Good-Bye-Rain
I finally got out tonight….showed up to ‘The Furrows’ only to find that the bottom 2/3 of one of my tripod legs has disappeared. I’m guessing it fell off in the Tahoe region somewhere…seeing as that was the last place I used the thing. Really I have no idea…it’s confusing. Then again, knowing ME and my relationship with tripods…nothing shocks me anymore.
I was still going to shoot…broken tripod or not.
I was supposed to meet my friend Adam there….but he never made it…instead there was some large dude with a cast on his foot and a crazy look in his eye. He also had a pooch with him that wouldn’t stop barking. The guy was trying to converse with me…but I couldn’t hear him because he chose to talk only on the times when cars drove past, drowning out his words. I heard something about fishing, and something else about a good spot to photograph where had gotten some killer shots. It was probably really interesting…had I been able to hear it.
Upon reaching The Furrows I noticed that my friend and local photographer Jim Arnold WAS there shooting too…the rain has gotten us all in a mood to get out….and we only have a few spots close at hand…
Jim was able to witness firsthand how my oldest son tortured me with rocks and debris. I deal with this all the time. Chasing kids out of my frame…dealing with them as they throw projectiles at my already malfunctioning tripod. Then run off again to get in my frame. My kids make photography fun, but much more difficult. I think Jim gave up….or was afraid he’d be pelted by my kid.
Don’t worry Jim…they only bite the hand that feeds them.
Regardless of the fact there was at least a hundred yards of OTHER places Brenden could’ve thrown things…he chose to throw them at me. It’s awesome being a parent.
Luckily I’m well trained in the art of avoidance and can focus on the task at hand…While the sunset wasn’t amazing…it certainly helped bring me out of the funk I’d been in for the past 2 weeks since returning from Utah and Arizona.
On our way out of the furrows…the crazy guy with the cast drove by and yelled something at me….but I couldn’t hear…his crappy car was too loud.
Canon 5D 17-40
Singh Ray Reverse Grad Filter
Gitzo Tripod and ballhead
Rock
Want to head to Yosemite this March for some workshop and crockpot madness?
Spaces are filling
www.apertureacademy.com
250th fan gets a pirze.
www.facebook.com/pages/Redding-CA/Brian-Rueb-Photography/...
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Uploaded on Dec 13, 2009
58 comments
Under-the-Crimson-Sea
I’ve been busy planning the Iceland Project…which is as difficult as anything I’ve ever researched in my life. I do typically in the neighborhood of 100 hours of research for a week long trip. Planning 10 weeks is daunting to say the least. I set up a route, only to find that it’s not passable the times I had it planned. I can’t spell, let alone pronounce the names of any of the places I’m visiting, which naturally brings about a whole set if issues. Normally I have a really good idea of what to expect from a place when I arrive….even with all the research I’m throwing into this…there’ll be days where I’m ‘winging’ it.
Whenever I head out I have a primary plan, a secondary plan, and a last resort.
A basic scenario looks like this;
Today I’m shooting (THIS LOCATION). If something throws that off I’m photographing (THIS LOCATION). If there is nothing I can do in the field…I’m fine with just sitting (IN THIS LOCATION) and working on (THIS PROJECT). I need to have something written down…so if I finish one item on the ‘must see’ list, then I can move on to another, and visually recalculate the schedule…I don’t want to miss something.
Figuring this out for my entire 65 day trip is difficult. I have no idea what the weather will be like…even a little. Iceland’s weather is known for being unpredictable…so trying to gauge how long I will need to spend at any location is a mystery. I may get images I like in three hours…or the wind may blow snow on me with 50mph for days in a row. I won’t know until I get there.
Throw into this whole mix that I’m reading as much as I can on the country….which gets me thinking, which gets me adding new areas or experiences to my itinerary….
…which sends me back to the planning stage again.
The only thing I do know at this point is I’m going…and I’ll be there for 65 days.
Yosemite workshop in March….spaces are filling.
www.apertureacademy.com
Sign up for the mailing list to find out more about the new website (I promise...it IS coming soon…the store just had some bugs to be worked out)
www.brianruebphotography.com
Here’s another shot from Antelope Canyon. One great thing about visiting after a rain is that it washes away the bird doodie…and save you the time from cloning it out later.
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Uploaded on Dec 11, 2009
30 comments
Zion-Crack
I think everyone who does the Subway hike in Zion NP does crack while on the hike. Some do crack on the way in. Some on the return. Some do it for only a little while...some I think do it longer than necessary.
I did crack too. On the way in.
