Thomas Vetsch stops near the top of a route in Joshua Tree.

I had to do one more climbing post because I hadn’t included a photo of Thomas, and didn’t want to leave him out.  Thomas was the least experienced of the three guys I hung out with, but every bit as motivated and passionate.  Actually, this was the first time Thomas had lead up a route or placed protection, it was cool to have photographed this milestone in his progression as a climber.  The pride he took in his accomplishment was evident when I saw him looking back at the wall after the climb was done – it was cool to see the satisfaction in his expression.

Matt Van Biene getting ready to climb, Joshua Tree National Park, California.

It was  treat to be able to photograph this quite, contemplative moment as Matt prepared his gear and his mind.  Matt was a great guy and excellent climber – I really enjoyed watching and photographing all three of these guys.

Matt Van Biene climbing in Joshua Tree.

Matt has an interesting blog where he shares his climbing experiences – be sure to check it out:  Matt Van Biene’s blog – This Journey.

Matt tossing a rope off the top.

Matt suggested this shot – great suggestion, kind of a classic climbing image of the rope being tossed over the edge.

Ernest Sierras at sunset climbing in Joshua Tree National Park, California.

It was amazing watching Ernest work his way up an almost vertical wall with the help from just a tiny little crack in the rock.  I had a great time working with Ernest and two other great climbers in Joshua Tree on Friday – more to come.

Joshua Tree at sunset, Joshua Tree National Park, California.

I think the unique, graphical shapes of these trees just cries out to be used as a silhouette.  Having a colorful sky was a bonus!

Coyote, Joshua Tree National Park, California.

It was a treat watching this coyote as he passed by my location on a nice evening earlier this week.  Being outdoors in a place like Joshua Tree is always a treat, but having the opportunity to observe wildlife in it’s natural environment, substantially enhances the experience.

Right after the coyote pasted by this spot, a chipmunk ran out from under the rock you see above the coyote’s head – I suppose the chipmunk didn’t enjoying the coyote’s presence as much as I did.

The Palm Springs area in the Coachella Valley, California.

I was excited to share some more sunset images from Joshua Tree National Park, that was until last night’s sunset – without a doubt, one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen in the desert!  I photographed like mad in every direction, the light was absolutely fantastic.  This is pretty much straight out of the camera with a 3 stop graduated neutral density filter.

Now I must confess, I tend to be an easy going person who doesn’t handle confrontation well.  Truthfully, I usually do what I can to avoid confrontation, probably to a fault.

I say that to help set the stage for what happened next.  As I photographed from this amazing location, a women with a small child pulled up in her large, black SUV and began changing her child’s  diaper.  Somehow I knew what was going to happen next.  I watched her walk across the parking lot with her child and diaper – by the way, the LCD screen on the back of the camera makes a great rear view mirror, I use it all the time.  Anyway, she appears to look for a trash can, and then tosses the diaper over the decorative wall that surrounded the parking area!

I think she may have known I saw her because she stalled for a long time before returning to her vehicle, at which time I asked if she intended to leave that diaper behind.  She said, “what diaper?”, I said “the one you dropped over the wall”.  She claimed to not know what I was talking about.  I then as nicely as possible told her that I couldn’t believe anyone could do such a thing in such a beautiful place, that I found it very disappointing.  She looked at me but didn’t respond, so I turned back to the sunset, all the while watching her in my “rear view mirror”.

Well, she put her child in the vehicle, walked across the parking lot, climbed over the wall and picked up the trash and put it in her vehicle.  I thanked her, and told her I really appreciated it – and sure felt a lot better about speaking up.

Joshua trees at sunset at the appropriately named Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Since we have been up since 3:30, I’m going to keep this short because I need a nap.  We had a great time there – saw my first bobcat this morning!

We have been fortunate enough to stay at some of the fanciest hotels in North America in places like Palm Springs, San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles and Vancouver, and have almost always paid less then $100 per night, sometimes much less.  So how do we do it?  Easy, by naming our own price on  Priceline.com

I have to admit, I kind of like the unknown surprise nature of Priceline – and as a photographer, I rarely care what hotel I’m in, as long as it is a decent room in the area I want to photograph.  But there is a lot to using Priceline effectively, here are some things I have learned.

I won’t walk you through the actual steps for bidding – the process is very easy, and there is plenty of help on the Priceline site.  But beware, you are required to enter all your credit card information upfront, and if your bid is accepted, the transaction is final, there is no backing out because you don’t like the hotel, price or anything else.  Also, make sure you are using the Name Your Own Price section of the Priceline website – there is more then one way to book a hotel room with Priceline so look closely.  The biggest savings are found by naming your own price bidding.

