Newest image is entitled "Noche de Coronado." by D."Bodhi" Smith

This newest image is entitled "Noche de Coronado." It was captured last Wednesday on a very calm, windless, clear, and moonless evening here in SoCal. This is a bit of a departure for me, as I seldom, if ever, take images of city buildings...but the stars and the reflection, well, I guess that is more like me.

The name is literally translated as, "Crowning Night" but could also mean "Night From Coronado"...both translations apply quite well to this image, so hence the title...

As many of you know, for the better part of 8 months now, I have been trying to capture a magical image of a reef on Coronado beach for clients of mine who were engaged and married on that very spot close to the Hotel Del Coronado. I have been patient (and thankfully so have they) waiting for the conditions to be right for the image i have in my mind's eye: I need a very high tide of 6 feet happening at sunset combined with clouds in the sky.

Last Wednesday I drove down to Coronado Island to give it a try and see if I could get lucky with mother nature, for the conditions were close with a 5 foot tide happening at sunset, but no clouds showed and the tide was ultimately not high enough. Closed out once again, bummer. Of course, I will not give up and I will be trying again in mid-May when the conditions are perfect hoping to get a cloud system passing over one of the nights during a 96-hour window of opportunity.

So while I was walking back to my Xterra along the beachway, I noticed that it was unusually calm for Coronado Island. I got in my truck and went over to the other side of the island to try my luck with another image I have had a vision of taking for a couple of years now...my vision needs a windless calm in order to optimize reflections I want to capture in the San Diego Bay at night...

This is another one of those famous scenes that is photographed by millions of people...it is taken from a vantage point across the bay on Coronado Island showing the San Diego skyline at night and its glowing reflection in the water. Easy spot to find, easy composition to make, easy to take with a little bit extra exposure time....but I wanted to capture something especially different, something my style of uniqueness. I wanted to create something that is impossible to capture in true reality at this location with one or even multiple exposures with a camera, as there is just too much light pollution created by the city lights to pull it off.

To get my vision, an image would need to be created from two separate exposures...using an exposure taken of the stars in the San Diego desert which I already had captured to be combined with the image of this Skyline taken on this evening. Of course, things would be considerably more technical for me to get the composition I wanted to create, along with needing things in nature to align correctly for me to match the image in my mind's eye with those taken by my camera turned into one composite image....

I needed the calm night to enhance the reflection of the lights and eventually the stars in the water. It also had to be clear and cloudless, with no moon to help create the final blended composition. This is an image composed of 2 separate exposures: one for the city and the skyline reflection in the water; the other for the stars in the sky (the stars' reflection is explained below). Using Photoshop CS6, I had to manually blend these two images together to create the composition you see here.

Camera settings: For the city and city lights reflection part of the image (not stars): ISO-100, 52mm at f/2.8 for 123 seconds using two Lee Proglass filters (.9ND & .6ND) to block down the light 5 stops and permit a much longer exposure while using such a large aperture as f/2.8. I wanted the larger aperture to soften the sky behind the city and the lights in the foreground as much as I could. For the stars part of the image: ISO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds using no filters (this is also a different lens than the one used to capture the skyline scene). The stars' reflection is a post-production addition using editing software to create the final effect on the image, an effect that is made further possible by the use of the long exposure of the city lights in the water making the bay flat and glasslike...

I hope this image and message find you well.

‪#‎Dolica‬ ‪#‎Tripods‬ ‪#‎Lee‬ ‪#‎Filters‬ ‪#‎Proglass‬ ‪#‎ND‬ ‪#‎LongExposure‬ ‪#‎LE‬ ‪#‎Nikon‬ ‪#‎D800‬ ‪#‎Nikkor‬ #24-70mm ‪#‎Seascape‬ ‬ ‪#‎Bay #Harbor ‪#‎Pacific‬ ‪#‎Ocean‬‬ ‪#‎Landscape‬ ‬ #Coronado #Island #San #Diego #Skyline #Reflection #Stars #Night #Sky

Peace,
D."Bodhi"

New composition, "Surrealist Dreams"...fourth in New Zealand Series

My newest composition entitled, "Expressionist Dreams." This is the fourth in my series from New Zealand, and the first of my seascapes from the south Island.

The beach pictured here is called Wharariki (pronounced "far-a-ricky") and the rock formations in the image are actually part of the Archway Islands. This beach is located at the extreme north top end of the south Island of New Zealand and it is remote enough to get few visitors. Because of the inanely steep and curvy Takada Hill, it took me a little over two hours (each direction) to drive from Nelson where I was staying to the trailhead parking lot. The path to the beach is a little over one mile and is easily walked in 20-30 mins. The track is well marked up until the sand dunes, which are about a quarter of a mile wide, and where the path becomes your own footprints.

Wharariki beach is extremely beautiful and quite diverse with all sorts of different formations such as sea caves, natural bridges, tide pools, arches, sand dunes, channels, sea spires, waterfalls, and seals (even baby seals playing in the many tidepools). The actual beach is over two miles long and very wide and flat, perfect for a long stroll at sunrise or sunset, and is a must see if you ever find yourself in New Zealand.

Wharariki beach is famous for being insanely windy all the time (as it was on this evening), which is evident from all the pristine sand dunes surrounding the beach. While I was there, the high winds even erased all traces of my footprints and all others from existance off the dunes. I recommend that if you are ever visiting this beach and plan to stay after dark, be certain of your route back using GPS or other means as the trail home over the dunes might no longer be there when you head back (as with what happened to me).

While I was there, there were only two other couples on the entire beach, possibly because of the high winds and it being mid-week...but totally abandoned is my kind of beach. One very nice bonus about the winds is that they blow all the pesky black sand flies away--so no human blood-crazed sand flies, hoo-rah! The winds were howling close to 50mp and I had to drill my tripod deep into the sand and anchor it with sandbags to ensure it and my attached camera did not move during the entirety of both long exposures used to compose this image. This composition is comprised two long exposures taken about 15 mins apart, without moving the tripod...one is for the exposure of the Archway Islands and the other is for the moon exposure. At low tide, the flatness of the beach kept the sand very wet and super reflective as the waves would roll in and out for several hundred feet while only being less than an inch in height. This is absolutely perfect conditions for this sort of a long exposure mirrored photograph.

I truly love the range of color tones in my image here as they are reminiscent of the exact same color blends that can be viewed in my personal surreal favorite, and Salvador Dali's most famous painting, "Persistence of Memory."

I am glad to be able to share this gem with you, but the pleasure was all mine in getting to experience this enchanted and wondrous beach on the northern tip of the Southern Island of New Zealand.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 34mm at f/8 for 260 seconds using one Lee 3.0ND Proglass (Big Stopper) Filter, one Lee .75ND Grad Filter to balance the sky down 2.5stops, and one Lee .3ND Grad Filter to balance the reflection down 1 stop--this filter was used inverted. Both exposures were taken a short time after sunset using the same filter setup...

