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"

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

Newest release, "Owachomo" from D. "Bodhi" Smith

Here is my newest composition entitled, "Owachomo." I captued it a couple nights ago at Natural Bridges National Monument in the middle of Utah. To see the full image, you might need to click on the image. (btw, this is another LONG post). This image is also dedicated to my good friend's sister who just recently passed away the night after I captured this image...He stated it was a perfect image to symbolize her going up to the heavens (Jeff, this one is for your sister and please accept my humble condolences once again).

Sometimes my life is stranger than fiction...following here is a mega strange story of what happened to me while I was capturing this image.

Crazy story: the Dude and I hiked down to Owakomo Bridge about 2 hrs before sunset at 4pm and stayed until 10pm when the stars were brightest and the Milky Way appeared perfectly over top of the bridge and at the same time reflecting in the pool in front of me...

I chose to hike down so early so that I could scout the area and set up cairns (stacks of rocks that are like bread crumbs for a hiker) for my route back in the dark because I've never been there before and wanted to be extra sure the Dude and I could safely find our way back to the main trail... especially since there was some scrambling involved on some steep rocks to get down into the dry wash and then back up about 20ft again to this vantage point overtop of the pool of water...

It all went great as planned: had perfect stars to photograph; got to spend a beautiful sunset and a few hours under the brightest Milky Way I've ever witnessed; I was spending quality time with my muse, the Dude; I was on a beautiful hike in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Utah under a Natural Bridge that most people never see...perfect.

After I was done shooting and repacked all of my camera gear, I began to head back. My network of cairns to mark my path in the dark under stars worked brilliantly to reunite us safely to the main trail...but the steep hike back up to the truck made me quite winded (Dude was leashed and literally dragging me). Damn, he's in so much better shape than I am right now, especially with me fighting this flu cough thing that I have...but we got back to the truck at the top of the lookout feeling absolutely great about this fabulous experience.

So here is the inane-weird part. A few feet away as I approached my Xterra, I noticed something on my truck's hood and scattered things under my windshield wipers that sort of looked like small branches. I quickly realized it was bird crap all over my truck hood, and it was everywhere. Great.

Upon closer inspection, those were not small branches, they were instead the thin metal strips that run along the length of the rubber in the wiper blades. My windshield wipers WERE shredded like they had been badly abused and became a very old set of windshield wipers. I was really cold, very tired, and this was the last thing I really wanted to have to deal with, especially since I had a new truck. At first, I was furious with what I saw in front of me. This is a brand spanking new loaded 2015 Nissan Xterra I just purchased in January.

So with my judgement clouded by anger, my first reaction was that some idiot had bad wipers and swapped them out with mine. Then common sense set it. Because, why in the world would a thief put their old torn apart wipers back on my Xterra? It just didn't really add up. I was perplexed.

Then, when I got in my truck to head back to my campsite, I noticed my side mirrors were all screwed up...they were not bumped out of place, the mirrors themselves were all pushed in...really, what in the world? I gave it all some deep thought as I drove the short distance back to camp...

So... My brand new truck now has no wipers, and I find myself literally in the middle of nowhere in one of the more remote places in the entire United States. I can't use my wipers to clean my bug-riddin dirty windshield or they will scratch the windshield...so, the mystery remains, what happened to them and why the messed up side mirrors? Was someone messing with me?

I put more thought into it and then I remembered seeing a warning sign posted on the bulliten board at the park visitor center earlier that day about ravens in the area, but I didn't read it (of course, why should I? Dolt=Me)... I put all of the different pieces of evidence together in my mind and thought some more. So, did birds eat the rubber off of my windshield wipers? And then try to get at the rubber in my side mirrors?

The mystery would have to wait till morning, I was tired, in dire need of some sleep, and I just didn't feel like driving up to the visitor center in the middle of night. It could wait until morning.

So the next morning, I stopped by the visiter center. Sure enough, that warning about Ravens that I did not read stated that if you're down underneath the Natural Bridges for any extended period of time, to be sure to take your windshield wiper blades off of your vehicle. Ravens in the area had been witnessed messing with windshield wipers on parked vehicles. So, if wipers were left on an unattended vehicle for an extended period of time, there was a high risk of the ravens tearing them apart.

Really?! You have got to be kidding! Who in the world would have the foresight to think to take their wiper blades off of their vehicle before they went on a long hike? Well, with this weird situation happening to me, I guess I do now wink emoticon

So the mystery was solved. It was NOT an inconsiderate self-absorbed thief stealing my wiper blades and then rearranging my side mirrors to mess with my mind, at least not one that was human anyway. I had devious ravens in the middle of nowhere eat my windshield wiper blades...birds with much bigger-than-normal bird-brains did this. Wow. Truly crazy stuff like this only happens to me I think... wink emoticon

Goofy wierd, eh?

The next day, I did end up stopping at the Walmart in Page, Arizona so I could buy new wiper blades for my truck and hose the bird crap off my hood.

Of course, I really really dislike devilish ravens even more now..."Nevermore" will I leave my windshield wipers on my truck for a long hike in Utah I guess. wink emoticon

So, what you see before you here is the image I took while the ravens were eating my windshield wiper blades....

Without planning, this composition could not have happened (unless someone was just crazy lucky)...conditions were perfect for this image to be possible and it will be quite some time before all of those variables align again. This is yet another example of what I call "Planned Chance" in photography.

There was a perfect alignment a couple nights ago of a deep and dark Milky Way over top of Owakomo 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 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 big giant long Milky Way up above the natural bridge.

