Moon Bow Magic in Yosemite National Park

April and May are a special time of year in Yosemite National Park when the full moon rises and produces moon bows on Yosemite Falls.

The moon bows are invisible to the naked eye, except for a white arch that may display faint color.  But take a photograph, using nighttime settings and you might be surprised by a rainbow!   I recommend 30 seconds ƒ2.8 and ISO 100, on a tripod and using a cable release.  If you can manage 25 seconds there will be less movement in the stars.

I was surprised by a double moon bow in the image below.

Single moon bow on Lower Yosemite Falls, taken the night before the full moon.

Here are a number of different photographs that were taken during the May full moon last weekend.

And some night shots taken by the light of the moon.

And some shots taken before the sun set.  The first is a vertoram of Bridalveil Falls.

And, how about a few Pileated Woodpeckers from the campground.

Few words and many images.

Back to the high country and the campground!  As you can see, life is good in Yosemite National Park.

Finding the spirit of Yosemite National Park

The last light on Half Dome

I dream of the day that the constant barrage of difficulties have disappeared, or at least trickled to one a week, and I can write about exploring the national parks without them peppered into my story.  When it is just me and the way that I interpret the nature that surrounds me.  Maybe today will be the first day…

One blessing that I have received for as long as memory serves is that at some point in the day a surge of optimism moves me to take a hold of my inner strength and keep going forward.  A clear thought that the current chapter is closing and the new one is beginning.  My eyes brighten, my lips curl into a smile, my head clears and I am ready to begin whatever is next.  I am anxious to find out what this precious life will bring and to live it to the fullest.

Yesterday I awoke with my right eye nearly swollen shut, the whole side of my face red and puffy, except where there were stripes of agony running down my eyelid.  Despite all of the cool Technu baths, the Calamine lotion, the Benadryl and making every effort to keep my skin cool and dry, the poison oak was marching on without further exposure to its oils.  Areas that had healed were once again red and itchy, my leg was swollen and redder than ever and the itching had brought me to the point of desperation.  One can take almost anything for a week or two but nearly three weeks later, and with no sign of healing and no hope for relief, I was worn down and reduced to tears.

I went back into the valley and, despite the complications I’ve had in the past, begged them to let me try the steroids.  This was not an easy decision but the time had come when the risks were worth getting rid of the rash.  The discussion was one of much thought and compromise before I was finally given a low dose of prednisone.  My body was trembling terribly from the shock of the poison and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to function for the rest of the day.  But, several hours later, and a whole lot of anti-itching cream and my body had settled down and was beginning to relax.

View from near Glacier Point.

It was on the impromptu drive to Glacier point, before seeing the view of the entire valley and back country, that my blessing arrived.  This time when I told myself that everything was going to be all right, it felt like the truth.  I felt completely sure that a corner had been turned and at last I would fully enjoy the splendor of the granite walls before me.

At Glacier Point it was startling to see Half Dome so close that it felt as if it were possible to reach out and kiss its face.  I wanted to wrap my arms on the granite and do just that, kiss the cool surface.  A menagerie of perfect clouds filled the sky, filtering the afternoon light as it skipped across the landscape.  As I learned to do in Zion, I ventured close to a ledge in order to see more but with a healthy dose of caution and fear.  There were so many years, when going through medical difficulties, and other things, that I simply trudged and didn’t care what happened to me.  But when I began to take writing more seriously and then discovered photography, all of that began to dissolve and my prayers changed to please don’t let me die before I see all of the beauty of the national parks.

There are so many wonderful places in the world, landscapes that I cannot imagine, and for some time I have been trying to define why the parks were so important and my question was answered a few weeks ago.  I’ve always had this somewhat odd sense that life should be fair and that everyone should have the same opportunities.  Hard to tell where that came from and it does not matter but the feelings are embedded in my psyche and I will most likely pass on with the desire for fairness lodged deep into my soul.

When the national parks were born they were meant for the enjoyment of everyone.  If the federal government had not taken the action of dedicating these treasures their resources would have been destroyed and what was not would have been purchased by the very rich for their personal enjoyment, or for resorts that the majority of us can not afford.  It was important to me that someone like myself could leave the city and wander into pristine forests filled with wild animals that had nothing to fear.  That I could stand on Glacier Point, right alongside anyone else and enjoy that view, knowing that it would still be there for my grandchildren.

While the parks are preserved for us, there is still the element of fancy lodges and over priced meals and souvenirs that not everyone can afford.  The difference between those who sleep in luxury and those who struggle for gas money and camping gear in order to visit a national park.  I am not complaining, not at all, but would be remiss if not telling the entire story of what I see.  Some may have other thoughts and ideas – these are my own.  The tents in Housekeeping Camp and Curry Village in Yosemite go for more than $100 a night, while rooms at the Awahnee rent for upwards of $1000.  Campsites are $20 at most campgrounds during the season, $10 for people with an access pass or for seniors.  I would much rather spend $10 to enjoy the experience of truly being in nature.  I’d rather eat peanut butter celery than to spend $50 on a meal or trinket, but that is just me.

View of Yosemite Falls and the Valley from Glacier Point

Up there at Glacier Point the wind was blowing slightly and the air was chilly.  Visitors stood on the viewing platform and stared out in wonder.  Others stood on rocks and made brave poses for the cameras.  There was no lack of enjoyment for anyone, not up there on the top of that granite cliff.

A man saw me folding up my tripod and climbing the rocks up to the platform away from the unfenced edge, and said, “Tell me something…You like a real honest to goodness photographer…”

“I don’t know about the ‘real honest’ part,’ I laughed.

Ironically, he was a criminal defense attorney from Tar Heel country in Chapel Hill, NC and I was a retired cop from Durham, N.C. and so the joke came off well.

He helped me climb down off of a rock, “When can we expect the red glow?”

The attorney was hoping to catch the reverent Alpenglow as it graced the cheeks of Half Dome but decided that it would be too long a wait for his friend.

“That is why I travel alone,” I told him.  “No one would put up with my photography.”

He remarked on how taking photos is a solo adventure and we made some friendly small talk.  His friend came over and quickly glanced at my red leg covered in scabs from the bursting blisters.

“Poison Oak,” I told him.  And he looked up to see my grotesque face.

“That looks really bad,” he said.

I laughed and told him thank you.  The attorney asked how he could see my photos and so I gave him my name, which he wrote down.

“I hate to say this because it sounds arrogant, but you can Google me to see my photographs.”  Many years ago I wrote a story about the Poet Laureate who didn’t have time to give an interview for the small monthly paper I worked for and told me, “Google me, you’ll find out everything you need to know.”  It turned out to be a great story.

My intention was to leave Glacier Point and return to the valley but by the time I got back to my car, I’d decided to stay for sunset.  Luckily I had some warmups to put on over my shorts but it would have been nice to remember hat and gloves.  I’d gone out on the point without my wide angle lens and so decided to strap on the backpack and take all of my gear out to the edge – to an old weathered log that I wanted to use as a foreground element.

By the time I returned a woman had her tripod set up in front of the log but was hand holding her camera and taking shots.  I chose another spot, parallel with her, where I could still capture a portion of the log and settled down to take some my own photos.  It wasn’t long before the sun briefly came out and I realized that my shadow was on the log and so I moved to another position closer to her but not so close that our tripod legs were touching.  There was plenty of room.  Before long she shoved her tripod leg into my frame.  I let her know, thinking that she probably didn’t realize that it was in my way.

“I was here first,” she shouted.  “You didn’t ask if you could be here or say excuse me or anything…I’m shooting with a wide angle and you were in my way.”

Oh boy.  I was shooting with a wider angle and full frame and she had not been in my way until the tripod leg appeared and so I knew that what she said was impossible.

“And then your shadow was on the log.”

“That was why I moved,” I told her.

“I am so sick of rude photographers,” she yelled.  Obviously I was the target of much pent up anger and frustration.  She shoved her tripod further into my way and so I moved forward.

I was almost ready to shoot when she walked out to the ledge and sat in front of my camera.  Fabulous light was passing by.  I took some shots and then she realized that I could still see Half Dome and so she moved over to obstruct that view.  I took some more shots.  She came up to sit directly in front of my tripod.  By this time we had both shouted at each other – I didn’t appreciate being told that I was rude after taking such pains to keep out of her way and to move when I’d noticed the shadow.

“I’m not moving until you apologize,” she shouted.

“For what?”

“For being rude.”  People up on the platform were laughing.  No matter where I moved she followed the front of my lens and so I just kicked back to relax.

“We are missing out on some great light,” I told her.

“I don’t care, I have all night.”  She sat there, she stood, she turned her large rear end into my face, she turned to face me, she folded her arms and made little quips.  There was plenty of room on that rock for several photographers and I am sure that it has been elbow to elbow on many nights, just like it is at The Watchman, The Oxbow, Tunnel View and other famous landmarks.  I became amused by her anger but said nothing because she was obviously very out-of-control and had made up her mind about what I had been doing – ostensibly to purposefully get into her way.

