Category Archives: GPS

California Highlights 2019

It’s Easter 2020 and we’re currently living in harrowing times with much of the world engaged in attempts to manage the spread of Covid-19. Like many countries, the UK is in a state of semi lockdown with large sections of the population confined to their homes or at best a short distance from same. So, like many others I’m currently filling my days with various chores around the house and garden. I’ve even managed to spend some time editing photos from my trip to California in November 2019. These are now on-line and can be viewed here.

California Highlights Diary

It was originally my intention to post a small selection of images during the trip so that friends and family could keep up with progress. Alas, long days and nights of photography meant that my plans never came to fruition. Nevertheless, I did manage to write down a few notes each day as a reminder of the locations we’d been too.

Day 1

We arrived in the city of South San Francisco mid afternoon, and having left our baggage at the motel we headed to a location called the Wind Harp. This 92-foot tall sculpture is located on the side of a hill known as Point San Bruno Knoll that overlooks the San Francisco Bay.

Wind Harp, South San Francisco

Day 2 was a travel day as we made our way to Yosemite National Park. We made numerous stops along the way. A highlight was the visit to the St Joseph’s Catholic church in Mariposa. We even managed a guided tour of Mariposa County Courthouse.

Mariposa County Courthouse

Days 3 to 5

We spent 3 days in Yosemite with early starts each morning as we wanted to visit as many locations within the park as possible. On my previous trip in 2013 we were blessed with snow on one of the days. Unfortunately, whilst snow provided lots of photographic opportunities around the valley floor it prevented us getting to some of the more iconic locations high above the valley. This time weather was more suited to driving to the higher viewpoints, and we even managed to photograph Half Dome at sunset from Glacier Point.

Half Dome at Sunset, Glacier Point

Days 5 – 7

We spent the morning of day 5 in Yosemite before making our way to Mono Lake. Our route took us over the Tioga Pass with short stops at Olmsted Point and Tenya Lake.

Mono Lake is a saline soda lake formed around 760,000 years ago. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake. Our first evening at went well with beautiful sunset followed by a long period of afterglow.

Sunset Afterglow, Mono Lake

On the second evening a few of use drove to Lake Mary near Mammoth Lakes. It was a clear night with the Milky Way plain to see with the naked eye.

Milky Way, Lake Mary, Mammoth Lakes

Days 7-9

We left Mono Lake and began the long journey to the town of Lone Pine. This was to be our base for visits to the Alabama Hills and Bristlecone Pine Forest near Bishop.

The Alabama Hills, nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada just west of Lone Pine, is one of Hollywood’s favourite filming locations. The beautiful rock formations and natural arches of the hills bordered by a vast open plain rising majestically to the mountains beyond has been a prime filming location since the early 1900s.

Lathe Arch and Mount Whitney, Alabama Hills

After sunrise on day 9 we began the drive to Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley.

Days 9-12

Our time in Death Valley followed the usual pattern of rising before dawn to capture sunrise in the Mesquite Sand Dunes then breakfast. After breakfast we’d head off to photograph locations such as the Devil’s Golf Course, Badwater, Zabriskie Point and many others in between.

Fan Clouds at Sunset, Zabriskie Point

We left Death Valley and headed westward to the town of Ridgecrest for an overnight stop before travelling to Morro Bay. We had chosen Ridgecrest because it gave us good access to the Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark. The Trona Pinnacles are an unusual geological feature in the California Desert National Conservation Area. The landscape consists of more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet, rising from the bed of the Searles Lake basin.

Unfortunately, we mistimed our arrival with the result that the sun had already set. Nevertheless, we did manage to capture some afterglow photos 😉

Sunset at Trona Pinnacles

Day 13

We left Ridgecrest on our way to Morro Bay where we spent the late evening photographing sunset over the bay. It’s known for Morro Rock, an ancient volcanic mound at the end of Morro Rock Beach.

Morro Rock at Sunset, Morro Bay

Day 14

On day 14 we travelled northward stopping along the way to capture as many photo opportunities as we could.

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur

Day 15

Day 15 began with a visit to the Carmel Mission Basilica Museum. The Carmel Mission as it’s more commonly named was first built in 1797, and is one of the most authentically restored Roman Catholic mission churches in California. The Basilica Church, a registered National Historic Landmark, is the centerpiece of the Mission.

