After speaking at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, I drove north past the official Area 51 Alien Cathouse, sliced across Death Valley (plot thickened by the malfunctioning Chevy S.U.V. engine warning light), drove up through the eastern Sierras (an absolutely glorious and underrated destination), visited Yosemite, and concluded with a couple days in San Francisco, where a woman I witnessed massively shoplifting at a Walgreens kept shouting at me that she would “beat yo ass!” Here are a few pictures from the trip. I welcome critical feedback and suggestions on these photographs.
Yosemite
Mt. Whitney or at least on the same side of the Sierras
Hazy Death Valley
Yosemite Take 2
Bishop, California, in the eastern Sierras – stopping point on the Pacific Crest Trail
What did that tourist book say about pedestrian right of way? Never mind.
Golden Gate Bridge from Marin County highlands
Nice photos Jim, what gear did you use? I think they look great, one thing I’ve changed with landscape photography is setting aperture at mid point e.g. if lens is f4-f22 set around f11 to get maximum sharpness out of your lens.
A lot of blue in the photos of Golden gate, .maybe add a little warmth to the photos? The photo in the street I maybe would have put the camera on the ground or close to it, right in the middle of the street.
But really all that is subjective and they look great, too bad you couldn’t snap a clandestine photo of the shoplifter haha. I’d really like to make it out there, do you have a Flickr page!? Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Nick. I used a Nikon D-40. Good point on the aperture. I will try that.
Golden Gate might be too blue – I will go back to the original and take another swing or at least re-tweak.
As far as the street photo, I was happy not to get run over. It is tricky to put a camera down there without it sprouting legs and running off.
Nice pics, Jim. I like the one of Mt. Whitney and I also want a sandwich at Bar-B-Q Bill’s. The Nikon D-40 is a pretty good camera. I had one for about 10 years, but I wasn’t using it much. My son and his wife had twins about 3 months ago, so I gave him the D-40 to use for pictures instead of his phone. By the way, an easy fix for when the warning light comes on is to put a small piece of duct tape over it
Thanks, Tom. I hope your son and his wife are enjoying the D-40. I ignore the warning light on my Ford except when my car needs to pass Vehicle Emissions tests. But I had no desire to make the acquaintance of Death Valley tow truck drivers….
Great photos!
Thanks, John! And I didn’t have to holler at the landscape to make it move into the sunshine.