New Year in the desert
I want to start off the year properly, and not be such a laggard in posting about my pictures, so here is a post about my New Years weekend.
On the New Years Eve weekend Machelle and I headed up to Joshua Tree to enjoy the spectacular weather, take pictures, and climb.
The morning we left there was a dense fog in Culver City and I went out and took a few pictures.
Once the fog cleared and Kieth arrived we headed off to the park. Joining us at the camp site were Kim and Kieth
and later Tim.
We also met up with Stephanie and Patrick to do some climbs the first day,
and to go through a cave on the last day.
In between we explored the desert, climbed many rocks, had camp fires, and generally had a great time. Machelle did her very first trad lead on “the eye” 5.3 on cyclops rock, and was extremely excited. For those of you who don’t know what “trad lead“ means it means climbing up some thing on lead (without a rope already attached to the top of the climb) placing your own gear (active and passive protection) and setting up an anchor on the top from which to either belay your follower, or rappel down. The “trad” is short for traditional.
As you can imagine, this is quite a mind game, and Machelle did a great job.
We took some time on the first night to wander in the night near our campground at Black Rock Canyon campground, and did some experimenting with light painting.
Joshua tree national park is a very special place, and I really need to spend some more time there if I can carve it out in the future. But in the meantime, I hope you will head over to may gallery and enjoy the pictures:
Joshua Tree New Year
happy new year one and all.
Cheers,
Duffy
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.
best 25 of 2011
I’m posting this link to my gallery on smugmug to get some comments on my top 25 pictures of 2011. I would like some feedback so I can reduce that number to the 10 best and any comments would be much appreciated. Just click on the picture above to go to the gallery.
A big%&$ loop
This is going to be a long Blog. For those of you who would rather just look at the pictures, head over to
http://www.duffyknox.com/Personal/vacation
and look at the “roadtrip 2011″ galleries. The most interesting is probably the Yellowstone one.
For 2 weeks between August 21 and Sept 4, 2011 Machelle and I drove 3000 odd miles through many national parks and 2 countries. On this trip we saw many beautiful places and visited with friends, hiked up mountains and went through innumerable ice bags for the cooler. We had planned the roadtrip for some time, but left the details open to change as we went. The Ipad2 proved incredibly useful on the road for finding camping spots and interesting hikes/sights along the way. Also useful were the North Face Base Camp duffels, which we used to organize the chaos which would have otherwise overtaken the back of the car. These things are indestructible and we had one of each size in different colours so we knew what was in each one.
Anyhow, on to the trip.
We left after the wedding of Machelle’s son Andrew to Andrea in Patterson, CA, on Saturday August 20. Sunday we headed over to San Francisco to visit a city I had never had occasion to check out before. We first headed downtown for a short while, then we decided to drive around the city on the Scenic loop drive. This drive is well marked, though on any 49 mile loop there are places where it is easy to go off track. We made it most of the way around the loop, stopping wherever there seemed to be views of interest, and had a great time. Eventually, though, it started getting a little late and we headed out across the Golden Gate Bridge to seek out a camping area. We drove up the coast to Bodega Bay and found an empty camping spot in Bodega Dunes State Park, set up the tent and got some sleep.
The next day we drove most of the rest of the way up the California Coast. We stopped along the coast and found wonderful tide pools, went up Point Arena lighthouse, and eventually camped at Mill Creek State Park when the campgrounds further south in the redwoods area were all full.
Roadtrip 2011: San Francisco and tide pools
The next day we broke camp and headed into Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park to hike the Hiouchi Trail. It was a nice walk and the views of the river were great, but nothing was too exciting photographically. We then loaded up and crossed the border into Oregon. Looking at travel times and camping areas, and really wanting showers we decided to head up to Portland to get a hotel room for the evening. This meant basically blasting through Oregon without seeing many of the beautiful sights.
On the morning of August 24th we bid Oregon adieu and headed toward Mount St Helens across the border. After a beautiful drive north through Washington, then West along the southern border of Olympic National Park, we made an early camp at Bogachiel state park. After setting up our tent we headed up the Hoh River to hike in Olympic National Park. I ignored the fact that I was being eaten alive by clouds of mosquitoes, in fact I think they tried to carry me off once or twice, to take pictures of the moss laden trees in this temperate rain forest. Soon enough we had enough of the bloodsuckers and we headed back to camp.
