DO Report:After some logistical issues, we decided to shoot sunrise from
Little Stony Point instead of Minnewaska.
First light:
Experimenting with high-key lighting:
GPS trace of the hike:
(Yes, we circled the point by mistake. Let's see you find an unmarked trail in the pitch darkness
)
After sunrise (and warming up - what is it about PhotoDOs and freezing weather
?) we headed out to Minnewaska, a bit over an hour away. Right before the park, we stopped in the parking lot for Mohonk Preserve, which was quite empty and made a great spot to daven shachris.
Experimenting with some crazy angles in the parking lot:
It was both the best and worst time to be at Minnewaska. Fall foliage was at peak, but unfortunately so were the gawkers. There were park workers on the road directing traffic in and out of the park, and all the parking lots were full. Luckily, we were directed to one of the last spots in an overflow lot. The weather was pretty cooperative as well - mostly cloudy, which is very good for foliage photography. Not the very best, but still good enough. The temprature on the other hand... The forecast had called for mid-40s. You wish - it was in the 30s and windy all day, so we were quite freezing.
We loaded up our packs, and headed into the park. Once we got off the main path around the lake, it was easy to lose the crowds and shoot.
One of the things I pointed out, was for everyone to look for a splash of color among either a neutral or contrasting background - like so:
At one point I came across this interesting-looking scene on a hill and started working it to get a good picture. I positioned the camera here and there, moved the red leaf this way and that, but wasn't really happy with what I was getting:
As I'm doing all this, 1050BU was climbing the hill after a different picture, when he dislodged a big old branch. It came tumbling down, and came to rest right in my scene. Bingo! Just what I needed:
A minute or two later, the sun popped out for a moment:
I'm still not sure which version I like best (I like the soft light on the first one better, but the second one is more balanced compositionally), but this picture ended up being on of my favorites from the day. This goes to show how a small change could take a picture from boring to amazing.
Learning how to create sunstars:
Some other scenes:
This scene was incredibly hard to execute, as I wanted to capture the little tendrils growing out of the moss. It took ten minutes and a couple of lenses, but in the end I was able to pull it off with my 24-70 lens (set to 44mm) and a single 12mm extension tube:
We then turned away from the lake and headed to a part of the park known as the Meadow:
This lone branch caught my eye:
I straggled behind a bit shooting it, only too find that everyone is gone. I followed a bend in the path for a bit, when I saw this:
Everyone was standing around this simply incredible specimen of a tree and shooting it. Its colors were wonderful, progressing from bright red to orange to yellow in a perfect rainbow of color. The green in the background just added to the perfection:
We spend a good chunk of time shooting this tree from every conceivable angle. This is what you had to do in order to get the entire tree in the picture:
Unfortunately, no one had thought of setting up a GoPro pointed at us; these pictures don't even begin to tell the story of the incredible fun we had shooting this. Just try to picture five incredible hyper adults (supposedly
) standing around a beautiful tree taking pictures. Suddenly there's a break in the clouds and the sun appears. Everyone instantly drops to the ground, piled on top of each other, fighting to get the perfect spot. Leaves flying all over, people using each other as tripods, technical questions and suggestions being shouted by five different people. 30 seconds later the clouds are back, and we appear to all the world as normal people
.
Two things I learnt: 1050BU's stomach makes a very convenient (if unsteady
tripod) and that no matter where I put them, my feet will be in somebody's picture.
(BTW the vertical picture of the tree above was taken during these crazy few seconds.)
We also discovered that this tree makes for great baby pictures (don't ask
)
After a while we looped around and headed back in the direction of the lake.
Right before the quiet meadow path met up with the busier lake loop path we stopped for lunch. Some of us had wraps with peanut butter but
no jelly, and some of us had Mentos and nothing else. While we were eating, AJK regaled us with incredible inside tips on ----... Let's just say that what is said at a PhotoDO stays at a PhotoDO
. The only thing I'll say here is that he taught us an incredible method of taking the pain out of something many of us DDFers have a very hard time accomplishing successfully. Basically it all depends on your starting position
.
Back on the lake loop path, we headed down a couple of switchbacks to the tip of the lake, where I took some long-exposure pictures that I really hate. Then it was hiking back up the other side, to our sunset spot. At this point it was around two hours before scheduled sunset, but we were completely beat - we had walked between 4 and 5 miles at that point, and were close to a mile from the car. We decided to sit down at one of the picnic tables to relax for a while.
We had been there for a couple of minutes when out of nowhere we were in a snowstorm. A minute earlier the sun had been shining; now the snow was coming down hard and fast, moving horizontally in the howling wind. Before we had time to realize what was happening, it stopped and the sly was blue again. This then happened twice more over the next hour - crazy snow for a minute or two and then the weather returning to beautiful again. I've never seen weather like this, but luckily nothing stuck to the ground, or our sunset location would have been cooked.
The sunset spot I had chosen was on the eastern side of the lake, atop a beautiful white cliff. The plan was to find a way to clamber down around 30 feet or so to a certain ledge. This ledge is about 10 feet wide and has a sheer drop of about 150 feet down to the lake (hence this being impossible if there is slippery snow on the ground). About an hour before sunset, whYME and I set out to find a climbing route down. It didn't take too long for us to find a relatively easy, albeit circuitous, route, and I climbed back up to fetch the others.
Of course as soon as I was down again I remembered a certain picture I wanted to take from the top, so back up I climbed. I didn't get the picture I wanted in the end (a couple had chosen the busiest day of the year to hold an engagement photo shoot, hogging the very spot I wanted for a terribly long time), but I did get a couple of shots of the guys in the ledge waiting for sunset:
We were all setup and waiting, when - you guessed it - the clouds came in. It didn't take long and we were standing in this:
A minute later is was over, but this time the clouds stayed
... Once more we'd get snow, but eventually we had nice sunset light. I had warned everyone to be ready and prepared, since if we do end up getting light it likely won't last too long (and DEFINITELY less than Shemona Esra
) - and boy was I right. This nice light lasted for under 10 seconds:
After a while it became clear that there isn't going to be a spectacular sunset tonight, even though there
was a hint of orange in the sky. Considering that we had nearly a mile's hike back to the car, we decided to call it a day and head back and thaw out.
One last shot:
And home we went.
GPS trace of Minnewaska. The red line is the actual trace, and the yellow one is my approximation of the second half, as my battery had died:
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