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Photo Forum / Photo Technique / Nature Photography / March 2005Borrego Desert Bloom
Have never been to the 'Bloom' after 50 years and this years rain My wife and I decided to make a day of it. We traveled east from San Diego, throght Julian and down the grade to the Anza Borrego Desert. We did not stray too much from the main roads and by noon were mildly dissapointed. Heading back up the mountain through Julian and back to the freeway that would take us home, we decided to turn east on Interstate 8 instead and head back to the desert. That turned out to be the wisest choice we had made all day! The South Borrego desert was much richer in the variety and quantity of flora. So, motivated by the good luck we were having we felt like taking a look on the S2 that winds back through the BOrrego and Anza Borrego desert and once again up the mountain through Julian! It was at that point the desert came alive! A few of our shots: http://www.wizardstoybox.com/photos/2005-3/index.htm Tom > Have never been to the 'Bloom' after 50 years and this years rain My > wife and I decided to make a day of it. We traveled east from San [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > http://www.wizardstoybox.com/photos/2005-3/index.htm Thanks for sharing. What is causing this unusual lighting? http://www.wizardstoybox.com/photos/2005-3/images/DSC00443c.jpg Is that an unadjusted photo? Paul, You are welcome. I make no pretense, I live in Photoshop, most of these shots suffer only slight levels adjustment, about 2 dozen of them screamed to me for some heavier handling, There are ony three (I think) that cross over to the surreal. I droped the color out of the background and one was extreamly overworked and almost did not get included, however several people I work closely with found that they liked it the best. That would be the one with the dramatic clouuds and the surrealistec mountains. I am sure I will take some hits for all of this, I am certainly not a purist. I do all of the camera work either in manual mode or semi-manual mode. I work the exposure toward the end result I am hoping for. In addition to the F828 I use a Bogen monopod, a gray card and a circular Polarizer. I also look for the picture within the picture and try to be critical when cropping. Also I usually spend several days on an image, but I came back with 200 tif/jpg pairs and I re-worked all of the shots in the presentation in just 2 nights after work. I thought it was better to be timely and be able to share the experience with my friends. One more thing I have not touched the tif images, I will be picking one image at a time to evaluate over the next few months. I hope this does not offend too many people, photography is wide open and I must say that I really appreciate some desert bloom photos posted by others, in many cases I truely wish I had photos that good. Having said this, I realize that mother nature has presented us with a spectacular season that may not repeat again for many many years. Tom Thanks for sharing your information and photos. We drove down the Montezuma Grade to Borrego Springs on the 12th. The hills along the grade were covered with brittlebush. Once we got down to the desert floor, we stopped by the side of the road and enjoyed a good variety of flowers. The Henderson Canyon Road area was a sea of mostly desert sunflowers, with sand verbena, primrose, and a few other varieties thrown in. Did you make it out to that area? We went back to Borrego on the 20th, this time driving east on I-8 to S2. I see that you were at the Carizo Badlands Overlook later than we were and got better light on the hills. We stopped at various places along S2 and weren't disappointed at all. Then we went east on 78 to Plum Canyon. I had heard that was a great area, but I was disappointed. Maybe we needed to drive further up that road, but we don't have a high clearance vehicle. Like you, I take a long time to work on images. I've got most of the ones from the 12th uploaded, but I'm just starting to work on the ones from this past Sunday. They're at... http://www.pbase.com/madhatter/abdsp We're considering going to either Anza-Borrego or possibly Joshua Tree this weekend. Who knows, maybe the wind won't be blowing quite so much. I had a great deal of difficulty dealing with it especially while trying to take macro shots. I was there qute a bit earlier than either of you. I visited on 2/13/05 and the bloom was already well under way. I travelled in from Warner Springs and the poppy bloom there was just getting started. I mostly concentrated on the Henderson Canyon Rd. area and am glad to hear that it is still being productive. You both have fine photos but I am not nearly as invloved in the post processing as you two appear to be. My early Feb. shots can be seen here - http://ken.smugmug.com/Flowers I can't remember which newsgroup it was one, but I saw your post about that trip. I remember that I was going to ask where you had shot some of the photos, but I figured that you had seen them on your way to down to the desert. You've got some nice shots. I enjoyed browsing through your gallery again. > I can't remember which newsgroup it was one, but I saw your post about > that trip. I remember that I was going to ask where you had shot some > of the photos, but I figured that you had seen them on your way to down > to the desert. You've got some nice shots. I enjoyed browsing through > your gallery again. Yeah, really gorgeous evening light. Thanks everyone. If I can offer a comment, consider nesting a gallery inside each shoot for the full set & pull out the very best 6 pictures to the top level. I still have a few dozen in my top level the first pass after hundreds of shots (editing is painful) but it's well worth doing even if you have to wait a while for perspective. Frankly out of 600 shots on a particular trip, there are only going to be a few super keepers, maybe just one. I can see a tough time culling more than half of this set <grin>. |
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