after passing through salt lake city and heading towards the salt flats, we came across this crazy looking body of crystal blue salt water. the color was just amazing. in the middle of what looked like a white sand dessert, was this vibrant blue stream of salt water. i was so amazed at the color, it was like a Hawaiian Punch Polar Blast lovers dream.. or Gatorade Frost Glacier Freeze. Whatever. You catch my drift. I really wanted to go straight down and see where it would lead but we were too pressed on time to catch sunset on the other end of the salt flats, which was freaking huge by the way.
hours later, we enter the utah state line. in my opinion, this was one of the most scenic drives we took of the entire trip so far. it looked as if it was straight out of a movie. the gloominess, the massive low gliding clouds, the snowcapped mountains and hills from a distance, random beam of sun rays, open fields, it was just all too good. so guess what? we stopped. but of course you already knew this part was coming. we hopped out and frolicked around and played frogger with some semi-trucks even. it was crazy to be in such different weather so quick. it was just a second ago it felt, that we were standing on the set for frozen. now, were in a scene of vikings. road tripping long distance definitely has its downs, but also has its ups.
as our journey continues, so does our random and frequent stops. we pulled over off the side yet again, when we came across some sort of structure had collapsed. due to what? that we don't know but it just looked really cool with all the white snow surrounding it. we took a look inside and it was a bunch of machinery, a boat, tools and random things. looks like someones shed, big shed. the roof had collapsed, allowing snow to slowly wisp into the structure, it was a cool sight for sure. after exploring a bit around the surrounding area, we hopped right back into the car and continued on with our haul.
join us for a morning talk over coffee at general assembly, san francisco. get to know some of the people behind mighty killers "explore" and what it's all about. we will be discussing basic photography 101, community involvement, traveling, mobile phone photography and apps, composing an image and post production. there is no charge or fee to attend this event. you just have to sign up to reserve your place and a coffee cup.
full details - coffee with the killers
i gave in after sunrise and just passed out in the car. i think after freezing at the lake, getting into a toasty car just knocked me out as we continued our journey south. when i had woke, i saw that we were on the side of the road in winter wonderland. karl, our driver, was too tired to continue the drive so he pulled over and i am glad he did because it was snowing a good amount and it was just beautiful out. i guess i never really realized how much i missed and how much i loved snow. growing up in the midwest, it was always a huge pain in the ass because snow just made things that much harder to do. driving was always the worst. roads were maintained by the city with snow plows and such but when it came down, it came down. keeping the streets snow and ice free was always a challenge during heavy snow fall so there were always accidents and shit. but out here in the middle of nowhere, it was awesome. empty roads and just away from civilization, it seemed. it's peaceful to just stand out under the snow falling and hearing nothing.
after sitting in the car for over 14 hours, we finally got to wyoming only to find out that the roads leading into yellowstone national park was completely closed off to motor vehicles due to the snow. due to lack of preparation and research, we failed to notice on the website that it said just that... "roads will be closed off to motor vehicles until April." this is one of those times where being spontaneously adventurous does not work out. it was about 4:00AM around that time and we needed to decide what to do next, instead of feeling like we wasted over half of a day sitting in the car.. so we ended up driving back into idaho and head down south to henrys lake where we would hit sunrise just in time. so back on the road we go and hours later, we were able to watch the sun rise. i can't really explain how cold it was here, the lake was froze over, the wind chill was painful, it was super early in the morning and all of us we working off little, to no sleep at all so I'm sure our bodies weren't functioning properly to keep us warm. i began losing feeling to my fingers. got to the point where i couldn't even use the dial or hit the shutter button on my camera. so although this may seem like a complete defeat, perseverance saves. we continue on the road...
time is never on anyones side. the longer you spend sitting around, waiting for things to happen, procrastinating on doing, you're wasting your life away. precious moments are passing you by, but what's worse is that you don't even realize it. go out and make the most out of your day, everyday. trust me, you will feel a lot more accomplished at the end of each day. even if it's just going out and taking a drive somewhere, or just doing laundry. something, anything. on a whim, tagging along a camping trip to wyoming right now. 14+ hour drive is about to be brutal but the fact that i will be on the road and seeing and shooting shit i've never seen before is exciting. however, being away from my family for 4 days is bit much. I haven't been away from them for more than a day at most for a very long time... hopefully FaceTime will put me at ease for the time being.
