The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

I’ve posted images of the Mavericks surf contest which took place this Saturday near Half Moon Bay. This was the first time I attended the event. I’ll give an account of it from a photographer’s perspective.

At Mavericks, an unusually-shaped underwater rock formation can cause waves to top out at over 50 feet (15m) after a strong winter storm in the North Pacific yields giant swells. Possibly the most dangerous spot in the sport, with some of the largest waves in the world, strong currents, dangerous rocks, shallow reefs, and cold water temperatures, Mavericks is a place reserved only for elite big wave surfers. Each year, an invitation-only contest is held. Since conditions cannot be predicted in advance, the two dozen selected surfers must vote on a day to hold the contest only 48 hours in advance of the event. Once the decision is made, many will hop immediately on a plane, and arrive just in time, as did this year’s winner, who flew from South Africa.

The break itself is located approximately one-half mile (0.8 km) from shore at Pillar Point, just north of Half Moon Bay at the village of Princeton-By-The-Sea. Thousands gather at the beach at Pillar Point, just content to be part of the event by watching into the direction of the break, but don’t actually see anything. The contest organizers recommend watching at home, or from a stadium with a big broadcast screen. To have a chance to watch some action from shore, you need to scramble up the muddy bluff. Arriving 15 minutes before the start of the contest, I found the crest of the bluff totally filled up. Although I was able to squeeze in, I couldn’t set up comfortably. To be certain to find a good spot, you need to arrive at sunrise. Once there, you’d need at least 600mm (on a FF 35mm format camera) for decent images, as well as good visibility. In the early morning, the atmosphere was just too foggy on that Saturday for any useful images of the contest from the bluff. However, even without seeing any action, I was still glad that I was up there rather than down, since a couple of rogue waves washed over the seawall, destroying booths, and, as I read later, injuring a dozen of spectators, reminding you of the power of nature.

The only way to get a good view of the action is to ride a boat to the shoulder of the break. That’s how the great photos that you see published in the media are taken. The best option would be to ride the official media boat, however, without accreditation from a major media source, getting on it is a matter of luck. I wasn’t lucky. After waiting in vain for a stand-by opening, I walked to the beach (it took 25 minutes from the harbor to the beach, hence my late arrival at the bluff). I then walked back to the harbor, and got on a private tour boat, the Flying Fish operated by www.fishingboat.com, with an 11am departure – which doesn’t provide for the best light. The early morning boat was filled-up.

I found photographing from the boat to be hard. The Flying Fish was often too far for my 400mm lens (on FF). Moreover, there is a flotilla of more than a hundred watercraft of all sizes (from jet skis and sea kayaks to 50+ feet boats) at the observation spot, and many of them often got in the way. Presumably, the media boat had some priority. Then you are standing on a platform which is rocking wildly (those pesky waves !).You have to brace yourself in order not to hit the rail, wall, other people, or even be thrown overboard. At the same time, you have to pay constant attention in order not to miss any action, while a lot of the time nothing really interesting is happening, as this is the nature of surfing. For tight shots, you’d be carrying pretty heavy “big gun” lenses, and hand-holding them all day long. The predominant sound is not from the huge waves crashing (quite far away), but from the ballet of helicopters hovering overhead.

I did not manage to get any of the clean, spectacular surfing shots that abound on media pages, or on the websites of photographers such as Philip Colla and Jim Goldstein, where you see a lone surfer dwarfed by a wall of water. Only near the end of the runs, the surfers would be close enough, and the line of sight clear enough for such images, but the wave would have already crashed. On the other hand, the experience gave me a new appreciation of what they were able to achieve with those deceptively simple shots. My hat off to them ! I realized that there is a reason I do not photograph much wildlife on purpose (my possibly best wildlife images were obtained when dall sheep walked towards me): looking at subjects and trying to track them through a super-tele lens, is just too different from the way I normally experience the world. In large format landscape photography, I use a very wide lens (equivalent to a 24mm) for most of my work.

Since the other boats in front of mine, and my lack of a longer optic prevented me from making the images that I envisioned, I tried instead to capture the atmosphere of the contest by creating compositions that included the other boats in the foreground. Upon returning home, I noticed that none of those type of images appeared on media sites, yet they captured a reality of being there, an experience to be cherished, whether it results in great photos or not.

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There was a good scare, last summer, when California threatened to close 100 of its state parks because of budget cuts. 100 out of 278, many worthy of being in the National Park system. A closure list was even circulated, but fortunately, it did not go into effect. Instead, maintenance, administrative staff and some facilities’ hours were reduced.

However, this respite is only temporary. A funding crisis could occur again. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, this is in contrast with Oregon, where the state parks benefit from a fund that is independent from the state’s budget, and therefore cannot be cut. As a result, I had found their facilities to be superb, with campground amenities such as hot showers, and water spigots in each campsite.

