This is the final part of exploring Alabama Hills, California and capturing scouting photos with a phone camera.
The rock on the right reminds me of a turtle stretching its neck out to bask in sunlight.
Sky Pointers 2 is a view from behind Sky Pointers.
The rock on the left seems especially in awe of the sky.
I promise to move on to photos from other areas in upcoming posts,
Ken
More iPhone scouting photos from Alabama Hills, California, March 2024.
Until next time,
Ken
More scouting photos in Alabama Hills, California, March 2024.
Ok, this vandalized arch is called “Surprise Arch” (I think), but it looks more like the Pillsbury Doughboy.
I’ll have more iPhone images in the next post, but from an area well outside of Alabama Hills, so stay tuned,
Ken
And even more iPhone scouting photos in Alabama Hills, California.
This monochrome version of an iPhone photo was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page July 25, 2024. The bright white clouds behind the arch draws the eye to the arch. Against a clear, bland sky, a photo of this arch would be much less interesting, maybe even boring.
I called this natural rock feature “The Head”, because it looks like a head on a neck looking across the broad valley into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, maybe thinking it would be cooler to be in those mountains, under a blanket of snow, rather than stuck down here forever.
The arch on top of the weathered, massive rock outcrop is called The Eye of Alabama Hills.
From this view point, The Eye feature reminds me of a big eyed puppy draped over its owner’s body, peering into its master’s eyes.
Thanks for following my posts,
Ken
More iPhone scouting photos of Alabama Hills, California.
Until next time,
Ken
This is a continuation of iPhone photos shot in and around Alabama Hills, California in March 2024.
More later,
Ken
More iPhone and scouting photos from my March 2024 travels.
To be continued,
Ken
As is my habit, I use my iPhone camera to make images while scouting photo locations and/or sometimes to record in route travel scenes. This Post and others to follow will feature some of the many such photos made during my March trip to California. Some of the photos in these post may be similar to those shot later with my DSLR.
I know there are many people that only use their cell phone cameras for photography, simply because it is convenient and nearly everyone always has a cell phone with a built in camera with them at all times. The cameras in the newer model cell phones are quite good, although there are still limitations. Nonetheless, it is possible to get good photographs with these convenient devices. There are also camera apps that may improve a phone camera’s ability to shoot better images and there are plenty of in phone edit apps to enhance the photos.
Sharing photos taken via a mobile phone is also very easy. It is no mystery why these small, pocketable devices have become so popular with those that just want to shoot a quick photo and share it to social media or via text message or via email.
A snow storm came across the western U.S. at the start of my trip, threatening to delay travel for a day at least; but as it turned out, we only had slow travel over the Rockies through the area that received significant snowfall, after I-70 was opened just before our scheduled road travel.
I awoke at about 3AM my first night in Colorado and peeked out my bedroom window to check the weather and this winter scene filled my view. So naturally, I grabbed my phone and captured a few images through the window.
It is easy to see in these two images how light sensitive the camera sensors in these phones can be. Of course, there was some light from street and house lights and the heavy cloud cover reflected the city light onto the snow, which bounced the light, too. The detail in these 3AM low light photos is still remarkable.
The passenger in a moving vehicle might be able to shoot while moving along at highway speeds with one of these devices. (The driver should pay attention to driving and not use the camera while moving).
This image was made somewhere in Utah, the morning of our second travel day, as the storm seemed to be clearing; although, we continued to see storm warnings along the highway and we had driven through some snow flurries the day before in some higher elevations.
Until next time,
Ken
After our morning shoot at the Hot Creek Geothermal Area, we returned to Alabama Hills, with no clue about where to shoot at sunset. So we drove around looking for someplace inspiring our imagination. We failed with the inspiration and finally settled upon the location for the movie Gunga Din, simply because we had no more time to scout around.
There are still a few remnants from the movie set, where a bridge had been constructed over a ravine.
I don’t know how these gears were used, but there were at least a couple of these embedded in or near the roadway.
There were some concrete items, which I assume were anchors for the bridge, in some of the rocks near the roadway.
I wandered around the area looking for potential sunset shots, finding little inspiration, but I did get a few images that I liked.
And that’s it for this shoot. We have a plan for tomorrow morning, so stay tuned to see how that works out.
Ken
For our sunset shoot on March 18, 2024, my son and I hike up a steep hillside near a feature known as The Eye of Alabama Hills. (I only have iPhone images from exploring around the Eye, which might be included in another post later).
It was a cloudy evening, which is both good and bad for photography. Good in having an interesting sky, bad for getting the best golden hour light on landscape features.
Cloudy Evening was chosen for Flickr’s May 13, 2024 Explore page.
After this evening’s shoot, we decided that this location might be good for sunrise the next morning. Stay tuned to see how that turned out,
Ken
