We shot many photos on our year-end trip. I have begun to upload the first batches of photos to my USA West Galleries.

I have added a new Gallery for Canyon de Chelly National Monument. This was a unique experience and one of the most beautiful parks I have ever seen, mixing unique Navajo archeological sites with wonderful landscapes and wildlife.

Another amazing place was the False Kiva (shown in the picture above) we found in Canyonlands National Park. This is another archeological wonder situated among one of the most beautiful landscapes.

Ever since my Peru Trip, I have enjoyed taking photos of ancient ruins in amazing settings. Seeking them is a great pleasure and adventure.

I will keep uploading more pictures during the next couple of weeks, mainly in my USA West Galleries.

With the help of Dani (of TripGalleries), I have written an article on Native American Sites in the Soutwest. Its a great resource if you are interested in finding out more and to see some of the things I will be uploading soon (among many other).

During the past years, I have been year-end traveling. This year, I am on a trip through the Southwestern States. After we bolted straight to Phoenix from the San Francisco Bay Area, suffering through a monstrous 30-mile traffic jam around L.A., we were somewhat disappointed by Phoenix. We explored sights in Southern Arizona, New Mexico and headed into El Paso – Texas, where we spent Christmas. If you can avoid this city, you will spare yourself a big industrial looking blob of no particular beauty.

After Christmas, we headed North into New Mexico and the White Sands National Monument. The park was a real treat for our strained souls. We had a good time there and I finally got to use my Jetboil cooker for some hot treats.

Albuquerque and Santa Fe were a nice diversion from mundane El Paso, although we didn’t find too much things to do, as many of the smaller parks were either closed (Puye Cliff Dwellings, El Rancho de Las Colindras) or less photogenic (old town). Pecos National Monument turned out quite nice (see picture). Santa Fe and Albuquerque are freezing with a temperature shock so far below freezing that our thin Californian blood circulates at Mach 3.

I am looking forward to heading into Bandelier NM tomorrow and then leaving New Mexico for Arizona and Utah again.

Last Weekend I visited the biggest Geek Bonanza in the World, Comic Con 2007. What better chance to pull out that camera and get snapping. You can see the results of me going a bit nuts in my new Gallery: Faces of Comic Con 2007. No the picture to the left really isn't that representative, but its one that I don't mind showing on the front page. Incidently its also one of the two pictures of that Gallery that I shot with my new Canon S3 IS camera. All other pictures were taken with my Canon 20D. I wish I had taken my 50mm prime with me, since the lighting was so bad that some pictures were blurry even at ISO1600, which resulted in a lot of unusable images. The prime would have allowed me to shoot wide open (aperture) and maybe save some pictures. Obviously using the flash was not desirable, as I often waited in a spot (a scene with a message) for the right person to show up (who fit the scene). Nevertheless I got some pretty nice material. This event certainly gave me a lot to work with. Around half of the pictures were taken in the conference halls and the others were taken in the streets of downtown that were flooded with people. As you might expect, there were a whole lot of people with full body costumes, but I wasn't too interested in those photos, as I wanted to convey emotions and faces. Anyways, check out the Comic Con Photo Gallery.

After attending a wedding yesterday and staying over night in San Francisco, we had a few hours at our leisure before we decided to drive home. I thought it was time to check out if I could do some street photography.

For a landscape photographer, street photos is a whole new ball game. Landscape and streets (urban landscapes) couldn't be more different. The streets are in a constant flux and beautiful shots come together and vanish in less then a second.

In this post I will summarize some of the experiences I had and give you some tips in case you want to try this yourself. But let me say one thing up front, I liked this a whole lot and I will do a lot more candid photography in the future.

Why does Street Photography fascinate people?

Unlike landscape photography, street photography gives us the possibility to share a fleeting moment of someone's live. The photographer freezes time and documents urban life, something we are more accustomed to. The photographs generally tell a story. The frame becomes a window that lets us experience that moment. The photography style is related to documentary photography and the photographer is forgiven mistakes (blurry, tilts, distracting elements) as we recognize the fast action, making it impossible for to adjust everything before taking the photo.

Challenges

The challenge with this photography style is to observe the action around you and act fast. You need to be completely aware of everything that is going on around you, as you are part of the scene. You are interacting with your subjects to some degree (the lesser the better, as we don't want them to be aware of the camera). Scenes come together in split seconds and disappear. You need your camera to be ready and react before the subject even realizes what is going on.

At the same time you need to be on a constant look for interesting action. Where is something happening? Who are the interesting people?

Simply firing away at people doesn't quite cut it (unless the people are very interesting subjects in themselves). Trying to tell a story with fast action shots is the real challenge (more on this in a later article).

The main obstacle to overcome was my shy nature. Getting up close with a SLR into someone's face and snapping a photograph takes some guts (my Canon 20D shutter makes a pretty loud noise). I used a wide to normal lens, that required me to get fairly close, but is far less intimidating in case I am recognized. I only had a few hours today, so I tried to jump right in. The more confident I grew, the less people noticed me and the easier it became. Surprisingly I was completely invisible to most people, despite my gear and my obvious interest in them. It was almost surreal what happened here.