Because there is no reversing your transaction, I play it safe and stick with the best hotels.  You never know what hotel you are going to receive, so to eliminate the chance of “winning” a dump, I stick with the highest rated hotels.  This means 4 star properties in most areas, or in some places like the Palm Springs area, you want to go with resort properties.

Do your research.  There are two great forums, both organized by city/state where users share the dollar amount, dates and hotel information for recent winning bids.  Again there is no guarantee, but by spending some time on these sites, you can get a feel for what people are paying, and what hotels people are typically winning.  Both BiddingForTravel.com and  BetterBidding.com have valuable information.  In addition to these resources, I will often check out 4 star hotel prices on Hotwire and other on-line sources like Expedia, or better yet by checking directly with a few hotels.  If you aren’t able to bid and save a fair amount of money as compared to these traditional  sources, there is no point in naming your own price with Priceline.

Now for making your actual bid.  One of the challenging things with Priceline is that you are only allowed one bid per 24 hours.  You can’t re-bid unless you expand the region, or the the star rating of the hotel (lower).  I’m sure this is so that users don’t bog things down with repeated rebids for low-ball amounts – plus, it helps to encourage higher bid amounts.  But, there are a couple of things you can do to work around this restriction.

For one, start your bidding a few days in advance so that you have a few 24 hour periods to work with.  But, there is another way to rebid for free in many circumstances.

One of the most popular methods for getting a free rebid, is to add an area that doesn’t have a 4 star hotel – by adding an additional neighborhood, you are able to bid again, but if there aren’t any 4 star hotels in the new neighborhood, you are effectively getting a free bid at your chosen neighborhood.

Let me give an example.  We recently traveled to Vancouver, so I entered our chosen dates and the town of Vancouver into Priceline.  Next Priceline displays 8 different neighborhoods or areas within the Vancouver region.  We wanted to stay in downtown, and a click in the box next to downtown shows the entire range of star levels available.  Next, one by one I check the other areas like Coquitlam – Burnaby.  In Coquitlam – Burnaby, I see there aren’t any 4 star hotels available ( see image below).  Now I know I can make one bid just for downtown, and if it isn’t successful, I can add Coquitlam – Brunaby to my request and bid again knowing my winning bid will still be located in my chosen neighborhood of  Downtown.  In fact for Vancouver, I see I can get 5 free re-bids by adding the areas of City Hall – Downtown South, Coquitlam – Burnaby, Langley, North Vancouver, and Surrey – Pitt Meadows.  I don’t know where any of those areas are, but it doesn’t matter because they don’t have 4 star hotels.  If you want to be downtown, be sure you don’t add the Airport region, as it does have 4 star hotels.  Always double check this information, as it can always change – don’t rely on my example, or your recent history because a higher class hotel can be added by Priceline at anytime.

Notice how the 4 star choice is grayed out for the Coquitlam - Burnaby choice.

Now Vancouver has an exceptional number of free rebid areas, small towns might not have any, but it seem like  most places I have visited have at least one or two.  I should add, I won the Marriott Renaissance Harbourside for $75 on my first attempt – given I had 5 free re-bids, I hate to win on my first attempt because I probably went too high – but for that hotel and that price, how can you go wrong!

Priceline is most effective for travel at non-peak times.  We have had much better success in the Palm Springs area during mid-week as this is a popular weekend getaway.  Likewise, we had more success for downtown San Diego (Omni pictured above) on the weekend when the hotels weren’t full of top paying business travelers.  Now that might be different if it was a home weekend for the Padres.

What about Hotwire?  With Hotwire the price and the class of hotel is set, but you still don’t know what hotel you are actually reserving.  I have found Hotwire’s prices are often 30% or more higher then what I can get with Priceline, so I haven’t used them.  For example Hotwire wanted $115 for a 4 star hotel for the same period we received the $75 Priceline hotel for our recent Vancouver trip  The one advantage to Hotwire is that they list the amenities for the selected hotel – things like pools, workout facility, airport shuttle etc.  So if something like that is important to you, it might be worth paying more.  Be sure you know that Hotwire price – there is no reason to over bid their rate.

Are you treated like a second class guest?  Only once did we feel like we were intentionally given the worst room in the place at a resort in Palm Springs.  One thing I like about 4 star or better properties is that there usually isn’t a bad room.  On a couple of occasions we were upgraded to a better view room for free – this also happened at a Palm Springs resort, and on a couple of other occasions, we asked, and were able to upgrade to a view room for a minimal price.  For example, for photography purposes, I wanted a top floor, ocean view room during our recent travels to both Vancouver and Victoria and was able to upgrade for around $30 more at the time of check in.  Keep in mind though, there are no guarantees.