“Finally, I told her that I was returning to my original position and she was free to do what she wanted.  She didn’t want to give it up and stood there for a minute before slowly taking the long way around so that she could be in my way for longer.  There was a crowd watching and she knew that she had to relent.  Returning to her camera and tripod, she shoved the leg further into my view and resumed shooting.  I was thinking about the Content-aware filter.

She did nothing to dampen my experience at Glacier Point – in fact she made it richer.  I saw much of the old me in her, when I would not talk to anyone and would seethe with anger when someone got in my way, instead of politely asking them to move.  Some other, friendly photographers came out onto the rock and we were switching up positions to allow everyone a chance to get the shot that they wanted, while she stood firm in her spot.  Great conversations and laughs and she was forgotten – left standing there in the dark as we returned to our cars.

I proceeded into the valley for some moonlight night shooting of El Capitan and Yosemite Falls.  Several times young photographers walked by and wanted to know my settings, which I freely shared with them.  The itching had begun again but there had been several hours of comfort.  I smathered more cream onto my legs and hiked up to lower Yosemite Falls in the dark.  The spray is intense, making it difficult for photography, and the moon was shining behind some clouds, but it was still breathtaking.

There was no itching during the night and by morning the redness was subdued.  Obviously the medication was beginning to work and so the only thing left to worry about is the after affects of that.  Fortunately some great new camp hosts arrived a few days ago, Pat and BJ, and life in the campground is terrific.  They are helping while I recover from the poison oak.

The full moon is out and the valley never so beautiful.  Yes, the corner has been turned and I felt the true inner spirit of Yosemite for the first time last night.  An easy wildness that would be difficult to define except that at Glacier Point I felt the purity of Yosemite National Park.

Camping in Yosemite Valley – Let the good times roll

One of the last things that I did before leaving my winter home was to take a nice long, hot shower.  Even though there is a shower house, combined with laundry area, near the campground, I knew that it might be some time before I once again had the kind of shower that everyone dreams about after a long hard day – endlessly hot.

After three nights of camping there were two things on my mind, try to catch up on emails and take a shower before heading back to  the other world where my trailer waits for me.  Photography was pretty much a bust this morning, though I did get a couple of shots that made me tingle, and so the shooting time was short.  I returned to the campground, took a short hike to The Fen and some beyond and then returned to pack everything up.  Out of the Upper Pines Campground, which is in a stunning forest setting where people like to party late into the night or morning, at exactly 12 noon and at the center for Fine Respites from the camping life, as I like to call it, five minutes later.

The poison oak is absolutely relentless, refusing to give up its license to eat my skin, making it extremely difficult to sit at the computer and concentrate and so I had planned to respond to a couple of emails, download photos, shower and split.  But, as plans sometimes unfold, things change.  I’d already written part of this post and then there were a couple of photos that were not from the past few days, that excited me and so, everything was almost ready to post a blog when the internet went down and the new gal didn’t know how to fix it.

Shower time!

I hope not many of you have had the experience of a long coveted hot shower with poison oak over a quarter of your body.  The hot water cascading down my head as I washed my hair five times was shear delight but when it hit the angry red rash only agony comes to mind.  I stifled the screams, clenched my head in fingernails and groaned.  You know on TV when the sound is off but you can see a face wrenched in terrorizing pain?  That was me.

The shower brought to mind another time several years ago when my disc was herniated again but I was determined that it wasn’t and so had refused to go to the doctor.  I spent my days locked inside stretching, trying to fix the “kink.”  As the days wore on I got the point when I couldn’t sit on the couch (futon) and so drug the mattress to the floor and somehow shoved the frame out into the front yard.  Often I had to crawl to the bathroom because standing was so impossible.  I refused anything for pain.  I was terrified of the hospital and surgery.  At some point taking a shower hurt so terribly that I screamed and cried to get through one.

Eventually I ended up in the hospital on Labor Day weekend with a different doctor who believed that all I wanted was drugs – until they did the MRI.  After the trip through the tube someone rushed into my room to tell me how sorry they were and to reassure me that I would not have any more pain.  The next morning I awoke to a strange doctor rubbing my forehead.  She said, “I didn’t think we were going to get you back, we lost you last night….we found you not breathing….revive…She vanished and I never saw her again.  That had overdosed me during the night and I never even knew.

What a crappy thing to remember while sitting at the computer in Yosemite National Park but this long awaited shower felt so familiar.

***I wrote this portion while sitting at the campfire two nights ago.

As any photographer would, I arrived back at my campsite after dark, feeling reluctant to cook, look at photos or do anything besides crawl into a warm bed.

I looked into the bear box and marveled at all of the food that I’d brought for three days and decided it was best to cook.  After nearly two days of rain everything was drenched and it took forever to get the fire going.  I didn’t wait for hot coals.  There were flames and plop on the grill, there was the ear of white corn wrapped smathered in butter and wrapped in foil.  A few minutes later the steak followed.  Not many more minutes after that I was sinking teeth into that steaming ear of delicious corn.  The steak, well, it was a different story and I don’t even know if it got cooked or not, but I ate the whole thing.

During breakfast at the Curry buffet for 50% off that morning I realized that my eyes could no longer focus on my food.  For some reason I’d put on my reading glasses and experienced my plate of food getting larger and brighter.  This was a mind numbing discovery.

All camp hosts should try sleeping in a tent and following all those rules about food and fires because they are not as easy as they might sound.  In Yosemite the black bears are aggressive about yummy, high caloric (especially chocolate) people food and so nothing with a scent is allowed in the car overnight.  Nor is anything allowed in the tent.  Everything but person, clothes, lamp and bed has to go into the bear box.  Oh, alright, firewood can stay outside but during a rainy day that maybe isn’t the best choice.

I’ve heard stories about people opening their bear box and carrying the food to the table, only to have a bear dive into the chocolate right behind them.  How can a bear be so close and the person not know?  Obviously we are not dealing with your average bears.

After the steak and the corn came the s’more.  I didn’t have enough patience to wait for coals with which to roast the marshmallow a golden brown that instantly melts the hershey onto the graham cracker but did my best.  That tasty little treat went down so fast that I can not now remember how good it was.

Part of me wonders how many people who work or volunteer here take the time to really embed themselves into the experience of the park.  No matter where we are there is a tendency to take the surroundings for granted or think that there will be time later.  Tent camping in the rain when my warm, cozy trailer is only 25 miles away does seem a bit extreme but I would have always craved some overnights in the valley if I hadn’t of done it.  To be right down here in the center of the activity, in a crowded campground where young men are still having lively campfire conversations at 11:46 p.m. and generators run at all hours is part of the trade off for being in the heart of the park.

The night is a rich dark one and I hear the footsteps as they scuffle by and can see a small dot of light, presumably from a headlight, but that is it.  But, when I walk away from the computer and look up beyond the  top of the tall pines, the stars are beginning to emerge from the storm.   The crescent moon moved over an hour or two ago, blanketed in some of those left over clouds.  I can hear the Merced rushing by in a loud roar that is only slightly buffered by the forest.

As the rains progressed water began to run over the sides of the mountains, down the face of El Capitan, the Sentinal and other mountains.  The riverbanks swelled far beyond what I would have ever imagined they would and it became obvious how quickly this valley could flood.  In my mind I am imagining the mad rush west, trying to outrun the river.  Or heading for the high ground where waterfalls have grown to twice their size of a few days ago.

I can’t help myself.  I drive through this valley and something will catch my eye and I exclaim with delight over how beautiful it is.  There might be a spot of light on a mountain, a rainbow over Bridalveil Falls, or a large log rushing down the river.  A coyote, his face in and out of the sporadic light hunting in a meadow.  Or the sun periodically lighting up the bright colors of the rain jackets.  Right now the dogwoods are blooming in the valley and those really make me smile.  One of the residences has a pair of pink dogwood trees providing a welcome splash of spring color.  In the past few days the maples and oaks began to don their leaves and the grasses began to turn green.  Always changing, never the same.

The camp host at Upper Pines directed me to some good internet that is just for employees.  Hallelujah!  Fast internet, friendly staff, showers, exercise room and video library.  What a welcome find – well worth the camping in the rain.  One should not under estimate isolation from the outside world until they have experienced it for themselves.  I took care of a few things on the internet, not much because one eye was outside on the weather.  Waiting for the sun to emerge.

Large storm clouds and spots of sunshine and my heart began to soar.  All of the trials, the poison oak included, seemed to go away.  I felt excitement and happiness surround me and my positive attitude returned.  This feeling that all of the trials were behind me jumped on board and I determined to ride it as far as possible.

The poison oak has been raging on my left leg for more than a week and it is swollen and grotesque.  I have never seen anything so horrible and it is difficult to keep it covered for fear of sweat or fabric irritating the rash even more.  I wondered how it would be to camp with this still going on but so far it isn’t any worse than being at the trailer.  The clinic gave me some cortisone cream and I think the healing has begun.  I am petrified of the forest now – of ever coming in contact with that plant again but have since discovered that the poison oak was most likely in El Portal where I was photographing the poppies.  Why or why do I have to be allergic to all of this crap?

