Golden Hour

This post appeared earlier. I updated the search terms, and the editing software stuck it here. Nothing I can do about it, though it is now out of sequence. Let's pretend this is a "feature" of the editing software, rather than a "bug".
In photography, the first and last hour of sunlight during the day is known as the Golden Hour. At those times, when the sun is near the horizon, the light appears softer and warmer, and shadows are longer. "Hour" is used quite loosely, since the length of the warm light varies with cloud cover and latitude.

The photographs in this post were made in the golden hour around sunrise.

In landscape photography, the warm glow of the low Sun is considered desirable because of the way it enhances the colors of a scene.

Although generally warm, the color palette of the golden hour can vary widely depending on atmospheric conditions.

All of the photos in this post were made while hiking on Mt. Rubidoux. For more information about Mt. Rubidoux, see http://www.mt-rubidoux.org/.

In cinematography, this lighting is called the "magic hour". The 1978 Terrence Malick film, Days Of Heaven was photographed in golden hour light.

A Hunt For Herons

The photos in this post are from a group ride on Saturday October 23, 2010. For a number of reasons it was a poorly-attended ride. Only three of us, all at least 58 years old, could make it to the assembly point in Banning, California. The object of the ride was to photograph the clouds of Herons, specifically Snowy Egrets that during other years gathered on the shoreline of the Salton Sea in the Fall. In the photo below, taken by Dan Underwood, Mike Harmon (shading his eyes) and I (back to camera) search the shoreline near an old resort, now a community center, on the north east end of the inland sea.

Below: Startled when I walked too close, a Snowy Egret took flight.

In all, I counted only six Herons all day. It was a poor showing, but we were perhaps a few weeks early. Below, a single Snowy Egret stood on a wooden pole emerging from the water near a group of Pelicans.

We rode around the sea, stopping to look for the favored waterfowl at the Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge. Below: A view of the Refuge’s marshland from the observation platform at the south end of the sea. Nearly a mile from the shore at the platform, it was too muddy to chance riding our heavy road bikes any closer, and we were running out of time to walk to the edge of the water, though we could hear thousands of water birds hidden in the rushes.

The photo below shows the thick growth of “cattail” rushes. The rushes reminded me of my grandfather, who in the 1950s, gathered the rushes and used them to cane the seats of antique chairs, though that was nearly 3,000 miles from the Salton Sea.

Before leaving on the ride I had commented to Lisa that when it is only the “old guys” riding, it is often a somewhat slower, more relaxed ride. Oddly, that ride was over a hundred miles longer than our typical ride. My theory for the longer distance is that we got so involved in looking for Herons that we forgot to make the usual stop for beer…

Review: Velocity Micro's Cruz Reader

This isn’t much of a review of the Cruz Reader. But it is a review of the business and customer support practices of Velocity Micro, the company that makes the Cruz. The Cruz shown in the photo below was bought by my wife Lisa, as a birthday present for me in September 2010. I had done a good deal of research on eReaders and the Cruz looked like it would be the right eReader for me. In addition to being an eReader, it had a color screen which I could use to display photographs, would display Office documents, and would do email.

The Cruz arrived in twice the time paid for: Lisa paid for two-day delivery. It took four days to arrive, which is typical of UPS, in my experience. The Cruz seemed to be working properly for approximately 48 hours, then the WiFi went south (and no, it wasn’t dropped, heated, or hammered upon, etc.). Without the WiFi working properly, the Cruz was of little use to me since I couldn’t easily download books, Office documents could not be displayed because the Android application that handles that is Web-based, and email was impossible because it requires some sort of internet connection. After several phone sessions with Velocity Micro (VM) support technicians it became obvious that I had a defective Cruz. Other devices such as an iPod Touch and a netbook had no problem connecting with my WiFi network, whose signal strength was listed as “Excellent” by the Cruz. I spent a dozen hours field testing the Cruz over a three day period before giving up. During that period of field testing I had reconfigured my router, rebooted the unit and performed hardware resets multiple times, and installed the firmware update, all to no avail. When I contacted VM yet again to arrange to return the unit, I was informed that there was a 15% restocking fee. I sent an email message to the person I was told was the manager of Cruz Technical Support, an “Ellen”. I asked Ellen to waive the $30 restocking fee (15% of $200) since the Cruz I had received was defective. I received no response, though I had given my telephone number and email address. Several days later we received an email message from VM, which began with “Congratulations!”. VM had credited back $170 and retained the $30 “restocking fee”. Two more times into the breach: I phoned VM tech support and asked the tech for “Ellen”. The tech said she would connect me to Ellen’s voice mail. I told her I didn’t want to talk to a machine, that I wanted to talk to a manager who could be responsive. She replied that Ellen wasn’t available at that time. I asked when I could call back and she would be available. The tech replied, “Never”. That seemed somewhat less than helpful, so I located the email contact information for the President of VM (no phone number was available via the Website). I wrote to the President explaining my experience with the Cruz, and again asked that the “restocking fee” be credited back to us. I received the following message via email the next day.

That email arrived 12 days ago, as of this writing, on 10/12/2010. I have received no response from the President of Velocity Micro.

