Lotus - The flower of Enlightenment

"While growing from mud, it is unstained." - Zhou Dunyi

 Lotus is a beautiful aquatic plant that has a deep cultural meaning in Asian cultures.It is also a key symbol of Buddhism. Raising above the murky water, its flowers give a wonderful scent which people use to infuse into tea for thousand of years. Lotus is my favorite flower to capture maybe because I am Vietnamese. The flower always has some deep meaning to me whenever I set out to photograph it. It is beautiful yet it is hard to capture right. Every early summer or late spring, lotus blooms vigorously in the northern hemisphere. And as always, we drive to our local park and capture its beauty. Year after year, but I'm still intrigue. Enjoy.

 

 

Total Lunar Eclipse - First of the Tetrad

Living in the United States, we are in for some treat. For the next 18 months, we will witness 4 consecutive total lunar eclipse also known as the Tetrad. The first one occurred on April 15, 2014. Luckily, we didn't have to go anywhere to witness this spectacular event. We just sat in out front yard with the camera pointed at the sky. We were drinking hot tea, eating snacks while waiting for the event to unfold. We still have 3 more to go; so if you missed this one, there is still chance.

Lake Siskiyou & Mt. Shasta - Shasta Cascade, Northern California

Mt. Shasta has to be one of the most iconic landscape features in Northern California. Rising more than 14,000 feet above the sea level and with impressive snow cap, Mt. Shasta has been dubbed "the Fuji of North America." It is an active volcano which erupt every 600 years and the last eruption happened about 200 years ago. So it will not happen again (not anytime soon). It is part of the Cascade mountain range stretching all the way into Canada. Mt. Shasta is also the second highest peak in the range after Mt. Rainier in Washington.
There are many places where you can take photo of Mt. Shasta. You can see it while driving on the freeway or by hiking for miles into the wilderness. My favorite viewing location is Lake Siskiyou. On a clear and calm day, you can clearly see the reflection of the mountain onto the crystal clear lake.  This location is easily accessible. You can drive to the parking lot just about a mile from the Interstate freeway 5, then hike a few hundreds feet to reach the lake. It's a great quick getaway during a long drive.

 

Sadly, California has a driest year on record. Thus, lakes and streams have been dried up even early in Spring. You can clearly the drought on lake Siskiyou. Water has receded and exposed a lot of trash and debris from the lake bottom. Hopefully, we'll get more rain this year. But regardless, lake Siskiyou is still strikingly beautiful place to view Mt. Shasta. I come back to this place every time I come to visit the Shasta Cascade region. So if you ever drive by this area, just go visit the lake. It only takes a few minutes but it will leave an impression of a lifetime.

Classic Fall Foliage in Mono County - Eastern Sierra Nevada

Last weekend, we passed by Mono county on our trip to South Lake Tahoe for fall color. Even though we didn't plan anything for June Lake and Lee Vining area but we were in for a big treat. Every other year, we always miss the peak of the season in this area. We either went too early or too late. But this year, it was just perfect. It was a cool late Sunday afternoon with a lot of cloud in the sky. First we stopped at Conway Summit and the viewpoint was just off the Highway 395. You can take this photo even from your car and that was an amazing thing. We loved how the patchy clouds create different light and dark area on the ground. Then we drove off to June Lake loop.

By the time we got to June Lake loop, it was already late. Most of the road was in the shade already. However, it was the best time to photograph the area. When foliage is at the peak, we find it more colorful in soft-light or in the shade. In addition, there was not a lot of traffic at all. So it wasn't hard to take photo in the middle of the road (I'm not recommending anyone to try this, please be careful).
These photos were taken only last week (10/13/2013). So, it is still peaking right now. It's not too late to go this weekend.