The voices and the laughter are still going strong next tent over but I do believe they will put me into a deep sleep, in preparation for another glorious day in Yosemite Valley.

Ah, well, the sleep part eluded me but I rose before sunrise, hopeful for some great light after the rainstorm and was not disappointed.  My new beginning, my moving on from the trials had a shaky beginning when the car told me a tire was low.  That sensor had a tendency to go off from time to time and then reset but not this time.  I waited until 8 for the garage to open but soon discovered that they had 24 hour air.  Pretty cool I thought, smiling while filling all of my tires.  Until the last one.  The knobby thing broke off and air wouldn’t go into the tire.  Crap.  But, look on the bright side, I was already at the garage and they were open.

While the tire was being fixed (they put in a rubber knobby thing) I walked across the valley to Curry Village for another 50% of breakfast.  Depression was falling upon me as I wondered when it would end.  I am tired of struggling.  At the coffee shop I knocked the sign onto the floor, at the grocery store I broke the water knob and water spilled every where.  Disasters keep following me, bringing much unneeded attention to me.  Something everywhere I go.

I had a lovely walk in the woods, delighted by flowers, birds and filtered light.

The sensor was not broken and so I just have to order a new knobby thing.  Until then the warning light will be on.

In the afternoon some clouds moved in and Yosemite Falls were backlit and so I headed over to photograph them.  But my phone was missing.  I couldn’t find it and was worried about someone getting into all of my computer information.  But how would I contact someone to deal with all of that?  Panicked.  A young gal at the outdoor shop let me try calling the phone but nothing rang.  A woman at the registration office called the campground reservation office, where I’d gone to check on availability for another night of camping.  Trade offs.  They had my phone.  I was so relieved!  The entire valley was covered in a dull grey and rain began to trickle.  The day of shooting was a wash.

And today, the only difficulty so far was my lens cap falling into the river.  Other than that and the shower, I’m feeling okay.  I know with all of my heart that it will be impossible to continue struggling everyday and so things had better shape up because I hate quitting!

Okay lady, get over your grouchiness and buck it up

 

Two full weeks in Yosemite and it as if I have lived a lifetime.

 

That first morning when I awoke to find myself alone amongst the tall trees – not another human in sight.

 

Since then there had been campers every night and some of days during spring break vacations were busy.

 

And then I awoke to rain one morning.  Actually at about 2 a.m. the rain began dancing on the trailer top and I went outside to roll up my awning and to store camp chairs and such under cover.

 

Some tent campers left during the night and in the morning there were two families left and both were complaining about leaky tents.  By then the rain began turning to snow and the families were hastily packing all of their wet belongings and were inquiring about the road conditions.  And then they were gone and I was left to embrace mother nature alone.

 

Snow, rain, hail, wind, thunder and lightening.  Part of me could only sit and watch, mesmerized by the stark solitude.  Disconcerted by the part of me that didn’t think that such a level of isolation was ever necessary.  My mind didn’t ramble and I made no moves to busy myself or to forget my situation.  I only allowed myself to feel what was real.

 

Snow and rain falling on the trailer sounds like a million gulls jumping up and down, having their shorebird pow wow.  Occasionally a pelican would plop unceremoniously onto the dance floor, causing me to run outside to make sure that a tree branch hadn’t landed on the roof.

 

The constant barrage of plops and crashes all about me were continually startling.  I felt exposed in a war zone of sorts.  It took quite some time before my nerves began to settle but even now, as the snow melts from those tall trees, a loud crash makes my body jiggle.  What a strange word to come up with, jiggle, but that is the way it feels when maybe what is a slight tremor begins above my right eye and squiggles on down until I let it go.

 

Through all of the weather, until shortly before the storm began to ease, leaving behind several inches of white fluff, the power kept chugging away with only some slight hesitations during the thunder storm.  But the snow was heavy and I knew it couldn’t end without taking away my connection to the outside world.

 

I’m not sure how long the power had been off yesterday before I noticed that lights were no longer glowing.  Probably not long.  I then began the prepare for boon docking and more lessons about my new trailer.

 

The snow beginning to clear and patches of sunlight lighting the tops of trees and hour after hour I spent obtaining fuel for the generator and then trying to make it run.  I wanted so badly to grab the camera and the snowshoes, which were already out, and head off into the forest.  That reminds me, I was preparing for a snowshoe trek when I noticed the power was out.  I was ready for some recreation, some enjoyment of the winter weather but instead my basic survival methods were running full steam ahead.

 

The last thing that I would need were frozen pipes because the heat had quit working.

 

I cried just a little – my frustration over the continual struggles.  A little poor me time felt appropriate.  I could so use some calm streams and some effortless sailing.  This constant trying to fix something has me worn out to the max.  The cameras, the trailer, surviving in the wilderness, the efforts to stay in contact and to not feel quite so alone, where to buy groceries, where to get internet, where to get cell service – most of which is just learning and adapting.

 

But the cameras.  Between the continually dirty sensor on the D700 and the ongoing D7000 struggle, I have been battling cameras continuously for nearly a year.  I often wonder why keep going, why keep trying.  I wonder if the universe is telling me to stop – letting me know that I am wasting my time.  During long quiet hours I ponder these questions and meditate over what my function in this world is supposed to be.

 

One can not imagine, unless having been through it, what it feels like to be forced into retirement at the age of 35.  The loss of identity and ability to adequately care for myself were the hard parts.  I so needed to feel productive and useful but suddenly was no one to anyone.  I was not, in my mind, a productive member of society.  Over the years I have struggled hard to reverse this situation.  Every time I have faced defeat, most often due to bizarre circumstances that I could not have controlled.

 

Shunned by my body, family, love, and ability to work, I felt like a useless nobody.

 

And so, I have optimistically moved forward with the photography, writing and travels.  But, as I’ve chronicled my experiences it is obvious that something is not working somewhere.  I keep moving forward because what else would I do?

 

The truth is that if you read the entire book of the bad luck charm named Deby, you would not believe that one person could experience so much.  Shame has persistently followed me and continually threatened to beat me down.  But, I reasoned, one can not make life more positive with lingering feelings of worthlessness.  And so, with traveling and photography, I have pushed forward.

 

But the challenges, in their endless nature, are once again threatening to be too much.  Even the most optimistic and upbeat person would begin to waver now.  I can’t fulfill my goals and my mission without equipment that works.

 

Yesterday afternoon, when I finally just walked away from the generator and power issues, wearing only a coat and hat as winter wear, I walked through the forest with my camera.  I wasn’t sure how I wanted to capture the snow in the forest.  Clods of heavy white stuff were falling from the trees, often smacking me in the head, and I had to protect the camera from the elements.

 

Off I walked, following a natural gully, near where I had tripped several days ago, and a small flow of water leading down to the meadow.  Eventually I realized that I was following an unseen creature that had been “marking” trees and logs.  I began checking for prints, seeing some that were small and fox like, others that were slightly bigger and cat like and still others that were fairly large and very cat like.  The big cat prints seemed to end abruptly and I looked around – that eerie feeling of being watched.  But I kept on with my trek through the forest and the meadow, taking photos despite not knowing if they would turn out or not.

 

The camera issue so heavy on my mind…

 

I sent the D7000 back, along with one of my lenses, and have opted to keep the D700 until I have a working camera in my possession.  Still, the thoughts of the special editing certain photos would require was plaguing me.  Should I quit?  I needed to know if I should quit.

 

And then, at some point near the end of the hike, I realized that my hands would feel empty without a camera and my heart would never feel full unless I were taking photos.  If I allowed these issues to stop my journey, I would always wonder what would have happened next.  Would the camera situation have finally eased off and would I have been able to thoroughly enjoy taking photos again?  What would I have missed?  I try not to think of all that I have missed due to camera problems.  Try to forget all of the out of focus photos that have been taken with a D7000 – all of the great opportunities that were crushed.

 

I keep moving forward.  No one can live under the curse of bad luck forever – eventually things have to change.  My job is to keep going, carefully, one step at a time, and to wash away these feelings of doom and defeat.  To plaster that smile on my face with meaning, passion and honesty and to keep going.

 

****Story continued in next post

 

 

Ah ha moment, or no wonder I’m grouchy

By Saturday afternoon most of the snow had melted off of the trees surrounding me and the sun had come out to play their shadows across the fresh white world.

I left for a short time to return the gas can that I’d borrowed from the station 8 miles up the road.  A strange car was parked at the back of the campground and I was shocked to see it there, with no humans in sight or tracks leading off into the forest.

No power and thus no phone to contact anyone.  I began thinking about how vulnerable it felt to be here all alone with no way to contact the outside world, should an emergency occur.  The edginess that I felt confused me, particularly because rangers and employees had stopped by to make sure that I was okay and wasn’t in need of anything.  The reality was that I wasn’t alone.

And some x-country skiers had parked their car and rode off with some friends to do some skiing.  Of course everything was fine.

When I returned to the trailer the generator gave me some more fits before starting up once again.  Oh, but the lights were glowing inside of the trailer, which meant that the power had come on and everything was indeed okay.

