Father Crowley Point/Random Scenery - Death Valley National Park (Part 3)

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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Message from the Photographer: I have to say, I am not a very good travel guide, however you can still use my blog posts to help plan your travels! I usually go to the very popular views in National Parks, and some not so popular ones. Check out my photos and see which ones you want to visit and plan your trip accordingly! I usually post my photos in the order I take them, so if you want, you can always follow the travel route I took. :) Also, don't just keep driving from one view point to another. Stop on the side of the road, take photos! About half my shots aren't even from labeled view points! I shot half my shots along random turnouts on the road. If you love photography, try doing this.

Today I have photos from the entrance of Death Valley National Park, a plants in the desert, and some shots of Father Crowley Point. I will finish the rest of the Father Crowley Point shots next time. I thought about fitting all of them into this blog post, but it is already getting kind of long. Don't want to crash any of my viewer's browser because of all the images. So here we go!

There will be a lot of these desert shots in my chain of blog posts. You might think the desert is all covered in sand, but you are wrong. There are many terrain types in the desert. 

A patch of desert full of vegetation. Mostly tiny shrubs. 

The straight highways through the desert. Sure was fun driving on them. Like I said before, never have these in the SF Bay Area. All open, no cars, you have the highway to yourself...

I am generally horrible at identifying plants, but this right here is a baby Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia). 

See how much vegetation is in the desert? Surprised me too. I used to think the desert was just sand.

Another few shots of the road. 

According to my GPS we were already in the park. Not sure why they put the sign so way in... 

Now I arrive at Father Crowley Point. 

Here is a sign showing Padre Crowley. 

Father Crowley Point

Panorama of Father Crowley Point

This is all the shots I have for you today. Next time I will finish the rest of the Father Crowley Point photos and will have some photos from Mesquite Dunes. After the next post, I will start my chain for Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park. I have 70 photos from Scotty's Castle, so those photos will be taking up several blog posts. I hope you have enjoyed viewing these shots for today. 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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Alabama Hills/Lone Pine, CA - Death Valley National Park (Part 1)

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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Message from the Photographer: Again, like I said yesterday, busy week, but lucky for me today, professor canceled the class, so I have some time to do a blog post in case I don't have time later in the week. Also, I looked and see I have over 400 photos from Death Valley National Park! This will take quite a while to show you guys, so I have decided I might increase the frequency of my posts to once daily. Not too sure about it, but I may do so. This is pretty much all the announcements I have for you guys, I hope you enjoy the blog post.

For the 1st night, I spent my night in Lone Pine. In the morning I took a trip to Alabama Hills nearby. Many movies scenes were shot in Alabama Hills including Star Trek. After I took some photos there, and drove back for a bathroom break, I headed into Death Valley National Park. These are all the photos for today, some shot in Alabama Hills, and some shots of my trip into Death Valley National Park.

Panorama in Alabama Hills.  

Anyways, I do have a warning that some of the photos may look a bit under or overexposed. So a few days before I went to Death Valley National Park, I was shooting wildlife photos and I forgot and left my camera's metering mode in "Center Weighed Average" and forgot to turn it back. So about half of the photos I took on my vacation was badly exposed. :/ Really sucked. HAHA This is why I always take my photos in RAW. There is more work room later so I can partially correct for my mistake. So that is why some of these photos looks a bit dark. Also another thing. So G+ (the service I am using to host my photos) does not allow big photo uploads. It told me my panoramas were too big for upload, so I had to spend some time sizing them down. Took me a while, but I managed to do it in time and still have time to do a blog post.

 Another shot of Alabama Hills. If it wasn't for my car there, I guess you can say this looks like another planet. I guess this is why this place has been chosen for so many movies.

I loved the place. It was beautiful, I would have stayed and took more photos, but I had to go take a bathroom break and I got up pretty late that day. HAHA  

HDR of the rock formations there.  

 Another HDR composition of the rocks and mountains in the distance.

2 photo panorama. 

Another panorama and the last photo before I left Alabama Hills.  

Afterwards, I started driving toward Death Valley National Park. Since the area doesn't have much traffic, I decided to get a shot of the straight highway. Really beautiful. 

Another shot of the highway. It felt great cruising down this straight highway, never have these in the SF Bay Area. 

This is all the photos I have for today. Next time, I will have more photos from my trip into Death Valley National Park, and also some photos of the Cerro Gordo Ruins (ghost town). 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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Taiwan (台湾) 2011 (Part 1)

Last year, I made my first visit to Taiwan, R.O.C. I was very busy after I got back and never got a chance to look through them and pick out the photos I'm going to post. I finally took out enough time to finish, so... Here they are! I did not take many photo there as the tropical weather made me very sick. I will be splitting them into a total of 8 parts. I hope you enjoy viewing them!

我去年去台湾旅游了一次。我会把这些照片分成八章文章。

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 Taiwan photos, use this link. To see all of my Taiwan photos from this trip, use this link.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 

Today I will be posting the pictures I took with my cellphone, and begin some of the photos I took with my DSLR.

This is the presidential office. Yeah I remember! LOL I forgot a lot of the names... My Chinese sucks too, which is the other reason. 

Some sort of park. It was beautiful. Weird how they can open up such a place in such a crowded city.  

Water fountain.  

This was Zhong Shan Tang.
中山堂。

This is the Shilin Night Market. It is one of the main tourist attractions in Taipei. A lot of snacks and food. Also lot's of small souvenirs for sale.  

Another photo of the Shilin Night Market. I took photos with my phone because I can get a better view above everybody. XD It was very crowded.  

This was on the edge of Shilin Night Market. There are some arcade games and souvenirs for sale.  

This is the Ding Tai Feng Restaurant (鼎泰丰) in Taipei. It is one of the famous tourist attractions, famous for their Xiao Long Bao (小笼包). They also have stores in mainland China.

The Xiao Long Bao figurine. LOL Anyways, I'd say the place is over-rated. The food in some of the less popular stores actually tasted better. If you are a foreigner with no idea how to speak Chinese, you are probably better off here. The waiters and waitresses can speak English, Spanish, French, Japanese, and maybe some other languages.  

The tall building is Taipei 101 (台北 101). It is one of the world's tallest buildings.  

Taipei 101 at night. 

Taipei 101 at night. 

One of the underground malls in Taipei.  

Giant hermit crabs! These were a lot bigger than the ones I've seen in the US.

The store had tiny ones on the left, and the big ones on the right. I've never seen the big ones in the US before. That is why I took a picture.

That is all of my cell phone photos. The rest of the photos and the ones in the days to come is taken with my DSLR.  

This is Zhong Shan Tang. Good thing I got a picture of the name. XD 

That says Zhong Shan Tang (read from left to right). Good thing I got a photo of the name.  

Outside of Zhong Shan Tang 

It says Zhong Shan Tang on the building. Since it is an old building, the text is read from right to left.  

Another photo of Zhong Shan Tang.

I hope you have you enjoyed viewing today's photos! Next time I got more Taiwan photos including some wildlife photos! Please remember to share them with your friends! Check back soon for more photos! If you would like to be notified when I post, you can "Like" us on Facebook. This can also be done in the Facebook box on the top of the right side bar.

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A trip to Pier 39 in San Francisco (Part 3)

I recently visited Pier 39 in San Francisco. Here are some pictures. :) Enjoy! I will post up more parts in the days to come. Stay tuned!

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Images from Pier 39 and parts of San Francisco

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. View my best 2010 and 2012 San Francisco photos here. View all of my 2010 San Francisco photos here.

Thanks for looking! I hope you have enjoyed these photos I have posted today! 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 Google+. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6