You know I have to be charged up about a pic to process it while I am still on the very trip I shot it during...

To create this portrait view panoramic composition, this is actually two images shot back to back (remember stars move pretty fast) at identical camera settings and then photomerged together to create a 1:2.5 ratio

Camera settings: ISO-2500, f/1.4 at 24mm for 15 seconds. I selected the higher ISO (2x higher than my usual star settings) so that I could better illuminate the bridge and rocks around the pool (with out light painting) as well as to better catch the stars reflected in the pool...

I kept the title simple and named the composition after the bridge itself, "Owachomo," which means "rock mound" in Hopi... Hope you like it.

I hope this message and image finds you well.

Peace,
D. " Bodhi "

#Dolica #LeeFilters #Nikon #D800 #Nikkor #24mm #f/1.4 #BodhiSmith#LongExposure #expressionist #Impressionist #Surreal

New Release, "Hoku-Noho-Aupuni" by Bodhi Smith

New image entitled, "Hoku-Noho-Aupuni". The name translates to the term used to describe the Milky Way in Hawaiian.

All I can say is that here are gorgeous stars and night skies in Hawaii. The beauty of this island does not disappear when the sun sets...

This image was captured in Kihei at 4am, a couple hours before sunrise

Camera Settings: iSO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 13 seconds.

I hope this message and image 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"

"Faith" an image captured in the Anza-Borrego Desert of Southern california

This is my newest image simply entitled, "Faith." I really wanted a simple name for this uncomplicated composition that would really describe the emotion depicted here...

So here is the skinny on this composition...Last Saturday night, fellow photog and good friend of mine, Chip Morton, and I headed out into the Anza-Borrego desert to capture some night scenes with the famous metal sculptures of Ricardo Breceda that dot the landscape all around Borrego Springs, CA....there are over 130 various scuptures by Breceda in the area: dinosaurs, birds of prey, horses, tortises, big horn sheep, a scorpion. a serpent, and numerous others including this Spanish friar.


However on Saturday night, the sky did not cooperate as I had planned and hoped. There was some strange film/inversion layer hanging over the valley which really cut down on the luminosity and clarity of the stars. And it seemed as if this strange hovering film got worse as the night rolled on instead of blowing away. Bummer, but as a landscape photographer who is at the mercy of the weather conditions, I have made do with the hand dealt to me by mother nature.


Heading out driving into the desert Saturday, I would never have thought that the first picture i would process from that night would be a metal friar carrying a huge cross and rosary....but something in the color range of this image really attracted me to finish and release it first over the other more obvious and dramatic compositions i made. Btw, I have maybe 2-3 more images that I will release from this same night over the next few days...


One little thing that will make this image capture you are now looking at much, much more memorable was actually a tiny little creature that was abundantly present this past weekend in the San Diego County desert: the scorpion. These nasty little buggers were everywhere, and they were freaking me and Chip out because you definitely do not want to get stung by these little guys.


We both carry Ultraviolet LED flashlights for just this reason of spotting scorpions when shooting in the desert and other arid places like the Owen's Valley. The UV flashlights are usually used by forensic specialists to help detect residual bodily fluids at crime scenes...but for a photographer out in the field, these things are the best equipment to spot scorpions from many feet away. A scorpion literally glows in the dark like a Whamo frisbee when even partial espied by a UV light. They very much stand out as there is nothing else that lights up except the scorpion. And to the naked eye, these wicked little beasts are almost undetectable, even in broad daylight. The are so well camouflaged that when we turned the UV lights off and instead shone a flashlight directly on the scorpion, we could not see it even though we knew it was there. Turn on the UV light and that little sucker becomes the brightest thing for 15 feet around. And dreaded scorpions were glowing everywhere Saturday night in Borrego Springs. So bad that the Dude was relegated to stay in the truck all night. He hated it, but it was for his own safety.


They usually sit there and look almost flat and lifeless, seldom moving or even showing any signs of life--but do not be fooled. I am a curious sort, and when we come upon this friar to shoot it, there was a pretty decent sized scorpion glowing right next to the sculpture. It really did not look like it was alive, so I threw dirt on it, enough to half bury it. It did not move or even flinch, so I threw more dirt on it to totally bury is and extinguish its glow. To be certain it was dead, I stepped hard down onto the spot it was buried...that damned thing came flying out FAST and started jutting and darting all over the place until it finally calmed down and came to rest in a spot back behind the friar...this tiny little bug scared the sh!t out of me and Chip. Those things move FAST. Luckily neither he nor I got stung by my stupidity, but I did learn the lesson never to "F" with these dangerous little arachnids. Assume they are alive and well and do not disturb them.


So because of the aforementioned scorpion still lingering in the shooting area around the padre here, I was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking-chairs for the entire time I was shooting this friar...and truly uneasy for the rest of the night at other sculptures we would try to capture.


Partially because of the lack of deep clarity in the stars on this night and partly for the effect of creating a stronger emphasis to the friar, I tried something a bit different with this composition. Shooting at f/1.4, I decided to keep the friar is sharp focus and let the stars bokeh out a bit to bring more focus to the padre and less of a focus on the beauty of the sky in the backdrop. My favorite thing about the composition is the way the colors balance very pleasingly together, complimenting each other quite nicely...


Anyway, I hope you enjoy this composition, even though it is an image of a religious Christian monk taken by a long-haired Buddhist hippy. ;)


Camera Settings; ISO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds. Image was captured at 10 mins after 10pm on 10-25-2014.

I hope this composition and message find you well.

peace,

D."Bodhi"