Blog 2011

Here are a few photographs I made during our summer vacation in Montecito and New Mexico:

#### New Mexcio

#### New Mexico Rain

#### New Mexico Near Ojo Caliente

#### Road to Ojo Caliente

4th of July Montecito » #### Montecito 4th of July

#### Fireworks from Butterfly Beach

#### Butterfly Beach 4th of July

I shot another time lapse yesterday, this one went for nearly a full 24 hour period. I'm starting to get the hang of this whole time lapse thing. This time I shot 3 bracketed frames during the day every 60 seconds. Then when the sun set I just went to single exposures. My favorite part is when the sun sets and reflects off a glass building. Make sure you view this in HD, preferable 1080p full screen:

Last weekend, Penelope and I took our second Secret Stairs hike together. This time we hiked through the hills of Silver Lake. I fell in love with the neighborhood, it was so beautiful. If we don't end up buying a house in the Pasadena area, we will likely buy in Silver Lake. Here are a few photos from the hike:

#### Yellow House in Silver Lake

#### Spanish Style House in Silver Lake

#### Silver Lake Reservoir

This weekend I marveled at the beautiful clouds above Downtown Los Angeles. I decided to shoot an HDR time lapse using my 5D Mark II. Here are the results, make sure you select at least 720p, 1080p for full screen HD goodness:

Last weekend Penelope and I went on an interesting urban hike through a series of hidden staircases in Montecito Heights. We found the hike in an awesome book gifted to us by Pen's mom called Secret Stairs: A walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles by Charles Fleming. The book is packed with hikes in different LA neighborhoods that take the reader up and down a series of staircases hidden away in plain sight.

We really enjoyed our first hike through Montecito Heights. I dragged along my camera and tripod and made some HDR photographs:

Secret Stairways Montecito Heights

#### Fallen Stairs

#### Purple Flowers, Billboard and Abandoned Mechanic

#### Downtown Los Angeles From Montecito Heights

Last month Penelope and I took another excellent trip with the Desert Explorers. During the adventure we explored various parts of Anza Borrego and saw an ample assortment of wildflowers. I've never captured so many different species in one outing. I was very impressed with the range of flora throughout the park. Amazing:

#### Desert Globemallow

Sphaeralcea ambigua

#### Mojave Indigo Bush

Psorothmnus aborescens

#### Ocotillo

#### Rock Daisy

Eriophyllum lanosum

A few months ago, Penelope and I took a trip to San Francisco. At one point we went up to the top of Coit Tower, something I hadn't done since I was a child. I wanted to shoot some HDR photos from up there, but they don't allow tripods. Luckily I was able to brace the camera against the glass and got some steady shots:

#### Downtown San Francisco from Coit Tower

#### Coit Tower View

For our semi-annual vacation this year, Penelope and I went to Death Valley, Tahoe and San Francisco. I posted the Death Valley wildflower photos a few weeks ago. Here are some of the landscape shots I captured in Death Valley.

#### Skidoo Mill

#### Salt Creek with Water

#### Wildflowers in Death Valley

I went out on my balcony to check out the sunset and noticed a couple of people with a large-format camera in the parking lot. Turns out one of them was a photography student. I thought it would make for an interesting metaphoto:

I've been to ever single Coachella Festival. Over the past six years I've been programming for Goldenvoice, at first just the Coachooser, then eventually website updates and now the Coachella iPhone and Android apps. I've also photographed that last six Coachella festivals: Coachella 2010, Coachella 2009, Coachella 2008, Coachella 2007, Coachella 2006 and Coachella 2005.

Last year my photos ended up on Wired, Boingboing and URB. This year I'll be shooting Coachella again, look out for my photos on here, Wired and possibly a few other places around the web. More photos from my coverage last year below and after the jump:

#### Danny DeVito at Coachella

#### Jay Z Watching MGMT at Coachella

#### Thursday Night at Coachella

#### Graffiti Wall

#### Yo Gabba Gabba

#### Brobee

#### La Roux

Over my vacation a few weeks ago I spent a few hours photographing wildflowers in Death Valley. I found 21 different species in bloom in 3 separate areas of the park. The first area, near Ashford Mill had mostly Desert Gold and Sand Verbenas. The second area, off Green Valley Road, where we camped and which received a good amount of rain (on February 25th-26th) had Cryptantha, Woolystars and Fiddlenecks. Finally the big score came on my birthday on the 27th just below Jubilee pass on the way to Shoshone.

The ground by the road was covered with over a dozen different species of wildflowers. I photographed many flowers I had never seen before. It was really quite beautiful. Hopefully the rain will keep up and more flowers will pop up throughout the desert. There is something really magical about finding wildflowers carpeting the ground in one of the harshest desert environments on the planet.

Below are some of my favorites from the trip. Read on to see each of the 21 different Death Valley wildflowers I photographed.

Desert Five Spot

Eremalche rotundifolia

Gravel Ghost

Atrichoseris latyphylla

Desert Gold Poppy

Eschscholzia glyptosperma

Bigelow's Monkeyflower

Mimulus bigelovei

This weekend Penelope and I went trained with our Search and Rescue team out in Anza Borrego. We competed in an orienteering race and did an ELT search. I came in 4th in my division (Orange) out of 10 people. During a slow point in the mission I shot some photos of the amazing views at Buttes Pass in Anza Borrego:

Click here to see the rest of the Buttes Pass Anza Borrego photos.