I changed course to include electricity in my life, plugging everything back in and rolling up the extension cord, and then pondered going for a hike.  And then wondered why I felt so out of sorts.

My finger throbbed worse than it had since the skin had been ripped off of its tip a few days ago.  I felt depressed but reasoned that there was no reason to feel that way.  And then thought about the vivid, colorful dreams of the night before that all contained the theme of me on the outside looking in.  I had tossed and turned and thrown the covers off of me, despite the freezing temperatures, turning

the heat down lower and lower.  And then I turned it back up.  It had been a restless night, to say the least.

I took the bandage off of my finger and discovered that the wound and my fingertip were on fire in deep shades of burning red.  The skin stretched smooth by the swelling.  The darned thing was infected.

Everything made sense, except that I hadn’t realized the symptoms of an infection earlier.  I had been through this before – the unreasonable edginess and depression that left me confused.  I was upset at myself for not recognizing the problem sooner.

Hydrogene Peroxide bubbled endlessly inside of my wound and I searched through the bathroom things, which had been moved to the bunk bed after discovering that the mouse had eaten my toilet paper, and found a prescription of antibiotics.  I’m not an ouch, give me a pill type of person and I pondered taking the medication for several hours before it became apparent that my finger was only getting worse..

Another fitful night of vivid dreams and throwing the covers off but in the morning I felt more like myself.  Some of the swelling and redness had evaporated and the finger was not as sore as it had been.  I had planned to go to the medical clinic in the valley but discovered that it wasn’t open during the weekends.

After nearly dying because of an infection in my brain, I knew that this was not an instance in which it is smart to cross fingers and hope that everything turns out okay.  I have a healthy respect for the power and quickness of the burning flesh, along with a cautious respect for the drugs that can make it better.  The Cipro was working and I didn’t need to take any more chances.

I feel foolish for being so emotional but guess that between being sick, feeling sore from my fall and all of the changes of the past two weeks, it is not so unexpected.  I am not a rock, though it would be nice if I were.

Am I confused about why I fell down, why I ripped the skin off of my finger and why the camera problems continue to persist?  Of course I am.  I have grown into a more cautious person who does not move quickly and who spends a lot of time maintaining and caring for equipment and so thoughtlessness and carelessness are not the issues – it is more like some unseen force that is hard to explain.

I dream about the day that everything is in place and working fine, about the day when this journey moves from the struggles of getting and keeping it going to the joy of doing it.  For, I do believe that a photography journey to capture the landscapes, wildlife and people of the national parks should be filled with three times more awe, joy and fascination than of pain.

Will that be the case?  Or will this romantic notion that I have of the endless beauty that is set out before me because visionaries had the passion to fight for it, be one of my struggles to be here, my undying commitment to find peace in nature?

If you saw what I am looking at right now, the snow glistening under the sun and blue sky, the fat robins and California squirrels running across its surface, the blue of the Stelar Jay hopping from cedar to pine to fir, the junco’s white bellies flashing as they chase each other around, and if you heard what I hear – the sound of birds and nothing else.  If you saw the way the birds fly straight towards me, hoping that the only camper in the campground will drop a few crumbs, or saw the squirrel dart past up onto my wood pile, turning its cute face in my direction, you would know that in the end, no matter what I come up with, or what happens, the perfection of nature far out way the struggles, pain and confusion of the rest.  If only for a few minutes a day I am able to enjoy nature and share it with others, then I am successful.

I have struggled for a lifetime to survive and to thrive and all of those days have led me to here and this moment, one that I could never have imagined, so why give up now?  Why, when my experiences have become richer and more meaningful, no longer taken for granted, would I not want to see what miracle will happen next?  I may have a bleeding heart but I am not a fool.

A photography day in the California Poppies

When the sun is shining, the California poppies open with a smile and dour hearts are sure to quit whining.  When the sun begins to fade, trickling down behind hillsides and mountains, the poppies bade goodnight, wrapping their delicate faces in soft and silky petals.

The black-tail doe stepped up to the crosswalk and looked both ways.  I slowed for the quadestrian and she waited until my car was stopped before proceeding within the boundaries of the white lines on the pavement to cross the road that crawls along the valley floor in Yosemite National Park.

The doe’s movements were so careful and precise I could do nothing but stare open-mouthed as she crossed in front of me.  It wasn’t until she was half-way that I thought about the camera and capturing her legal crossing, which, of course, was too late.

When will that ever happen again?  I laughed to myself.  Another moment missed in a long line of many.  I have the memory, I thought, and will commit it to paper.  Someone’s, anyone’s, voice fractures my self-consoling moment and I hear, “It doesn’t count without the photographic evidence – it didn’t happen.”  Yeah, yeah, oh shut up…

Such is the life and mind of the eager photographer who is out in the world hoping to catch the unusual, the spectacular, the moments that count -  too often not ready or late to react.  Caught off guard and not paying close enough attention – not anticipating the cute boy wearing a cowboy hat as he hikes with mom along a trail surrounded by springtime wildflowers.  California poppies.

Photography is constantly reshaping me, my personality, my visual interaction with my surroundings, and it has continually reordered my lists of what is important.  I have files and files of photos from the beginning, all filled with images taken in harsh light or out of focus.  Snapshots worth nothing but painful memories of struggling.  I had been bitten by the bug to capture the world and so I shot everything and at any time of day.  Snap, snap, snap, it was only megapixels and something was bound to be okay.  And occasionally I got everything right.

Ashamed by the number of photos that I took, I consoled myself with the philosophy of Ansel Adams and how it was necessary to take a lot of photographs to get one good image.  I made excuses for being a lousy, possessed photographer and kept shooting.  I was willing to take bad photos in order to learn how to take good ones – often cheered on by those who were too kind to tell me the truth.

My dyslexic brain was not wired for technical details and I found it difficult to understand the difference between ISO, shutter speed, ƒstop, + or – EV, bulb, or any of those things.  And I was too proud to ask questions.  Stubborn and proud.

Slowly the technical aspects of my pro DSLR began to sink in, either from trial and error, or from listening to others.   One step at a time I became willing to be a life long student of photography, of seeing, reacting, organizing and of listening.  For, if I didn’t push myself to continue learning, I would get bored and never become a better photographer.  If I went out and effortlessly snapped amazing photographs, this passion would have died long ago.

Yesterday, which was Tuesday, a Tuesday in April – the 10th, I believe, Nikon asked me to send them the new D7000, along with my 80 – 400mm lens, so that they could determine why it wasn’t focusing.  Four D7000′s now and the same issue each time.  This one was better than the others, low noise and clear, crisp shots when not zooming.  But zoom, the detail goes away.  This has me very depressed.  On top of that, my D700 has a long scratch on the dirty dust covered sensor, along with two grease spots.  I have been trying to deal with this scratch situation but the people who cleaned it claim that it isn’t there.  “Probably just a hair, or something.”  But, it is there.  They want me to send them the D700.  Repair people two cameras, Deby in Yosemite, none.

I feel defeated and wonder if all of the struggles are telling me to quit.  This whole thing, the camera problems, have been one big soap opera that maybe will last as long as All My Children.

Beginning of Hite Trail

My boss told me about the poppies blooming outside of the park, along highway 140.  The Hite Trail, she said had a spectacular display of oranges mixed in with the purples and reds of other wildflowers.  I had never seen a field of California Poppies in bloom and after winter in the desert and now being in the high country where large, white snowballs are dropping from the sky, I was ready for wildflowers.

At least the D700 would focus and the spots and scratch wouldn’t show so much while shooting at shallower depths of field.  Actually, I just learned that today.  The tech told me that since I am in Yosemite and obviously need a camera, a way around the sensor nightmare was to get off of ƒ22 and shoot at around ƒ11 or higher.  I didn’t know that yesterday, only knew that I had to see and shoot the wildflowers.  As a back-up I packed my little Nikon point and shoot, along with the iPhone.  I am still scared of missing something.

My advance on the poppies was slow and incremental.  Shooting wildflowers in an interesting way has long confounded me but that hasn’t stopped me from trying to learn.  What I know is that a field of flowers by itself is boring and not much to look at.  They need humans, trails or rocks to break up the field, to create lines, depth, dimension, interest, composition – a way that the viewer can put themselves in that space.  That they can imagine, in perhaps a romantic and pleasant way, being there.

A woman, wearing a heavy gauze backless pullover dress and sandals, hiked ahead of me.  As she left the forested area and continued on the trail lined in poppies, I stopped to capture her capturing them.  Images of her kneeling down with her own point and shoot, standing and looking and as she hiked away.  Careful to place the trail and the woman in the outer thirds of the image, while trying to watch for trees that might be growing out of her head or blocking the view.  Looking at the way rocks climbed the steep hillside and also moved perpendicular to the trail.  Observing the river below, with its view marred by a single wire that ran across near a home on the other side.  I looked at the sky, which was mostly covered in clouds, and the direction of the sun that lit the pretty orange flowers.