The next day we drove north and east through the park. We found beautiful lakes, and world war 2 bunkers along the ocean at Salt Creek, then headed up Hurricane ridge to walk on top of the world. The drive from Washington to Vancouver took much longer then we had thought it would due to a delay at the Port Townsend Ferry, but we eventually crossed the border at 12:30 am and reached our hotel room at 1:15 or so. Unfortunately our room was right above a night club, and the loud music boomed through the floor until 2:00 am, which would have been much worse had we not been already awake. Apparently our hotel was right beside the red light district of Vancouver, and Machelle’s first impression of Vancouver was of women in revealing dresses, all wearing long white vinyl boots. It seems to be a uniform of some kind.
roadtrip 2011:Washington and Olympic National Park
Our next day was spent exploring Vancouver. We headed over to the Capilano Suspension bridge, snooped around Granville Island and had some great meals, but the highlight might be the showers in the Granville Island Hotel 
. This hotel was luxurious and comfortable and even has its own brewery. Highly recommended.
roadtrip 2011: miscellaneous days
Our second day in Vancouver saw even more exploring. We went to the market at Granville Island and bought some delicious food for the next stage of our trip. We drove over to Stanley Park and went to the Aquarium, then we headed over to Kits beach to have dinner at the Boathouse Restaurant with Chris and Audrey. After dinner we headed west out of Vancouver to get a head start on the drive to Banff. We eventually found a place to stop in Hope, BC, the Slumber Inn.
The next day was all about driving across British Columbia. We headed first along the border, then followed the Trans Canada Highway further north, eventually ending up in Yoho National Park for our camp. Waking to the gorgeous rockies was a treat, and we decided to explore the Yoho River Valley a bit before driving on into Banff. This was a wonderful hike, and we saw gorgeous vistas in all directions, waterfalls, forests, glaciers, elk … you get the idea. After our hike we hopped in the car and headed over to Lake Louise, and then Moiraine Lake before finding a campsite and grabbing some dinner in Lake Louise Village.
roadtrip 2011: Vancouver, yoho, banff
We were bound and determined to touch a glacier, so after a morning of taking amazing pictures in every direction we decided to head up to the Stanley Glacier in Kootenay National Park. This was our longest hike of the trip at 9.5 miles and 2400 feet of elevation gain. The glacier didn’t look that far from the road, but it kept receding the closer to it we got. Unfortunately, when we were almost there the weather started threatening lightning, so we backed off around 200 metres short of the glacier. This was a wonderful hike, and we found some draws hanging from a huge cave under a waterfall which were screaming out for hard mixed ice climbing in the winter. It rained on the hike back down, but no thunder so we probably could have continued safely. However, we still had some miles to make before the end of the day since we were heading for Glacier National Park. We hopped in the car and wended our way south. Spectacular sunsets greeted us outside Glacier when we finally rolled to a stop, and our tired bodies welcomed a hotel bed that night.
roadtrip 2011: Kootenay and south
Glacier National Park is one place I have wanted to go for some time, but this wasn’t going to be the day for it. It was cloudy and rainy, and the roads were all being repaired, and we ended up driving almost straight through. I will be back though, and the next time I will do it justice. After leaving Glacier we spent the rest of the day spanning Montana. The late day provided us with beautiful sunset skies and vistas, and soon after the sun set we rolled into Mammoth Hot Springs campsite in Yellowstone and prepared for an early morning. At dawn we rose and broke camp. I wanted to get Mammoth hot springs in the dawn light without the crowds that show up later in the day. We got there and things were looking very promising then the sun got a little higher …. and was hidden by clouds. Very disappointing, but we headed on around the grand loop road, stopping by hot springs and other sights and making the best of the poor light. By the afternoon the sky had cleared, and when we reached the Grand Prismatic Spring the light was great. This place is brilliantly colored and surreal, and we had a great time there. From there we headed down to old faithful, then over by Yellowstone Lake, and up to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. After another brilliant sunset we rolled into West Yellowstone and found a hotel room so we could cleanup once more.
roadtrip 2011: Montana and Yellowstone
After Yellowstone we were already a bit road weary, but we still had some miles to make before hitting home. We headed down from West Yellowstone to a primitive campsite I knew outside Zion National Park and settled in. The next day we went in to get a permit for a canyon or 2. We found a long lineup outside the backcountry desk, and it was moving exceptionally slowly. We got a permit for keyhole canyon and headed up to do it. Unfortunately the monsoon season had not yet started and the water in the canyon was very low and smelly. we also met a couple of snakes down there. I had as good a time as ever, but Machelle wasn’t enjoying it as much as I wished she could. We decided that it was time to head on home, so after getting out of our wetsuits and packing up we had a little lunch then hit the road headed west for LA!
