David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of nature and the natural world. Plants, animals, and wildlife from around the world.
Prior to leaving Sedona, we spent the morning photographing the morning sun lighting up the red rock buttes. I set up a Nikon D4 camera and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens to record a time-lapse video. I managed to walk in front of the camera a few times.
Monarch Butterfly. Eleven-years ago while driving home from work I saw purple wild flowers on the side of the road at an abandoned golf course in Hillsborough. I pulled over to see if there was a picture. The purple wildflowers attracted dozens of Monarch butterflies providing more colors. I took this image with my favorite 80-400 mm telephoto zoom lens. The hard part was working at the minimum focus distance for the lens (~ 7 feet). I needed to keep stepping back to get the image in focus. One more reason I always have a camera with me.
Every year after that I would check the place at the same time of the year, but never saw as many wildflowers or Monarch Butterflies. The last several years the place became a construction site for a highway bypass and interchange. Now that the construction is complete and the bypass open, it looks like wildflowers may come back. We will see if the Monarch Butterflies come back in the future.
Individual images in the slideshow can be viewed here.
Rock Slide at Curry Village. Hard to believe it has been ten years since I experienced a rock slide at Curry Village. Since then, many of the cabins and cabin tents in Curry Village were relocated further away from the valley walls. Actually, Curry Village is now known as “Half Dome Village” due to a trademark dispute between the National Park Service and the previous concessions service company. Actually, all of the hotels, lodges, campsites, and restaurants had to change their names. Since the rock slide, I stayed in Curry Village two more times.
After our morning session, we ate lunch at Curry Village. Michael Mariant was going to do an IR photography workshop in the afternoon. On the way to the workshop, we stopped by our cabins. As we were leaving the cabins there was this loud noise. At first it sounded like thunder — but the sky was blue with no clouds. The noise got louder, and Michael yelled “run for your lives — rock slide” We all ran from our cabins to the parking lot. Since I drove, I was one of the few that had cameras and lenses available. Most of the folks left their gear in the cabin for the IR workshop. I took the following images during and just after the rock slide. Luckily, there were no injuries since most everyone was out of Curry Village visiting other parts of Yosemite when the rock slide occurred. Later in the afternoon, a Park Service helicopter with a USGS geologist surveyed the rock slide site and declared things safe. Only then were we permitted to return to our cabins. A school group was also staying at Curry village. That evening the Elementary school age children moved to a different campsite. The Middle and High school students remained at Curry Village. The crisis counselors told the students that a large rock falls in Yosemite Valley on average every 9-10 days, so they would be safe for the rest of the trip. Little did they know that Murphy was listening!!!!
Our van departed Curry Village at 05:30 AM. That still wasn’t early enough to get to Mono Lake before sunrise (78 miles via Tioga Pass). We spent the morning at Mono Lake photographing the Tufa’s, a unique geological formation rising out of the salty alkaline lake. This is also a major site for bird migrations — feeding on the brine shrimp. We then had breakfast at the Whoa Nellie Deli in Lee Vining (strongly recommended). After breakfast we proceeded to Bodie State Historic Park.
Individual images in the slideshow can be viewed here.
After breakfast at the Whoa Nellie Deli in Lee Vining, our van went to Bodie State Historic Park. This is a Gold Mining Ghost Town. California maintains the park in a state of arrested decay. It is a favorite location for photographers, and a site for filming movies. The van from the group that visited the day before had issues with one of the park rangers, so we departed before closing time (17:00) — even though the sun hadn’t set.
Individual images from the slideshows can be viewed here.