A new ballot initiative, the California State Parks and Wildlife Conservation Trust Fund Act of 2010 seeks to do the same for California. If enacted, the ballot measure would provide a dedicated funding stream for state parks by raising vehicle registration fees by $18 per year.

In return, vehicles registered in California would receive free admission to any California State Parks. If you visit the State parks, this is a great deal, since a couple of visits costs more than $18.

Is it unfair to those who do not visit the parks ? I don’t think so. Public infrastructure is provided for anyone as part of the social contract. Whether you use them or not is your choice. If you do not have children, do you find it unfair that your tax dollars are used to fund schools ? You can more easily decide to visit a park than change your family situation. In addition, by providing a dedicated funding source for state park operations, General Fund monies would then be freed up for other uses.

How can you help now ? Make sure that the initiative gets enough signatures to make the November 2010 ballot. There is only 3 months left. I’ve volunteered to this effect with the Sierra Club, but there are many other organizations that endorse the measure and have similar volunteer programs. You can also volunteer directly on the Yes for State Parks site. Even publishing an article on a blog is deemed helpful !

High above the Great Basin Desert in Nevada, the South Snake Range forms a vegetated island protected by Great Basin National Park. At the timberline, groves of Bristlecone pine trees grow, clinging to rocky ridges and cirques. The oldest living things on earth, those trees, with fantastically gnarled shapes and great texture, were already saplings before the Egyptians built the pyramids.

The most well-known and most accessible Bristlecone pine grove in the park is reached by a hike from the end of Wheeler Peak Drive, 12 miles from the visitor center. Because of the high elevation (10,000 ft) the road is often closed by snow from late autumn to late spring. Aspen groves abound in the area around the parking lot, turning bright yellow in late September.

The Bristlecone Pine trail starts at the edge of the parking lot. It is about 1.5 miles (one way), and 600 feet of elevation gain to the Bristlecone pine trees and associated interpretative signs. As it zig-zags amongst them, it provides you with many angles, but you can also wander in the boulder fields to look for more views and specimen.

You can continue further on the trail for about a mile and another 600 feet of elevation gain to a point where you stand in a purely mineral place. You will be standing on large moraine, directly below the impressive headwall of Wheeler Peak, home to an active rock glacier. Wheeler Peak (13,065 ft) is the tallest independent mountain in Nevada.

Morning light is preferable on the Bristlecone pine grove, as a hill casts a shadow in the afternoon. On the other hand, the light on Wheeler Peak is better in late afternoon to sunset. I would make it an all-day exploration.

View all images of Great Basin National Park
Images from Wheeler Cirque

I just saw National Parks maps in PDF format for sale here. A quick glance at the sample Acadia National Park map was enough to determine that those are in fact the excellent maps produced and distributed by the National Park Service.

You may not be aware of that, but everything produced by the US government is in the public domain. This has been the case for a while. To digress a bit, the government commissioned (“work for hire”, paid with taxpayer dollars) the landmark photographic survey of the Farm Security Administration in the thirties, which included images by photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. All the resulting images are public domain, and many can be seen and downloaded here.

Back to the parks, if you go to the NPS page for Acadia, and click on “View Map”, you’ll get access to exactly the same file. Now, this viewer is nice, but maybe you’d like to download a PDF for off-line use ? I didn’t see any way to do that from the Acadia page.

Here is a tip for my readers. Many of the NPS documents are available from the little known Harpers Ferry Center site. For instance, the maps can be found nps.gov/carto. Just click on a state (for example Maine), and you will be given links to full size, downloadable PDF maps (if the “Adobe Acrobat PDF” link doesn’t work, be sure to try the “Alternate direct link”).

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with repackaging in a more convenient form, and reselling data which in itself is available for free. To begin with, that’s what the USGS was doing by selling to you maps on paper. The information was free, but not the medium. To download all the maps manually will take a little more time. But I thought you’d like to know it can be done.

Looking for topographic maps instead ? The USGS is phasing out the 7.5-minute (1:24000) paper maps, and has set-up a new site US Topo, where the updated maps can be downloaded, all for free. That’s a serious number of files ! If this overwhelms you, National Geographic, amongst others, has been selling those on CD for a while.

I’ve posted new images of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, taken during a trip in May 2009.

When I first visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, I limited my explorations to the North Rim. Although the relatively recent park doesn’t see many visitors, the North Rim is even more uncrowded, and it offers more unique perspectives than the South Rim, including the Narrows viewpoint, Exclamation point, and the North Vista Trail. The Black Canyon is one of the rare canyons that are more deep than wide. At the Chasm viewpoint, you are only about 1000 feet from the other rim, yet it takes a couple of hours by car, which explain the lesser visitation of the North Rim.