Home at last!
Remember that there are many more pictures in the linked galleries then I have shown here, so please head on over and take a look.
Cheers,
Duffy
I’ve got some catching up to do
Well, my last posting was in July and I’ve certainly taken many pictures since then, but I haven’t written. Mea Culpa. Since my last post, and even prior to it I have had many adventures and outings and taken a few photos. I took a roadtrip up the coast to Vancouver, then inland to Banff, down through Glacier and Yellowstone and back to LA, which I will post about at greater length later. I’ve been to a wedding, rappelled down many waterfalls, climbed here and there had a visit from my niece and nephew, taken a trip to Disneyland with my coworkers, and generally participated in my life. At this point I’m not going to post at detail about most of these galleries, but I will list all the new ones here with a bit of info on each. I will detail the road trip in a separate post.
The week of July 16th my niece Brazil and Nephew Esker flew down from Toronto to spend a week at camp Duffy. They swam and hiked and stand up paddleboarded and visited Universal City and played video games and generally had a good time. We took a few pictures of their time here, and so I present them to you now.
A Brazil and Esker Week
On August 10, 2011, the lighting department from Disney Animation took a day trip to Disneyland. Fun was the order of the day and I think we succeeded in reaching our goal. Rides were ridden, meals were had and pictures were taken. Here they are:
Disneyland day trip
I’ve visited a few canyons in the last months, though I haven’t gotten outside as much as I would like. Anyhow, here are a few of them:
Seven Teacups
the Middle Fork of Lytle Creek
Supercloud Canyon
And the wedding:
Andrew and Andrea’s Wedding
In my next post I will detail my road trip. In the meantime I hope you enjoy some of these pictures.
Cheers,
Duffy
A weekend on the Sur
In the spirit of not falling too far behind in my blogs I’m going to get the most recent trip out of the way right now. Over the Independence day weekend the temperature in LA was going to be HOT!! Machelle and I were planning to go climbing but every destination looked too hot or had thunderstorms forecast. Because of this we decided to head up the coast to the area around Big Sur.
The temperature along the coast was great, and some parks which had been closed due to fire damage the last time I was up there were reopened. I had also found an area where I could set up primitive camps off the main highway, so we weren’t worried about the crowds which would be filling all the regular campgrounds along the coast. This part of California is thick with state parks featuring spectacular coastlines and redwood forests so we had plenty of options for activities.
On Saturday morning we packed up and headed north along the 101, fighting heavy traffic every inch of the way. The trip up took twice the time it normally would so once we got there we headed up the road looking for a campsite immediately. We found a beautiful spot at 3000 feet elevation in the mountains overlooking the ocean. The temperature there was much hotter then down by the coast, but reasonable. The only problem was the flies. There were lots of small flies up there, plus a few mosquitoes. We set up the tent as quickly as possible, looked around for a short while, then dove into the tent. We spent a short time killing any flies that came in the tent with us then drifted off to sleep.
Sunday dawned hot and sunny. I rose with the sun and took a few pictures of the area in the dawn light. We struck camp quickly and drove downhill with a cloud of mosquitoes chasing us all the way. Down by the coast in the cool ocean air we found a pullout overlooking the pounding turquoise surf, and had some breakfast. After some food we drove up to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, to look at the McWay Creek Falls which pour onto the beach there. We weren’t quite sure where to head after that so we drove to the main Ranger Station in Big Sur and they pointed us to GarraPata State Park, where we would find spectacular fields of coastal wildflowers, towering headlands and hidden Coastal Redwood forests. We spent the balance of the day here hiking and taking pictures, the drove back south to find a camping spot for the night.
Given the heat and flies at the prettier camps high in the mountains we decided to camp much lower down the road at a large pullout. The pullout itself was very ugly, and not terribly flat, but the view down the valley to the ocean was wonderful and we could hear the stream running near us and the breaking surf in the distance. Also, there were no flies and the temperature couldn’t be beat. A couple of other groups joined us later on as they straggled in, but there was plenty of room.
