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Half Dome Sunset

One of my goals while in Yosemite was to go to Glacier Point later in the day and watch the sunset casting its warm light over Half Dome. Half Dome is always an impressive sight to behold. Taking pictures of it never allows you to experience the scale and impressiveness of it but you do the best you can. I got up there about an hour before the sun was due to set in order to get a few other shots. I had intended to hike up to Sentinel Dome but I was running out of time so that part of the trip got scrubbed and saved for another day.

Shooting sunset type shots is a funny thing. The view looks great and you take a few shots. Then, as the sun dips lower, the light gets better and you shoot some more. This continues until suddenly it stops getting better and it is all over. You have to shoot a bunch of stuff since you never know whether it is at its peak or not. Consequently, you end up with a lot of shots that you will never use again.

The other odd aspect about this shoot was the discrepancy between the view and the atmosphere. Sunset at Glacier Point is a popular thing as you might expect. Plenty of people are there. Lots of them are families and families often include small kids. Small kids are not so enthusiastic about sitting around for an hour waiting for the sun to set. Consequently, the scenery looks great but all you can here is crying kids and desperate parents trying to buy off a tired and grouchy kid. Not quite what you had in mind. I just hope the parents still enjoyed the beautiful view since the rest of it looked painful for them.

Mariposa Grove

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The last time I was in Yosemite, it had just snowed and so the access to Mariposa Grove was cut off. It is a shame since visiting the groves of sequoias is one of the high points for me. The redwoods at the coast are impressive, certainly, but they don’t have the massiveness that the inland relatives have. Previously I have taken the tram ride around the grove so this time I decided to walk it. It was a pleasant temperature but the altitude is a bit of a factor so there were times when I was wondering whether my plan was so clever.

However, the nice thing about the grove is that you are heading downhill when you are on the way back and suddenly everything seems a lot easier. Walking does give a great way to experience the whole place at your own pace as well as see some areas that you wouldn’t see on the tram. You also get some exercise!

The lower part of the grove has some big trees but not as many as the upper grove. Getting up there allows you to be surrounded by some enormous living things. Every once in a while, I had to look at a normal tree (big by most standards) to remind myself just how much bigger the sequoias are. They are vast! Again, this is a tricky thing to accurately portray in photographs. However, sometimes you just have to enjoy the prettiness of it all. Having something in to scale it every once in a while helps too of course.

Paia

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Up near the near side of Maui is the little town of Paia. We checked Paia out on our way to get lunch. There isn’t a huge amount to see in the town – a selection of shops and places to eat as you might expect – but its claim to fame is that it is populated by some of the more out there members of society.

Going there is as much about seeing unusual people as it is about seeing the town itself. How long this reputation has been in place and whether it is still valid I couldn’t say. Certainly there were a few people wandering around who looked like they fitted the bill. There were far more people visiting, though, and maybe they were all there looking for the strange folk. By coming in such numbers, maybe we are driving away what we came to see. Despite all of this, we did see a few cool looking places and some signs that the community is not totally conformist!

Veterans’ service

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With Veterans’ Day upon us, the city of Chicago held a service at the Vietnam War Memorial. This is located just across the river from me and, when I saw that something was being set up, I went across to see. It is the fiftieth anniversary of the Vietnam War and there are additional elements of remembrance that are associated with that.

The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel was speaking at the event as was an alderman who served with the Marines in Vietnam. It was not a huge event but there were plenty of people there and it was all done in a very classy yet personal way. All of the services were represented and there were many veterans in the crowd as well. I am certainly glad I found out it was going on.

Iao Valley

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If you head inland from the airport on Maui, you can travel up a narrow route called the Iao Valley. It is a pretty valley to travel up but the main attraction is at the head of the valley where there is a visitor center. Here is a place that has much historical significance for the people who populated the islands in years gone by. Battles were fought here and the interesting shapes of the hills have significance as well.

The variation in climate was noticeable. Looking up into the hills, you could see a lot fo cloud moving through and the foliage was green and dense. Look the other way and you could see the warmer drier areas appearing in quite a short distance. There was a river running through the valley which was feeding a lot of cultivated garden areas. A lot of people visited although not many seemed to stay too long. If you took your time, it was actually a very nice place to be.

Sunrise Over Chicago

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My journey to the top of the Sears was explained previously in the context of the helicopter lift that got me there. However, while I was there, I did have plenty of time to see other things. The job was due to start at 6:50am so we were up on the building quite early. However, there were some delays before the lift finally got underway so we were up there for a while. We got to the top before sunrise so I got to see the sun rise over the lake.

The sunrise has a great affect on the buildings. Gradually the warm morning light washed across the various buildings and they glow with the early morning warmth (ironic since it was pretty chilly up there. Watching the skyline light up around you is a lot of fun. With hindsight, I should have set up one camera for a time lapse video but never mind.

The new Rush Hospital building looked particularly good as the sun came up but everything around looked great. Also, while the sun is low, the shadows are long – none more so than that of the building I was standing on! I wonder is someone a couple of miles away could see my shadow puppets! Midway was off in the distance and we could see straight down the runway. I didn’t take a really long lens with me so no closeups of landing or departing traffic. However, we did get some O’Hare traffic passing overhead and, being 1,300′ up, they did seem noticeably closer! What a way to start the day.