I hope this message and image find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"


#Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #squaredroid #Dolica #tripods #Lee #Filters #Big #stopper #LongExposure #expressionist #Impressionist #Surreal #Bodhi #Smith #New #Zealand #Beach #Seascape #archway #islands #Sunset #moon #rise #reflections #Wharariki #farewellsplit #Motueka #Takaka #Nelson #Tasman #Sea

First release from New Zealand series: "Ancient Congregation" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

Entitled "Ancient Congregation", here is my newest release--the very first composition in my series from New Zealand. !!Click on this image to see the full version...it's another tall panoramic!!

I had a 2 night and 3 day stay in the middle of the South Island in a small town called Wanaka.The location of this village is central and really close to a lot of different things giving me a wide of range of subjects which I can go shoot, especially if the weather changes giving me a lot of different options to turn to. And in the long run, things worked out very well for me having all these different options at hand choose from...

I came to Lake Wanaka with the full intention to shoot the famous tree that is surrounded by water and has been shot by just about every New Zealander photographer on the island as well as the many thousands of visiting photographers as well. The image in my mind's eye that I had for this tree was really the top photo I wanted to get on my visit to New Zealand. This composition I hoped to capture was the first one I wanted above all others, and I started actually planning the trip around how I was going to give myself the most opportunity to shoot this tree.

Of course, as luck would have it, the area has been experiencing the worst drought on record over the last month and the lake is down over 5 feet...this relationship to the water level basically exposes the tree and it is no longer surrounded by water, which really destroys the composition that I saw in my mind's eye. Total bummer..."it's a bummer, man..." < the voice of The Big Lebowski> It was actually so awful, that I didn't even bother to take my camera out of my backpack to shoot the tree while I stayed here. Because what I like, and what I wanted, did not exist as a result of the crazy extra low level of the lake. When I was planning this trip and scouting the location before I arrived in New Zealand, the lake was at a normal level just a month ago, but now 30 days later, its just pitiful. Kinda reminds me of California with our drought. But hey, it's part of my world as a landscape photographer...gotta have patience. My idea of "Planned Chance" literally in action again, except this time the chance and luck did not go my way--yet, as it turned out.

So, even though I don't live here, I'll just have to come back...something which I definitely have plans to do as the south island of New Zealand has quickly become my second favorite place to be, right up there next to my native home of Southern California. While here so far, I've only been able to catch about 1 out of 5 things that I had on my list to scout, which was honestly as expected. But what I didn't expect was how beautiful everything has been--there truly hasn't been a bad thing on the list. Usually there's a couple duds here and there, you know, things that just don't translate into a good picture...but, wow, this scenery here has been just absolutely phenomenal!

But things in my world do seem to balance out between the negative and the positive in my life...as did happen with me on this occasion. I did not get the picture that I wanted, but I've probably managed to capture something every bit as spectacular, maybe even more. Plus, this scene was actually more difficult to have all the variables to align together correctly all in such a small window that was really only a matter of about 3 hours during my entire stay of 8 days. If even one variable was off, the composition just wouldn't have be possible, and I would have driven for many hours out of the way in the middle the night all for naught.

So, last night I made the decision to go after an image I had in my mind under the stars. Since the weather looked very very good-- in other words, being cold and clear overnight to shoot the Milky Way, I decided to drive 2 hours in the dark on a winding twisting road that I did not know (nor have driven) out to Lake Tekapo. Beside the lake is an old historic building made of stone called the Church of the Good Shepherd. My data had the Milky Way as possibly being positioned over top of the church, which of course as it turned out, it was. And man, the Milky Way is beautiful and full of personality here on this island in the southern hemisphere.

Once I arrived at the church, I chose my position, set up my trusty tripod, selected the settings from my Nikon D800, dialed in my focus on my Nikkor prime 24mm f1.4 lens, created my composition, clicked open the shutter, and 13 seconds later--wow! After taking just a couple snaps, I knew this was going to be something very very special... well worth the long drive in the middle of night, and the frigid chill that was in the air which was freezing me to the bone.

I do not usually post an image when I'm in the middle of a trip, but this composition was one I was really excited about...so, instead of taking a nap during the day as I often do, I decided to process this image at my motel here in Wanaka, New Zealand.

On the long drive back from the church to my room in Wanaka, I had to pull off the road for an hour and sleep because I was so tired. As I was dozing off into my power nap, I decided I was going to edit this image and I already had named it in my mind...the name, "Ancient Congregation" is a title which is really just perfect for this picture. I can imagine the stars banding out over top of the back cross, which seemingly are coming and rising out of the church, as spiritually representing the residual of all the people that have sat in that church over the last couple hundred years. This is a neat ethereal effect in my honest opinion, and I hope you enjoy this as much as I loved capturing this beautiful image.

This capture is actually two images taken consecutively, and then stitched together on top of each other to enable me to get the full colour at the top of the Milky Way which could not be done in just one composition as it was just too tall.

Camera settings: ISO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 13 seconds captured at 4:45am. The church was being illuminated by the lights from the town of Lake Tekapo, so for this composition, I had to use one Lee .3ND Grad Filter inverted upside down (sort of in reminiscence of being in the southern hemisphere I guess) to bring down the church one stop as it was much brighter than the fainter stars the sky I wanted to have in my detail. To get the illumination of the windows from inside the church, I placed my headlamp on low lumens and shown it in through the back window.

If you like my photographic impressions here, please check out all of my work on:

1. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Bodhi.Impressions
2. Instagram - http://instagram.com/bodhismith 
3. My website - http://www.bodhismith.com 

And especially please remember to check out the works of my two friends and fabulous photographers, Chip Morton http://500px.com/Chip_Morton and Jeff Deveau http://500px.com/JeffDeveau , who are also my associates in our workshop endeavor at http://www.californaicaptures.net .

I hope this message and image find you well.

Peace,
D. " Bodhi "

#Dolica #Tripods #New #Zealand #Tekapo #Church #Good Sheppard #Milky Way #Nightscape #Stars #Lee #Filters #Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #24mm #f1.4 #long exposure #impressionism #expressionism #Bodhi #Smith #photography #landscape #stars #

New release, "Haast To Be" by D."Bodhi" Smith

Entitled, "Haast to Be" this is another new compositions from my trip here to New Zealand's south island this week...

This is an image of an unnamed waterfall close to the well-known and well-visited Fantail Falls in the Haast Gorge. It is not an easy hike to get to, but with some trail finding and unwillingness to give up, it can be done. You have to ford a rocky bottomed and frigid stream numerous times...and then scramble over some slick talus rocks and moss-covered deadfalls. The water was beyond cold, and my feet were frozen by the time I got to the falls, but I am soooo glad I made it. Awesome cascade dropping their tiers into a gorgeous glacier blue pool of water. Wow. I climbed up above the pool about 15 feet and set up shop to take some long exposures of this sweet waterfall. Life is good...but then a big oh-oh happened...

A couple of shots just before taking this image, I had a bit of a monstrous scare with my camera as I got an SD memory card failure error. An extreme panic attack seized my entire being. Oh-oh. I could not take any new pictures onto that card, and the ones I had shot all night/morning and afternoon were on that card. I could not even view those images through the camera. My heart sank. I was sick to my stomach. 