Workshops in February are all full for the Aperture Academy. Thanks SO much for all your support. Stephen, and I appreciate it a great deal, as does the rest of the staff there. 2010 will be a great year.
www.apertureacademy.com
We'll have a crack workshop in 2011.
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Uploaded on Dec 10, 2009
40 comments
Antelope-Hues
To finish off our trip to Utah Rob and I hit Vegas to grab a buffet. I’d been looking at buffet reviews online during the outlandish amount of time we spent in the coffee shop over the past week. We decided to make our move on one just outside of downtown Vegas and the bustle of the strip. Vegas is huge…by the time we’d gotten on the phone with the buffet place to get directions…we were way off where we needed to be. Rather than try and navigate the Vegas freeway system, which was/is in the midst of major construction we opted to pick another buffet from the list.
The winner was the Mirage….primarily because we could see it close by.
To say we ate a lot is an understatement. Rob has a video of me recapping everything I ate during the experience. It was a lot of food…most of it was very good. I made sure to eat my weight in crab and shrimp…as well as finishing off the whole ordeal with two big bowls of gelato….and toppings
I was full.
Painfully full.
Rather than immediately getting in the car and driving to Death Valley….we decided to shoot the strip and look at the Peter Lik Gallery….which was located in Mandalay Bay….We could see Mandalay Bay from the Mirage…we decided to make a little walk.
2 hours later…we arrived.
Vegas deceives you with distances. While you get a good visual of another casino on the strip…you have no idea that it’s really 2 mile walk to get there. It’s not an easy walk either. The casinos have purposely set up the sidewalk system so that in order to continue down the strip…you must walk through certain casinos…which ALWAYS ends up being a maze of confusion before you finally get back out to the strip…if indeed you’re even still headed the right direction when you do. I can’t tell you how many times we were foiled by this setup…and we were sober. I watched one poor drunk guy cursing and wandering aimlessly in one of these traps. I’m convinced he’s still lost somewhere in Excalibur.
I liked some of the Peter Lik gallery…some I wasn’t crazy about. I think mostly I was just really full of buffet…and tired of walking...so my artistic appreciation filter was a bit off. I’ll say this, the guy is a marketing genius to be able to get to the point he’s at now. Rob asked the guy working the desk which image was the best selling…it was a shot of Mossbrae Falls in Dunsmuir.
Crazy.
The nice thing about our walk to Mandalay Bay was that we were able to repeat it again on the way back to the car….funny how we got lost AGAIN on the way back…in completely different spots than we had on the way there.
I hate you Vegas.
The best part of the whole walk (there or back) was watching the fountains at the Bellagio do their dance. I don’t think I had ever seen them before…or wasn’t paying attention if I had. It was really very cool…and I almost wished I had taken the camera with me.
Driving OUT of Vegas is as confusing as driving IN Vegas. Turns out, they really would rather you didn’t leave. I’m convinced that’s how the motto; ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ originated…you never get out to share it with anyone.
It took forever to finally get on the road towards Death Valley. Just in time for my buffet to decide it was no longer happy being in my belly. Turns out that what happens in a Vegas buffet doesn’t stay in Vegas either….to make a long story short, there is a very humiliated bush out in the Nevadan desert somewhere.
We made only one other stop before arriving in Death Valley, an out of the way casino/ RV place. When Rob and I walked in the door the population of the building doubled. (The other two were employees) They still had on dance music, and a disco-ball spinning.
I thought it would’ve been fun to have an spontaneous dance battle…but I was tired, and my stomach wasn’t entirely right…so we opted to keep our time brief, and buy only snacks.
It was after 2am when we arrived in Death Valley…under a cloudless desert sky we set up Rob’s tent in the Furnace Creek campground….sometime later that morning the coyotes howled their disapproval that we did not bring a crock pot for them.
Sunrise was dull. We chose to explore the Badwater area for the morning…but it wouldn’t have mattered where we shot…the sky just wasn’t cooperating. We took a few shots anyway before making the long drive north hoping we could finish with a bang in Lake Tahoe.
This is another shot from Antelope Canyon…this section of the canyon was lit beautifully, and I really liked the color palette the camera picked up.
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Uploaded on Dec 8, 2009
56 comments
Guardian-of-the-Narrows
Here's another one from the narrows.
Enjoy.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Aperture Academy on Saturday...it was great seeing so many familiar faces and to meet so many new folks.
Workshops and class gift certificates are available now just in time for the holidays!
www.apertureacademy.com
look at the blog to see photos of the event!
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Uploaded on Dec 7, 2009
74 comments
