Going to Iceland? Here are some interesting experiences for the photographer or traveller.

This was a memorable trip. Iceland offer a variety and beauty of landscapes that is simply mind-blowing. Landscapes are expansive horizontally while having a vigorous mountainous background generously sprinkled with waterfalls. The colors of the grass and moss are vivid, maybe because the contrast against black sand or dark volcanic rocks and materials. For the photographer this is as close to heaven as it is possible on earth. You can judge by looking at my Iceland Gallery.

The country is basically a bunch of volcanoes coming from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean  in the middle of the Northern part. Being so north in latitude means lots of snow that gets compacted into glaciers which happen to be on top of volcanoes. When they erupt the lava and materials go through the ice and crystallize by the sudden cooling creating a dust that is like sandpaper. Sometimes the eruption happens beneath the glacier, melting the ice until the water has to go somewhere and when it does, it sweeps away anything it finds in its path. 

Iceland is the youngest land on earth; new land is created every time there is a volcanic eruption.

Extensive areas are covered by black materials, ash, lava rocks, volcanic materials and their resulting black sand. No wonder why Hollywood has taken notice and is filming more and more in Iceland.

Prometheus, the movie that is NOT supposed to be Aliens 1 was filmed there. Same for Batman Begins, Die Another Day and the upcoming Ben Stiller movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” to be released next year.  It is like being in a different planet that is inhospitable yet beautiful.

One thing that would be obvious to North Americans is the almost complete lack of advertisement and other signs. Your sight can be filled with the landscape and its weird beauty without being interrupted by some view of the latest burger combo deal. This is great for the photographer or even the normal traveller. I hope that the Icelandic government maintains the landscapes without those visually polluting annoyances. The last think anyone wants are mechanical yellow arches on top of a glacier. BTW, although Icelanders do eat lots of burgers, hot dogs and other North American foods, it is hard to find the typical fast food chains there.

I spent 8 days there and drove over 2100 km of driving. The map below shows the main route with the green thingies showing the nightly stops or destinations, the orangy ones shows the clusters of my geotagged photographs.

So why Iceland?

Well, there is no other place in the planet that I am aware of that you can drive the same day into a inactive volcano caldera, see beautiful waterfalls, drive by several glaciers, lava fields park your car then, walk to them. There is no other place where you can be on a glacier in the morning and taking a natural geothermal bath in the afternoon, where you can see geysers, black beaches and fiords all at driving range. If you like nature, studied geology, geography or just appreciate the wonders of nature, then you should visit Iceland. You will not regret it. You will be rewarded with some of the most spectacular landscapes on earth, all at your reach in just few days. If you know about some other place like this, please let me know because I want to see it.

Tips For the Photographer enthusiast

Let’s start with the equipment, here is what I took and recommend (see included photo) :

1. A shower cap to cover your camera when rains. Trust me, at certain point you WILL need it. I used plastic bag as substitute, because I did not read a post like this one (see the photo below). Alternative you can purchase a off-the-shelf one for few dozen dollars.
2. Tripod to make your shots sharp.
3. ND filter (8X) to produce the silky texture of waterfalls.
4. CP Filter to enrich the colors (I never used it though)
5. UV Filter to minimize the haze normally produced with distance
6. Additional battery or batteries. The last thing you want is to run out of them after hiking few km to get close to a glacier, waterfall or volcano
7. Layers of clothing, including a wind-breaking-water-proof-coat. Trust me, eventually you will get wet. This tip do not apply to Canadians, we know how to dress for cold weather.
8. GPS Tracker to geotag your photos and to get a track log of your routes.
9. Panoramic head if you have it and if not, make one. The manual method is not always good enough.
10. A macro lens. The small berries and colorful flowers that grow along the moss, moraines and black soils are beautiful and unique. Anybody, can easily spend hours capturing the different naturally occurring flower bouquets. You entire Iceland photo gallery can be of just this kind.
11. Warm hat or toque, gloves and SCARF!!!
12. A notebook and additional backup drive to backup your photos.
13. The normal stuff e.g. battery charger, blower, cables, triggers,etc.

The weather…..

Weather in Iceland is moody and whimsical, if you get good light shoot as soon as you can, it may last seconds, literally. My most sour experience with this was at Jokulsarlon, in our way back to Reykjavik, we stopped there around 9:00 am, the sun was just rising, the light was warm and oblique producing long shadows, there was no wind and therefore the lagoon acted as a mirror for perfect reflections. When I saw it, I grabbed my camera and ran, I took about 3 exposures and that was it! The sun was gone! I waited for about an hour, it was teasing all those unhappy people with cameras that were waiting. 