I always back up my images at the end of a day of shooting for just this reason--fear of losing them due to a memory card failure. I had some of the best images taken on this trip unbacked-up on that card--including the first one I released from New Zealand of the Church of the Good Sheppard under the Milky Way (post directly below this one). What if I had just lost all of those images? I was feeling more and more sick, literally. I had no way to view the images, none of them. No way of knowing for certain if they were gone or if I could still pull them off the card. In the past, I have seen it go both ways--sometime relief, with a big "whew" as the images are still there, and other times dismay as all of the images are lost.

My computer was back at the motel, which was about an hour's hike out of the canyon back to the trailhead and then another hour and a half drive away. Nothing I could do right now. Worrying does no good. The light on this waterfall before my eyes was still getting better, and even though I desperately wanted to hike back to the car and drive back to the motel to put my mind at rest about the images that were either still accessible or simply lost for good, I persevered and and decided to just keep shooting--I put in a new memory card and took a group of successful images, including the one you see here before you. I pack up and headed back, with only one thing on my mind, my body almost numb in deep though and regret for not backing up the star images from last night when I stopped by the motel before heading out to shoot this waterfall. if i just would have done that--you all know how we torture ourselves with "what-ifs"

The trip had gone so splendidly well up until this point, but now all I could do was drive back to the motel and hope that a separate card reader I carry with me would be able to view the images so i could copy them onto my computer and back-up hard drive. 

As I took the card out of my camera bag and inserted it into the reader, I could barely breath...but as it turned out, I got lucky--they were there. I had all of my images. Card was dead and useless, but I had all of my images. It was the "whew" option that i got. The "I dodged a bullet" feeling coupled with deep thankful relief as all the images were transferred safely to my permanent storage. "WHEW!"

So, I hope you enjoy this image of mine, one that i went through quite all physically and emotionally to get...and if you ever go to new Zealand, these spectacular falls should be on your must see list...

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 24mm for 480 seconds using 15 stops of Lee ND Proglass filters (.6ND, .9ND, 3.0ND) taken about 11:30am in a dark narrow canyon.

If you like my photographic impressions here, please check out all of my work on:

1. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Bodhi.Impressions
2. Instagram - http://instagram.com/bodhismith 
3. My website - http://www.bodhismith.com 

And especially please remember to check out the works of my two friends and fabulous photographers, Chip Morton http://500px.com/Chip_Morton and Jeff Deveau http://500px.com/JeffDeveau , who are also my associates in our workshop endeavor at http://www.californaicaptures.net .

I hope this image and message find you well.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

#New #Zealand #Waterfall #Glacier #Blue #Pool #Falls #Haast #Gorge #Dolica #Tripods #LeeFilters #Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #Lenses #24mm #Prime #Bodhi #Smith #Landscape #Surreal #Impressionist #Expressionist #LongExposure #Lee #BigStopper

Newest release, "Impressions In The Mist" by D."Bodhi" Smith

This is my newest release entitled, "Impressions in the Mist"...it is the third photo in my series from New Zealand taken during my recent travels to the south island.

This is a composition where I zoomed in on the details of the lower cascade of the Devil's Punchbowl Falls rather than try to capture the falls in their entirety (sometimes I wonder just how many natural geographic formations have the word "devil" in their names?)...this image was captured on Easter Sunday morning on my last day on the Island at Arthur's Pass, and is sort of NZ's kindly parting gift to me before I had to catch my long flight back home to California...

These falls are located just off the main pass through the mountains that connects the cities of Christchurch on the east coast with Greymouth on the west coast. The setting for Devil's Punchbowl Falls is Arthur's Pass National Park which is located in the mountains in the middle of the island. They are really quite easy to access since the short trail (called a track in NZ) is very close to the road and is a very well maintained path by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Only issue is the long climb up to the falls, as they are located uphiill from the trailhead and are reached after climbing 316 steps at higher altitude in the mountains (I was a bit winded when I arrived at the falls)

This waterfall is very majestic and impressive dropping 112 meters (350ft) from the cliffs above. I could have taken images of the entire waterfall, however, I was really fascinated instead by just the lower part of the falls for their personality as the water cascaded over numerous spire shaped rocks. A bonus in the composition was a small evergreen tree that was jutting out from the cliff closest to the observation deck, which could easily be included in the composition in many different ways using a longer zoom lens. The foggy morning and misty air also added some character and depth to this composition as well.

Btw, if you are ever on the South island of New Zealand, be sure to ALWAYS carry deet/insect repellant...do not ever think that because of the weather you will not need it. The pesky little black sand flies seem to pop up out of nowhere and seem to be everywhere unless there is wind. These little blood-suckers are persistent and if you are bitten by them, the result is an itch 100 times worse than any mosquito bite ever could wish to become. It is always good to be prepared. I kept these pests off of me the entire trip by coating exposed skin with bug-spray, especially my lower legs, right up until the last day.

On my last morning, I packed my bug-juice in my suitcase in prep for my flight home (too much liquid content for a carry-on) thinking that there was no way these bugs would be in the crisp cool mountains to bother me--WRONG! two days later, and I am still itching from only a couple bites from those little kiwi nuisances...just an f.y.i. heads-up to any future traveler to this great little island in the southern hemisphere. In fact, the black sand fly was really truly the only bad thing of any sort I have to mention about New Zealand. I am sure that the New Zealand national travel/promotional bureau wants to keep a tight lid on any sort of advertisement of the problems that these pesky little bugs have created for tourists on the island. Famous British explorer, Captain James Cook, stated that these tiny little flying insects were the fiercest creatures he had ever encountered in all of his travels!

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 155mm at f/8 for 55 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND filter to bring down the entire image 10 stops. Image was taken at 10am under foggy and misty conditions.

If you like my photographic impressions here, please check out all of my work on:

1. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Bodhi.Impressions
2. Instagram - http://instagram.com/bodhismith 
3. My website - http://www.bodhismith.com 

And especially please remember to check out the works of my two friends and fabulous photographers, Chip Morton http://500px.com/Chip_Morton and Jeff Deveau http://500px.com/JeffDeveau , who are also my associates in our workshop endeavor at http://www.californaicaptures.net .

#New #Zealand #Arthur'sPass #Waterfall #Devil'sPunchbowl #Falls #LeeFilters #Dolica #Tripods #Nikon #Nikkor #D800 #Impressionist #Expressionist #Bodhi #Smith #LE #LongExposure

I hope this message and image find you well.

Peace,
D. "Bodhi"

"Eternal Denizens" an image by D. "Bodhi" Smith

Image entitled, "Eternal Denizens"...Since, I am headed off halfway around the globe to the south island of New Zealand tonight for the next 10 days (Woo-Hoo!), and in Dunedin, NZ there is a pier formation similar to this, and one of which I hope to capture an impression this upcoming Sunday or Monday evening...