For the second visit, I spent all my time on the South Rim for the sake of completeness, which confirmed my preference for the North Rim as my research had indicated before. I was tempted to hike down to the river again, but the clouds looked ominous. I was glad I did not do so as torrential rainstorm struck in the afternoon. When I took the third image below, it was pouring, but instead of scrambing on steep and treachery terrain, I was photographing next to the road, almost from my car. That image was with the tripod set below the raised hatch of my station-wagon. On a large version, you can see every leaf glistening with water.

Joshua Tree National Park lies at the convergence of two deserts, the Mojave and the Colorado. Joshua trees and granite boulders characterize the windy high Mojave Desert, while at the Colorado Desert’s lower elevations, cactus and native California palm trees thrive among sandy washes occasionally flooded by unpredictable torrents.

The Cholla Cactus garden lies right at the transition between the two deserts, next to the Pinto Basin road that crosses the park north to south, about 10 miles south of the junction with Park boulevard (the closest campground is White Tank). Park at the designated pull-out, and stroll the nature trail.

The Cholla Cactus garden features the densest patch of the strange Cholla Cactus that I have seen so far. The scientific name of the species of Cholla that grows in the garden is Opuntia bigelovii, but it is often called Teddy Bear Cholla or Jumping Cholla. The joints break off very easily after being only slightly bumped. New cactus start growing right from the broken-off joints, so that the garden continues to renew itself.

The fuzzy-looking (hence “Teddy Bear”) cactus can be photographed successfully under a range of conditions, but my favorite is a backlit low light that makes the spines glow. Sunrise is preferable to sunset because the sun rises over lower distant mountains across the Pinto Basin, whereas it would set over the much closer and higher Hexie Mountains.

I inadvertently brushed against a Cholla Cactus while I was looking for a good viewpoint during the predawn darkness. The result was that I couldn’t dislodge it with my bare hand for fear of getting my fingers stuck as well. A beautiful sunrise below the clouds kept me in the Cholla Cactus Garden, with a cactus clenching onto my behind, until the light was well over. I then strolled back to the car to tease the spiny thing out with pliers.

I recommend that you don’t forget to take pliers as part of your kit. Without them, the barbed spines can easily remain embedded in the skin, causing significant discomfort. They are not called “Jumping Cholla” for nothing.

view all images of Joshua Tree National Park
view all images of Cholla Cactus Garden

Parks Magazine, the magazine of the National Parks Foundation, features a portfolio of my images in its 4th issue (winter 2009-2010).

The National Parks Foundation is the official charity of America’s National Parks. Make a donation of at least $50 to benefit directly our National Parks and receive Parks magazine.

I’ve posted new images of Saguaro National Park, taken during a trip in May 2009.

This was my third trip to Saguaro National Park, made expressly to capture the Saguaro cactus flowers. Those blooms may be the ultimate desert flowers. Their short life is unique: they open at night, and will close permanently during the next day, often in the morning if the day is sunny. The bloom, large, waxy, and very flagrant, has been adopted by Arizona as its official state flower. By the way, did you know that the saguaro cactus is a protected species through Arizona ? It is illegal to harm one. A permit is needed to remove a Saguaro cactus, even from your own backyard.

The Saguaro cactus blooms mostly in May and June. The first time I visited was in early April. The weather was great, but the saguaro blooms were very sparse. After much exploring, I managed to find a few, and photographed close-ups, but I wanted to see more of them, and depict them in the landscape. My second visit was in March, timed for the annual flowers, which carpeted the desert floor on that an El Nino year. However, this was clearly too early for the Saguaro flowers. On this third visit, the weather was unusually cloudy for Arizona, but the flowers were there !

Photographing them presents a challenge, since they grow on top of the saguaros, which can reach dozens of feet in height for a mature cactus. I looked for a position above them, on steep slopes, and for specimen with arms curving downwards.

Zion National Park has sometimes been called a “Yosemite in color”. The comparison is apt, since both share a great variety of beauty, both in large scenery and intimate details. Like Yosemite, Zion features at its heart a narrow valley with a beautiful river and vegetation, flanked by sheer cliffs and rock towers.

However, unlike Yosemite, the Zion valley hasn’t been carved by glaciers, but instead by the Virgin River. The rock isn’t granite, but sandstone. This soft rock has allowed the river to gouge the Narrows, a deep gorge which in some places is only a dozen of feet wide, between walls that reach a thousand of feet high and spread only slightly to reveal a narrow sliver of sky. Hiking into the Narrows is one of the most unique experiences to be had in a national park, as you are most of the time wading in the river itself.

