Leon Turnbull Photography

I had not planned to go out for sunset shooting on Saturday night in Santa Cruz. I knew I would be tied up doing family stuff. Of course, that meant there would be a 100 percent chance of a nice sunset on Saturday night. And sure enough, as sunset rolled around, nice scattered clouds were forming over Santa Cruz and pretty colors were appearing throughout the sky. I gazed longingly at the sky, wondering how I could get away, and knowing that I could not. We were finishing up eating dinner on the pier, and there was just not enough time to go anywhere to catch the sunset colors. The kids were over-tired from a long day of fun on the boardwalk, and I wasn’t sure where I could go close by anyway. So I slowly walked the family back to the car, and started the drive back to the motel. C’est la vie.

On Sunday morning though, I wanted to be sure to get out for sunrise somewhere. Of course, the fog would roll in over night, and it would be a blah sunrise in the morning. Nonetheless, I got up early and headed out. There were a couple places in the Santa Cruz area that I really wanted to go to. Actually, there were more than that. Santa Cruz has plenty of very scenic locations along the ocean. It would be awesome to live in this area (if there weren’t so many people living there already!).

One of these scenic locations is Natural Bridges State Park. There is a very interesting arch rock formation in the ocean here. There used to be two arches at one time (hence the plural in the park name), but now there is just one. It is actually a much better location for sunset, than for sunrise. However, it is also a very popular location, and being that it was a summer weekend, I figured it would be better (and not so crowded) to come here in the morning instead. I would definitely like to spend more time in the Santa Cruz area in the winter months (no fog, no crowds, better weather conditions for photography). One thing I didn’t like about this particular park though, is that it is smack dab in the middle of the city, and there are lots of buildings surrounding the park, and overlooking the beach. It is kinda ugly.

I arrived at the park in the dark. The gate was locked, but it was not a far walk to the beach, so I parked on the street and walked in. There were a couple cars in the parking lot (did they get locked in overnight?), but there was no one on the beach as I walked down to the arch and set up my camera.

It was still too dark for photography with no light or moonlight. Now, I am not really too keen on the “light painting” concept. That is, using a flashlight to illuminate your subject in the dark. I prefer natural light, such as from the moon. There is nothing wrong with light painting, it is just a personal preference. But since I was here, in the dark, and it would be a while before it got light enough to take any photos, I decided to try it just for the heck of it, using my flashlight to light up the arch a bit while taking a photo. I was actually very pleased with the result, and it looked quite subtle and natural. I even prefer these shots I took to others I took later, when it got a bit lighter and I didn’t need to use the flashlight. This one here was taken at f/8 for 60 seconds.

Here’s another one taken a bit later. I shot this at 160 seconds using my Singh Ray Vari-n-duo filter:

We had a spectacular sunset here Friday night. Can you tell from my photo? Yeah, right. It would’ve been a bit better if I had been in the right spot to photograph it! But no, Leon messed up and went to the wrong spot. Oh well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.

So on Thursday night, we also had an amazing sunset in the Sacramento area. I saw the beautiful clouds and colors forming, but I was not able to get out to photograph it that night. I was hoping for a repeat on Friday night.

And after work on Friday, it did again look like there might be a nice sunset forming. I decided to go up to Auburn to the Lake Clementine area. There was one particular spot I wanted to try to go to, but I wasn’t exactly sure where it was. Well, I thought I knew precisely where it was. I’m such a smart guy. But for once, I was wrong. Shocker. The spot where we ended up, where I thought I wanted to be, was not indeed the spot that I wanted to photograph. Make sense? I was not lost, I just went to a different place than I wanted. And although the sunset that night was spectacular, where we were, it was not even close.

I took my son Jadon along with me, and the dog, Kaya. I was surprised Jadon wanted to come. He’s not usually a big hiker, and this was not really going to be a very interesting hiking destination. We were just hiking down to an overlook of the lake, then just wait around there until the sun sets. Not exactly exciting. But he wanted to come with me. So that is cool. And he said afterwards that he actually had a fun time. Very cool. I had no trouble convincing the dog to come along.

The trail leading down to the overlook was very dusty and swarming with gnats. It was about 90 degrees when we started the hike at around 6pm. The gnats were a bit bothersome. Unfortunately for Jadon, he got quite a few bites on his legs. He is worse than his old man in that regard, anything and everything will bite him if given half a chance.

It took about 30 minutes to hike the 1.5 miles down to the overlook. It was not until we got there that I realized it was the wrong spot. Afterwards, I think I now realize my mistake and where I did want to be instead (and if we had gone to the other place instead, I think we would have had an awesome sunset view). Next time, I’ll try the other place. I am determined to get a good sunset overlooking Lake Clementine. We waited around for about 30 minutes for the sun to set. I was still hoping for some decent colors to show in the sky. They never did. Jadon took some pictures with his camera as well. He was attempting to photograph some dragonflies, and he got a really good shot of one, I thought.

When we were done photographing, we started back up the hill. Of course the sun had already set and it got dark fairly quickly. It was well after dark when we finally arrived back at the car. I had my light of course, and it was an easy trail to follow in the dark. We took our time hiking back up the hill, and even saw some bats flying overhead in the dusky light. We had a great time, even though it was not a spectacular sunset.

This past weekend, we took a trip down to the central CA coast to Santa Cruz for some fun and games. We have some good friends from our church that have a couple kids about the same age as our two kids. The four of them really get along awesomely together. We decided that we would all go to Santa Cruz for the weekend, where there is a boardwalk along the ocean with a carnival and a lot of rides and games and such. We spent most of the day, Saturday, there. The kids definitely had a lot of fun on the rides and playing together. So did the adults, I think. In particular, Jadon and I had a blast on the log splash ride (we did that one a couple times, but my wife didn’t want to get cold and wet so she skipped it). On Sunday, we did some shopping in Capitola in the morning, and then went to the beach after lunch for a couple hours. Again, the kids had plenty of fun playing together on the beach before we had to drive home (and getting sand in every nook and cranny of their bodies).