the weather this weekend was just amazing so hitting up the beach was a no brainer. just deciding which beach to go to was the challenge but we most definitely picked the right one even though it was just a tad of a drive consider traffic and all. the beaches in san francisco are nice but its always packed on a sunny weekend. wanted to go somewhere just a bit more secluded for us, to allow us to feel a bit more relaxed. so we tripped all the way down to half moon bay / davenport area and it was just beautiful. growing up and not having the convenience of being at the beach sucked, i know this. definitely jealous of my kid, spoiled with amazing weather year-round and having the option to go to so many different beaches within a short distance. he's definitely a beach bum, and i love that.
weather is always such a fifty-fifty factor when shooting. it can either be in your favor or it can be a hater and shot block you on every single shot. i started off early in the morning because i saw a thick blanket of fog rolling over oakland hills so a couple of us decided to try and head up and catch it. by the time we got up there, the fog was barely visible anymore and the sun was beamin. not all hope was lost however. a good combination of strong sun and lingering fog always outputs some crazy sun rays but in this situation, i caught what was left.
music to me has always been a huge part of my creative process, my relief of stress, my motivation, just a huge part of my life in general. music always just helps. one of the things i enjoyed most about myspace or tumblr was that i was able to add music on there and usually it was a bunch of shit that i really enjoyed listening to at the moment. and it's crazy cause i've gotten so many messages from people asking me where they can download my playlist and i honestly never knew how to do all of that. i just put together music that really fueled my mood. ever since i kinda strayed away from the whole social aspect of desktop publishing, i kind of stopped searching for music. it just became way too much of a hassle and i honestly just did not have the time to sit on the computer for a couple hours hunting for good shit. i fell victim of listening to a lot of radio stuff, a lot of main stream and whatever really pandora picked out for me. sad because i really enjoyed finding music that not everyone was listening to. i know it's not a full playlist but i really want to just start providing some music to go along with my posts. i really want you to experience my photos, my entries and all that as much as you can so i will begin to post songs here and there for all of you to vibe out to while surfing. enjoy.
i came across a few comments on my instagram a while back stating that i stole a shot from someone else or that i needed give credit to the person who originally took this shot. i sorta scratched my head at those comments. first, I'm not the type of person to look at someones photo and be like, "damn. i need to go to this exact spot, stand in that exact angle, take snap the photo at the exact time of day, with the exact composition." it's insulting a bit that some people can be so ignorant to the fact that, just because you see a photo for the first time from some popular photographer don't mean he's the first to do it. i generally arrive at locations with no intentions to take the same photo as anyone else. my mind is completely blank and that's when the fun and creative part of me kicks in.. I challenge myself to make the best out of what i have in front of me. that's what photography is isn't it? so when you claim i stole someone else's shot is insulting. but it's cool. it bothered me for a bit. now i'm over it.
a while back, wayne had suggested hitting up marin side to catch a sunrise. although i contemplated this decision for a long long while, i finally just said fuck it and went. with many failed attempts to catch an good sunrise, i was a bit discouraged but of course, i had to keep trying until i got that epic one. so waking up at 5:30am, fighting morning bay area traffic to get to the location in time before the sun begins to peak we hit the worst case scenario... it was super foggy. not the good, low, dense blanket of fog either. the kind that covers everything and you can't see too much ahead of you so again.. another failed sunrise. had to make the best of the morning so we continued up the drive and got a few shots out. this was probably the only shot i got that i liked. was it worth waking up at 5:30am and driving about an hour to get to the location? no.
if you have kept up with my blog, then you would know that we have been hunting down locations all over northern california to explore. we've been going further and further down south so much that we decided we need to make our way up north. we found some random lake called clear lake by searching on maps. we drove pretty damn far out the way to find a lake that looked very much like.. nothing. nothing special about it at all. so we sat there and did some more digging and finally found a dope set of waterfalls. still working on those photos but in the mean time, heres a photo i took when we found a random driveway lined with cherry blossoms. of course we had to stop.
its been, for a lack of better words, a shitty ass week. been feeling super under the weather, feeling weird and off everyday, and to top it off.. i recently dropped and broke my 24L lens. it was pretty tragic. i saw it fall in slow motion and smack on the ground and the lens broke right off the mount.. i just stood there and stared at it for a while before I even reacted. hopefully its something I can send in and get fixed but at this very moment, i have decided to hold off on getting it fixed.. or even getting a new lens. i've decided I am going to try and shoot only with a cheap FD manual lens that i have laying around. clarity sucks, aperture is locked wide open, very poor soft quality but i want to challenge myself to shoot with it. FD lenses are old canon film lenses. there is no autofocus, and the aperture adjustment does not work so its basically stuck wide open at f/2.8.. it's definitely going to be tough but i really want to try and see what I can do with it.
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