For wider angle shots that encompassed the sky, I bracketed for the different exposures.  My normal routine for bracketed shots, that may or may not be merged together for HDR, high dynamic range, is a tripod, ƒ22, ISO 200, 2 second timer or cable release (if they weren’t all broken) and, depending on the range of light, three or five bracketed shots.  I can do more than three with the D700 – up to nine, which I do use from time to time.  At those settings the shutter speed takes care of itself.  The bracketing gives me more choices when it comes to editing, and my own visual interest, and it saves time when out in the field.  The down side is that my files become thick with bracketed photos and I have to examine them carefully when deciding which ones to delete.

I never delete in camera.

My choice of lenses for this hike was the 17-35mm ƒ2.8, the 80-200mm ƒ2.8 and the 105mm ƒ2.8 micro.  The 17-35mm had a polarizing filter on it.  I had cleaned all of my lenses earlier in the day and was frustrated to learn that I need several new UV or haze filters, which are $100+ a piece.

I carried my tripod, extra cards in a card wallet and one extra battery, along with a lightweight Gortex rain jacket to protect the camera, a sweater and a bottle of water.  Where I am camping it is cool but down low it is hot and I am constantly showing up in the valley wearing some sort of thermal top, heavy socks, hiking boots and jeans.  It was hot yesterday.

I shot vertical and horizontal, included the path, people, trees, rocks, river and other flowers.  I got down low and stood upright.  Mostly I shot on a tripod but some were handheld.  I tried for the movement of the flowers in the breeze, which was hit and miss, depending on if I paid close attention to my shutter speed.  With a 2.8 without a filter, it is difficult to go for the depth of field and still capture motion – pretty much impossible under those light conditions.  I am always trying something new and different.  Always stretching myself.

Capturing the Breeze

My tendency is to spend an amount of time in one spot, rather than click, click, click, move on to something new.  I want to push myself, always, to see new angles and new possibilities.  So what if I don’t get everything, I want at least one set of images to turn out well.  If there isn’t time for the other stuff later, then so be it – maybe another year, maybe never.

I heard the calls of the goldfinch and found them watching over the trail.

There wasn’t time for the 105mm before the sun began to disappear and the poppies were closing.  Well, that isn’t the entire story.  I was preparing to change lenses and so began by adjusting my tripod down low when its joints closed in on my finger and ripped the surface clean away.  Blood spurted everywhere and I had nothing to stop it.  I sacrificed a poppy flower, hoping it had some sort of healing properties.  But that didn’t stop the bleeding.  No way I was going to get blood on my lenses or on my camera.  No way was I going to risk more damage to my equipment.  I rinsed the wound with my water and waited for the bleeding to stop, which it did.  By then the flowers were closed.  The finger hurt.

I drove back into the park, after getting a few groceries and stopping along the Merced River to try for some water shots, which didn’t work.  But then my effort level was pretty lousy.  I wanted to see some animals and with a little time before sunset at Tunnel View, I drove down to Curry Village where two deer were utilizing the crosswalk to cross the road.  Determined to capture the moment I grabbed the camera and aimed through the windshield – beep, beep – the timer was on, the shutter speed at around 5, the ƒstop at 22.  By the time it was all sorted out, they were done crossing.

Deer crossing the road in Yosemite Valley, people photographing them and me with a camera that wasn't ready for the moment.

At Tunnel View, just in time for sunset, the clouds thickened and the color never popped.  The conditions made for the possibility but it was a bust.

Back at the trailer, no dinner, I began eagerly looking at my images.  It never ends, my eagerness to see what I captured.  But the ways in which I can do better always change.

I download the images and made some initial picks – the boy in the cowboy hat, some women on the path…CS6 beta crashes.  But, get this, it recovers some of my images but not all.  This is huge progress on the CS front.  I am pleased instead of defeated.  In my world of photography the work, the efforts and the learning never end.

Whatever will I do in Yosemite National Park without a camera?

Bridal Veil Falls and the Merced River in late afternoon.

The campfire speaks to my heart

Half Dome and the Merced River before the full moon came up to light them.

The campfire shouted heat into the cold Sierra evening and I pulled my camp chair up close, allowing my body to warm and my mind to wander into the flames.

Thoughts of freedom and choices flooded me and suddenly I felt like the luckiest wanderer/photographer/writer/human that I knew.  To be able to spend three months amongst the tall pines, firs, cedars and even a sequoia, listening to the creatures and breathing the fresh mountain air is one thing, but to have the good fortune of my trailer and utilities – well, bliss comes to mind.

A group of young people in a camp site behind me were having troubles getting their own fire going with the wet and green wood and they kept looking over at mine.    I want to help them but tell myself that their fire woes are theirs and not mine and so continue to luxuriate in my bliss just a little while longer.  Until I can no longer stand their furtive glances…the fire was also meant to be their cook stove for their ethnic foods that consisted of meat and vegetable kabobs, which, by the way, had smelled good earlier in the day.  I load my arms up with dried sticks and twigs and take the pile over, showing them what would burn best.  Earlier in the day they had attempted to blow up their mattress using my bicycle pump.

At the campground.

I am good at camping, having done it for a life time, except in the years when I didn’t.  When injuries, illness or sissy husbands who didn’t sleep on the ground interfered with my passion for the out of doors.  It was only one husband who was a sissy.  During the intervening years I remembered the gourmet meals cooked over the campfires, the quiet solitude, the laughter of my children, the hiking in the forest and the animals.  Most of all the s’mores.  I remembered the s’mores and would sometimes make them grandpa style – in the microwave for thirty seconds, before the marshmallow exploded, leaving a sticky mess.

My first husband, my sons’ father, taught me everything that I still know about camping today, 30 odd years later.  He also taught me about fishing.  Over the years I’ve prided myself on those one match, one light, campfires, the proper soap, how to pitch a tent and how to eat like queens and kings in the forest.

With in a month after leaving husband number three (that was 18 years ago) I bought a Jeep Cherokee, a German Shepherd, and the tent, sleeping bag, pad, etc., that I still have today.  And went camping and fishing in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains.  Finally then, I was back to myself.  When my sons, David and Brandon, came to visit we loaded down that Jeep with camping gear and mountain bikes and went camping out west of Cherokee.  I took along books about the ghost stories of the Blue Ridge and the kids, and others that they met, stayed up around the campfire the entire night, reading those stories.  I remember that trip as one of the best I’ve ever taken, even though David called me a sissy when I walked the bicycle up hills.  Hey, by that time I’d already proven my toughness and decided there was nothing more to prove.

I walked around the campground and checked on some new arrivals before sitting back down at my fire.  One of the young ladies from “next door,” brought me a plate of different meats and grilled asparagus on skewers and asked me to please have it.  That food lit up my eyes but I felt awkward also.  I knew that it would be considered rude to turn down her kindness and so gratefully accepted the plate and sat down at the fire to eat.  Each bite brought groans of pleasure.  Some people know how to eat!

Merced River after a snow storm.

People come and go so quickly.  I become a little attached and they are gone.  There was the family from Wyoming – the woman’s best friend is the mom of a photographer I met in the Tetons last year.  The three men from Canada with their sexy Canadian accents and questions about things to do.  The group who were looking for a wedding spot, the quiet couple who stayed for a week in their camper…the list is already growing long.  Last night I simply called for the weather report to appease fears of RV pipes freezing for a German couple and their daughter, who was in a second RV.  Later they brought me a delicious chocolate bar that came all of the way from Germany!  I am just being nice, trying to add to their experience….

And there was the Lewis family.  A particular delight.  A family of four in a small, hard-sided tent shaped pop-up.  They had their share of learning experiences – no water, dead battery, etc., and I was able to help them some.  I watched them go from being over-whelmed to staying an extra night and having their first campfire, which was one that anyone would be proud to make.  They left this morning and promised to be back in June.  Those are the kinds of stories that I love – the type where people overcome, conquer and then come to love being in the out of doors and want to come back.  Because we all own a slice of this thing called nature and all owe it to ourselves to enjoy it – and mostly to become good stewards for its continued survival.

Until a minute ago the campground was empty, except for myself.  Another family just arrived and are camping close by.

During some of the nights I have stolen away into the valley for some evening and night photography.

Yosemite Valley in the late afternoon.

Slight moonbow at Upper Yosemite Falls.

Full moon over Merced River.

I hope that you are able to derive some joy and excitement over my stay in Yosemite National Park, and that you too will want to visit someday.

I am a somebody!

 

I am here – living – in Yosemite National Park – for the next three months.  My title is “camp host.”

 

What, you mean I have a title?  A purpose, somewhere to be, something meaningful to do?  A national parks volunteer with an opportunity to make a small amount of difference by adding positively to the way people experience these preserved lands that I cherish so much.

 

Some of you might think that being a camp host is a little extreme, given my tendency to be alone in my photographic endeavors, but think about this – three months in Yosemite National Park.  How else could I manage to have the incredible opportunity of watching winter turn into spring and spring begin into summer?  To watch the snow fall and melt, the waters cascade over steep cliffs, see the wildflowers bloom and wake up to tiny bear cub prints 20′ from my trailer door?  To see the birds arrive and see the newborn fawns?  And to watch people’s faces when they enter the valley and see why John Muir and others worked so hard to make this a national park?  And to meet new people and help them enjoy what has been so freely given to me?

