Tailwinds planned a backpack to make up some miles she had missed during her 2008 PCT thruhike. Liz and I are joining Tailwinds to backpack about 80 miles of the PCT from south of Pinchot Pass north to Vermilion Valley Resort on Lake Edison. We begin our hike September 4th.
Fred flew Tailwinds to the Mammoth airport this morning. Tailwinds waited in the airport while Fred graciously took me up for an hour and 15 minute flight over the Sierra. We found Taboose Pass trail and flew the route Tailwinds, Liz and I will be backpacking. I shot off over 300 photos. I was so excited I didn’t know which way to look first. Flying over my playground has to be one of the highlights of my life. Tailwinds’ mate, Fred, has flown his entire life. He made me feel so comfortable I forgot to get nervous or feel sick. Thank you, thank you Fred.

Below are some of the photos from the flight.

Mt Morrison or Laurel Mt at Convict Lake.

Mountains as we flew south from the airport towards Bishop.

Taboose Pass

West side of Taboose Pass where we will descend 3 miles to the PCT.

More of the area we'll be hiking through.

An isolated cirque lake.

Shot while flying north from Taboose Pass.

Colby Meadow, lower right corner, is where Fred and Rowland will horsepack in to meet us. Colby Meadows is north of McClure Meadows along Evolution Creek.

Happy Linda.

Fred and Tailwinds.

Fred's Bonanza - V-tail

There are more shots I’ll be uploading to the portfolio section of this website, later.

I hadn’t shot a photo for the blog last Friday. Moments before we left to go out last Friday night, I got my camera because I was curious what the skylight fixture lighting the bathroom (and Paula) would look like. After I took a few photos of Paula she asked if I wanted her to take one of me.

And yes, I did ask Paula if it was ok to post any of the photos we took.

Fat arms me.

Nice back Paula!

I had a great time on the Scott Kelby 2010 3rd annual PhotoWalk last Saturday. I believe there were 30,000 photographers all over the world who participated in this walk.

Once I got the courage up to join in on this worldwide photowalk, I googled where I might find a local group going out. Bob Adams, was our local Riverside PhotoWalk leader. Fifty of us took off on the streets around the downtown Mission Inn area in Riverside, CA, an hour’s drive away for me.

I spent much of the beginning of the walk with Kevin Toohey, the gentleman with whom I’d recently taken two photo classes. Midway through the walk we met another new friend named David. Kevin and David have been photographers their entire lives. I learned a lot during the walk from both of them. Meeting up with both of them made the day very special.

This morning David sent me the two photos he’d taken of me. The two photos I shot of both David and Kevin were out of focus. Drat. That just means I’ll have to shoot with them again.

On last Saturday's Scott Kelby's 2010 Photowalk in Riverside. Photo taken by David, a new friend I met.

David took this shot of me as well.

I uploaded more of the photos I shot on the Riverside Photowalk I participated in last week on my Flickr site (my old site I haven’t used in a long time).

After having warmed up to the idea of walking in the water.

Pure joy.

To be so uninhibited.

Waiting.

I’ve had two lessons with Kevin who lives in Corona. It’s quite a drive to his house but I’ve learned a lot. I had no idea how much I didn’t know about my camera, lighting and other basic considerations related to settings appropriate to good exposure. He’s got me shooting in manual mode now!

Like anything else, I learn so much more when I ask for help.

Kevin Toohey

Me.

Looks mad, but he's not. I'd been reading about portraiture, asking Ray to try out different poses and I think he was about done with being my model.

Wanted to take the action of shooting portraits, rather than just reading about taking portraits. So before the meeting Susan and Debbie posed just across the street from the meeting while we were waiting to be let in to the room. I’m using the Canon D40 fitted with a Sigma 18 – 250 lens.

Thanks Susan.

And thank you Debbie.

Melissa came over this morning. I asked her if she’d be willing to give me about 20 minutes so I could practice some with my flash equipment.
I ended up not using the flash equipment and shot this photo in the living room with ambient north side floor to ceiling window light.
Canon 5d Mark II, 70-200mm lens at focal length 140mm.
f/2.8, 1/30th sec, ISO 320

Now I’m headed back to watching the OneLight off camera flash DVD to see what I was doing wrong.

Melissa allowing me to practice shooting portraits.

Thanks Melissa.

Doesn’t Ray look handsome!

My somewhat willing subject, poor Ray.

I was thrilled to go outside and try equipment that I’m not very familiar with. I’m not good at trying things when no one is around to help me when I get confused. I definitely want to learn flash and I’m not going to learn it sitting inside watching studio lighting workshops like I did all weekend (after morning hikes). Zach said that if we learned a lot about lighting we better go out and start shooting with our equipment or we will forget everything.

I haven’t been as happy and interested doing something in a long time as I was learning all I did during the online lighting workshop.

Thanks Ray for coming outside and battling the bugs while I was trying to figure out my gear for your shot.

I hadn’t shot any photos today, so I took my camera with me to the meeting. I needed shots for this blog. My friend Carol looked at me like I was crazy holding my camera throughout the meeting. God forbid I put in on the floor and someone kick it or, worse yet, spill coffee on it.

I had a feeling there would be enough remaining light following the meeting, even though the sun was down below the San Jacinto range.

Some quick shots revealed what I must pay more attention to:
Pay attention to my background, especially the extreme light areas like sky.
Even though I don’t want my subjects to have to wait long for the shot, my hurrying causes camera shake.
When shooting with so little depth of field, make really sure if I’m shooting two subjects they are equal distant from my lens.
Take a little more time with the overall background so I don’t have to do work in Photoshop.
Figure out how to make my subjects more comfortable.

I was pretty happy with how these quick shots turned out.

Canon, 5D Mark II, fitted with a 50mm L lens. 8pm

Mary Kay.

Melissa.

Suzy.

Kimberly and Melissa.

Today was scheduled back to back and I knew I wouldn’t have time to go out and shoot. So when Mary Kay stood to leave after our visit, I asked if she’d be willing to come outside with me for 5 minutes so I could shoot her for my photo blog entry today. I can’t wait to photograph MK again, but when I have more time and set up some lighting. I held a silver reflector down low to the ground, angled up at Mary Kay’s face with one hand and shot holding my camera vertically in the other hand. Looking through the lens of the heavy camera and trying to get the hand held lighting correct was a we bit difficult.

Isn’t Mary Kay a great subject?

Mary Kay didn't realize when she came over today that she was going to be my blog entry subject.