Mobile Photography - "You have 5 seconds to shoot."

Since I started my photography journey, the destination of our trips have mostly been based on photography opportunities. However, I am reluctant to call them photography trips for two reasons: If it is a road trip, my shots were mostly taken from our moving vehicle. If we go on a tour, the results are either quick snaps or shots through the window of a moving tour bus. I take lots of pictures, but they are just random snap shots. I brought my tripod, but shameful to admit that I did not even get them out of the trunk.

When I don’t control the driving gear myself, I am in the mercy of my chauffeur (also the boss in our household). He is nice enough to say, “just tell me whenever you want me to stop”. If there are no cars behind us and a viewpoint is available, I may get 5-10 minutes to look around before I framed a shot. Otherwise, “you have 5 seconds to shoot”.  Making a 2000 mile road trip with 5 major destinations within 5 days, time is of the essence. If we stop whenever I found something worth a snap, we won’t never make it to all planned destinations. Besides, perpetual car traffic on freeways make constant stops a challenge.

I make sure that my camera strap is on my neck and I hold the camera as steady as I can in case the wind blew my camera out of the car. The vehicle was moving between 70-75 mph. Wind blew mercilessly whenever I opened the window. Sometimes, I did not remember the window was closed...

Little house in the prairie? It ain't little.

California has persistent drought issues. Brown color and sage brush are what I expected to see. But this trip has just about to change my perspective. Lack of lofty trees and massive forest, California is not short of green hills and beautiful landscapes, at least, in this time of the year.  Oregon has more sporadic farms and in a smaller scale. California has vast farmland and the operation is more industrialized.

Green California

I did not mean to, but I have often instinctively bragged about the nature beauty in Oregon. In fact California has the charm of its own. The outlook seems to be more sophisticated and established. However, there is one thing that California cannot make it up to Oregon: the coast and beaches.  We drove on highway 1 from S. California to bay area with expectations to discover some scenic spots. But I barely got my camera out of the car...

Hearst Castle at dusk

My last visit to Hearst Castle in San Simeon was more than 25 years ago. The only scene has always in my mind is that piercing blue water in Neptune Pool, the white Roman columns and the mountains surrounded. Unfortunately, the pool is now under construction to fix some leaking problem and the project will take a year to finish. I was so bombed!!!  I was also disappointed in the visitation policy. To see the place, you have to go with the tour, no individual exploration is allowed. How would I take pictures without doing some exploration at my own pace and choose the spots to my own likings?  Taking random pictures as the tour guides lead you to is no better than snapping in a tour bus or a moving personal vehicle.

Tropical Charm

I quickly snapped this shot as the group walking up the stairs with the tour guide. The tiny section of the exterior is as such, can you imagine what the interior looks like?  The castle is gorgeous and outstanding, but we are not allowed to explore the place on our own. I love to spend hours and days in that place to take pictures, but how? PS. I have snapped some interior pictures, I will share in my blogs.

Flash snap from freeway

Lake Shasta is gorgeous from distance. We tried to cruise the lake via a boat years ago, but it was a disappointment. Something looks great under microscope and some can only be appreciated far away.
I am leaning my life lesson here not to take the same measure on everything and under all circumstances.

Mount Shasta

I have never tired of shooting Mount Hood in Oregon and Mount Shasta in California. Their close-to-perfect cone and sculptured top often reminds me of the scarcity of our Nature that God has created. Mountain top seems to always leads me to God Almighty for some reason.

Thousands of birds

Last and never the least, Birds. I cannot identify the geese I am seeing here, but there are many thousands of them at Tule Lake wildlife refuge. I cannot identify the species. There are ducks and geese everywhere in Oregon, but I cannot say that I ever saw them before. They do know where to find their habitat. Wildlife refuges are usually located in the most natural environment. That is one of the reasons why I enjoyed being there.

All the images above are taken from our moving car or when I was following the tour guide. Just to give you a quick rundown, I did not edit the images much other than adjusting exposure.

Heaven and Earth - black and white photography

Sound like a big subject, but it is not.  I am just pleased with what I captured. It was on a Valentine’s Day and my husband secretly arranged an overnight stay at Mount Hood Lodge. I have looked at this gorgeous mountain (the highest in Oregon) very many times and from different angles.  Its perfect peak looks prominent, sacred and peaceful.

That was the first time when I was actually right on the foothill of Mount Hood to pay it my respect.
This picture was taken early in the morning with thick cloud dwelling outside the lodge. I was first drawn by the steaming cloud. When I walked down to the edge of the road, I was completely stunned by the scene.  Honestly, at that moment, I had wondered where I was.  I was above the cloud feeling that I was floating in the air.  And yet, I know I was absolutely standing on a solid ground with grass, on the earth.

Heaven and Earth

Still early in the year, snow-covered mountain and cloud are white. Grassy ground is in the shade, so the ground looks dark and grass almost looks black. I named this picture Heaven and Earth because of its contrast in colors and also because it prompted that thought into my mind.

Strolling around the foothill area, our feet were buried deep wherever we went. The sun was shining, bright. The snow was taking over the ground, deep and white. There were still spots of small creek waters running here and there with icicles hanging down.  People were walking on snow, black footprints on white snow.

Nature presents its natural colors. When we observe the details only through black and white two colors, we actually perceive more truth and details. Monotone looks compelling when the subject is simple and the background is not too complicated. I was kneeling down the ground to peek the snow pack from the side. It looked like ocean waves and also reminded me of Chinese brush painting strokes for some reason. In fact, I think I know why, I miss my deceased Dad too much. He wrote beautiful and powerful Chinese brush stroke calligraphy 毛筆字.

I have not done much black and white photography, but I happened to take these pictures, naturally, black and white and I love them.  I am not a professional photographer and not looking into photo quality perfection at this point.  It is more about the content of what I captured and the emotion that I was engaged during the process.

Every once a while, I found some color images that I think better in black and white format.  When a picture is colored, our attention is on colors. I am a female and colors mean everything. But I discovered that black and white images tend to show more details and we pay closer attention to the visual content while not distracted by colors. 

I took above picture when I visited Spanish Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain. I’d toured inside the palace provided by palace administration and seen all the glamorous  chandeliers, famous paintings, intricate tapestries and fancy furniture.  But among everything I’d seen, my eyes were set on this guy who played accordion to entertain the visitors outside the palace. 

He played jazz music and with an easy smile on his face.  Not being disturbed by the crowd and obviously not in for the pennies, he was just here enjoying himself and to help others enjoy themselves. I found him my most attractive subject for the day. Just for you to compare it with original color image. Accordion is classic. Black and white colors seem to portrait that nostalgia flare more.