For me, though, if I am going anywhere, I want to try to get in some photography as well. I had plans to shoot sunset Friday night, then get up early on Saturday morning and Sunday morning as well. I did all of that. But the weather did not co-operate. Summer is not the best time to go to the California coast (for photography, that is). The most likely weather scenario you will experience is FOG. Friday night sunset was completely fogged out. We went to a beach north of Santa Cruz, but couldn’t see a thing!. Definitely no sun to be seen. Not exactly what I had envisioned for a nice sunset. When I woke up Saturday morning, Santa Cruz was still soaked in fog. But fog can be a good thing as well, and I made the most of it by going to the pier in Capitola. I wanted to get a pre-dawn shot of the pier soaked in fog, with the pier lights on. I think it turned out okay, though I was hoping for a much thicker fog. This shot was taken at f/8, about 20 seconds.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived in Capitola at 5:30AM, an hour before sunrise. But one thing for sure is that I wasn’t expecting to see anyone! And yet, very surprisingly, there were plenty of people out and about: surfers, fishermen, kayakers. I couldn’t believe it. But I was the only photographer out and about, so I had the pier all to myself to photograph. Those other people may have thought it strange I was taking photos of the pier in the dark, but hey, I thought they were strange to be out surfing in the dark.

After it got light out and as I was just about done shooting, I thought my camera had broken! At first, I thought it was the battery, so I changed it, but it still did not work. Oh ain’t that just great, I thought. But I got back to the car, and tried it again, and it was all of a sudden working again! What the hey? I was relieved, but it made no sense at all. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was, when it stopped working again the next morning. Then I realized it was the new cable release that I had just bought. The camera wouldn’t work with the cable release plugged in, but it worked without it. Well, that sucks, I thought. But then I realized the cable release did work, as long as I turned the camera on first and then plugged the cable release in (instead of plugging the release in first). Well, it is a bit quirky (my old cable release didn’t have this feature, and it was exactly the same brand), but it was a big relief that it works at least.

Here’s another one taken a bit later in the morning. I’m not sure which of the two I like better. This one was taken at f/16, 20 seconds. I like the effect that the smaller aperture had on the lights on the pier.

This is one of the many glacier waterfalls we saw on our cruise in Prince William Sound. This one can be seen from the town of Whittier, and is one of the huge waterfalls you will see here. Again, this is a hand-held HDR shot taken from the boat. All the little white specks around the waterfall that you see are birds, hundreds of kittiwakes. This is a major kittiwake rookery, and thus, is one of the stops the cruise ship makes. They take you pretty close to the falls, and I tried to get some close-up shots of the birds with the falls in the background as well. See below for one of my better ones.

Our final day in Alaska. We took a day cruise out of Whittier on Prince William Sound. It was the most sunny day of our trip! You might think that is good, but it is most certainly not good for photography. The sun was far too harsh. I was hoping for an overcast day on this last day, but it was not to be. Bummer.

Whittier is waterfall madness. My wife figured I was in heaven with all the waterfalls coming off the mountains. I would have been, perhaps, if the weather co-operated, and if I had a kayak (and the time) to explore them. I found it quite difficult to shoot these waterfalls. They are all glacier waterfalls. Falling off the mountains from melting glaciers. In the grand scheme of geological things, they have a very short lifespan. One hundred years ago, most of them probably did not exist, and 100 years from now when the glaciers are melted, they will cease to exist. But for now, in our lifetime, they do exist. We saw tons of waterfalls on this cruise. Many of them are significant waterfalls and worthy to put on my website. But it is impossible to document these waterfalls properly (unless, perhaps like I said, I had a kayak and much more time to do so). All I could really do is document and photograph the major waterfalls on the major glaciers.

The most spectacular waterfall we saw was this one (Northland Falls) coming off Northland Glacier. It is about 500 ft. high. It is really difficult to get a perspective on the size of this waterfall. The glaciers and the landscape here is just so huge. We weren’t really up close to the glacier (or falls), but yet it looked so huge.

The photo was a hand-held HDR shot. It is impossible to use a tripod on a moving, bobbing, boat. And with the sun being so harsh, I knew there was too much dynamic range to take a single shot. So I tried to do a hand-held HDR with 3 exposures (0EV, -2EV, +2EV). Most of the shots I took like this did not turn out too well, but a few turned out ok. I wish I had better light to work with, but what can you do.

Northland Falls was located at one of the main glaciers where the boat was stopping, so I did have a bit of time to take the shot. Most of the waterfalls we saw, the boat just whizzed right by them. No time to stop. No time to shoot. The one exception was a waterfall they called Hidden Falls, a nice but smallish waterfall we stopped at so EVERYONE on the boat could get out on deck and get their picture taken in front of the falls. It was a zoo on the deck. I had the strong feeling that the cruise line just picked out Hidden Falls at random from all the waterfalls along the way as being the one they would stop at on the cruise all the time for everyone to get out on deck and see. There were definitely nicer waterfalls that I would have liked to stop closer to see.

As for the glaciers, well they are just monstrous. We did not see very much calving of the glaciers, however. I was quite disappointed about that. I was hoping to see much more of that on this cruise.
We did see a bit of wildlife on the cruise, but not a heck of a lot really. We got up close to some sea otters, who were playing around the boat. We also saw some harbor seals, and plenty of birds of course. They say the cruises out of Seward are better for seeing wildlife. We’ll have to do that one next time.