It finally gave us few more seconds but now with wind, the perfect mirror was gone. So, whenever you get the opportunity, take it. DO NOT think that you may have another better time. It could easily turn for worse. What is worse than poor light? Rain. 

When rains, you lose all visibility, the tall mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, etc all disappear. Rain is also normally accompanied by wind which makes it almost impossible for photography. 

Ok, enough for today, next week… Icelandic quirks and oddities. Stay tuned.

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Death Valley National Park. My Experience

As soon as I decided to go to Yosemite National Park, I knew that I had to somehow include Death Valley in the same trip. Getting to Death Valley is a lot easier from Las Vegas but we were flying to Los Angeles so it had to be the other way around. 

Death Valley National Park is the US largest outside Alaska, the Valley itself is narrow and surrounded by the Amargosa, Black Mountains and Panamint Ranges, these mountains are completely bare with no vegetation whatsoever which exposes their colorful rocks. Within Death Valley you will find very diverse landscapes from sand dunes, pure salt basins, badlands and even a full blown resort with golf course included at Furnace Creek.

Consider these before you go

In my humble opinion this should be a minimum two-days trip, there is a lot to see and explore and distances are long even by car. 

This place is the hottest in North America, if you read the Park’s recommendations for safety and travel you will get scared, I know because we did. Bring a gallon of water per person per day, don’t do this, don’t do that, rattle snakes, cell phone does not work, etc. They should say plainly that if you are coming in a van, car or vehicle with AC you will be more than ok and that there is really no need to carry a swimming pool full of water with you. That would have been nice to know. However, I supposed that there are plenty of the adventurous type out there and if you get lost without water, it won’t be fun.
 
I strongly suggest downloading the map from the Park’s site so that you plan your trip in advance, especially, if you are planning to be there for only one day. Obtaining accommodation here is very difficult, so if you want to stay there in a bed with AC (highly, strongly, super recommended), make your reservation way in advance. We stayed in Lone Pine which is 2 1/2 hrs away at German speed.

Photographing

For the photographer, this place is amazing, it is bare, desolated, very hot but also very colorful. It is anything but boring. Expect NO clouds, sky will be very blue, sun will be strong and shadows harsh. Using a polarizer may be good idea to enrich the color. Also, an UV filter would get rid of some of the haze in the air, that being said, I did not use one because I wanted the contrast between the deep blue of the background Mountains and the foreground rocks or landscape. See at right. 

Photographing speaking, your main problem here will be to provide sense of scale. Remember, you will have no trees, cows, houses or anything to give the viewer of your photos a reference, so the challenge is to wait for some whack-job to walk through the mountains at 45-48 Celcius to embellish your capture. Not to worry, they are plenty of those around, just be patient. I have similar photos with and without people and they do make a difference.   If you have some panoramic gear, make sure to take it with you, it will be worthwhile the inconvenience. 

In terms of lenses, I used only my 70-200 mm and my 17-85 mm, now this is not a place where you want to be changing your lenses a lot, there is lots of dust and sand (I know it sounds strange but the desert is like that)

Best Places

I did not go to the Racetrack which is where you can find those stones with a mysterious track behind them (nobody really knows how this happens), it is really far away and we were worried that the 16 gallons of water we carried were not going to be enough, so we cut the trip there. This is the main reason why I think it should be a two days trip, if you are going all the way there, may as well do it. It will also give you a couple of times to shoot at dawn and sunset where you will be able to get the best light.
 
We took the 190 from Lone Pine all the way to Stovepipe Wells village (photo at left), right there you will find the Mesquite Sand Dunes which are fantastic (see photo at top right). I also regret not spending more time there; it is difficult when your kids are reminding you that it is already about 40 Celsius and only 8:00 am. 

Another good place is the Golden canyon which you can see in the photo at top left. It is very hot but absolutely gorgeous.
 
The next best place is Badwater basin, this is a great experience, walking over pure salt is not something you do very often (at right). The extension of the basin is absolutely huge and the fact that is white against the black mountains makes it quite beautiful, see at right (again without the people walking it would have been very difficult to get a sense of scale). The basing as flat as it gets, I found it very difficult to come up with a creative way to showcase the landscape, so I settle for some family photos bragging about our descending to the lowest point in North America.
 