Carmel Basilica, Carmel

Day 16

Our final full day in California was spent in San Francisco with a short trip across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sea Fret, Golden Gate Bridge

Images were GPS tagged and edited in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC

Note: I don’t allow comments on Blog pages, but am happy to receive your thoughts on the photos and/or the tutorials etc. Just send an email to ilyons@msn.com

Winter in the Canyons

Don Robertson, Gold King Mine Ghost Town, Jerome Between 22 November and 5 December I was lucky enough to travel to USA for second time in 2015. The trip focused primarily on the national and state parks found in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. I’d travelled to the same area in the spring of 2011 and enjoyed it a lot. As with many of my previous trips to the US this one was arranged by Roger Reynolds at PhotoVentures. In total, the group was made up of 8 photographers from various parts of the UK, although we had all travelled together on previous occasions.

On the morning of our first day we spent a few hours near Sedona in Red Rock Park by the Oak River, the area may remind you of scenes from the film ‘How the West was won’ and the many other westerns that were filmed close by. It was a beautiful morning with glorious light mixing with the trees and late fall colours along the river.

Cathedral Rock, Oak Creek, Sedona

From Sedona we made our way via Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon National Park where we would close out the day photographing the canyon from one of the viewpoints near Grand Canyon Village.

Hopi Point Overlook, Grand Canyon National Park

The second day began with an early start photographing the sunrise and morning light along the Grand Canyon rim.

Vishnu Temple and Wotans Throne from Yaki Point, Grand Canyon National Park

Later that morning we visited Desert View before heading off on our journey to Page. Along the way we stopped at Cameron for few shots of the Little Colorado River Gorge. We passed through the outskirts of The Painted Desert, the towns of The Gap, Cedar Ridge and Bitter Springs before climbing onto the Colorado Plateau with its magnificent views of Page and Lake Powell in the distance. After checking into our hotel we travelled to an overlook above Waheap bay, which has spectacular views of Lake Powell. The sunset and afterglow was well worth the trip.

Navajo Power Station at Sunset, Page

Our third day was spent photographing Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon near Page. Originally, we had planned to split this over two days, but on arrival at the upper canyon we realised that this wouldn’t be possible due to the large number of visitors taking advantage of the excellent weather and Thanksgiving holiday.

Upper Antelope Canon, Lake Powel Navajo Tribal Park

Upper Antelope Canyon, Lake Powel Navajo Tribal Park

Our fourth day was spent photographing around the Glen Canyon Dam at Page and Horseshoe Bend then on to photograph the Toadstools of the Grand Staircase-Escalente National Monument.

Horseshoe Bend, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

The Toadstools, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Having spent 3 day at Page it was now time to on to our next destination – Zion National Park. We travelled through spectacular areas such as Vermilion Cliff Wilderness and the Paria Canyon Wilderness. We also managed a short detour to the Johnson Canyon Movie set before travelling on to the town of Springdale near Zion National Park

Old Movie Set, Johnson Canyon

We spent the next 3 days photographing in Zion National Park. As with the previous days the weather and lighting was kind to us.

Lone Tree, Zion National Park

Watchman and Virgin River at Sunset, Zion National Park

On our last day at Zion we went into the park very early hoping for a few good sunrise photos.

Sunrise at Towers of the Virgin, Zion National Park

Having had a good breakfast we began out journey Bryce. This took us past Checkerboard Mesa to Carmel Junction giving us a final opportunity to capture images of the amazing rock formations and landscapes of Zion.

By this stage the weather was getting much colder, and we’d been told that there was heavy snow at Bryce. We arrived at Bryce as the light was fading having stopped along the way to photograph the hoodoos and snow at Red Rock Canyon.

Next morning we were made our way to Sunset Point to photograph the Sunrise (crazy, but true).

Sunrise, Bryce Canyon National Park

Ampitheatre in Morning Light, Bryce Canyon National Park

Having spent two full days at Bryce we made an early start on the third. We began our journey to Hanksville taking Route 12 through Tropic to Cannonville. We continued on to Escalante. Our journey was through the heart of Garfield County and its many photographic opportunities. Along the way we passed along the Escalante River and into the heart of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This National Monument was only designated just a few years ago. On leaving the town of Escalante we travelled the 6 miles to ‘Hole in the Rock Road’ where we divert south to visit Devils Garden where we photographed the hoodoos.

Hoodoos, Devils Garden, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

From the Grand Staircase-Escalante we travelled on to Hanksville where we spent the night. Next morning we travelled the few miles from Hanksville to Frutia and into Capitol Reef National Park. We spent a good few hours in the park visiting amazing rock formations in various canyons and gorges.