Why do hotels use Priceline?  Priceline allows them to fill empty rooms without alienating their current guests and undermining the perception of the hotel with a bunch of discounting to their current posted rack rates.  It is really a win win!

So, next time you need a nice hotel and want to save some money, try naming your own price with Priceline.com a try – it is fun.

Balboa Pier, Newport Beach, California.

Thanks to the month or so that we spent in the area, we now have an entirely updated section of Orange County photos on our website!

Since we had extra coverage of two of the communities, Janine also added completly new sections of Newport Beach photos, along with Huntington Beach photos.

Catalina Island, California.

We have an entirely new section on our website of Catalina Island photos.

We really enjoyed our trip to Catalina Island and the town of Avalon last winter.  It has Southern California weather without the crowds or traffic – in fact most people who have vehicles use electric golf carts.

Long Beach, California.

Here is another brand new section to our website:  Long Beach California photos.

I gotta admit, Long Beach was a pleasant surprise.  It had been many many years since I had last visited Long Beach.  I remembered it as a somewhat dirty industrial port.  Either my memory was off, or they have made some wonderful changes to the area – probably a bit of both.  We only spent one evening there, I had hoped to return for more, but that will have to wait for a future trip.

Entrance to Slab City, an abandoned military base that is now home to a large number of squatters, Imperial Valley, California.

We have a new section on our website of photos of the Imperial Valley, California.  This section includes photos of the Salton Sea, Salvation Mountain, Slab City and the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area – all places that I think many people might find a little unique to put it kindly.

Indian Wells Golf Resort, Indian Wells, California.

Janine has now updated our website with our new photos of the Palm Springs area.

Palm Springs was one of the first communities developed in this portion of desert.  In addition, Palm Springs is also where the airport is located, so the whole area is often referred to as Palm Springs, although today it is made up of a series of smaller towns like Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, La Quinta and Palm Desert to name a few.  When I’m driving around down there, I never seem to know exactly what town I’m in.

On the local news they refer to the area as the Coachella Valley although locals don’t seem to like that name, and people outside the area probably haven’t heard of it, so for now, we will still call the area Palm Springs.  Our page has photos of most the smaller communities in the area.

In the photo above, of the public golf course, I needed to blend a couple different exposures to maintain detail in the building.  Despite being a “public” course, I was asked to leave right after taking this photo – evidently they don’t like the “public” taking picture there.

Slot Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Janine has updated our website with new photos of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California from our travels last winter.  Anza-Borrego definitely isn’t the most popular of destinations, but we sure enjoy spending time there, especially in the winter!

It is interesting, the three places that I have the most in depth coverage of include Anza-Borrego, Kenai Fjords National Park, and the Chugach National Forest are all fairly unknown, with relatively few visitors.  I bet the combined annual visitation numbers of all three parks doesn’t total the number of people who visit a moderately popular Lower 48 Park like Bryce in just an average summer month.

The businessman in me says I should be concentrating on more popular destinations, but we decided long ago that maximizing personal satisfaction was far more important then maximizing profits.  I suppose if maximizing profits was the goal, I wouldn’t choose to be an outdoor photographer.

A surfer checking out the early morning waves, Huntington Beach, California.

It feels good to be done with the processing, captioning and key-wording our photos from last winter’s travels.  Now we can send them off to agencies and update our website – finished just in time for summer, so we can make room for a new batch of photos!

A ferris wheel at night, Long Beach, California.

Well I hate to post the same photo twice, especially in the same week, but in response to my ”ask Ron” request, this was the most asked question.  More specifically, Dennis Barton wanted to know how many tries it took to capture this image, while Sheri Lyons wondered how the photo came to look like this.

This was created by using a long exposure, in this case I used a 4 second exposure.  This long exposure allows the light to be recorded as it moves across the frame.  Typically a light bulb appears as a single point of light,  but in this case the camera was able to record the light source in a long streak – and that streak represents how much the light traveled during the 4 second exposure.  Since this ferris wheel had lots and lots of lights, I ended up with lots of streaks.  

 It is kind of a fun technique, in fact whenever I see moving lights, my first thought usually is;  I wonder what kinds of patterns would be created with a long exposure?  Here is another example from this fall at the Alaska State Fair.  You can also use a flash light, sparklers or even moving torches at night to actually sorta draw shapes – it can be fun stuff to experiment with.

To answer Dennis’s question – I actually captured this image in the first try, but that isn’t always the case.  I was using aperture priority mode.  I closed the aperture to f/14 which gave me a 4 second exposure.  I thought that was a good starting point, and that I could add or subtract some compensation based upon what I saw on the LCD on the back of the camera.  Well this looked fine to me, so I shot a horizontal with the same settings and moved on to the next scene – there were a couple other compositions I was hoping to capture while it was still spinning.