When to go is decided by a combination of factors. You’ll want to avoid high water flow (spring run-off from March to late May, later in years of heavy snowfall), flash flood danger (at its highest during the monsoon season in summer – if there is a risk of thunderstorm, the Park service will close the Narrows to hiking), high traffic (during the summer), and freezing temperatures (in winter).

My preferred time of the year to hike the Narrows would be in the late autumn. The small maple trees growing on the riverbanks turn shades of yellow and orange. The water level is at its lowest, which makes it easier to carry camera equipment. The cold water temperatures discourage crowds, which are much more abundant in the spring, and at their peak in the summer.

The key is to equip yourself appropriately by renting from an outfitter in Springsdale. At a minimum, canyoneering shoes will help protect your feet from the rocks that litter the riverbed, as well as provide you enough traction to avoid slipping – and falling in the water with your camera equipment – while neoprene socks will keep your wet feet warm. If the temperatures are cold, a dry suit would be useful as well, but don’t worry, as the outfitter will advise you. If you are going to be in the canyon all day, take a warm jacket for the return trip, as temperatures dip in late afternoon.

You also need something to help with your balance, as well as prob the river depth, since the water is not clear enough for you to see the bottom. At the start of the wet part of the hike, there is usually a stockpile of sticks that you can borrow, but a pair of hiking poles is more efficient. Or you could just use your extended tripod. It gets heavy in your hands, but you’d lighten your pack and be able to set-up faster.

The hike starts at the end of Zion Canyon with a mile-long surfaced trail called the River Walk, which in itself is quite nice. At the end of that trail almost everyone turns around, but you will simply step down into the river to continue.

During the fall, in the lower part of the Narrows, the water is between ankle and knee-high, and you can sometimes walk on the edge of the stream, but a few miles up, you may encounter pools that are waist-high.

You could hike up the Narrows for two days (although usually overnight trips are done in the opposite direction, down river, using a shuttle), but to see the narrowest part of the canyon, you just have to go a bit beyond the junction with the Orderville canyon, which takes about 1 hour and half to reach from the end of the Riverside Walk. Another hour and half makes it possible to reach the other end of the narrowest part. You should start as early as you can, so that you reach the narrowest part by mid-day, when there is more light. At the least, you should hike about half an hour to the Mystery Falls.

Like in many locations in the South West, you will be photographing in reflected light, avoiding directly lit spots (that produce excessive contrast). Even by mid-day, it can get quite dark in the canyon, especially during the fall. You will also be making many compositions with moving water, for which a slow shutter speed can be desirable. For both those reasons, a tripod is essential. It is wise to pack your equipment so that a fall in the water would not ruin it. A specialized water proof photo backpack would be handy, although I just used ziplock bags inside a regular backpack. In many places, the canyon exposes a small riverbank where you can set up your gear.

More images of the Zion Narrows
View all images of Zion National Park

Missed Ken Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” last fall? The series returns to prime time this winter, with the first episode airing this Wednesday, Jan 27 on PBS, and then appearing on consecutive Wednesdays through March 3. For local times, check the PBS site. Each episode will be also available for online viewing for a week, following its airing. Note that the DVDs have now been released, if you prefer to watch at your own pace. Ken likes to joke that the series is a great excuse to upgrade to HDTV.

I have written before about my role in the movie, but did not provide a clip. Here it is, from Episode 4, considered to be the masterpiece of the series by this reviewer.

This appearance was short, but there were only a few other living characters (as opposed to commentators) and the movie was seen by more than 30 million people. I am often asked, what impact did the newfound fame have?

Not much happened on the web (where I conduct my business exclusively). Immediately after the broadcast, just a few dozens of people added me as their friend on Facebook, or followed me on Twitter. At first, I couldn’t even see any difference in web traffic in terms of numbers of visitors, although I could see that they were more engaged from the number of page views. It’s only when I used the beta Intelligence function of Google Analytics – which makes it possible to monitor events by analyzing logs in a very sophisticated way – that I could quantify the number of new visitors from the first broadcast: about a thousand, a number drowned in the usual thirty thousand daily visitors. Besides a number of queries for my National Parks book (which doesn’t exist yet), impact on the business was minimal.

However, from October to this date, I went to five gatherings: a group show opening in Thousand Oaks, a diving trip to the Channel Islands, a company function for a client in Walnut Creek, a gallery opening for another artist (Jock Sturges) in San Francisco, and a wedding in Anaheim. In each of those instances, I was surprised that one or more persons recognized me from the movie.

The most pleasant, and unexpected surprise is that I was able to reconnect with several old friends with whom I hadn’t been in touch for sometimes more than a decade, as they emailed me upon watching the series.