As a result of this trip, It might be a bit before I release any photos here on FB...So in the meantime, I thought I would re-post this photo here along with the one below...as both images are amazingly similar two compositions I will be seeking in South New Zealand over the next week and a half.

Btw, this is an image I captured in Naples, Florida back in August of 2014...it is one of my own personal favorite images (to me, a classic representation of my style) and appears on the back of many of my business cards

Camera settings: ISO-100, 16mm at f/8 for 180 seconds using 15 stops of ND filters (Lee Proglass Filters - 3.0ND filter a.k.a.Lee Big Stopper, .9ND, and .6ND) to bring down the bright light facing directly into the sun (albeit overcast) since this image was captured about 1.5 hours before sunset - I also used one Lee .75ND Graduated Filter (resin) to bring down the brighter sky 2.5 stops to better balance it with the blue waters and pylons.

I hope this message and image finds you well.

Peace,
D. " Bodhi "

‪#LeeFilters‬ ‪#Dolica #Tripods‬ #LeeFilters ‪#Nikon‬ ‪#D800‬ ‪#Nikkor‬ #Bodhi #Smith‬ ‪#LongExposure‬ ‪#expressionist‬ ‪‪#Surreal‬ ‪#Impressionist #Naples ‪#Florida‬ ‪#Gulf #Coast #Pier #Ruins #Sunset

New image, "Ojos Fantasmal" from D. "Bodhi" Smith

This is my newest release from my Easter Island series (yeah finally!) entitled, "Ojos Fantasmal" which translates in English roughly to spooky or ghostly eyes...

While I spent time on Rapa Nui ( a.k.a. La Isla de Pascua or Easter Island) , I kept coming back to this lone moai (sacred statue) that's right next to the ocean on a cliff close to the island's only town of Hanga Roa which is located on the west side of Easter Island. Hanga Roa is quite small and is the only place to find lodging and modern amenities while visiting this remote island. Since this is where I was staying, and this moai is located just north of town, it was an easy hike to visit this statue almost daily (either at sunrise or more often at sunset).This particular statue stands alone on the north section of the ceremonial Ahu Ta'hai and is named the "Ko Te Riku" which translates to "with abundant growth."

I was absolutely entranced by the eyes on this particular moai...a unique trait of the Ko Te Riku that set it apart from all the other moai on the entire island, for no other moai on any ceremonial ahu have eyes. The whites of his eyes are made of white coral and the pupils are made of red obsidian and are really offset beautifully by the Ko Te Riku's maroon pukao (tophat). And under the moonlight, his eyes glowed with an eerie effervescence which is what instilled the desire in me to capture this impression as I did.

All of the moai on this tiny island (it is only about 35km across) in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean were symbols of authority and power, both religious and political. But they were not only symbols....to the native Rapanui who erected and used them, they were actual repositories of sacred spirit and centers of ancestral respect. Carved stone and wooden objects in Rapa Nui, when properly fashioned and ritually prepared, were believed to be charged by a magical spiritual essence called mana. Mana is a form of spiritual energy and also healing power which can exist in places, objects and persons. Also, almost all of the moai (statues) face away from the ocean and inland towards the settlements as if to watch over the people of the island. The lone exception is the seven moai on Ahu Akivi (that are inland but much higher in elevation to the coast) which face out to sea...myth has it to they were placed to help travelers find the island. There is a legend that says there were seven men who were waiting for their king to arrive. Sorry, I guess as I ramble here, you can see my fascination for this special little island in the middle of nowhere...

Anyway, this new image is just the first of a many compositions of this moai that I will be releasing since I was so transfixed with the eyes of the Ko Te Riku, I was almost hypnotized by them....

Camera settings: ISO-100, 24mm at f/4 for 30 seconds at 10:05pm under moonlight and clouds (about 45mins after sunset) on December 27, 2014...using one Lee Proglass .6ND filter (2 stops) and one Lee .75ND Grad filter to balance down the sky 2.5 stops...and for two seconds using flashlihts, light was painted on both the right side of the moai (by me) and the left side of the moai (by my friend Sam)

I hope this message and image find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

#Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #Dolica #LeeFilters #EasterIsland #RapaNui #Ahu #Tahai #KoTeRiku #HangaRoa #Chile #Isla #Pascua #Expressionism #Surreal #Impressionist #SouthPacific #Moai

This is my newest composition, it is entitled "Ascension." I captured this composition under the brightest and deepest Milky Way that I have ever witnessed in my life during a recent trip to Natural Bridges National Monument in south central Utah about a week ago.

This night was a beautiful evening that I got to share with my dog and my muse, the Dude. And I think that this photograph does manage to give the scene justice for what I saw with my own eyes...which is difficult at times for a photographer to translate from what is actually seen into what is actually captured by their camera lens

This was taken both before and some time after (I explain this more below) my other image of the same natural bridge in southern-central Utah (my previous image is called Owachomo and can be seen directly below this post). This is very much a similar capture, except I stepped back from the edge of the pool about 10 feet to create closure with the pool of water at the bottom of the composition which also creates a bit more of a wider view of the entire scene as well...

I consider this one as the expressionistic version and the previous one as the impressionistic version. For this composition, I used the stars more boldly and aggressively to create a different mood and bring out other stronger emotions. This one is not soft and subtle like its predecessor--this one is more vivacious, dynamic, and resonating. Both taken together, the two different compositions really evoke quite separate moods of mine under this spirited sky on this particular night.

Like all of my recent images, without planning, this composition could not have happened (unless someone was just crazy lucky). The correct conditions were absolutely perfect for this image to be possible and it will be quite some time before all of those wide-ranging variables align once again. This is yet another example of what I call "Planned Chance" in photography,which is the title of my upcoming book on photography due out sometime this fall of 2015.

There was a perfect alignment a week ago of a deep and dark Milky Way over top of Owachomo Bridge with close to a new moon cycle under crisp cold cloudless skies (gonna be a long while before it aligns overtop to the due north like this again)...no winds what-so-ever to keep the trees sharp...there still is water in the big pool to its south down below in the dry wash that will dry up soon without more rain....pre-scouting to find this elevated vantage point about 20ft above the pool to capture deeper reflections...and cold conditions to help limit some of the color noise pollution in the image (it was 20°F and I was freezing my rear off!)...

Result: A vivid reflection of the stars and Milky Way in the pool, along with the dark shadow of the bridge reflecting in the pool, and then a giant and vigorous Milky Way up above the natural bridge.

However, this ethereal image would NOT be impossible to capture in just a single framed exposure. To create this composition, I had to manually blend three separate images. Each were taken during the time span of about an hour, each with a different exposure. Because the images were taken with such a gap of time between each and at varying camera settings, Photoshop couldn't automatically photomerge the 3 images, so I had to go about the tedious and meticulous process of blending these together manually. It has taken me about 5 days to process this composition, with me having to walk away from it at times during periods of frustration. But alas, it is now complete, and you can witness my efforts here now for yourself. The first image was taken of the bridge and rocks; the second was used to capture the sky and get the Milky Way as deep and dark as I could; the third was to capture a reflection in the water of the stars as richly as I could. The result of this blending created this vibrant portrait view panoramic composition you see before you at about a 1:2.5 ratio.

