Pfiefer Beach

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Still heading up California State Route 1, we drove through Big Sur. It was a beautiful place, but very cloudy so we continued to Carmel. We spent the evening and the next day in Carmel/Monteray when the sun came out! Excited to see the sun for the first time in a couple days, I decided to head back to Pfiefer Beach in Big Sur and hope for an awesome sunset. Didn’t happen. As soon as we got there, the clouds rolled back in. I was still able to get a shot of this awesome beach that I liked, just not quite what I hoped for…

 

 

 

Julia Pfiefer Burns State Park

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So day 5 took us back to the coast, south of San Francisco. We drove quite a bit on California State Route 1 when we came across Julia Pfiefer Burns State Park. It’s a beautiful spot with a waterfall that pours out onto the beach. Click Here to see a wider shot of the entire “lagoon”

 

 

Giant Sequoias

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This is looking up at a couple giant sequoia trees in Mariposa Grove, part of the Yosemite National Park. These huge trees are tough to photograph. For a better sense of scale, check this one out.

Details: This is a 7 exposure HDR, learn how I process my HDR images at www.sohdr.com

Half Dome at Sunset – Yosemite National Park

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This is looking across Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point. Half Dome is the large dome shaped rock to the right.

When we decided to visit California with no plans what so ever, I knew that I would have to be lucky more than anything else. I had never researched Yosemite park for best shooting locations (I actually never even thought I was going to visit Yosemite on the trip). While driving around throughout the park earlier in the day, we were lucky enough to find a hotel in the park boundaries that had rooms available. So at the last minute (a couple hours before sunset) we decided to head up to Glacier Point. It turned out to be an extraordinary sunset, mixed with what was already and incredible view. Standing there in awe of the scene before me was probably one of my favorite moments of the trip.

This is actually facing more towards the east but the clear skies to the west allowed the sun to cast beautiful colors onto the storm clouds in the east that began building in the sky just before sunset.

 

Details: This is a 7 exposure HDR, although it has very light processing. The scene was 100% as amazing as you see here. The only adjustments were some slight curves adjustments for contrast. The basic techniques I used to edited this photo can be found at www.sohdr.com

 

 

The Golden Gate Bridge

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View it extra large HERE!!!

Day two photo: The Golden Gate Bridge at Sunrise.

So I was so pumped about getting an awesome sunset at the Bay Bridge the night before, I decided to get up early and head to the Golden Gate Bridge for sunrise. I shot from another spot most of the morning, but the sunrise was pretty dull. There was lot’s of haze, no real fog and no real color in the sky. Since this was my only chance to shoot the bridge, I decided to continue up the hill stopping at various overlooks for different views. Finally made it up to this view as the sun was really shining through the haze, casting beautiful warm light onto the bridge and San Francisco behind it.

Details: This is a two horizontal shot panorama taken with a 100mm 2.8L lens, merged together in Photoshop. Each shot is only a single exposure.

The Bay Bridge at Sunset

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So I’ve returned from an 8 day visit to the west coast. It was a great trip, my first to California. We visited sites like San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Monteray, Big Sur, etc. It’s a beautiful part of the country.

It was tough for me to decide how to start working through the photos, so I decided to start by posting one from each day. So today’s photo was from our first day in San Francisco. I had a different idea for sunset, but my spot was quickly crowded with so many people with camera’s that I decided to head to “Plan B”. This view of the Bay Bridge is actually looking east, but the clouds in the sunset sky were perfect.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a photo of the “other” San Francisco Bridge 🙂

 

Details: This photo consists of a 7 exposure HDR, a separate exposure to smooth out the water, and another exposure to capture the lights on the bridge once it got darker. The techniques used to edit this photo can be found in tutorials at www.sohdr.com