On Top of the City

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I have been very fortunate to be on top of some of the largest buildings in the city of Chicago in recent years. Helicopter lifting operations take me to places that are off limits to many and that provide a great perspective on the city. However, until recently, the highest point in the city was not one I had been to. The top of the Sears Tower (I don’t know many that use its other name) had eluded me. The Skydeck doesn’t count of course!

This changed with the installation of the new TV antenna for ABC on top of the building. The good team at Construction Helicopters had been contracted to install the new antenna having helped removing the old one. We gathered early one Sunday morning for the job to commence. This is a location that is unmatched unless you are actually airborne. I will post some views from on high in upcoming posts. However, the first post is an aviation themed one – no great surprise for this blog!

The aircraft used was a Sikorsky S-61N. The aircraft was leased from a Canadian company and was actually on its last job with Construction before being returned. They have acquired a Super Puma which I hope to see in action at some point. The S-61N is an old design but regular upgrades have kept it as a very capable machine. It staged out of Midway and picked the loads from down at the bottom of the tower. The vertical climb is quite a long one but they did well, not only in placing the loads, but holding them for some time while they were secured. Good job to everyone involved.

Mama’s Fish House

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Upon our arrival on Maui, our first mission was to get lunch. Nancy had planned ahead and chosen a location not too far from the airport and with a beachfront location that was supposed to be very picturesque. It was called Mama’s Fish House. We got there a little ahead of the time of our reservation so parked the car and took a look around. This place is about as gorgeous as you could imagine a Hawaiian beach to be. There is a small cove with the waves washing by and making the whole thing look like it was created by a movie set designer.

We sat and enjoyed the place for a while until it was time to eat. When we did go inside, the welcome was warm and the table was by the windows so we couldn’t have been better off. One look at the menu tells you that this place is not cheap. My first instinct was to assume that we were paying for the location. However, when the food arrived, it was absolutely excellent. The combination of great food and and outstanding view meant the meal was worth every penny.

Auto ISO

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There is a function built in to my cameras that, until recently, I had never bothered to use. It hadn’t been something that immediately grabbed my interest and so I had forgotten about it to some extent. Therefore, when it could have been useful to me, I had not thought about how to make good use of it. This is Automatic ISO. This is an interesting idea when you start to think about it in more detail and one that might cause some to react in strange ways.

Many photographers will react poorly to the camera doing anything automatically. They will say how they like to have control. Then they will totally contradict themselves by telling you that they always shoot in aperture priority mode, totally ignoring the fact that the camera set the shutter speed for them in this mode “automatically”! Therefore, for anyone reading (is anyone reading?) who jumps to the “I am against automatic anything” approach, why don’t you go and analyze exactly how your camera works and you use it. If you are totally manual in everything you set, congratulations. You obviously don’t need to read this anyway.

For anyone else who is a little more open-minded and who hasn’t played with this capability, let me explain why I tried it. Plenty of times I have the camera in aperture priority in a situation where it is quite dark. I know this is not clever of me but I often notice that the shutter speed is low because I can hear that it is! In situations like this I might then tweak the ISO setting to try and bring things back into a range I am comfortable with. My technique for this is rolling the dial a bit and seeing what I get. Not clever analysis by any stretch.

Recently I was shooting a job in natural light (or lack thereof) that started long before the sun came up. I knew I was going to be using some pretty high ISO settings to get useable shots and this is when the auto ISO function came to mind. I went to manual mode, set the aperture and shutter speed I wanted and switched ISO to A. Now, it worked out what was needed to get the exposure right. As the light conditions improved, the ISO got dialed down but I didn’t have to do anything other than find what I wanted to shoot, compose and get on with it. The only limitation I had was that I don’t know how (or even if) you can add exposure compensation in this situation. Something for me to research – maybe even take the dreaded step of reading the manual!

The results were very satisfactory. I got the images I wanted and didn’t have to constantly wonder about whether my ISO setting was right. Obviously, this is not a solution for every situation but it does provide a good approach in some conditions. Maybe you will have a time when it is worth a go to.

Waimea Canyon

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During our last trip to Kauai, I wrote about visiting Waimea Canyon, some of which you can find in the previous posts including here. This year we went back. We weren’t looking to do much hiking this time but instead just wanted to take in the lovely scenery. It is certainly a dramatic enough spot that you can get plenty of good stuff to see.

I did manage to get an aviation theme to this post though. We got to one of the overlook locations looking into the canyon and one of the tour helicopters was coming towards us. I grabbed a quick shot of the EC130 as it turned away. Plenty of other helicopters came by – a steady stream really – but they all took different routes. I guess it depends on your pilot as to what you get.

We got to the top of the canyon road and the overlook that gives views of the north coast of the island – normally. Not this day. The clouds were rolling in and obscuring the view to the north. Since we were right at the summit, the clouds bubbled up to the top and then dissipated almost immediately. You had cloud on one side and nothing on the other. Very cool!