I hope you enjoy this image as well as my efforts here to create an entirely different feeling in this composition. This evokes emotions that are quite different from my last similar composition of this same spot on this same night.

Camera settings were slightly different for each composition, but all were shot at 24mm. The ISO, f/stop, and shutter speed varies on each. The exposure on the rocks and natural bridge was ISO-100, f/8, for 1/13 sec taken right around sunset; the exposure on the sky was ISO-1250, f/1.4, for 15 seconds; the exposure on the pool was ISO-2500, f/1.4. for 13 seconds...

I hope this message and image find you well.

Peace,
D. " Bodhi "

#Dolica #LeeFilters #Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #24mm #BodhiSmith #Utah #NaturalBridges #Stars #MilkyWay

New release, named "Daylight" by D."Bodhi" Smith

This is another new release entitled, "Daylight." This was also taken a couple days ago when I took my photography class on the field trip to the Oceanside Pier. It is named for the fact it was captured during the day and it is a light post.

I did not have much time to take many images because I was enlightening my students on how to follow the light and positioning, plus having them all seeking out good compositions using specific applicable concepts from the Elements of Art and Principles of Design (rule of thirds, leading lines, using negative space to name a couple). But during a couple instances I would shoot some exposures and have some of my students mirror/shadow me to help them better visualize good compositions through their own camera eyes--this image is one of those instances.

For this image I was demonstrating to my students that less is better sometime when shooting landscape photography--I was hoping to instill the idea of minimalism in their minds for this trip and for the future. I do believe one or two of my students were able to capture this scene beautifully and those images will represent them well at the San Diego County fair competition again this year...

For the time we were there in Oceanside, I could not have asked for better lighting conditions for my students to capture all of the seascapes around them on this morning--it was hazy cloudy which created diffused soft light with limited shadows.

For me, this is my style of photography as I love the simplicity of minimalism and use it as often as I can in my compositions...however, this composition found me changing my technique a bit again so I could model for my students how to capture this scene with the available equipment and lighting conditions (they do not have access to all of the ND filters that I regularly use with my long exposures). The result is that this is a very short exposure for me, but I like the results, and even better, I was able to use this as a good learning experience for my students.

Camera settings: ISO-50, f/2.8 at 24mm for 1/2500sec using NO filters again, captured at 8:45am on the Oceanside Pier.

I hope this message and image find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Bodhi Smith new release, " Soul to Rest."

This new release is entitled, "Soul to Rest." This composition was taken during a brilliant sunset last month on Coronado Island in San Diego, CA. I took this shot a couple days before departing for Easter Island. I chose to release it now as I did not want it to get lost in my archives once I started processing out all of my Easter Island compositions over the next couple of weeks.

This was one of those rare times where I feel my photography came up inadequately short with capturing the true essence of the awesome beauty I saw with my own eyes on that particular winter evening over the Pacific Ocean...I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of color in the sky on that night and just could not do it justice with my camera.

Some of you know that a few months ago I had been commissioned by a husband and wife to create a special composition of a particular spot on Coronado Island that holds special meaning for them. This couple has entrusted me with the task of creating the new centerpiece of their beautiful home on top of the hills in De Luz, CA...I will not disappoint them.

However, many weather related things have to align for me to fulfill the vision I have in my mind's eye for creating the perfect impression to capture for them with my style of photography. On Coronado Island, I need a fiery sunset full of colors, and to get this bold display of hues, I need the tail end of a Pacific storm to be exiting right before sunset...plus, this spectacular sunset has to happen during an extremely high tide so the waters reach the spot they want me to immortalize--the spot is located quite far up on Coronado Beach close to the Hotel Del and I predict a tide of at least 5.5-6ft is needed for the water level to reach it.

Unfortunately right now, the high tides are happening at sunrise, and the low tides are happening during the sunsets. It is going to be a few months before the high tides flip back and start aligning with sunsets. This is another example of the never ending patience needed in photography. I need my clients to have that same patience as well...

So in a showing of good faith that I am shooting this location, the image here is the second stellar composition (the other one is named "The Promise" from back in October 2014) that I have now captured close to the spot they want. Almost all of the weather needs aligned here for this picture except one--this was taken during an extremely low tide event and I am positioned several hundred feet out at the extreme end of the rock reef waste deep in the incoming waters. However, like the first image (which also had all of the elements present save one--it was captured during a sunrise not a sunset), this newest one again shows the great promise of something better to come in the future.

This composition gets its name from another of my play on words with a dual meaning. "Sol" is the Spanish word for sun and is pronounced the same as "Soul." The soul of this image is the sun (sol), and it is setting to take its rest for the night. However, the inspiration for this title is a little bit more somber: a well know soul here in Temecula named Zeus just passed away on Friday due to unforeseen complications during a surgery, and I wanted to always have something that would remind me of him just a little be extra: Zeus' great soul is at rest.

Camera settings: ISO-100, 44mm at f/8 for 142 seconds (2 mins, 22secs) using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND filter to drop the exposure 10 stops and one Lee .75ND Grad filter (resin) to bring the brighter sky down 2.5 stops to balance it with the water in the foreground.

I hope this image and message finds you well on this day of rest.

peace,

D."Bodhi"

New Release, "Poseidon Smiles" by Bodhi Smith

New composition entitled "Poseidon Smiles" for overly obvious reasons...

This is another image taken in Corona del Mar, CA similar to the last one I put here on my blog a week ago...this has a bit of a "shorter exposure" by ten minutes at 1 min, 11 seconds...There is more emotion and movement in this compoistion, so it is quite a nice compliment to the other composition taken just after this one...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 20mm at f/8 for 71 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) and one Lee .75ND Grad filter to balance the sky with the foreground (2 stops). Image captured just before sunset.

Peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New release, "Unruined Radiance" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

This another new release named "Unruined Radiance". This composition was captured under the old decomposing pier in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The title comes from the radiantly glowing colors and the idea that this pier is in ruins .

At first glance, this pier looks like an eyesore. This pier is literally condemned to just wither away and crumble into the sea eventually. My girlfriend and I were visiting the giant Buddha at the Jodo Buddhist Mission just south of the pier in Lahaina, and I was taking a bit longer than she was with the site, So she went ahead to check out the pier...she came back and told me that she did not think I was going to like the pier because it was falling apart. But after we left the temple and went around the corner onto the beach, and i caught my fist look of the pier, I told her it was perfect and exactly what I was looking for: Ugly on top, but beautiful underneath.

The sun was getting close to setting and I promptly set up under the pier. The winds were really up and some sets of waves were coming in pretty big across the open Pacific to the east. I originally wanted to set up at the back of the pier by the break wall, but found that impractical soon after taking a couple hits from waves coming in AND banking of the break wall creating a node of intensity, This was was not conducive to taking long exposures, Plus there was a huge chance of getting me and my gear both soaked with salt water. I was going to have to set up further out under the pier away from the banking action of the break wall.