 

Yesterday, I watched fat squirrels scamper over logs and spiders and bugs crawl through pine needles.  I’d forgotten about insects, and mice.  My days have been about making my new trailer, comfortable like home, and adding numerous new repairs and part replacements to the long list.

 

In the middle of mopping the water up off of the floor and along the pressboard that serves as the kitchen counters, it struck me – I am camping.  Duh.  Why hadn’t I thought of that before?  No matter how much I try to make this trailer my home and to pretend that it has all of the comforts of home, I am in the wilderness, living in a fiberglass rectangle with parts that are lightweight and therefore designed to break.  How else could I do my part for the economy, if not consistently purchasing new parts?

 

My fortune cookie from PJ’s in Groveland read, “Adversity is the parent of virtue.”  I should be well on my to way to being known as the virtuous woman, if that is true.  Luckily for me I’ll never reach sainthood.  And, the truth is that my trailer is pretty darned nice, warm and spacious.

 

Gosh, it is cold out today.

 

Last night a woman from Washington came knocking on my door and wanted to know where we should go hiking.  I got out the maps and said, you know, the moon is pretty full and that means that there might be a moonbow over Lower Yosemite Falls.  Lets go, she said.  And away we went, down into the valley.  The moonlit El Capitan and Yosemite Falls were otherworldly beautiful.  Incredible.  There are no sufficient words to describe what we saw.

 

Twelve to fifteen photographers lined the trail to the falls.  Someone told me, you know, there are about 10 photographers up there who are going to get pretty upset about your headlamp.  It was dark and I had never been on the trail before but we soon realized that nature would light most of our path.

 

 

On the way back from the Falls another woman, hiking alone, began talking to us like she knew us.  How crazy, I thought.  It is like that out here, and in other parks.  Where we know one another by our love for nature, or because we are women out hiking after dark.

 

I learned a lot, out there last night.  About the light of the moon and how quickly it moves, and how quickly the scene goes from stunning to drab.

 

And I am learning a lot about asking for help.  The spirit of solution, problem solving, kindness, you are not alone – abounds out here.  I remember being able to take those attitudes into my work as a police officer – helping to resolve problems rather than to deny them or to make them worse – and love doing that same thing out here in the campground.  The relationships are fleeting as people pass through, going about their live’s, checking items off of the “Bucket List.”  They are here to have a good time and so am I.

 

And while I am a writer and a photographer, it is good to have a title, a purpose, some place to be to do something for someone besides myself.

 

 

Getting to Yosemite

******I wrote this post on my first morning in Yosemite.  Will update when possible – internet is quite difficult to find, without a long drive and gas prices are over $5 a gallon.

Before I opened my eyes this morning the sound of wind brushing through trees assaulted my senses.  Where was I?  The sound was dense, high over head, like an invisible layer protected the earth and the wind could not penetrate its boundaries.  I am in the forest.  The tallest trees tower over me.  I am in Yosemite.  I am alone.  Only the sound of the wind, nothing else.  No voices, no cars starting up, no doors slamming, no phone service or internet – I am truly alone in this mystery world.

You mean that I slept through that. Sow and at least one cub but I'm thinking two.

The quiet is nearly deafening.  Enjoy it now because it won’t be long before the surrounding campsites are full and the voices will be drifting to you all during the night.  Engines will start up in predawn hours and speed off to see sunrise in the valley – a place I’ve not yet been.  Campfires will crackle and foots steps in the pine needles will crunch towards the bathrooms and back again.

The campground is small, or tight, I should say.  The sites are nearly stacked on top of one another and I have two tent sites close by.  The other host site is wide and open with the hookups in the proper place.  I, on the other hand, backed my trailer between two trees and then cut it into a curve so that there would be an outdoor space that is not obstructed by the power poles and such that are at the front right corner while the sewer is at the back.  I backed the right side up onto a couple of blocks and to my amazement everything was level!  It was quite the solo feat.  I carved out a nice little spot where my awning can go up, unobstructed, except for possibly by a bear box.  I have three or four bear boxes at my site, presumably to place the belongings of wayward campers who do not obey the food storage regulations.  But, also for myself.

When I left Big River, CA the sun was beating down and the day was warming quickly towards 90.  From the heat of the Sonora desert to the cold, wintery weather of the Sierras.  I believed that it would take three days to get here but driving was a breeze with my new trailer and I covered 475 miles on that first day, ending up in an empty parking lot in Merced, CA.

Only 15 minutes north on I95 and I had tossed my head back and smiled over the freedom of traveling.  My fears vanished.

There were only brief periods that were scary, when the winds were high at Tehachapi Pass and the car moved slowly, which was fine with me.  Some of the drivers were scary also, cutting in very close to my front bumper in a show of ass.  There were two lanes and I was going nearly 55, which is the speed limit for those pulling trailers.  Because of the few, I reasoned that getting through Bakersfield and Fresno at night might save me some traffic headache problems and am sure that it did.

In Chowchilla I found a Starbucks and mocha, and oatmeal, and internet. But I only checked my emails and did nothing else.  In Modesta I found a Trader Joes and coffee, honey, produce, long lines filled with pregnant women – with youth – and families.  I’d been snow birding for too long.  The line that shot through the lettuce section was long and not a place where one could linger long.  Health conscious.  I wanted some green coffee bean extract to melt my belly fat away.  The little people were so cute and the mothers wore their pregnancies with pride.  I was in suburbia.

After Trader Joes I went into some clothing store where women were feverishly digging through the racks.  Wow, people have money to spend.  But then I looked at the prices and they were discount – the new way in America, looking for a bargain.  I found Costco and a landline telephone and a blue ray, DvD player, some little sample snacks, and almost fell for the Easter basket of kettle corn that came in different flavors.  Boy, that stuff was good.  But Zebra kettle corn didn’t fall within my new guidelines for being healthy.

Finally there were no more stops, just Yosemite.  They told me that there was a long hill, about 7 miles, that I would have to climb, but I think that they downplayed it some.  Up, up and up, around sharp curves, the hill never ended.  I was proud of the Nitro because it climbed with vigor, amazingly so.  It wasn’t until nearly to the top when I finally found a place to pull over and let a few cars pass, that I ran into trouble.  People here, are good about saying thank you with a wave when they pass by and I felt good about that.  But, the starting up again was difficult on the transmission because I’d lost momentum and couldn’t get it back.  Shortly a heat light came on and I quickly pulled over and grabbed the manual.  It was the transmission light.  The book said to let it idle in neutral until the light went off, which happened quickly.  But, it came on again.

I stopped at PJ’s in Groveland to let the engine cool and to grab some food and a phone card.  Who would have guessed that there was good Chinese food in this little mountain town.  One gal told me that she had lived there her whole life and hated that drive up the mountain.  I can’t imagine what that must be like.

Finally inside the gates of Yosemite and into the campground.  An empty campground.  At my site there was a pole that was covered with a plastic bag and a note that read, “No Power.”  What?  I was supposed to have power upon my arrival.  This unsettled me.  They couldn’t get anyone up here to turn it on.  But, I am a bit clever.  My extension cord just happened to reach to the outlet in the men’s bathroom and to my trailer door – barely.  And so I can run a power strip for things like a lamp and charging electronics and outside I hooked the trickle charger up to my battery.  No microwave and the fridge is operating on gas but there is heat and hot water if I want it.  Though no water, except the little that I left in my tank.  It works.  And I’m always quite proud when it comes to overcoming an adversity – to using my ingenuity to figure things out.

Now the wind is really blowing, it is much lower to the ground and bits of tree blow up against the side of the trailer.

As a winter storm enters, I am in the company of the wind and trees.  I am here.

One waiting at every pull out, just to provide you a scenic photo op.

PTSD and fear of traveling

The final leg of the road to Sunrise Visitor Center at Mt. Rainier.

Seriously, who would have thought that I was afraid to travel?

As I contemplate the move from my winter, snow birding place, to my next location at Yosemite National Park, I come face to face with my fear of traveling and of being out on the road in open spaces.

Once upon a time driving was a huge part of my job and was never an issue and so I know how it feels to enjoy that glorious moment of freedom and exhilaration that travelers experience when the road is underneath them and the destination is somewhere ahead.  I remember tossing my head back, closing my eyes and pinching myself to be a lucky traveler.

The Sunrise side of Mt. Rainier. Taken from Sunrise Point. That is my black SUV in the distance.

Suffering from Post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) is something that I have mentioned but is not a thing that I talk about because it fills me with shame and angst.  Back in my day, when first diagnosed about ten years ago, little was known about PTSD and we were supposed to be strong and suck it up – get over it is what some told me.

