Night

Some Hot Air

by Kurt September 8, 2010 in California, Night 1 comment

Let there be light! At the end of July, the town of Santa Paula, California hosted the Citrus Classic Balloon Festival. Like many people, I had never actually seen a hot air balloon up close. They were always things that I saw in the distance while driving on the highway or in pictures that other people had taken. Driving up on a Friday evening I took up my photo gear and headed into this unknown territory. It turned out to be really amazing.

Essentially, the event has a large field in which the balloons set up. Each balloon is rolled out onto the ground and carefully unfolded. To start the inflation process, large fans start blowing into the balloons on their side to get some air in there. Here you see the view of the inside of a balloon that is being inflated by fans. Once the ballon gets enough air from the fans, the basket is tilted and the burners can be fired. This is what you see in the first picture. I had no idea the burners produced such massive flames.

The main event of the evening was called the “Evening Glow.” For this event, the balloon captains fire their burners in unison to illuminate all the balloons at once. It was really quite a sight.

Finally, when it’s time to pack up one of the balloon captains flew his balloon into the trailer (with the help of several people holding it down). After this they would pull the balloon down with ropes so that it laid down straight to be folded up until the next time.

It was a really fun event to shoot. The light levels were really challenging and in every direction there was something to shoot.

A single captured Perseid

by Kurt August 20, 2010 in Night, Sierra Nevada 2 comments

The blog hasn’t seen much updating lately, but that’s because I’ve been out taking in tons of new material! A most recent example is this shot from a backpacking expedition to the Big Pine Lakes area in the Eastern Sierras. Here is a 30-minute long exposure of the incredibly beautiful Temple Crag. Despite pointing my camera in almost the exact opposite direction from the constellation of Perseus, the point from which Perseid meteors seem to originate from, I managed to capture one stray behind this striking mountain. The sole vertical line on the left side is the captured Perseid.

Some Death Valley by moonlight

by Kurt February 16, 2010 in Death Valley, Desert, National Park System, Night 0 comments

The last few images I have from Death Valley this January are some pictures by full moonlight. The first few were taken in Panamint Valley where I stopped on my way to check out the large amount of water that had gathered there from recent rains. Here at about 10:30 or so at night there was not a single sound to be heard except for the occasional car. When a car did come by, either via route 178 or 190 I could hear it approaching from miles and miles away. In fact the sound of a car here at this spot sounded strange as it echoed in the desolate valley around me. When no cars were around I relished the silence as not even a plane could be heard or seen overhead.

Here we see the view from the middle of 190 looking towards Towne Pass.

The west side of Telescope Peak via moonlight

Argus Range peaks - probably Maturango Peak and Parkinson Peak via moonlight

I picked up a similar view of these peaks on my way out of the park in the afternoon light.

Argus Range peaks - probably Maturango Peak and Parkinson Peak via daylight

Looking north towards Panamint Dunes and beyond

These next few pictures were taken at Badwater Basin from the road. Badwater is the lowest place in North America at 282 feet below sea level. I was scouting to see if I could see water for a return trip in the morning. I was quite tired and did not want to hike out a mile into the basin to see so I took a few captures from the side of the road to see what could be seen. I concluded that there wasn’t much of any water if any (contrary to expectations). Upon looking at the full 21mp pictures however, I can see what might be water in one of the pictures, but alas we never hiked out there to be sure.

Badwater Basin and the Panamints via moonlight

Finally, a recent trip back into the Death Valley archives yielded this picture, which I like quite a lot and somehow did not choose before. This is from the Mesquite Dunes. The thick haze was from a sandstorm that was raging on the western end of the dunes. Fortunately where we were the wind was much more calm.

Some recent shots

by Kurt November 15, 2009 in Los Angeles County, Night 0 comments

Since I have new gear burning a hole in my pocket, I had to go shoot. The Ferris Wheel was shot on Friday night and the boat was shot on Sunday morning. Just the week before I had kayaked around the boat “Zenji” when it was docked at the gas station in Marina del Rey. It’s a really massive sailboat.

Pacific Park Ferris Wheel, Santa Monica Pier

Sunrise over the massive sailboat "Zenji"

Structure Fire at 14th and Pico

by Kurt October 9, 2009 in Current Events, Los Angeles County, Night 2 comments

One day at work a couple of years back we spotted a huge fire a couple miles away. On this day I had my camera gear with me and decided to take some pictures on my way home if there was anything to be seen. I later learned that this was a CD duplication company. Firefighters were dumping an insane amount of water on this building for several hours.