We had driven only about 45mins to get to Lahaina from Kihei, but I did not want to get wet/soaked since I did not bring a change of clothing. Simple and fast problem solving, I would just have to take off my shorts to keep them dry...go wading in my boxer briefs. It was getting dark as the sun was setting, and nobody was around under the pier, so for me it was not a big deal. It was wierd to be taking pictures under a pier in Hawaii at sunset in my underwear, but I did not give it a second thought.

I waded out under the pier about 100 feet and I anchored my tripod as best as i could in about 3ft of water. The air and water were both ultra warm, so temperature was not an issue as I stood waist deep in the Pacific ocean under a crumbling pier catching a beautiful sunset.

I thought the pier was giving way. As every so often when big set would come in, dust, debris, and smaller chunks of concrete would fall off the pier down into the water. I thought the pier might collapse on me at anytime, or at least a big slab let go and tumble down into the water as the sea continued to erode the old wretched salt and weather beaten concrete. Later, my girlfriend told me that there were idiots walking around on top of the this extremely unstable pier while I was shooting, which was what was causing the cracking and dust to fall of the pier...still, they could easily have fallen through at an moment while I was shooting...

I shot several longer exposures of 4 mins plus, but could not keep the tripod from moving during these more lengthy exposures because of the larger waves hitting me chest high (any movement of tripod = blurred images = trash). So, I had to settle for what the conditions would permit, which were much "shorter" (for me) exposures of 30 seconds where I could keep the tripod stable in between the bigger waves rolling in at intervals of about every 50-60 seconds or so.

The colors of the decomposing concrete were luminous and radiant, especially in the red light waves of the sunset...mix those colors with the crystal blue Hawaiian waters and what you see here is the result, I hope you enjoy it, and the impression i want you to feel when looking at it ...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 48mm at f/8 for 30 seconds using one Lee Proglass .9ND Filter and 2 Lee .75ND Grad filters inverted at 90 degrees to bring down each of the bright sides of the pier compared to the underbelly of the pier. Image was captured just as the sun had set at 6:05pm.

I hope this message in image find you well

Mahalo and Maluhia,
D."Bodhi

"The Afterglow" - New Composition by Bodhi Smith

This is a new composition entitled, "The Afterglow." It was captured well after the sunset, but the ambient light was still glowing in the sky and sparkling off the waves...hence, the image's name.

We have been getting some very nice clouds here in Southern California with the numerous weather systems that have been blowing in off the Pacific Ocean the past couple of weeks. For almost every night this week, I have been on the beach at different locations (dependent on the best location for sunset each night based on the tide heights).

On this particular evening a few nights ago, there was a low tide. So, me and my trusty companion, the Dude, headed up to Laguna Beach, CA for sunset. Victoria Beach in Laguna is a spot I often go to as Victoria's Tower located around the north point of the beach can only be reached at tides lower than about 2 feet. Often I can be found here on nights like this, as a stellar composition of the tower itself has repetitively eluded my capture for well over a year now, and I keep going back when the conditions are right trying to finally catch it.

This composition is an example of how sometimes we go after something that we though we really wanted, but something else much better finds us instead. I was on this beach in Laguna on this evening to capture Victoria's Tower, but I instead got this more fascinating composition. Go figure, eh?

For this image, I really ventured deeper into the world of impressionism. I really feel like I am "painting" an impression here with my long exposure techniques combined with my use of selective focus. The long exposure played with objects in fluid motion along with the light to create a unique smooth glow around the rocks in the ocean and the clouds in the sky. My choice of a big aperture at f/2.8 blurs and softens the rocks in the foreground (and thus de-emphasize them) so as to draw your eyes towards the wave glow around the rocks at sea and the sunset. All of this really makes me feel like I truly created a painting here and not a photograph, and I think the results back up that opinion. But do not be overly fooled, this is a photograph...

Btw, Catalina Island (60 miles away) can be seen in the background of this picture on the horizon...this shows how clear this evening was at the beach...

I hope you enjoy this unique perspective of the night's fading light out over the ocean...I really like this one.

Camera settings: ISO-100, 70mm at f/2.8 for 420 seconds (7 mins) using one Lee Proglass .9ND filter (3 stops) and one .75ND Grad to balance the brighter sky. Image was captured at 5:55pm, about 1 hour and 10 minutes after the sun had set

I hope this message and image find you well.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

"Under the Kukui" - New Composition by D. Bodhi Smith

Here is my newest composition entitled, "Under the Kukui"...This is another new image from my recent trip to the Hawaiian island of Maui. There are so many beautiful waterfalls on the island, that it could take years to capture them all with a lens in a way that did them justice. I hope I did that for these falls.

The waterfall pictured here is one of the more famous and better known called "Twin Falls" located a few miles east of Paia alongside the road to Hana via a short hike of about 1.5 miles. The falls are on private property, but the owners run a fruit stand and permit people to access the falls if they stay on the trail and "behave" themselves.

When I woke up in Kihei, I went outside and saw that there were no clouds, but this is not a problem for a photographer on Maui because there are several micro-climates on the island. Kihei is on the Southwest corner of Maui and is easily of the driest places on the island with a climate similar to what I am used to here in my native San Diego. But the opposite side of the island, the Northeast, has rainforests and it actually rained on that part of the island every single day we were there.

So I decided to drive at sunbreak to Twin Falls and try my luck. And it worked, except I got a little more weather than I had bargained for. It started raining about 1/2 an hour into the drive just outside of Paia, which is about 10 miles from the falls. By the time I got to the trailhead, it was really raining. So I put on all my wet gear and headed off down the muddy trail to see what I could capture.

After a very easy gradual uphill hike of about 1.5 miles is where the trail ends into the stream that has the falls upstream. It had rained pretty hard for the past couple of days here, so the water level was pretty high and very cloudy. I used my tripod as a probe to check the depth of the water and thankfully it never got deeper than my shoulders. (But I imagine that many people would probably turn around and not got the rest of the hike to the falls because of this small pitfall).

I made my was across the stream to the opposite bank and then made my way through the forest to the falls. At first glance, they are quite breathtaking and eternal in their fall. I walked all the way around and under them to scout out the best angle for me to shoot. The spot I chose (the vantage in this image) was right underneath a Kukui tree--which gives the image its title. There were fallen nuts all around, so I guess I fit right in ;) Btw, I love kukui nut necklaces, and I own close to 20 different ones, many of which I brought back from Hawaii on this trip. Simply put, I believe that they bring me luck, so I frequently wear them.

Because of the rainfall over the past couple days here, there was much debris of broken tree limbs in the pool beneath the falls that I has to clean out before I could shoot. Some of the limbs were pretty damn big, so it took me about half an hour to "tidy" up my scene. I figured that all the tourists who would end up shoot here later in the day would never know how cluttered it was, so I guess i did a nameless and thankless job that other benefited from.