Well, I didn’t know what was going on with me – just that I spent days, and even weeks, home alone and not talking to anyone.  One day I had become a prisoner and didn’t even know that it had happened until a therapist said, “You have one of the worst cases of PTSD that I’ve ever seen…and I’m a Viet Nam Vet.”

I’d chosen this therapist because he had promised to not take notes and I was afraid to talk to anyone who would keep a file on me.  And he knew me, even if I didn’t know myself.

The diagnosis was knowledge but it did little or nothing to cure me.  I couldn’t afford continued therapy, didn’t trust most therapists and refused to take medication.  Somewhere inside of me I did have passion and also possessed the strength, or the stubbornness, to keep on living.  I had the curiosity to want to know what would happen next.

And so it was, when the war started, the first thing that I said was, “Now we are going to change the lives of an entire generation and many of them will suffer from PTSD…I knew that many would never recover and those that did would have a long painful road ahead of them.  I was angry about the lives that the military personnel were going to lose.  I knew that it would be nearly impossible to experience war – the killing, dying and injuries – and not return a changed person.

I knew these things in my heart and from my own experience, even though the traumas that I had suffered were lightweight in comparison with going to war.  I knew that people are different and that not everyone perceives or reacts to a situation in the same way.  What might make one person come undone, might not have any affect on another.  And that it didn’t mean that some people were stronger, but that they had different triggers.  Only a person who has experienced PTSD can know what it is like – can know that there is no way to control the disease.

And only someone who has long ago started down the road of changing and recovery can know that it is possible to experience healing.  I don’t know about being cured and becoming the person you once were but do know that life can get better in ways that you never would have imagined.

Another thing that I knew was that when the soldiers came back from war and were changed, many would not talk about what they had experienced.  Many would keep everything locked up inside and they would think that they had escaped the aftereffects – until they got older, in their 40′s maybe, when the methods that they had chosen to help them forget their nightmares would quit working.  No, the veterans would want to be seen as tough, and admitting to being scared and having nightmares, or of being afraid to go out in public, would be thought of as being weak.

Even now, with PTSD in the news everyday as reporters seek to understand the actions of Army Sergeant, Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 17 people in Afghanistan, I am hesitant, embarrassed, to talk about my own issues.  Maybe more so because what if someone thinks that I could snap like Bales, and many before him, are thought to have done?  Remember, we are all different.  I would be surprised if any expert were to say that two cases of PTSD were exactly the same.

And so there was a time in my life when the thought of driving scared me into staying home.  When there was no way to avoid travel, I was terrified during the whole trip.  Frequently I watched my rear view mirror and tried to memorize the various cars behind me.  Often I pulled over and hid behind a building as hundreds of cars sped past.  Many times I drove in circles, taking fast corners until the gas tank was empty.  Other times I would pull over and hide for an entire night, until sure that every last vehicle that had been on the highway the day before was on down the road.  I wrote license plate numbers on scraps of paper and in a notebook and would later wonder what they meant.  It was too difficult for me to go anywhere, unless a well-established routine.

The first time that I tried to leave New Mexico, I only got as far as Durango before having to hide out for a few months…I never talked about these fears.  And I thought that I was fine, locked up in a dark, quiet home, watching the birds and the world go by.  It was my life.

I won’t, right now, go into detail about the experiences that drove me into the prison of PTSD – maybe because someone might judge me as weak.  And I am still having a hard time letting go of my tough girl persona.

But I will tell you that it was my love for nature and for photography that began the healing process.  I found something that was more important than being afraid.  And little by little have pushed myself, challenged myself, to walk through my fears.  Nature and wildlife will not reject me…The biggest, most challenging push has been to become a social being – one who can admit to feelings of loneliness, who can seek out people to talk to and who can open my heart to those that I love.  Again, it is photography and passion that push me forward.

I get lonely, how could I not?  Not so much for romance – not any more – but for close friends and confidants.  For my family, my children and grandchildren.  Facebook, the internet, fills many gaps and I wonder how it will be when I don’t have that on a daily basis.  That is my next challenge.

But, as far as traveling.  I rarely, if ever, pull off to the side of the road, unless I am blocking traffic.  I still can’t stand to have people close behind me and can’t stand to be close behind anyone else.  I don’t much care for big cities and rarely enter them.  But, when I do go into a city, I proceed easily.  It is the thinking about it that gets me.

Today, life is much better – not the way it used to be, before, but it is much better that I could have hoped for.  I talk to people every day, I am traveling full-time, I have stood on ledges and looked down.  I still have dreams of being normal but never was, so that is a bit useless.  I am a passionate artist who has had many series of unfortunate events in her life but who is still determined to succeed – to live life to the fullest.  I have a huge heart and animals, nature and photography have re-opened it, which has allowed me to heal – to continue the healing…

Wildflowers along a trail in Mt. Rainier. Imagine the sweet smell of Lupine...

HDR – CS6 and Photomatix

Benjamin, the cottontail bunny that has been keeping me company for the past four months, does some sniffing around.

When I received my invitation to try CS6 beta, my first reaction was, why would I want to tease myself like that.  But, I got curious, did some sniffing around and watched a video about some of the new features, such as content-aware move and more control over adjustments in Camera Raw.  Just the new interface is so much more appealing but then add easier crop and straighten features and faster editing times and the question becomes, why not?  After a few hours working in Lightroom 4 and CS6, I can’t live without this upgrade.  My curiosity just cost me $200 sometime in the near future, which I can hopefully prolong with a 30 day trial once the new version of Photoshop is released.

First of all, the crop, straighten and content-aware filter worked perfectly.

The image below, of me standing on a ledge on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, was dark and my face melted into the background.  I used the new slider adjustments in Camera Raw to bring back the high lights and create more contrast with the shadows, and then bumped up the vibrancy until some life came back into the image and finished off with just a touch of saturation.  I then opened the image in Lightroom 4 and did some tonal adjustments, using the Nik adjust 4 plug in.  But not before downloading the newest version of Nik, which works with the new Lightroom.

After finishing with the tonal adjustment I opened the image in CS6, checked the levels and did a minor adjustment.  I then used the patch bandaid to take out the dirt spots and was very pleased with the performance.  All ready to save, except that the horizon was slightly crooked.  I tried the straighten tool but couldn’t figure it out and so chose crop and the grid pattern quickly leveled the image.  Instead of the crop box moving, the image moves.  But the crop was a problem because my foot is too close the bottom of the image and so I had to crop outside of the lines, leaving a white triangle in the bottom left-hand corner.  I then selected the area with the lasso, expanded it by 5 and then selected content-aware.  The space filled in perfectly in a matter of seconds.

No more adjustments or tweaking was needed!  This was easy.  I upsized the image to about 50M, give or take, saved one version for my file and another one saved at 72 ppi.  Below is the original.

Original of above image.

I received my third Nikon D7000 this afternoon and immediately took it out for a test drive on the focusing, choosing the hummingbirds as my target.  More about D7000 #3 later.  I found a shot that was sharp enough to crop but had to first bring out some light and color in the bird.  In the two images below the first one is the original and the second is edited.

Original image.

Edited version - Feeder edited out using Content-aware move.

The image itself is not all that great – high noise at 800 ISO but I wanted to test out the content-aware move tool on the feeder.  After cropping I selected the feeder, expanded  by about 10 and then moved it almost all of the way off of the image.  The background magically filled in and I used the clone tool to take out a small corner.  Pretty nice for getting the gist of this new feature but it will be interesting to see it used on a more complex background.

Moulton Barn sitting against the backdrop of The Grand in Grand Teton National Park. Three images at 1/3 EV merged in Photomatix.

Finally, I was curious about HDR edits using CS6.  I have been unhappy with CS5 HDR images, which is the reason I broke down and purchased Photomatix a few months back.  But, Photomatix has its problems also, although the latest version does a great job of matching up images but the presets are different nearly every time I open the program, which is aggravating.  The main concern with Photomatix is that while it brings out the high dynamic range of the images that are brought together, the sky halo effect often ruins an otherwise great photograph and is hard to impossible to fix.

Well, let me back up.  HDR stands for high dynamic range and is a set of techniques that allows a higher dynamic range between the darkest and lightest areas of a photo.  Normally 3 to as many 9 images are taken of the same shot but all are at different exposures, usually 1/3 EV on each step.  The number of images that I take with my D700 on auto bracketing settings depends on the light range of the scene.  The bigger the range, the more photos I take but that doesn’t mean all of them have to be used to make the single HDR image.  Tone mapping tries to reduce the dynamic range to bring about more realistic color and contrast.

Single images can be tone mapped but the results are mixed, as in the image below, which I am not happy with.

Horse grazing in front of the Tetons. Single, tone mapped image.

While the tone mapping brought this image to life with detail, I am not fond of the tones and would like to seem more contrast.  I liked the image for a few days and then it began to wear on my nerves but further attempts to edit proved useless.

The next two photographs originated from three bracketed photos at 1/3 EV and then processed using CS6 in the first one and Photomatix in the second.

Grand Canyon, three bracketed images merged into a single HDR, using CS6.

