While I didn't do as much photography on my recent California trip as I have on past trips, I did still do some and I do have more images to share from that trip. So, on occasion I'm going to jump back and post an image or two from California. Like this photo of the Milky Way over the Sierra Foothills in Sequoia National Park. This was taken from the General's Highway at Amphitheater Point. The moon was still up but very low in the sky and about to drop behind the mountains behind me. The moonlight is what's illuminating the mountains in this photo. It was kind of an unfamiliar experience for me to be hanging out in 60 degree weather at night in April, but hey, that's California for you!
Here's one from the peak of the aurora storm late Saturday night. Taken just 5 minutes before midnight on McFarland Lake at the end of the Arrowhead Trail in northeast Minnesota.
So I had this super interesting (and slightly scary) encounter the other night while photographing this scene. I was standing at the end of the short dock on Chester Lake under the glow of the Milky Way in Grand Portage State Forest, MN. As you can see from the photo, it was an incredibly calm night. So calm the stars were reflecting almost perfectly in the water. This meant that I could hear every little noise in the forest.
When I arrived at this location there were a couple of rabbits that were running around in the brush near the shoreline. I saw them in my car headlights when I first pulled up to the boat landing. As I absorbed the scene and planned out my composition I could hear them chasing each other back and forth in the woods. After a while they either got tired or left the area as there was no longer any sound. By then I was making my first exposures and getting my composition dialed in.
By the time I had everything just right, I could once again hear rustling in the woods behind me. Only this time it sounded different. This time it sounded like a much larger animal. I turned and faced the shoreline but it was much too dark to see anything. The noises kept coming closer. I heard a couple of twigs snap, then I could hear the animal breathing. I turned on the soft red light of my headlamp and there was a moose standing there near the edge of the lake, about 30 feet away.
All of a sudden I got very nervous, but I stood still and tried not to make a sound. I turned off my headlamp and the moose turned and started to walk through the brush along the water's edge. It walked right past the end of the dock and through the brush for about another 50 feet along the lakeshore then turned and headed back inland. Once I could hear that the moose was quite a ways away, I let out a sigh of relief and went back to photographing the scene. I never saw or heard it again that night. A little while later when I left to visit another location, I could see its tracks on the gravel road as I drove away from the boat landing. Standing under the glow of the Milky Way in such a beautiful location is special enough, but having a wildlife encounter such as this makes the night even more memorable!
Last night was quite a bit better than the previous night! The aurora put on a nice show just after midnight on McFarland Lake in Cook County, MN. There wasn't any wind to speak of either so the stars and lights were reflecting very nicely in the water. It's always so magical to be outside at times like this!
Apparently I should have gone out shooting earlier than I did last night. It sounds like the best of the lights occurred before 10 PM. Still, I enjoyed a beautiful view of the night sky over McFarland Lake at the end of the Arrowhead Trail in Cook County, MN. There was just a touch of green behind some clouds on the horizon but the stars were pretty amazing!
There's nothing quite like a California sunset over the Pacific Ocean.
Sequoia National Park, California
I haven't had a post on my photo page in a while as I was in California on vacation. It was nice to get away and not really pay much attention to online posting for a while. But I'm home now and reviewing some of the images I made on the trip!
While I was in California the nights were filled with some pretty glorious moonlight. The foothills of the Sierras were alive with plants and flowers blooming everywhere. The yucca in particular was incredibly beautiful. I had never seen it in bloom before and it was impossible to miss it on this trip. Some of the plants were HUGE and the blooms were visible from quite far away. One night I went out to capture the blooms in the moonlight and came away with some of my favorite images from the trip.