I really had to fight with the rain for every exposure i took, especially the longest ones with keeping my filters dry and unfogged. Man, was the rain coming down...but even though I was soaked to the bone, I was really never cold, which is a cool thing about being in the rain on a tropical island I guess.

With the downpour from the heavens and the earliness of the morning, I had the place to myself for almost two hours, which was very tranquil and special considering that this location gets pretty packed with tourists every day. I had plenty of time to capture the images I wanted. So when the first group arrived, a party of 4 who showed up to swim under the falls and film themselves with a GoPro, I was done and ready to head out.

Of course, right then as I was leaving, the skies opened up and the rain stopped. Go figure.

On the hike back, which always seems longer than the hike in, I walked by hundreds of people headed up to the falls. It was like a dam of people broke open and they were all flooding to Twin Falls. Crazy amounts of people, of whom half must have asked me "Is this the right way?" and "How much farther are the falls?" To which I gave the same response, "Yes, you are almost there" no matter how far away I was getting from the falls. In a world where everything is relative, they were all almost there, no matter how far down the trail they were in reality.

Camera Settings: ISO-50, 24mm at f/22 for 610 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) and one inverted Lee.75ND Grad to stop down the brighter pool of water 2.5 stops. I chose a f-stop of f/22 and an ISO of 50 so that I could get a longer exposure without having to put another filter on the holder and have to fight with an additional filter getting wet. Btw, to qualm my obsession with numbers, this image was exposed for 10mins, 10 seconds and captured from 10am until 10:10am...

I hope this image and message find you well.

Mahalo and Maluhia,

D."Bodhi"

New Composition entitled, "Winter's Prophet" by Bodhi Smith

Okay, looks like i am on a roll...so here is another new composition entitled "Winter's Prophet." Next weekend on December 21st marks the official start of winter with the solstice, and I am hoping this storm is a prophet of good things to come. And right now, it looks to be true as it appears storms are lined up to hit us every few days over the next couple weeks. I guess I named it this because I am hopeful for this winter to bring us some needed rain to SoCal and in the process give me some excellent clouds to photograph above the ocean over the next few months.

So with the approaching Pacific storm hitting us here at low tide, I chose one of my favorite low tide spots on the coast. So me and my pup and muse, the Dude, met up with a friend and made our way to capture something special of this great place just south of Newport Beach and just north of Crystal Cove, CA

This long exposure was captured at Arch Rock in Corona Del Mar. This location can only be reached at low tide, unless you are one of the multi-millionaires with one of the three private homes on the cliff above the arch's alcove who have staircases down to the beach. You can get to it from "Little Corona" Beach and just start walking south about half a mile under the cliffs and along the rocks and reefs between the cliffs and the ocean. Rocks are slick and some are quite sharp, so caution is always a must with never being in a hurry literally taking it "one step at a time." Almost never is anyone here, and it is really a magical spot. I have been shooting this spot for months now, but until last night I have had nothing to show for my efforts. Again, proving my point that patience is necessary, along with good planning, and a bit of luck thrown into the recipe of success (I will be publishing a book called "Planned Chance" soon detailing all the methods I use to capture my impressionist photography).

I love the cool blue and silver tones in the image created by the sun dropping below the cold cloud deck on the horizon which was the start of big Pacific storm blowing to the north and coming ashore...the same system that is pounding us with wind and rain here in San Diego as I type this...

I also decided to make this composition prefect;y square with the length the same as the height (1x1) for reasons only known in my strange working mind...

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 18mm for 671 seconds (11 mins, 11 Secs) using 1 Lee 3.0ND Pro Glass filter to bring down the light 10 stops and one Lee .75ND Grad to balance the bright sky with the darker rocks in the foreground. Image was captured about 10 mins after sunset under clouds and quickly dimming light at 4:55pm

I hope this message and image finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New release by Bodhi Smith - "El Matador"

This new composition is entitled, "El Matador," and was captured recently in Malibu, CA at El Matador State Beach. The image simply gets its name from this gorgeous beach just along CA Highway 1.

I had to make a trip up to Santa Barbara close to two weeks ago during the Sunday after Thanksgiving--an awful day to travel, especially back into the LA basin from Santa Barbara. I had just ended my association with Oreana Winery and needed to pull my artwork off the wall and take it home to distribute to other venues for sale.

Having to drive on this notoriously ugly travel day on the roads here in California, I definitely wanted to make my efforts pay off more than just picking up my artwork and going home. So, I decided to drive the PCH-1 out of Oxnard along the ocean towards Malibu and Santa Monica, take some pictures and kill time, and let some of the nasty traffic diffuse....the traffic on the 101 was getting all constipated badly anyway in Ventura and Oxnard so it was a brainless decision for me.

It was raining off an on, and at times was very heavy. So heavy in fact, that I was one of the last vehicles to go through before they closed the PCH-1 down north/west of Malibu due to mudslides. When I went through, there was plenty of rock debis everywhere and a couple pretty muddy water falls flowing out onto the highway gaining in depth (looking like Willie Wonka's chocolate river). But I threw my Xterra into 4WD and had no issues what-so-ever navigating through the mess.

As I approached Malibu, I could see that there was going to be a bit of a break in the weather, and it was getting close to sunset, so El Matador SB pretty much chose me. This is a VERY nice beach to shoot, full of little arches and sea stacks of all type and characters. Normally a pretty easy climb down to the beach below, but the rains had washed out a large portion of the path above the staircase and made things very sticky-muddy. Took me quite a bit of time to get all of the packed mud off my shoes and my feet (I had to take my shoes off because the mud got too caked on them).

Once down on the beach, I did my usual survey of all the elements for about 20 mins and I chose this little alcove to shoot--only issue was that it was high tide, and to get the angle I wanted with the sun setting, I had to stand pretty deep out in the water and take a beating from the waves.. I managed to anchor my Dolica tripod very well into the rock/sand beneath the surface of the water--so well, that it never moved once despite the battering waves. And amazingly, my gear never took a single splattering of salt water (but plenty of salt in the air, of course, that would require quite a chore of camera cleaning later). I, on the other hand, got soaked from the waste down of course.

I chose to shoot an extremely long exposure of 10 minutes so that I could smooth out the violent seas and create the effect I wanted...I think my decision for this composition worked well for the conditions, but I really want to go back soon at sunset and a low tide to shoot this spot.

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 22mm for 610 seconds (10 mins, 10 Secs) using 3 Lee ND Pro Glass filters to bring down the light 15 stops (.6ND, .9ND, 3.0ND) and one Lee .75ND Grad to balance the bright sky with the darker rocks. Image was captured about 10 mins before sunset at 4:35pm

I hope this message and image finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

"Kihei Kiss" ... Newest release 12-11-14 by Bodhi Smith

Wow, with my shows happening last week and next week I have been very busy, it seems like I have not put anything new out here in a while...but ahoy, despair no more! Here is my newest composition, entitled "Kihei Kiss."

