Leon Turnbull Photography

Here’s a vertical shot from my incredible sunset evening at Lake Tahoe, Bonsai Rock.

I’m not completely happy with my composition on this shot. It was not possible to place the rock (Bonsai Rock) in the frame where I wanted, for where the colors in the sky were happening. Ah well, what can you do. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. I definitely had the cake that night with the incredibly beautiful sunset. Nonetheless, I still think this is a pretty darn good shot.

Speaking of Lake Tahoe, my wife just recently told me about her aunt and uncle that had a break-in at their cabin in Tahoe. It was a break-in from a bear! The bear just walked into the cabin and helped himself to some chocolate while her uncle was sitting there watching TV. Go figure. You gotta love Tahoe. Actually, I do. I wish we had a cabin there. Or lived there. It would sure beat the 100+ degree summers of Sacramento.

Our last sunset evening in Homer. My wife, father-in-law, and brother-in-law and I went back down to Anchor Point to the beach to view the sunset behind Mt. Redoubt. All three volcanoes (Redoubt, Iliama and Augustine) were visible on this evening, though none of them were all that clear. It was a gorgeous sunset and evening.

There were quite a few people out enjoying the evening on the beach. And the bald eagles were enjoying the sunset on the beach as well. However, you will notice that there are no eagles in my nicely composed photograph of the sunset this time. That is because of some dufus that drove down onto the beach in his vehicle. Why do so many Alaskans like to drive on the beach? It is very annoying and sure ruins the peaceful ambience of enjoying a sunset on the beach. This guy drove right down to the water’s edge (I thought he was going to get stuck in the mud), then up the beach, right in front of my camera, scaring away all the eagles that were there in my frame. Then he drove back. Ugh!

Another thing I found strange about Alaskans, is that they would just drive in their cars to an ocean overlook and just sit there in their vehicles. I mean, we’re talking about the middle of the day, not sunset. What is there to see? The ocean and mountains, ok. But how long can you just sit in your car and look at that? Why not get out of your vehicle, walk down to the water, feel the breeze on your face. How can you enjoy the ocean from inside your car? I don’t get it.

I was anticipating seeing a lot of wildlife while in Alaska. And I was hoping to get some good, quality photos of certain animals, especially eagles, moose, bear, and dall sheep. I struck out on the bears and sheep, but I did get plenty of good eagle shots. As for the moose, well I saw quite a few, but I didn’t get the killer photo I was hoping for. This was the best one I got from the trip, and I suppose it is a pretty darn good quality and a very sharp shot, though I’m not sure that it is killer.

I made a little slide show of all the wildlife I saw and photographed in Alaska. I highly recommend you checking it out. It may take a while to load if you have a slow connection:

http://www.waterfallswest.com/gallery/alaska.html

The moose that I did see were usually right along the highway, and it was impossible to stop and take a photo of them. One morning, I even saw a moose running down the middle of the freeway just outside of Anchorage. No kidding. I actually tried to take a photo of it, but of course it was totally blurry. One other time I was driving in the morning around Homer, and I saw a couple moose alongside the road, practically on the road. I stopped to try to photograph them. Another driver, however, came by and blasted his horn at the moose, scaring them away. Why did he do that? Was he trying to help the moose, trying to tell them they should not be on the road (many moose get killed in Alaska by cars), or was he just being a total jerk? I don’t know. I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt, but I suspect it is probably the latter thing. This one here was off the road outside of Homer, on a turnout. So I was able to stop and get out of my car to get closer to it and photograph it. I didn’t even notice it at the time, but there were actually two baby moose in the frame as well. They were totally hidden in the foliage, and I didn’t see them until I got home. I cropped them out of this shot so as to focus on mama.

Went back up to Lake Tahoe this weekend for sunrise. This time, there were no spectacularly amazing colorful clouds. In fact, there were none, zilcho, nada. I must have used up all of my pretty cloud quota (and then some!) when I was up here on Friday night. Maybe for the rest of the year. ha ha.

Still, my dog and I had a lovely morning walking up to Upper Angora Lake at Tahoe. It is a very short hike, but I wasn’t in the mood to do a really long hike on this particular morning. I’m sure Kaya would have liked a much longer hike, but I think she was just happy to come with me. She doesn’t always get to come hiking with me if I am planning to do any major scrambling off trail, up cliffs, or through heavy brush and poison oak. I’ll leave her at home if I am going to do any of that crazy stuff. Even though we didn’t do much hiking, it was still nice to get out for sunrise. Angora Lake is a very busy and popular place during the day in summer, but at sunrise, we had the place all to ourselves. It was very pleasant and peaceful. And there were no mosquitoes (I was surprised and pleased about that). Oh yeah, if you look very closely, you can even see a waterfall in this photo (you may need a magnifying glass – ha ha).

Since we got back from Alaska, I had not been out photographing at all. I just had to get out this weekend. So up to Lake Tahoe I went for sunset on Friday night.

Bonsai Rock at Lake Tahoe was first made famous by photographer Elizabeth Carmel. Since her photo, everyone and their dog has attempted to photograph this semi-interesting rock sitting out in the waters of Lake Tahoe (very much like Eagle Falls overlooking Emerald Bay, which was first made famous by the late Galen Rowell). Bonsai Rock, however, is not marked on any map and thus, some have troubles finding it. Well, I found it easily enough, but to be perfectly honest, up until now, I have had no desire to go photograph Bonsai Rock. Probably, I have seen too many photos of it, and none of them (including Carmel’s) have given me an impression that this is an overwhelmingly interesting location. Certainly, Carmel’s is an excellent photograph (and others I have seen as well). But it does not have a “WOW” factor for me, as in “I absolutely must go see this place.” About the only thing that would make it a “WOW” for me would be if there were some amazingly spectacular sunset clouds hanging over the rock. Well …

As I arrived in Lake Tahoe a couple hours before sunset, I had no firm plan on where I wanted to shoot sunset. I had ideas, but they would depend on the weather situation once I arrived. Well, the weather situation was all stormy and overcast as I started to drive down from the summit towards the lake (this was not mentioned in the weather forecast, by the way). I quickly ruled out shooting sunset at Eagle Falls because of the overcast conditions (in hindsight, it actually might have been quite nice there). There was a bit of light over on the west side of the lake, though, so I decided to try to find a spot across the state line, on the east side looking across the lake. Thus, I came to Bonsai Rock. It didn’t seem horribly interesting after I scrambled down to the lake from the road. It is really just a big jumble of rocks all over the place. And it sure didn’t look like I would see any amazing sunset clouds either. The stormy overcast clouds had mysteriously vanished, and it was now completely clear. There were just a few light clouds across the lake. I thought it would be just an okay sunset, nothing spectacular. There was one other photographer down there, and he set up a couple hundred feet away from me, not shooting Bonsai Rock. By the time the sun sank behind the mountains, more clouds had appeared, just as mysteriously as when they initially vanished. Where did they come from? The sky lit up in color above Bonsai Rock, and for a full thirty minutes and more after the sun had set, we were treated to an absolutely incredible show, courtesy of God Almighty himself. The sky just kept getting redder and redder, and I thought the color would never dissipate. I just kept on clicking the shutter button. Finally, after 30 minutes, I could see the best of the show was done and the color faded away. But even after I packed up and started driving back towards South Lake Tahoe, it still remained very beautiful over the lake. It was an amazing evening.