Desert Varnish and Tree, Capitol Gorge, Capitol Reef National Park

Having spent just over a week in Southern Utah it was now time to head back into Arizona where we spent the next few days photographing in Monument Valley and then Canyon de Chelly.

Our first stop was Monument Valley. We arrived in good time for sunset, although the best shots were captured after the sun had dropped below the horizon. The red rocks glowed in the dying light.

Twilight, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

It was an early rise next morning to photograph the sunrise. Fortunately, I only needed to walk a few steps across the bedroom to capture them.

Sunrise, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

We spent the remainder of the morning in the park with a Navajo guide before travelling on to Chinle where we spend the next day photographing in Canyon de Chelly.

As with Monument Valley we had to arrange for a Navajo guide to take us into the canyon. As we travelled along the Chinle Wash the guide pointed out many of the Anasazi Cliff dwellings, Petroglyphs and Pictographs. The principal ruins are the White House, Antelope House, Standing Cow and Mummy Cave.

Ancient Cliff Dwelling, Canyon De Chelly National Monument

Frozen Creek, Canyon De Chelly National Monument

Having spent 13 days travelling through Southern Utah and Northern Arizona it was now time to make our way back to Phoenix via Flagstaff. We headed south along Route 89a for through Sedona to the town of Jerome. This amazing mining town appears to have remained unchanged since it was built in the previous century. From Jerome we took the short drive to the Gold King Mine & Ghost Town. This is an abandoned mining village. Here we were able to capture some the many classic american cars that are stored there.

Classic Racing Car, Gold King Mine Ghost Town, Jerome

Of course, we also managed to get a few photographs of the owner – Don Robertson.

Don Robertson, Gold King Mine Ghost Town, Jerome

The gallery can be found at Winter in the Canyons

All photographs were processed using Adobe Lightroom 6.3 on my Apple MacBook Pro. Obviously, being a laptop the display is far from ideal for serious photos editing.

Alaskan Adventure 2015

Brown Bear, Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska The second leg of my trip to the US was to Alaska. Alaska offers unique opportunities to capture some amazing wildlife images. As well as visiting the Anchorage area we spent four days photographing Brown Bears at Brooks River, Katmai National Park.

A gallery containing 50 photos from my Alaskan trip is located here

Katmai lies some two hundred and fifty miles southwest of Anchorage, in Alaska’s Bristol Bay area. Each year millions of salmon burst from the Bering Sea into the lakes and streams of the area. These fish provide a food source for the world’s largest population of brown bears. As many as fifty bears can be seen fishing along the mile and a half long Brooks River during the peak of the salmon season. The bears fish for salmon as they negotiate the rapids and falls of the Brooks River.

Brown Bears at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska

Along the river is a series of high level platforms that offer great views of where the Coastal Brown Bears come to feed on the salmon as they head upstream to spawn. The bears are adept at fishing with the more dominant bears selecting locations where the salmon attempt to leap the falls.

Brown Bear, Brooks River Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska

Brown Bear Fishing, Brooks River Falls

Some of the fish succeed while others fail as they find themselves leaping straight into the jaws of a waiting bear.

Into the jaws of a Brown Bear, Brooks River Falls

While adult bears are quite adept at catching the fish the subadults are less skilled. This lack of skill provided some fun moments as the young bears raced across the river trying to chase down a fish that was almost certainly long gone.

Subadult Brown Bear Chasing Fish, Brooks River

Having completed the Brooks Lodge aspect of the trip we travelled to Homer for a few days in search of the majestic Bald Eagle, the iconic symbol of the United States of America. Homer is perhaps the best location in North America to find and photograph these majestic birds.

Bald Eagle in Flight, Deep Creek Beach, Kenai Peninsula

In addition to adult birds we came across large numbers of juveniles. Photographing these was lots of fun as they practised various flight manoeuvres.

Juvinile Bald Eagles in Flight, Deep Creek Beach, Kenai Peninsula

Juvenile Bald Eagles in Flight, Deep Creek Beach, Kenai Peninsula

Homer is on the shore of Kachemak Bay on the southwest side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its distinguishing feature is the Homer Spit, a narrow 4.5 mile long gravel bar that extends into the bay, on which is located the Homer Harbour. While in Homer we took the opportunity to photograph abandoned boats, cars, buses, etc at sunset.

Abandoned Bus, Homer Spit, Kenai Peninsula

Sunset at Halibut Cove, Kachemak Bay

Images were GPS tagged and edited in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC 2015