Usually trips to the cabin in the middle of summer are not in the cards due to high temps, 90s -100, but Lisa and I had our eye on the forecast as it was for high 70s and 60s at night. Perfect! We had to get creative to get by the typical holiday traffic jam through the Santa Barbara corridor which actually made the drive enjoyable. We were happy to see an out of town fire crew finally clearing the minefield of dead trees along Figueroa Mountain Rd as we drove towards our driveway and expressed our gratitude for their efforts. Us cabin owners were beginning to wonder if we would have to pay to have the deadwood cleared ourselves.

After settling in and taking care of some cleaning and maintenance, we headed up the road, Me with my camera gear and Lisa with the dogs. It was an athletic hike as I was chasing the last light to my planned vantage point and got there with only a few minutes to set-up to shoot the last rays. The Panorama is stitched together from four images making for close to a 200mp file that would print up to several feet in case any of you have a large wall space :). This place is full of beauty and wonder.

The moon set some time after 1 am but I was much more inclined to climb into bed than wait or get up to capture the Milky Way with dark skies. I did however get inspired, after stepping out on the stoop to look at the sky at 10 pm, to walk over to the meadow to see what the camera could see despite the light pollution from the moon. I positioned the lens in the shadow of a dead oak and framed the Milky Way amongst the trees and the meadow that were nicely lit by the half moon still high in the sky. It was so quiet and peaceful and I like the photo that I got.

We are heading out later to scope out a location to shoot the ‘Hurricane Ridge’ at some future opportunity. We will then stop at a good sunset vantage point to see what the days end has to offer.

Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below or just let me know your favorites and subscribe to receive notification of new posts.

Enjoy the photographs!

Hover over to change photos or even better, click to view larger photos or a full screen slide show.

If you are interested in prints please contact me.

The post Rare Cool Summer Weekend at the Cabin appeared first on .

I’ve spent the last couple of weekends at our cabin on Figueroa Mountain replacing some windows. This past weekend a condition started to develop that I haven’t seen for a while where the marine layer blew in covering the Santa Ynez valley but the ceiling of the layer remained below the level of the cabin. With the presence of the full moon I was hoping for an opportunity to photograph the moonlit clouds from above. Prior to the evening, I shot a few long exposure photographs of the clouds blowing in. The long exposure transformed the bumpy puffy clouds into a waves of smooth flowing clouds. With the golden hour light the effect is beautiful. Unfortunately I was too tired after working all day to venture far from the cabin after the moonrise to get the elevation vantage point I was envisioning but I did set up just outside the cabin by our sunset bench for a moonlit photograph.  The fourth photo in this collection is at sunrise the following morning. Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below or just let me know your favorites.

Enjoy the photographs!

Hover over to change photos or even better, click to view larger photos or a full screen slide show.

If you are interested in prints please contact me.

The post Marine Layer Over the Valley appeared first on .

Spent last Friday and Saturday with James at the cabin with Lisa joining us Saturday midday. It was windy and kinda cold at times dropping into the 30s at night. Though the flowers are done for the most part, the scenery and lighting were exquisite as always. There are a few photos where I used a nuetral density filter to be able to slow the shutter speed down in order to capture the effect of the wind blowing through the grass and trees so if you see some strange blurriness, that was the outcome. Friday evening’s sunset has one photo that was taken within a few seconds of another at the same settings. One captured a flash that is more yellow than green but still has a very nice effect on the image while in the next it was gone. Photography is such a magic art form! When it was too cold to stay outside I was playing around with photos of the flames in the little potbelly stove. Photographs appear in the order they were taken, two sunsets and two sunrises and a little in between. Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below or just let me know your favorites.

Enjoy the photographs!

Hover over to change photos or even better, click to view larger photos or a full screen slide show.

If you are interested in prints please contact me.

The post Gorgeous Light on the Mountain appeared first on .

A very enjoyable hike into Davy Brown, just me and the camera. Enjoy!

Hover over to change photos or even better, click to view larger photos.

If you are interested in prints please contact me.

The post Figueroa Mountain – Davy Brown Trail appeared first on .

A three day weekend at the cabin on Figueroa Mountain for some much needed rest and reset. And photography!

It was an early bloom this year so most of the poppies are fading but the lupine bushes will be on our list to explore later this afternoon now that the sun is out. We arrived yesterday afternoon just ahead of a decent little rain storm. We listened to the rain on the cabin roof while stoking fires and chilling to good music. Exquisite light yesterday and at first light this morning after the storm.

More photos will be posted here as the weekend develops. Enjoy!

Hover over to change photos or even better, click to view larger photos.

If you are interested in prints please contact me.

The post Storm on the Mountain appeared first on .