Category Archives: Travel

Supermoonar Eclipse in Montana

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A little over a week ago, I spent some time out visiting my brother in Montana. I got to check out a bunch of awesome festivities at the school he works at, attend a powwow, and help take some photos at the cross country meet he organized. During that time, there was a supermoon, and a lunar eclipse happening. Pretty awesome stuff, but conditions weren’t super great for viewing, as it was cloudy out as the moon was rising, so we missed out on seeing the supermoon at it’s biggest… when it’s near the horizon. So, with that, I set up my cameras to take some timelapses as the moon came up and went through the eclipse.

Since I’ve been roadtripping, I didn’t have the gear with me that I really wanted to shoot the moon… a 300mm lens with a teleconverter, so I was stuck with just using what I had (aww, poor me…). Anyway, I did learn a few things through this process…

  • The lunar eclipse is hard to shoot and have a very balanced image with the bright part of the moon, and the eclipsed part of the moon properly exposed. So kudos to those who did it super well.
  • When shooting timelapse with a long lens, you have to shoot at a different frequency, as the motion of the moon (rotation of the earth) is more exaggerated due to the longer focal length.
  • And, contrary to milky way photos, you are probably better off shooting somewhere bright, like in the city, so as to match the moon’s brightness more, and create a more dynamic image (instead of just the moon on a black background, you could have the moon against a lit up city skyline).
  • You’ll probably want a super long focal length and a subject far away to exaggerate the size of the moon in comparison to the subject.

Anyway, those are some of my takeaway thoughts on this process. The final-ish product is below… Take a looksee and tell me what you think. (And hopefully, that’s the only time I ever use the word “looksee” on my blog.)

Also, consider watching on the vimeo site for the HD quality version.

#52weekproject: Night Photos over the John Day

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2015-05-16 - 3 Musketeers v2

A continuation from my last post; here are the photos I took Saturday, May 16, 2015, after I set up camp, with a beer in hand. In the first photo, I used my headlamp to paint the hills a bit for a little more detail in the foreground, but in the second photo, I just went for the silhouetted look.

They tell you that camping is a great way to reset your internal clock, and aligning with the setting and rising of the sun. But unfortunately, when you go to the west coast, and lose 2 hours, and are into night photos, it makes it a little harder to get to bed when the sunsets. Oh well, I think the photos were worth the extra coffee the following morning!

2015-05-16 - 3 Musketeers

#52weekproject: Week 30 – Jimmy’s 34th Birthday

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Dilapidated Jimmy v01

 

Week 30: Jimmy’s 34th Birthday

Taken Monday, December 22nd, 2014 just off of the barely traversed back country roads of Montana. I spent my Christmas out there visiting my brother, and just happened to take a picture of my bro with his dog, Zipper in front of this finely constructed home. We had taken some time to walk around and check out the inside of this… Can you even call it a house? It’s kind of a creepy thing, checking out an abandoned structure. It had 3 rooms, with a roof, walls and floorboards, all warped and coming apart at the seams. An old mattress lay in the middle of the room, revealing it’s rusty and decrepit springs for the world to see; while old torn clothes, various broken furnishings, and beer cans littered the rest of the room. It felt creepy in broad daylight, so I can only imagine how it would be in the dead of night, with the wind howling and whistling through all the nooks and crannies in the walls.

Anyway, we didn’t stay long enough to find that out in person. We had our own scary encounter later on. As we tried to head back to the cabin were we staying, we took an alternate backcountry route, which, come to find out, was fairly iced over. As night was falling, the temperature dropped, and we almost slid off the side of an iced over single lane road into an 50 foot ravine. Luckily after some white knuckling, we were able to do some controlled sliding back down the sloped road and turn around and head back to our cabin the same way we came. Maybe this year, I’ll get my brother some snow chains for his truck for his birthday.

Anyway, I’m trying to catch up on posting my photos, so hopefully, I’ll be sharing more soon!

#52weekproject: Week 25 – Anthony and Celine get Married

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Tuan and Che

Week 25:  Anthony and Celine get Married (and Subsequently Photobombed in Yosemite)

Taken on Saturday, October 4th, 2014, in Yosemite National Park near the Swinging Bridge.

In the latter part of my vacation week this fall, I just happened to meet up with my cousin Anthony (aka Tuan), and his awesome and beautiful (very soon to be) wife, Celine (aka Che) for a “casual” get together with a bunch of family and friends. Not sure what the occasion was, but they seemed to be dressed up and celebrating something (okay, so it was their wedding). They had asked me if I would do them the great honor of taking photos for them, which I gladly obliged.

I’m not a wedding photography, although, but by this time, I have shot a handful of weddings (maybe this is my 7th?). My wedding photography has really been for close friends and family on destination weddings. So it combined my 2 favorite things… people I love, and the people they love. And travel. And photography. So, 4 favorite things.

Anyway, back to the photo… After the ceremony at Sentinel Beach, we had an awesome reception at the lodge, and we ended up taking some group photos with all the friends and family over by the Swinging Bridge area. As I fiddled with some settings to take this picture, their niece decided to pop in the frame and see what was going on.

Here are a few more from the day…

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