My absolutely favorite spot was Zabriskie Point, right after Furnace Creek Resort. You get a superb view of these golden badlands which are absolutely beautiful . I did not know about this in advance so I did not carry my panoramic gear with me. Basically, I had to wing it, this panorama was from handheld photos. 
This is by far my favorite photo from Death Valley and it will make it on canvas to some wall of my house.







Dante’s View. At 5,475 ft (1,802 m) this is one of the highest places where you can drive to in Death Valley. The view is spectacular and definitely worth the loop. You will see the Badwater basin just below you and the length of the valley.

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Yosemite National Park. My Experiences.

The beauty of this landscape can never be described or captured in photos. In my humble opinion Ansel Adams who did more than anybody else to get this place noticed could not do it. I have seen many photos of the so called Tunnel View, which is the view you get right when you come out of the route 41 tunnel coming from Mariposa Grove, however, none has been able to capture the grandeur and beauty of the actual view. I am actually guilty of this too, see here at right … well, this is not going to prepare you for the real thing. I can confidently predict that your jaw will drop when you see this view with your own eyes.

This will easily explain why is so difficult to find accommodation in Yosemite or even the supporting towns like Mariposa or Oakhurst. Google estimate the global searches for hotels in Yosemite at about 226 million per month. In a nutshell, if you want to sleep in a bed make your reservation way in advanced. We made ours about 4 months before and we could not find anything within Yosemite or Mariposa. So we settle for Oakhurst, which turned out to be best, because it is closer to Mariposa Grove than if you are coming from Mariposa. Mariposa Grove is where the Giant Sequoias are and they are a must see if you are going to Yosemite.

The Dilemma. Early and clear or Later and overcrowded


Nobody like crowds, well, this place is crowded, you will hear just about all languages you can recognize and many other that will leave you wondering. Yosemite Valley is in a remote place, that doesn’t stop millions to get there, smart people who want to avoid the hordes get real early to avoid them, photographers do it because early light is warm. So if you are there early, this is what you get, (see at right) the waterfall is hidden by shadows and no HDR will save it. HDR cannot produce details when there is no detail. So, either you settle for this or you must fight your way through the hordes and get the one shown above after 1:00 pm or so. The best time will definitely be late in the afternoon ( I was not there so I have no examples). But I hope that this help you to plan your trip there. If you enjoy photography and want to have an idea of what you are going to see, follow this link Yosemite, Death Valley and other California Photos. 

Glacier and Washburn Point
This is the ultimate lookout place in the Park for an almost aerial view, you will get an undisturbed view of the valley below you, the Half Dome and Yosemite falls all before you in one panoramic view, however, in my humble opinion the Washburn vista point provides a more spectacular view than from Glacier point, maybe because it also less viewed in photos or magazines. When I was there, few guys were admiring the valley as you can see below, I would not dare to do this, but hey that`s the stuff you do when you are very young and you believe to have some superman DNA in you.

In case you did not know, you can actually drive all the way up there. Some other climbing and hiking types enjoy the breathing and puffing, but that's not definitely for me. I took my van loaded with kids, wife and all our belongings all the way up. Pretty impressive feat to maintain those roads as good as they are. If you are going to Yosemite, DO NOT miss this view point, you can thank me later by 'like' this post or buying one of my photos. Have fun!

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A California loop produces over 1500 photos…

Okay, not all of them are amazing but the trip certainly was. You can easily shoot the 1,500 photos mentioned just in Yosemite National Park. I saw a few people who probably did that. When I look back on my loop I realize that I should have probably shot 4500. California has a variety of landscapes, more than any other region I have visited in my life. Our 1250 miles or 2011 km loop included

• Los Angeles
• Route 1 from LA to Monterrey
• Monterrey to Oakhurst which is outside Yosemite National Park
• Yosemite National Park, including Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley
• The Tioga Pass all the way to Lee Vining
• Bodie Ghost Town and Mono Lake
• Route 395 to Lone Pine, the closest town to Death Valley National Park
• Death Valley
• Route 190 to Death Valley junction to Barstow
• Barstow to LA