This was the best sunset we saw during our week on Maui, so it is my first release (of many more to come ranging from waterfalls to ruins to sunrises and stars)) from my trip to this beautiful Hawaiian Island. Btw, the image gets its name from the Hawaiian town where it was captured (Kihei - pronounced Key-Hay), along with the fact that the solitary rock in the composition looks like a Hershey Kiss.

This long exposure capture (sort of a "short" one for me recently) was taken with my Nikon D800 using a 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens... Image was captured a few minutes before sunset on the main beach in Kihei while me and the girlfriend enjoyed some local Maui brews together. Really one of the easiest and most relaxing compositions I have taken to date. I truly had to do little to capture this scene other than walk across the street from our condo and just be present on the beach while the sun set. The beer was smooth, the company was phenomenal, and the scenery was exquisite. We were literally in our own little Corona commercial that says "find your beach." Fyi, the two smaller Hawaiian Islands of Kaho'olawe (left) and Lanai (right) can be seen at the edges of the composition.

The only thing really missing from this image was that my muse, The Dude, could not be there with us to share this special and beautiful moment in my life...the Dude does not fly well, but he was extremely well taken care of by the owner of AMC pet services who was house sitting and watching the Dude and our cats for the entire time were were on Maui.

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 34mm for 111 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND filter (10 stops overall) and one .75ND Grad filter to bring down the brightness of the sky two and a half stops Image was taken at 5:36pm, about 8 minutes before sunset.

I hope this image and message find you well.

Mahalo and Maluhia,
D."Bodhi"

New Image Release from Bodhi Smith: "Rastaban"

This new composition is entitled, "Rastaban," and was captured two weekends ago when friend and fellow photographer, Chip Morton, and I went out into the Anza-Borrego desert in Southern California to shoot the metal sculptures of Ricardo Breceda under the canopy of the night sky. Pictured here under the stars is one giant sculpture that Breceda created north of the town of Borrego Springs that has the impression of of being part Serpent and part Dragon that serpentines underground and above ground (with the appearance of going under the road)...

This image gets its name as a reference to the prominent Draco constellation in the northern sky which is the constellation of a dragon/serpent. Arabic in origin, "Rastaban" means dragon's head and is the brightest star in the dragon's head part of the constellation of Draco.

Btw, Chip worked "extra" hard to help me with this shot--he set up the lighting for me and then went back to the Xterra to catch some extra zzz's and slept until I was through... :0

To keep the landscape orientation and eventually make the composition almost square, I used Adobe Photoshop to PhotoMerged two landscape images, one directly above the other, to permit for extra starry sky above the image that could not have been captured within a single frame without losing resolution.

Camera settings: ISO 1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds taken at 11;20pm on 10/25/2014

I hope this message and composition find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New Release, "Panther at Play"

This is my new release entitled "Panther at Play"... pictured here are the beautiful Panther Falls in southern Washington's Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

This area is really super super wet much of the year as practically a true rain forest, so everything is extremely green and soft looking. Panther Falls are very powerful and have numerous cascades coming down about 100 foot cliff into a ravine below. There's a nice view from the top of the falls via a wooden observation deck. getting down to the deck is very easy once you find the trailhead, which is basically an unmarked trail from the road. The entrance to the trail is marked by spray painting on the pavement "PF -->" in blue...you gotta look really closely just to find it.

For me however, the vantage point from the deck doesn't really show the power of these majestic falls, so I wanted to make my way down the cliff to the base of the falls. Looking down, you could tell human traffic had been below in the canyon by the falls as the moss next to the stream was trampled a bit. So there had to be a way down somewhere, somehow. Of course, I found out that there's no easy or safe way down, at least not from the observation deck. I scouted the area and managed to find a treacherous little natural staircase winding down the cliff's face for about 20 feet to a more manageable slope that had a rough trail others have used. These super narrow little natural rock steps were very wet and mossy, but there were pretty good hand holds and foot holds using trees, roots, and rocks down this small portion of the cliff located south and above the observation deck. I muscled up some courage and told my self I could do this climb if I take my time. So when I did climb down, I made sure to maintain three points of contact at all times as I slowly make my way down with handholds and footholds that were slick but stable. This was a path that has been obviously used before, but probably not when its real wet like when I went down on this day.

With this being a short weekend flight to Portland, my dog and my muse, was unable to join me on this trip (and his presence was truly missed). This is one of those cases where if the Dude (my pup) had been with me, he would have moderated me as I would not have gone down this way because he would not have been able to follow me safely. I guess in this way, he sort of looks out for me...as I always look out for his safety, and in doing so, being safer comes back to me. Part of the way down this small cliff, I even had to throw down to the trail below my tripod and my waders that I was caring...I had them attached to my camera backpack and they were snagging things making the climb a bit more dangerous than it already was. By tossing them down, I was able to better balance out my pack and make myself a little bit more agile in the tight spaces.

So, I did make it down safely, however this was probably not the smartest and safest way with me being alone. Had something happen to me, who knows how long I would have been there before someone would have found me for this is a very remote area. Once I was down, I did manage to find a better way out that climbed up to the road about 2 tenths of a mile south of the "trailhead." Not exactly calming and safe, but definitely a much better way in and out...still quite steep and very sketchy, but much smarter and safer than scaling down a 20 foot cliff in the wilderness in the wet and so forth. I will visit these falls again in the future, and this will be the route I will choose, especially when the Dude is with me.

At the base of the falls, there was tons and tons of mist being thrown off from the falls. Extreme wetness in the air. So there was no way I would be able to do a long exposure here in the ravine at the base of these falls. I did some tests, and it seemed like no longer than about 10 seconds was possible with all the missed hitting my lens. So I opted for about a 3 second exposure, which is the time for the composition that you see here. I had to clean my lens after every shutter release, it was that wet out. This image is actually a composite of two images stitched together using Adobe Photoshop PhotoMerge since the area is impossible from the bottom to shoot with just one frame. So I had to shoot two frames and put it together and make a 1:2 ratio image which is what you see here.

This spot had rampant beautiful mossy greens everywhere, dotted with some fall color...and there was low light filtering in from Sun which was about an hour from setting. This made for real nice soft colors and allowed me to hold a three second exposure at f/22 using no filters whatsoever.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 30mm at f/22 for 3 seconds taken at 5pm on Saturday 10-18-2014

peace,
D."Bodhi" Smith

Photography of Mine on Display through 02-01-2015 at the SD Natural History Museum

F.Y.I. for those interested: tomorrow (Saturday November 1, 2014) is the artists' reception of the Best of Nature show at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

The reception is free to the public from 11am-2pm tomorrow and is in the Abe Ordover Gallery on the 4th floor of the SD Natural History Museum.

Awards are going to be presented during the reception. I have been honored with three of my photos being selected to be on display in this international show. And no worries, If you cannot make the reception tomorrow afternoon, my work as well as the works of the other photographers in the show will run on display in the gallery through February 1st, 2015.

The three compositions of mine pictured here are the three works of mine juried into this show...

"Moody Three"

"Venturing Cobbles"

 "Formal Inequities"

Hope to see you there.

I hope this message finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"