Late Again - Favorite Fotos From FlickR for Friday, 4/20/2012

This was a tough week at my other job so I did not spend much time on FlickR. To catch up, I decided to browse through the latest 30 images from each of the groups I have joined to find five interesting fotos. Your  'groups' page on FlickR can be sorted in alphabetical order or by recent activity. I decided to try to browse the 'oldest latest' images and to do that I sorted by recent activity and then started with group at the bottom (oldest recent activity) and began working my way up. When you access a group, you are presented with the thumbnails of the most recent dozen images but beneath those images is a widget that expands the thumbnails to the most recent 30 images. So I went to each group, bottoms up in terms of recent activity, and then expanded the thumbnails to the most recent 30 images and began browsing. I found five favorites in probably 6 groups but I can't say for sure because the groups list will re-sort based on recent activity.

This weeks five favorites are:

In this first image, I like the overall composition along with the sense of movement conveyed by the lines of the water. I also like the leading lines of the rock stream bed.

"Red Oasis" by Clay Carey

This image caught my attention with the foreground sandstone leading to the dwelling as well as the repetition of the poles on the dwelling.

"The Doll's House" by IntrepidXJ

I like the 'rule of thirds' placement of elements in this image as well as the color and contrast used to draw your eyes to the maple leaf.

"Fall Leaves 9946" by Kurt Preissler 

Pronghorn Antelope are one of my favorite subjects so this image immediately grabbed my attention with the subject. Additionally, I like the bokeh in this image likely created by the combination of a long lens and large aperture.

"_MG_1537 - Pronghorn buck. ©Jerry Mercier" by jerry mercier

This last image struck me as one I would have composed had I been in the same location at the same time. I like vertical images, the use of the water pocket in the foreground to spark interest and the way the storm clouds lead into the image. I realized that IntrepidXJ had two of the this weeks 5 favorite images and so added him/her as a contact so I can follow the images that IntrepidXJ posts to FlickR.

"Monument Canyon Clouds" by IntrepidXJ

 I hope you enjoy these FlickR images as much as I do. Feel free to visit my website, like my Facebook fan page, follow me on Twitter or add me to a circle on Google+.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Blog | Email

LowePro Sunset

Recently, I have been exploring the Santa Clarita valley and nearby areas for locations to shoot sunrises or sunsets. The Santa Clarita valley is north of Los Angeles and is the location of the city of Santa Clarita, the 4th largest city in Los Angeles county. The Santa Clara river, for which the city and valley are named flows west from the San Gabriel mountains meeting the Pacific ocean near Ventura, California.

The sunrises and sunsets can be spectacular when you have clouds move in from the west (the typical storm pattern) into the valley. With the last un-channeled river in southern California running through the valley, one would think there would be many opportunities for great images. But the city of Santa Clarita alone has over 100,000 residents and all of these people need infrastructure: roads and freeways, gas stations and markets, movie theaters and amusement parks, etc. So finding a location that favors natural elements over man made ones is difficult.

LowePro Sunset

In trying to avoid scenes with roads, markets, cars and the like, I have been searching for locations above the valley floor. Central Park, sort of located "centrally" hence the name, is the largest recreation area within the city boundaries and supports many activities. It is the location of many cross country running meets because it has flat areas and hilly areas making for interesting course layouts. Adjacent to the park is privately owned land that overlooks the Santa Clara river. In hunting for locations, I had seen these hills and wondered how to access them. Using google maps, I found a way to access the private land using part of the cross country course that originates in Central Park.

The sunset on the evening of February 11th, 2012 looked promising and I decided to try to shoot the sunset from the private land. I grabbed my camera bag and rain gear (it spit for a minute but rain was never an issue) and hiked south from Central Park. The good news is that when I finally got on the top of the right hill, I was rewarded with the view that I wanted. The bad news was that this was the private land I had been seeking but it had been graded and stripped of vegetation in preparation for building houses. I am not sure when the grading occurred (it was likely before the current housing bust) but the land is slowly recovering. At some point the housing market will recover and the owner will build out the houses with the side affect that the views from these hills looking out across the valley will be limited to a few people. Because the land had been graded and the scrub brush is slowly recovering, there was not anything interesting to use in the foreground so I improvised by using my camera bag.

In the meantime, I was there, set the aperture at f/8 and captured a few images. I had been in this general area one other time and did not relish hiking out in the dark so on that occasion, I left when there was still some light and as a consequence I missed it when the sunset "exploded". This time I brought a flashlight and waited but the sky never went boom. It was still very nice.

Image particulars: Canon 5D MKII, EF 16-35mm/f2.8L II lens at 16mm and f/8, .6 sec, ISO 100 using a Kirk BH-3 ball head on a Gitzo GT2541 tripod.

The image, LowePro Sunset and others are available at my website.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Blog | Email