) shot in Cook's Meadow. The colors were saturated a bit with a circular polarizer. Good thing sun was at the correct angle at the time of the shot! :)

Update 11-25-2012: Also, notice how the rule of thirds play a big role in making this shot look nice. The grass in the foreground covers around 1/3 of the image, Half Dome and the trees cover about another 1/3 of the image, and the sky uses up another 1/3 of the image. Try to use the rule of thirds in your shots more often. It will really help spice up your shots. I apparently did this subconsciously without even noticing it at first until one of my G+ fans pointed it out for me. HAHA

Photography Tip: Circular polarizers come in handy especially if you are taking photos of landscape or of things involving water or glass. Circular polarizers can help you saturate colors in your photos and bring out more contrast, especially the sky! Circular polarizers can also help get rid of glare especially glare from water and glass. The only 2 downside is it does cut light to your camera by 1-3 stops, so a tripod is unavoidable while using one or you will need to compensate for the light loss and that it only works the best when the sun is perpendicular (90°) to your camera. When buying a circular polarizer make sure you get the right size for your lens and never go too cheap. Something over $70 is usually good quality optically speaking. Sunny recommends that you get quality optics from B+W, Hoya, and Heliopan. I know it sounds expensive, but if you do buy a cheap one, they usually cause unremoveable color cast, blurring, and glares to your images. If you plan on getting a cheap filter, I recommend that you just go with no filter because it will make your photos really crappy. Trust me, I have cheaped out before, and immediately I thought what a waste of $10. Many beginner photographers make this mistake. Just trying to save you some money here. 

So I was taking a rest before going up the trail to Lower Yosemite Falls, this squirrel was standing still on a post. I quickly switched over to my telephoto and took the photo.

Here are the dry Yosemite Fall! Remember the comparison I gave you in the first blog post where I compared this year (2012) to 2010?

Disappointed tourists. LOL That includes me... But I got a photo of the dry waterfall right? Well I really wanted to try out my ND filters... Didn't really get to. The photos wasn't bad though. 

Here are two shots of the only two water streams I can see. Go see my first blog post to see where they are located on the dry waterfall. 

This is all the photos for today. If you are disappointed in Yosemite Falls, you are not the only one... I really wanted to go play in the water. I also really wanted to test my new ND filters. I didn't get to, but I did get to test them later back home (well near home) at Natural Bridge State Beach in Santa Cruz, CA. The Santa Cruz photos will come up later. In the next blog post, I will have photos from Bridalveil Fall and Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. Please don't forget to share my blog posts with your friends! If you would like to get notifications next time I post, you can "Like" me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

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Copyright Warning: These photos are some of my best and most popular works of art. Unauthorized usage and reproductions are strictly prohibited. Please contact me here to purchase prints and negotiate photo licenses.