This is a long distance, however, it covers only a portion of Central California roughly a 1/3 or a ¼ of it. In this small section, we went through rocky, mountainous, dry coastal landscapes, beautiful sandy beaches, hilly meadows with grass and spotted trees, lush forests in granite rocky mountains with giant trees including sequoias, pines,etc., gorgeous valleys with fertile meadows bathed by rivers surrounded by waterfalls and granite mountains, snow peaked mountains, with gorgeous blue, pristine water lakes, extremely salty lakes with precipitating formations, desert dunes, deserted planes, the driest, lowest, hottest and most desolated landscape in North America,, beautiful golden badlands, mountains and hills with colorful exposed minerals, etc. We went from over 9500 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountains ,near Lee Vining, to –282 feet in Badwater basin, Death Valley.
In this regard, California is a dreamland for the nature admirer, the photographer or even just the family. The state has carefully built `Vista Points` along their highways. Not just around the world famous Route 1 or Yosemite National Park, but almost anywhere you go. This allows everyone to travel safely and at your own pace and admire California’s beauty. I am working now feverishly on stitching panoramas, cropping and some other post-production tasks. I will soon be publishing some photos here, Flickr and in my Galleries. You can now follow me on Twitter - if you want to be notified right away when it happens.

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Taking photographs in the Alhambra–Best Places

Patio de los Arrayanes.This is quintessential Arabic architecture, the long and quiet perfectly rectangular pond gives you the same sense of purity and peace that gave the Nasrid Kings and their visitors. This is a busy place, every person who visit’s the Alhambra wants THEIR (that includes me as well) photo taken there. I if you really want to take those classic shots of the Patio of the Arrayanes with no people at all, all you need is patience, lots of it though. Let the mobs of tourists pass and eventually there will be few seconds when you will be able to snap it. An alternative is to shoot the pond reflection of the Nasrid Palace or ever the opposite side with the Palace of Charles V towering behind the doors. The day I went was raining and miserable so even when I planned this shot I could not take it. I settled for a photo with some people in it as you can see.

Bridge above the Patio de los Cypresses or Patio de la Reja. This is a connecting bridge built by the Spanish Kings after retaking the City from the the Moors in 1492. It joins the Tower of Comares with the rooms of the Emperor. It has two levels, both offering spectacular views of Albayzin, Sacromonte, Cordova Palace and the areas next to the River Darro. See here

La Alcazaba’s towers. They offer spectacular views of the Nasrid Palaces, its towers, Albayzin, Charles V Palace and Generalife. In addition to Albayzin and the Plazas next to the River. These ARE NOT to be missed under any circumstance. These will be unforgettable views. 

Tower de La Vela will give you a panoramic view of the city of Granada, you can easily snap the Cathedral and Royal Chapel, San Jeronimo Monastery and Church, Realejo neighborhood, main avenues of the City  and Plaza Nueva. These are fantastic views, so even if your feet and legs hurt by now do not miss them.Use your super zoom to frame something like this (at right)

Courtyard of the Partal and its gardens. Same strategy as the Courtyard of Arreyanes, use patience and you will be rewarded. There are 3 small windows with a view of Albayzin, I thought it was a great photo, it takes you to the times when the Sultan and his wives could look through these to see the city alive. 

Generalife new gardens are simply amazing and quite different from the grandeur of Louis XIV’s Versailles  or Frederick the Great’s Sanssouci which are so XVI century. The Moors combined lush vegetation, water, canals, marble fountains and symmetry to achieve unparalleled charm. I was fortunate to go in November so lots of the trees where turning yellow and many plants with leafs that look like maple turned red. On the flip side though, it is rainy season and it was cold and raining. I could not fully enjoy the time to think about compositions with water falling over me and my equipment. However, plan to spend some time here and delight yourself with the beauty of these magical gardens.

The highlight though is the Patio de la Acequia, a beautifully arranged patio with the classic Arabic rectangular pond being irrigated by 2 rows of water springs and surrounded by beautiful and colorful flowers. This easily explains why the Sultan was always hanging out here instead of the taking care of business in the main palace. He made (don't fool yourself, thousands of slaves did the actual work) this heavenly retreat that also hosted his wives (yes, he had more than one) so that he could spend most of his time here and let his ministers do the Court work. This is in my opinion the most beautiful place in the Alhambra,  could not stop staring at it and trying to figure out whether I could fit a mini version in my 22 feet yard. Well, see for your self  

Again, these were the places I liked the most, however, everywhere you look is beautiful, old towers with made with reddish stone blocks lots of cypresses and other trees, flowers and arches, gates, etc. I hope that this article help you in your visit.
Now, outside the Alhambra the best place is San Nicolas lookout. You can easily get there by bus and the view is spectacular. No wonder lots of granadinos go there to romance and admire this marvel. Here is a section of what you would see (it does not include Generalife).
 

