The sun blows it's goodnight kiss for the day to the mountain top at Mount Shasta in Northern California. The Shasta snow cover reflects the third consecutive year of dry winter in California. This past winter Shasta ski lifts were mostly closed, and the slopes were covered by as little as two to three inches of snow. Shasta Lake the largest reservoir in California stood at about 35 percent of storage capacity in Spring 2014 showing the cumulative effects of dry winters since 2012. The Columbia River Gorge is one of the most beautiful yet accessible natural landscapes in the continental United States. Just over 30 miles east of Portland, the Gorge extends for over 80 miles and contains over 90 waterfalls just on the Oregon side of the river and is home to Mt Hood Oregon's tallest mountain.
The Columbia river, sacred to the Natives and dear to the locals, also shares a deep connection to western US history given the Lewis and Clark expedition, the first white immigrant American expedition to cross the western United States, across the continental divide onto the Pacific Ocean. By the time I took these shots, it was about an hour after sunset and it was pretty dark given the greenery in the area. There was still light in the sky so I let the light flow into the lens to capture the depth of the river with the city lights shining onto the sky, and to showcase the greenery around, while allowing time for the clouds to roll over the scenery. I love this place and hope to be back here soon. Old makes way for the new. With the.new eastern span of the Bay Bridge that connects the Easy Bay to San Francisco city in full fledged use since 2013, the old eastern span of the bridge is being taken apart piece by piece.
Just returned from trip to Hong Kong where I took a late night trip out to 'The Peak' the high point for a birds eye view of Victoria Harbour.
Hong Kong ranks at the top for number of stacked structures. It houses over seven million people within a 1000 km/400+ sq miles of island exposed directly to the South China Sea. I captured this picture to juxtapose Hong Kong's man made peaks against the backdrop of the natural peaks on the islands. The lights reflect the density of "modern" life in Hong Kong. Had a busy week in Seattle but managed to sneak a ferry ride out to West Seattle to shoot some sunset and beyond photos and also a short time-lapse: Say hello to Seattle with this one hour sunset to dusk view of downtown Seattle in under 25 seconds. This week's Friday The 13th, 2014 was unique for one trivia. It was also a full moon day and the next time this happens is in 2049.
Superstition and related horrors are not one of my core competencies so I will leave it to superstitious / religious folks on what they think this means to who. For me it was just another day to build my treasure chest of memories with yet another memorable visual. That of the setting full moon against a beloved landscape . Photographing moon rise and set with landscape in the foreground to a large extent depends on the cloud coverage at the right time. Around full moon, the moon set and sun rise occur close to each other which meant I had to be ready and in place for those few pre-dawn minutes when the moon is low enough to be set in the backdrop of a visible landscape and before the rising sun washed away the finer details on the moon . And I had to keep my fingers crossed hoping that the moon will not be hidden by the clouds. I got lucky with just a few shots before the moon disappeared behind the clouds and then the rising sunlight covered the sky with a white blanket. An interesting moon trivia is that the moon always looks the same from the earth. This is because the moon rotates once about every 27 days, and revolves once about every 27 days. So every time the moon goes around the Earth it turns around one time and we see the same side always. - This was one of those 'mayas' that disappeared at the dawn of knowledge thanks to reading up after serendipitous observations during photography:-) |