Once again I rose with the dawn to take a few pictures then we had breakfast, broke camp and headed out for our last half day along the coast. We first drove a short way north to Limekiln State Park. This gem of a park nestles into a canyon with a fair sized stream which tumbles into the ocean. The camp sites here which are in the trees are gorgeous and the trails, while short, are spectacular. with some residual morning mist allowing the sun to create visible beams everywhere we wandered into a fairy land which we had all to ourselves this early. We took our time heading first up the falls trail, then to the limekilns. It is really quite difficult to explain how beautiful it was, and the pictures don’t do it justice. You will all have to go visit it someday yourselves. The fire damage which had closed the park earlier was much in evidence, and the canopy was not as thick as it had been previously, but there was a carpet of brilliant green clover everywhere, and the light filtered through the thin morning mist, creating a soft glow over everything.
Anyhow, we spent the morning there, then drove a short way south to a pullout which gave access to a rocky beach. A few pictures, lunch and a rest later it was time to drive home.
Don’t forget to click through the link below to go to the Gallery at duffyknox.smugmug.com
Big Sur in July
Updated portfolio galleries
After much procrastination I have finally updated my portfolio galleries on smugmug. I added the best pictures from 2010, looked at all the old pictures to see if I liked any of them better now, and reduced each gallery to 25 pictures or less. It was an interesting exercise, and I recommend it. Next I will probably rearrange the galleries to reduce the number of them, but that is work for another day. In the mean time here are the updated galleries, please click through to them and let me know what you think. Also I realize some of you may not know that if you would like prints of any of the pictures you can order them through smugmug. Just look for the links at the top of the galleries.
Cheers,
Duffy
Trees and flowers
Natural Details
Man Made Details
Leaves
Deserts
Colour Landscapes
Colour Humanscapes
Black and White Landscapes
Black and White Humanscapes
Architectural Details
Zen
Vignettes
Water and Ice
Animals
Adventure
Chicago June 2011
I’m just testing out posting from my smugmug site to see how it works.
This weekend I went to Chicago to visit Machelle while she was there for 2 weeks working. I’ve never visited the city before, so its wealth of beautiful buildings was all new to me. We took the architecture Society’s cruise along the river and saw all the old and new buildings there. We visited Millenium Park and walked under the bean. We visited the Art Institute, and had lunch in the funky restaurant there. We saw the Moody Blues in concert at a beautiful outdoor venue. We rode the trains, and walked under the el, we had a drink in the Hancock Building and wandered the streets. All in all it was a total blast and now I can say I have visited chicago. Anyhow, enjoy the pictures.
The house of the departed
This weekend I decided I needed to get out to take some pictures. To help with this I googled “places to take photographs in Los Angeles”. One of the resulting links suggested checking out the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Since I had never even seen this place it sounded interesting to me, so after a nice brunch I headed over with Susan joining me out of curiosity.
This is an interesting place, part regular cemetery, part huge filing cabinet for the departed. There is so much marble at this place it should be in rome. As far as movie star graves go the main ones of note are a huge one for Douglas Fairbanks and Douglas Fairbanks jr., and much more modest ones for Johnny Ramone, Fay Wray, Rudolph Valentino, and around 10 or so more that we didn’t find. The main areas of interest for me weren’t these, but the huge mausoleums with miles of hallways filled with tombs of all sizes and persuasions. There is comfortable furniture in some of these for visiting relatives and some great stained glass as well. The mausoleums seem to be constantly growing and we saw a few under construction. Wandering these hallways and postulating relationships and lives for the people we found therein was fascinating, and I even got a few good pictures out of it.
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
(don’t forget to click through to see the full gallery since that is the actual point of this blog)
my best 10 pictures of 2011??
This post will be a little longer then usual. Rather then just posting the top 10 images (which I will get to) I would like to discuss the process of figuring out which ones are actually the best.
The process is a difficult one. Try as you can to be an unbiased editor you have a relationship with the pictures on a very visceral level. To counteract this I take the editing process to a certain point and then solicit outside opinions. Using those opinions as well as my gut feelings I winnow the pictures down to the desired number.
This year what I did was put all the pictures I posted to my site this year into a collection in lightroom, then worked to get them down to a reasonable number. Doing this it went from 1264 posted pictures for the year to a collection of the 84 best pictures from the entire year.
You can look at the top 84 here: My top pictures of 2011
There are many worthy pictures here which did not survive the next edit for one reason or another, and I might come back to these in the future and find that I prefer some of them to the ones I actually picked. Time will tell.