Some people did recognize what I did, but I smiled at them or kept looking and photographing in the direction they came from. Not a single person got mad or even gave me a stinky look. Only one person turned away and some people asked if I could photograph them too (which I happily did, although I have no use for posed photographs).

To 95% of my subjects I was invisible. A part of the scenery or maybe just a minor annoyance.

Below are a few more shots, but to see the rest you will have to wait a week or two until I have thrown up the gallery.

I finally figured out how to embed a Google map in my pages without having to go through too much of a pain. Google Maps are not really userfriendly.
I still have to write some code to automate the process of generating these Photo Maps from my Track Logs and Photos fully automatic.

Anyways, on this map you can click each of the little markers and an image should pop up. Later when I have the entire Gallery online those will link into the actual Galleries. I had planned to do this today but wasted most of it playing with Google Maps.

On this map I have plotted our trip through California on the Memorial Day Weekend (3 day Weekend). It was a 1000 mile journey through the Eastern Sierras (mostly on Highway 395).I have made some nice photos that I will put on the site soon. Enjoy the Map, I have worked hard for it.
I keep my GPS running all the time when I go on a photo shoot and I carry it with me wherever I go. When I get home, I can automatically assign GPS coordinates to my photos based on the Timestamps of the Photo and of the GPS Track Logs.

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Ellery Lake

There was still snow in Yosemite. + 37.9424111111111,-119.028541666667:

Mono Lake

Mono Lake at Night + 37.6622222222222,-118.826961111111:

Hot Creek

Colorful Jewels such as this can be found along CA-395. + 37.59485,-118.852166666667:

Convict Lake

A paradise for Fishers + 37.575675,-118.751172222222:

Cowley Lake

+ 37.5029888888889,-118.607261111111:

Mountains

+ 37.2117611111111,-118.613111111111:

Lake Sabrina

This lake lies over 8000 feet high. + 36.8050722222222,-118.201394444444:

Old Car

found in Big Pine + 36.5940666666667,-118.113386111111:

Mule

+ 36.602675,-118.118444444444:

Alabama Hills

+ 36.3106944444444,-118.025277777778:

Old Diner on Highway 395

+ 36.2863222222222,-118.009922222222:

Old Market

Decaying buildings can be found all along Hwy 395 + 35.6167666666667,-117.373086111111:

Trona Pinnacles

Bizzare Shapes outside of Trona. + 35.5244722222222,-117.599216666667:

My Toys

+ 35.3682638888889,-117.656141666667:

Randsburgh

A living Ghost Town + 35.2513166666667,-118.670194444444:

Rolling Hills

Typical for California + 35.6159138888889,-119.719975:

Oil Pumps

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After my computer crash I did have a nice surprise this Friday. I like to give my photographs to non-profit educational institutions free of charge for puplication (I usually ask for a hard copy in return). This Friday I got my copy of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts publication who were using some of my Images of Machu Picchu to illustrate a story about the Inca and anthropology Students in Bolivia.

It's an interesting story about the excavations and some of the challenges faced by them, as well as local customs that need to be obeyed in order to be able to digg. Having been in the city for only a short period of time, I really envy everyone who is able to do such a job. 

Sometimes its funny how things work. When my coputer crashed I had to go through some files to make room for backups. I found my peru project folders of a DVD that I made. Originally I had planned a multiple language version, but I then settled for the musical and the german version to be able to send it to my parents, since it took so long. I pulled out the DVD and watched my narration of the ruins of Machu Picchu.

I hope to be able to get around to do the english version and then release it as a multi language DVD. I am not sure though, if I will ever find the time for it.

In case you are interested in Machu Picchu:

Machu Picchu Travel Article (A rather lengthy article I wrote and illustrated)

Machu Picchu Large Panorama (a zoomable 222 Megapixel Image, great for exploring the city)

Today I was down at the Harbor again, taking some nighttime shots of the Baltimore skyline. I was just about ready to wrap things up, when I saw a police Helicopter above my head. It was shining its lights down near the place I had parked my car, so I packed up to go and check out what was going on. By the time I was ready, I saw two young males running in my direction. They ran past me, and stopped not far from me near the water. A cop was following them closely, however they must not have seen him. They stopped and looked around when the cop jumped the first one, holding him down and pulling the gun on the second one, waiting for more cops to arrive. Fortunately my Canon 20D can go all the way to ISO3200, so I set it on my lap and snapped a couple of shots while watching the police taking down the suspects.

The two guys kneeling in the left half of the picture are holding one of the suspects down. The other one is handcuffed in front of the cop in the right side of the picture.

Getting jumped by the cop must really have hurt as the cop was literally running the guy down on the pavement. The cop was probably twice as heavy as the guy he ran down. It must really have hurt.

My skyline shots turned out pretty good too:

I simply love those night shots.

We arrived back from Mexico one day after we were supposed to, because the flight by AA was delayed long enough that we missed our connection. AA put us into the cheapest Motel they could find, without any food vouchers. After killing a huge bug or roach, we felt very uncomfortable there. Early in the morning their shuttle picked us up again and we had to wait for hours at the airport in Dallas again.

The picture shows Chichen Itza. Lots of things have changed there. For once, people are not allowed to climb the pyramid anymore. Thank god, I have been able to do that a couple of years ago. It was unbelievably hot there. People were mostly hiding in the shade.