Uncooperative Weather over Emerald Bay Lake Tahoe

We arrived at Emerald Bay viewpoint around 6:45am on a cold Sunday autumn. There was a lot of cloud in the sky, but we hoped that maybe it would break apart during sunrise just enough to give us some magical light. But it never did. We saw about two or three other photographers at the viewpoint hoping for the same miracle. It was cold and the breeze was freezing literally.  Instead of keep searching for the color in the sky, we focused on an approaching storm. The cloud formation was really interesting and it started to rain hard in the middle of the lake. We know that we couldn't get much color out of an overcast stormy weather so we just went with the flow and anticipated images would be converted to black&white. It was our first time visiting lake Tahoe and it was a fantastic experience even though we didn't see the sunrise that we hoped for. 

Monsoonal sunset at Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach

The annual monsoonal moisture brings a lot of cloud to Southern California lately. It's hot and humid but the sunset is rewarding.

The Milky Way and Perseid Meteor at Joshua Tree National Park

Saturday night was a wonderful night for us at the Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. Normally, we would never think about going to this place in the middle of summer because of the heat. But we decided to go to catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower. As city dwellers, we don't get to see starry sky much because of the light pollution. And in summer, we often get thick marine layer which makes it even harder if not impossible to see the meteor shower. So we packed our things and went to the national park which is just little more than 2 hours drive. The August weather in the park was very pleasing. It was cool and a little chilly but really comfortable. The park was kind of crowded for this time of the year. Most of them were either photographers and/or stargazers. We saw so many stars and shooting stars although it was not really completely dark like Death Valley NP. But it was fantastic regardless. We made some wishes too! I'm not a big fan of star trails images so I didn't take any. To me, I like photos of stars the way we see it with our eyes, as bright dots in the sky. We got good photo of the milky way and some of the meteor. Although we saw a lot of it, we didn't capture as many. We'll definitely going to see this event again next year.

Celebrating 4th of July

God Bless America!

Foggy San Francisco Skyline during Sunset

It was a extreme windy and cold late afternoon on Twin Peak viewpoint in San Francisco. The wind was so gusty that it almost knocked my camera off the ground. Luckily, I held onto it tightly. The fog was moving in fast and covering the whole city. From the viewpoint, the city was no where to be seen. The visibility was just a few hundreds feet at most. So we packed up and left the viewpoint. On our way down the hill, the view started to get clearer. We stopped at a small pull out on the way down. And luckily, the sun broke through the fog and lit up the San Francisco skyline. The way a warm and golden sunlight illuminated the tall buildings was just magical.

Lost in Time at The Redwood Empire

Finally after years of dreaming, we went to the Redwood Empire in Northern California and it was more spectacular than we'd ever imagined. Although it was a dry winter down in Southern California, it was relatively wet up there. We could see many wildflowers this place along highway 101 (aka The Redwood Highway). The freeway traversed the redwood forest including some old groves. It rained (not too hard) and it made the forest even more special. Fog and low clouds were hugging the trees. The rain washed away all the dusts and turned the forest into a deep emerald green color. Traveling on the freeway, we just wished that the forest would just stretch out into infinity.
We took a detour on Avenue of The Giants (highway 254) which going through the Humboldt Redwood State Park. The park was amazing. We drove under the canopy of redwood trees which claimed the title the tallest trees on Earth. Parking on the highway, yet we could only hear the sound of rain drops and birds chirping. The breeze was a little chilly, and we could smell a scent of pine in the air. We sat there for a while, lost in thoughts.

Visiting the park, we felt like time had stopped here long ago. Hiking underneath these giant trees, it felt as if we were in the age of the dinosaurs. It was not just the redwood trees, but also ferns and shamrocks covered ground along with many other deciduous trees and vines made the whole place special. The serenity and tranquility cleared our minds of all the worries in life. We loved this place so much that we wished we could move here some day. We felt proud and appreciated all those who had worked so hard to protect these treasures for us and generations to come. Without their effort, we wouldn't have a chance to visit these places today. You could still see sign of logging in the early days. The American idea of national parks is truly the greatest gift to nature lovers like us.