Anyhow, from here I walked around with my computer to anyone I could actually get to look at the pictures and asked for their favorite ones. I didn’t give them a particular number to choose, just asked for their first reactions. Some people choose many, some few, but after the dust had settled I had my top 25 pictures.
You can see the top 25 here: My top 25 pictures of 2011
I had to make some editorial decisions here, as the votes did not nicely round up to 25 candidates. I added a couple I wanted in and removed one:
which I felt was just sort of eye candy because of the colors and didn’t represent my best efforts.
Anyhow, after getting it down to the top 25 I figured the number was small enough to approach the world at large for input, so I posted to facebook and my blog with links to the pictures and asked for input. The response was useful and I let it sit for a couple of days until most of the activity had settled down then collated the numbers.
In the end this came down to 11 pictures, and I decided to let that number stand and posted the images here:
my top 11 pictures of 2011 as decided by popular vote
Now these are all great images, but they are not necessarily what I would have come up with if left to my own devices so I decided to add my own top 10 images and try to explain why I had picked these ones. I put my picks into the following gallery:
my top 10 pictures of 2011
As you can see, 5 of them are the same, but 5 are not and I will try to explain why.
This one was included in both collections, and I’m not sure I can really decide why. I suspect it has something to do with examining the beauty and interest in the mundane. It may be because it tells a story of some sort. All I know is as soon as I took the pictures I knew it was going to be a keeper.
This one is also in both, but it seems more obvious to me why. It is a strong composition which tells an interesting story with people and pretty colours in it as well. It is also somewhat abstract. Where is it? where is the light coming from? the water? Who are these people? It is just a fun picture.
This one, is also in both lists, is a little harder to figure out. What makes it tick? The composition, with the highlights edging the ice makes the image very clean and clear, but at first glance it might not be enirely obvious what is going on in the picture, so you take another look. The subtle colours in the water are pleasant and draw you in, but they are not strong enough to distract from the textures and shapes. Or maybe it just looks cool.
The fourth image included in both lists is obvious enough. The water droplets catching the sunset light look like sparks in a forge, but the contrast between warm and cold, sparks and water is fun. The picture also has plenty of motion, even though the details of the water have been smoothed out.
This is the last image included in both lists. It seems to me that the image contains enough interesting bits to keep the eye moving and the mind engaged. Where is this, who is it. why are they there, what are they doing. What are the rocks in the foreground. Where is the light coming from …. you get the idea.
This is the first of my own choices. I have had a string visceral reaction to this picture from the first time I took it, and processed it to this final image. To me it is very otherworldly, and the contrast between the hard ice and rocks of the foreground and the soft mist and thundering water in the background is wonderful. I love the way light plays on the textures, and leads you from the dark rock and bright ice to the soft greys and whites of the waterfall. It reminds me of our hike up the mist trail in Yosemite, and the wonderful time we had there as well.
This picture of Mono Lake is so different from the usual image you get there, and the colours are both unexpected and exciting. There are no tufas or sierra mountains rising in the background, but I know they are there int he back of my mind. The image is very abstract, and I can almost feel the motion of the water. It makes me feel peaceful.
This image in the spirit of Ansel Adams is one of the best formal landscapes I have done, but I’m not sure why. I find it captures my eye and my mind whenever I see it. It also brings back memories of the Canadian Rockies, but I’m sure that isn’t affecting my judgement … is it?
This picture just infuses me with youthful energy and exuberance. It also reminds me that serendipity has a huge part in photography. I had mistakenly left my camera on a high ISO, so a number of pictures were completely blown out, but in attempting to bring back detail I came up with this otherworldy bright day at the beach. wonderful
The last of my chosen images is in Yellowstone, but it isn’t of the flashy colourful geysers or hot springs, there are no mud pits or buffalo, its just a dead tree in front of a barren valley with some forest and clouds int he background. What pleases me about this image is the wonderful lighting on the dead tree, the hard light from the sun on one side, the bounce light from the valley floor on the right, and the core shadow facing me. The clouds looking like an exploding volcano int he back ground, and the dark sky, giving the impression of an infrared image and giving contrast to the tree all serve to make this a very strong composition in my opinion. It also looks like something from a star trek episode to me.
Anyhow, there are my pictures and the explanation as to why I picked them. If you have time please check out the other pictures that might have made it to this point here: top pictures of 2011 and leave a comment or an email saying which ones you would have chosen.
Have a wonderful new year one and all
All my love,
Duffy