Using CS6, once the three images were merged, the photo was bland and uninteresting.  Before saving I adjusted the exposure, brightness, luminance and saturation until it was more to my liking but with a realistic look.  I then opened it in Lightroom 4 and used Nik adjust 4 to contrast the tones, which brought out more detail and made the sky less bland.

Same three images as above but were edited using Photomatix.

Which one do you prefer?

In both instances, once the HDR image was created it was opened into Lightroom 4 and then edited in Nik Adjust 4, using the tonal contrast preset.  Afterwards they were re-opened in CS6 where I checked the levels, used the clone patch to get rid of dirt spots, increased the pixels on the long side to 5200 and then saved a large file and a “Flickr” file at 72 ppi.  Total editing time less than five minutes.

What pleases my eye may not please someone else but the journey of photography is largely an exercise of finding my own vision and with being comfortable with it.  While I love the detail, sky and light in the tree in the second image, the first one most likely has more realistic tones.  But, I am partial to the second, which luckily didn’t have problems with the halo effect in the sky.  I’ll live with it for a few days and see if it still appeals to me later on.

Life is all about the journey and has nothing to do with the destination…

The Saga of the D7000

It is all about the journey...

Spring happened yesterday, ending my first winter as a snowbird.

The aspen trees were gold in December, bare in January and green in March.  The Punky hummingbird family has company now – the Rufous and the Costas – and the feeder must be refilled daily.  The bobcats are lying low, the great-horned owls have hatched their eggs.  And Benjamin, the cottontail that greeted me in November, now comes hopping and will sometimes take his favorite treat from my fingers. And the saga of the D7000 continues…

The last shot I will ever take from the D7000 that was purchased in July.

When the Nikon D7000 was announced nearly a year ago I planned and schemed to purchase it as a replacement to my worn out D90.  The D7000 has a 16.2 megapixel sensor, 1080 HD video, two card slots and what experts were calling a new and innovative focusing system – oh and they were saying low noise.  At $1300 it was the perfect replacement camera and pros were telling me how much they preferred it over higher end models.  That sounded good to me.

The D7000 was selling out as fast as retailers could get it and companies like B&H and Andorama were out of stock when I went to purchase the camera last May, right before going to the Tetons to see the grizzly bears.  Camera Corral in Coeur d’Alene had one but they didn’t bother to tell me that it wasn’t in the box and that it had been used as a display model – either that or another customer had already returned it because it was a focusing lemon.

Research grizzly sow 399's three cubs.

The photo above, of the three grizzly cubs was taken with the D7000 on a tripod and at a fairly short distance, yet the focus wasn’t good.  But a photographer doesn’t get a chance to shoot grizzly cubs all that often and so I used some sharpening and detail software to make this somewhat passable.  Three weeks in the Tetons with dozens of close encounters with six different grizzly bears and 98% of my shots are either front or back focused.  Of course, in the beginning I figured it was just me and the new camera learning curve.

Eventually I got the D90 back out (so lucky to still have it at that time) and shot with that but by that time the opportunities were fewer, mostly because of stiffening park regulations.  You can’t imagine how sick I was and how cursed that I felt.  I tried to shrug it off, what else could I do?  The damage was done and there was no taking it back – but I still feel sick about this whole ordeal.

This particular grizzly cub seemed to always be on watch.

While still in the Tetons I called the Camera Corral and told them about the problems with the D7000 and was told to bring it in for an exchange when I returned from my trip.  Well, that turned into an ordeal as well because the owners were none too happy about me exchanging the camera but reluctantly agreed to do so.  By the time this whole exchange was finished I vowed to never again set foot in the store.  But, you would have to know about the thousands of dollars that were spent in that store to fully understand.

Okay, new camera with great focusing!  I was excited.  In some ways the focusing felt a little too sharp even though the settings were off.  I still preferred the deep tones and high quality images from my D700 and so I didn’t use the new camera much.  It would be good for wildlife photography but not for landscape.  And then I noticed that it also had much more noise than the previous camera.  Not happy about that either.  But, all in all, it was pretty nice.

Mountain goat at Glacier National Park. Photo taken with second D7000.

When I look at the above image of the mountain goat at Glacier, I must admit that there was little room for complaint about the performance of D7000 number two.  At last I had two working cameras that took great images.  I began to prepare for my long road trip – my photo/writing journey that will take me to some of the most beautiful places in our country.  I began selling photo equipment that I never used or no longer wanted and so my other two camera bodies, the D200 and the D90 were sold.  The cash helped me to begin my journey.

My first stop was Mt. Rainier where I hiked all over the Sunrise side carrying at least four lenses, two camera bodies and my Gitzo tripod.  Everything is uphill at Mt. Rainier, straight uphill and so carrying that much gear is easier said than done.  But the wildflowers were in peak bloom at Mt. Rainier National Park and the beauty was beyond anything I’d ever seen.  The smells of the wild lupine, the mountain fresh air, the warm pleasant days and the small crowds made this a special time in the park.

And then, one day, I was hiking at Naches, amongst the biggest display of wildflowers that I’d ever witnessed, and saw a shot.  I sat the tripod, with the D7000 mounted on top, down in a careless manner and over it went, knocking the lens off of the camera – with the lens mount still attached.  About 8200 clicks and the camera wasn’t even broken in.

Wildflowers on the Naches Trail. Please stay out of the fragile wildflowers - trampling them for the right photo op is selfish.

Laying in the wildflowers at Mt. Rainier National Park is forbidden. After the meadows became trampled by hikers and the wildflowers began to disappear an effort to revive the beautiful alpine meadows by only allowing hiking on the trails has been successful.

Had to put in a good word for the continued flourishing of the Alpine meadows at Mt. Rainier.  This was the scene  when my camera bit the dust – literally.  There was also a small Asian girl with funky sunglasses up on the hill and I wanted to capture her. I calmly picked up camera, lens and tripod and found a place to sit.  Getting the lens mount loose from my newly purchased 28-70 2.8 was an ordeal but when it finally loosed its grip the tiny screws fell into the fine dirt.  Slowly, methodically, I found each screw and then carefully put the mount back on the camera.  The camera essentially worked but there was an error code.  Fortunately my new lens was fine.  A man who was eating his lunch close by remarked at how calm I was in the face of such a disaster.  Well, it would have done no good to through a temper tantrum.  It was broke and that was that.

That D7000 went to a repair shop and was delivered, via a friend, to Yellowstone at the end of September.

I was so excited to have the camera back for shooting wildlife but it didn’t work.  Same error code – nothing fixed.  I sent the camera back and some time in December the camera was delivered to me once again.  Cause for celebration – my patience had paid off at last.  I took a trip to the Salton Sea and Anza Borrego State Park.

A gull captured in flight on the Salton Sea before sunrise.

Stilt in flight on the Salton Sea.

A white pelican in flight at the Salton Sea - these images were taken with the D700 after the D7000 failed again.

I pulled into a campsite next to the Salton Sea after dark and spent an uncomfortable night in the front seat of my car, just to be there when the sun woke up this world that I’d never seen before.  Happily, that morning, I was shooting the white pelicans that were flying past.  Capturing these birds in flight has long been a dream of mine.  About 50 or so were heading in my direction – pelicans that is – when the lens fell off of the D7000.  Luckily I caught the lens before it hit the ground.  This time the state of the camera nearly took me under.  I had been so patient, so full of faith that I would have a good working camera…The repair guy said, “Oh well.”  That was when my composure crumbled.  That was when I really wondered if this journey was a good idea because without the proper tools it really was worthless.

Weeks went by with the camera tucked into a box.  I didn’t have the money to send it to Nikon.  Finally, about three weeks ago, I sent the camera to be repaired.  Nikon finished the repair on Friday and I spent nearly an hour on the phone in an attempt to make sure it was shipped to the right address.  As it was, they were not supposed to ship it until hearing from me – yes, this was the second hour on the phone with Nikon about this problem.  They had me email the address, saying they couldn’t take it over the phone.  I followed all of their instructions and received a follow up saying that I would hear back in 24 hours.  But of course that didn’t happen.  On Monday I checked and the camera had been shipped to my brother’s address.  Another marathon phone session and someone I trust called UPS and had the camera rerouted from Sacramento, where it was, to here, 900 odd miles away.  Yesterday Nikon finally replied to my email and said that the camera would be delivered today.  I canceled plans to drive to Yuma.

This morning I checked the tracking information and found that the camera was in San Pablo, 922 miles away, and that it wouldn’t be delivered for another week.  I won’t be here then.  I called Nikon and they called UPS in an effort to have the camera overnighted to me.  Nikon calls back and says that UPS has now changed the delivery date to April 2.  You have got to be kidding me – I could drive there in one day.

And so Nikon says that they will send me another D7000, not new, and have that one delivered to them.  Great, I don’t have any clue what I will be getting.  But then, D7000 number 2 seemed like it was jinxed.  Or maybe it is just my ownership of that model that is jinxed.  We will find out with D7000 # 3 when it arrives tomorrow – supposedly.

They say that three times is a charm….

Maybe I could sic Bob Junior on them. This is one of the bobcats that frequent the RV park.