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Tips on Taking photographs in the Alhambra- Part II - Equipment

First, NO tripods are allowed. This is normal in most places otherwise you will end up with a hundreds of tripods set up creating chaos and bottlenecks. I brought a small Gorillapod and although I did not use it, I am sure that nobody would have objected, if I wrapped it to a fence or similar object once in the gardens. Also, once you are in one of the Alcazaba towers, I think that you would be safe with something like a small tripod placed on the outer walls.

• I would strongly suggest a lens with Image Stabilization, it will give you a bit more stability therefore you could bring down the ISO and reduce noise because the rooms in the palace are dark. This will be great for some of the interiors of the palaces, to get some of the spectacularly intricate designs of the ceiling or even the walls.
• A super-wide zoom is a necessity, I bought a Tokina 11-16 mm 2.8 for this purpose. This lens is super wide allowing for very small and tight places or rooms, it also produces minimal distortion and also it has a great 2.8 aperture to let lots of light in. 
• Normal zoom, this is essential for the classic places, like the Patio de la Acequia, New Gardens in Generalife or the Jardin del Partal outside the Nasrid Palace. 
• ND filter, would be great for a silky water look in Generalife (provided that you took a small tripod with you). However, you risk being growled at if you set anything within a building. 
  · I took a Levin-made-panorama-maker gadget. I placed it in the outer walls in the Alcazaba and Palace of Charles V to produce these panoramas of Albayzin and the Alhambra itself. I will publish another article about this singular gadget, it is light, small and it works great.
• Bring plenty of storage, I shot over 300 photos at 20 MB each (RAW+JPG)

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Taking photographs in the Alhambra - Part I

Once I decided to go to Spain, I knew that I had to go to Granada to visit La Alhambra Palace. I read “Tales of La Alhambra” by Washington Irving when I was a kid, so I always had that mystic notion of La Alhambra.

  Just the name made me think of rich and colorful fabrics, luxury, intricate Arabic designs, semicircle arches, doors and gates with round top, etc.  Ok Let me stop wandering and get to the main reason of this article, which is to provide you with information regarding taking photos there. Information that I COULD NOT find before I went there . I have grouped this info bits into sections to help you navigate to what interest you the most, I will publish them at different dates because the illustrating photos need to be worked on.
 
Rules of Engagement
Alhambra Tickets : It is STRONGLY advise to purchase the tickets online as much in advance as possible. 
You should know that you can ONLY enter the Nasrid Palaces in the 30 minutes indicated in your ticket, there is no flexibility on this and no negotiation. These Spanish clerks seems to be educated in Germany and are strict as any German could be.

One big nuance, I thought that you COULD ONLY BE THERE for 30 minutes, that's inside the Nasrid Palaces. The fact is that once you are inside the Nasrid Palaces you can stay as long as you want. Well, that was not easy to find out, I thought that this ‘stay as long as you want’ only applied to the rest of the ticketed places e.g. Alcazaba and Generalife.
Just by chance, I got into a conversation with one of the guards who told me, which is one of the great advantages of speaking Castilian a.k.a Spanish. it was a great relief because having more time allows you to enjoy the wonderful details of the rooms and the charm of the Arabic designs of the time.
The Patio de los Leones is under renovation (10 years in the makings by now, see photo at right) so forget about the classic fountain with the 12 white marble lions.

Spaniards take things slowly when comes to work, they have been restoring these for about 10 years, so it will be a while before they put them back (ever heard of the "mañana, mañana" culture). The actual lions restoration has been completed and place in a small round room for display. You get to admire these beautiful medieval sculptures but NO photographing is allowed, a concept  which it seems that its taking over all museums around the world. So, snap until government bureaucrats over the world ban us from photographing what belongs to all of us in the first place.

I choose to go in the morning session because it gave me from 8:30 to 2:00 pm which is longer than the afternoon session. We were there at 8:00 am, got in at 8:30 and we left at 3:00 pm ONLY because I could barely walk, we clocked more than 11 kms according to my GPS tracker starting and finishing at the Plaza de Isabel La Catolica. 

The place is a dream…

There are few places where to buy bocadillos which is the Spanish version of a sandwich but a lot better since they only know one type of ham, that is Serrano or Iberico (similar to prosciutto but better). I did not know this, so we secured supplies of bocadillos, chorizo, cheese and water for the day. You can only eat in designated places like Gate of the Vino (at right)  where you can also purchase all kinds of coffees with sugar, that means there is no coffee with NO sugar. Aren't they sweet? I thought it was funny.

Stay tuned, next section on what equipment to bring…..

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