The Bottom Line: Because we took a chance on the Cruz Reader, and it is apparently the policy of Velocity Micro to “rip off“ customers who receive defective units, we are now out over $50 (the “restocking fee” and shipping two ways). Velocity Micro is incredibly unresponsive. It is quite apparent that it simply does not care about its customers. But it is not too late. Velocity Micro still has time to return the money we lost and redeem itself for its robber baron business practices. Mr. or Ms. President of Velocity Micro, I am still waiting…

Freckles

It may just be my viewpoint (and it wouldn’t be the first time), but doesn’t it seem that current print media has an unfounded prejudice against freckles? Before I show examples of that prejudice, let me state that the photos in this post are not mine. I made photos of magazine pages for illustration purposes only, and the photo copyrights do not belong to me. Both images are of ads for photo retouching software. Also, these were made very quickly by shooting the magazines on my concrete driveway in diffused light. I believe that they illustrate my point, though someone like Kirk Tuck (http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/) would no doubt have done a better job, producing somewhat clearer images. As usual, click on the photos to see larger versions. In the first image the “before” photo looks quite good to me. The “after” photo with all of the woman’s freckles removed simply looks wrong to me. It gives the woman an almost alien appearance (as in non-human, possibly non-Terran). The after photo is the result of too much altering of the image. Like an overproduced recording of a rock band, it strips away raw vitality and leaves something unreal.

In the photo below someone in the art department, showing off their skill with the retouching software, has cleverly used a single photo to show both before and after and help the ad fit a single column of the magazine. I think it is an effective ad, and shows exactly what the retouching software can do, but it is based on the idea that there is something wrong with freckles.

I have the opposite viewpoint. I think the freckling on both women’s faces just augments their natural beauty. To my eye, the second photo is the worst offender, because it presents the largest difference; a photo of a woman who is quite beautiful, and a photo of a woman who doesn’t exist. My viewpoint may well be cultural. I’m a Caucasian, and find Caucasian women to be beautiful and freckling often augments that beauty in my eyes.

Bandits Again

These photos are from 10/15/2010. These raccoons are a family that began visiting our back yard and patio last year as a mother and pair of offspring. They’d turn up every couple weeks, foraging for bugs in the yard and any food left out for our cat. This appears to be the sister-brother combination of last year and their nearly full-grown offspring. The attraction when these photos were taken was the hard cat food. I poured a bit more on the steps so they’d stay long enough for my granddaughter to see them.

A Missed Setting

The sky is still generally crappy. By that I mean clear blue dome, no clouds. I'm always looking for some cloud definition, because landscape photos are often boring with clear skies. I rode out to catch the sunrise from the Hidden Valley Wildlife Preserve a few mornings ago. It is about a nine mile ride to the southwest in a group of low hills along the Santa Ana River between Riverside and Norco.

I guessed right about the rain that was coming from the coast. Nothing rain happened until I was back home, and gearing up for the day. I also guessed correctly that we'd have a good sunrise: Plenty of warm colors between and through the clouds to the east beside Box Springs Mountain. I hiked up to the crest of a hill, planted the tripod, and attached the camera. I captured photos for nearly an hour, then rode home, "knowing" that I had some good frames.

When I uploaded and looked at the photos in the evening, I discovered that every one of them was unacceptably grainy. A quick check of the camera's settings jogged my memory. During the previous morning's hike in Sycamore Canyon I made a few handheld predawn photos and dialed up the ISO to 1600. I never thought to change it back to my preferred ISO 100 or 200. Typically, I will shoot at ISO 200. On the tripod, I'll set it down to ISO 100 unless I'm shooting some kind of action. And I always check my exposure compensation setting, and always format the 8GB memory card. Good habits, both.

But this isn't the first time I've missed the ISO setting when returning everything to normal settings. Fortunately, I never missed such a good landscape before. Maybe this will help me form a better set of habits when preparing for shooting...

Layers

Like other landscape photographers, one of the things that gets me visually excited is layers. I captured this photo this morning while standing in Anza Narrows Park. There were no interesting cloud formations, the weather condition that is most likely to yield the types of sunrises that I like to photograph. But there was the common low-lying mist in the river bottom, and the succession of ridgelines and the buildings in downtown Riverside in the distance. I only made a few frames, bracketing with exposure compensation to get the desired balance of light/darkness/color.

Statistics: Nikon D200, Nikon VR 18-105mm lens at 80mm, shutter: 1.8 seconds, f/13, -1.0 EV.

Parking Lot

This is a parking lot at UCR (University of California at Riverside), which is on the route I take most mornings to Sycamore Canyon. For several weeks I kept noticing the repeating pattern of the light fixtures and the orange/red tint of the lamps. Since I had my Manfrotto tripod with me, I stopped to capture this frame on October 1.

September's End

The photographs in this post were captured between September 19 and 29, 2010. The photo below was made in Sycamore Canyon on the 19th. We were in the midst of Indian Summer with a few days of heat over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The photo below, made on the 23rd, is from the Santa Ana riverbottom. I don’t know what this flower is. If you can identify it, leave a comment to let everyone know what it is.

This photo (below) is from the 26th. I hiked a 9-mile loop in Sycamore Canyon that morning. I liked the color against the dun-brown sunburned hillsides.

The next photo was captured on the 28th. The distant ridgeline is Mt. Baldy in the Angelus Mountains.

The snake shown below was across the trail and caused me a few moments of hesitation. I stopped walking toward it until I verified that it was probably a harmless variety. Unmoving, it watched me until I walked around it, then moved into the undergrowth. It has been identified as a gopher snake by my granddaughter whose knowledge of reptiles is more advanced than mine.

I captured the frame below on the evening of the 29th in Anza Narrows County Park. View west from the southern edge of the park.