I should add, for long exposures like this, a tripod is mandatory.  In addition to a tripod, I usually use the two second self timer, and turn on mirror lock up to minimize any camera shake.  Pushing the shutter with your finger can shake the camera a bit, so by using the two second delay, this isn’t an issue. 

In addition, most of the noise you hear when you take a photo isn’t from the shutter, but rather the mirror quickly moving up and down as it gets out of the way of the image path.  With mirror lockup and the two second delay, the mirror moves out of the way as soon as you touch the shutter, then two seconds later the shutter opens and closes.  I actually use these settings a lot – pretty much whenever possible.  It may not make a big difference, but it only takes a couple extra seconds, so if it helps at all, it is worth it.  Of course for wildlife and action images, the two second delay doesn’t work.

Instead of the self timer, you could also use a remote cable, but I don’t like carrying extra stuff.

A ferris wheel at night, Long Beach, California.

 I thought I would try a new idea with the blog and create an Ask Ron category.  My thinking is that every so often I would answer reader submitted questions and publish the question and my response here on the blog.  They can be pretty much anything photography related, from travel destinations, gear, techniques, thoughts and opinions – you get the idea.  If there is a photo you have always wondered about, maybe the story behind the image, that would be good too.

If you have a web presence; website, blog, Flickr page, I would be happy to link back in my response.  If you would prefer to remain anonymous, that’s cool too. 

You can post your questions in this thread, or feel free to email them to me at ronn@arctic.net  If you could, put “Ask Ron” in the subject so that I will know it is for the blog and not just someone asking a question.

I will do my best to answer all questions as best I can, but I will have editorial control, so I could decide to ignore a question – heck, it is my blog.    So if I start posting photos of a wolverine den, chances are slim that I will provide the GPS coordinates.  Likewise, asking for the name and number of the photo editor at XYZ magazine probably won’t get a response either, but most stuff will be fair game.  So hit me with your Q’s!

Hey, speaking of wolverine.  Now that we are heading into spring, I figure it might be a good time to remind everyone that my deal from last year is still on!

Palm Trees at sunset, Newport Beach, California.

Let me start by saying, you shouldn’t get your legal advice from friends and fellow photographers.  Having said that, let me offer some advice. 

The place I turn to when I have questions is the Photographer’s Legal Guide by Carolyn Wright.  The book covers most of the legal issues one might encounter when dealing with photo business and photography issues such as copyrights, model releases, insurance and paperwork.  I think most photographers will find it very valuable. 

I have known Carolyn for a number of years now and consider her a friend – she is a wonderful person, and as a fellow photographer, she understands the industry and issues photographers face.  We have hired her on occasions when we needed large contracts reviewed, and also successfully used her for a copyright infringement suit – who better to hire then the person who wrote the book! 

In addition to the book, Carolyn also maintains a blog dedicated to photography legal issues;  Photo Attorney.  There is also a lot of valuable information on that site as well.

In addition to these resources, there is one bit advice I would like to offer to serious photographers; register your photos with the copyright office!  Having your images registered gives you far more options when pursuing infringements because you now can pursue statutory damages and attorney fees – in short, you can now pursue these issues with a much bigger hammer.  Want more details on how to register and what that means – well, it is all in the book!

Dry Lake Bed, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

I have been a long time user of Singh-Ray filters, particularly their graduated neutral density filters.  So I must say I was honored when they approached me recently and asked me to contribute to their blog.  In fact, I already had the first post written in my head, as  it was a tip I thought I would post here.  Instead, I shared my discovery of the usefulness of using live-view in the positioning of graduated neutral density filters.  Well I don’t want to spoil the whole post, you can check out the whole story at the Singh-Ray blog. 

As far as my own blog goes, I still may do some fine tuning of the header, photo size etc., so if things look a bit funky from time to time, you will understand.

A sunset at the Salton Sea California from this past winter.

I have received numerous emails and comments over the past year asking me to post bigger photos.  Really, I haven’t been ignoring those requests, it just wasn’t possible because my old theme was so narrow.  It was probably fine in the days of 800 x 600 monitor resolutions, but today, I just ended up with a narrow blog and a bunch of gray space on either side! 

So I had enough of my old theme, and there was no way I was going to try to modify it – heck, just adding the photo to the banner took me a day!    So this past weekend I went on a search for a new theme.  I won’t bore you with the details, but there are thousands and thousands of themes out there – and of course none of them are just right.  That is when I found Thesis;  About Thesis — Find out more about Thesis and the DIYthemes philosophy 

With Thesis, I had total control.  To change to three columns instead of my previous two -  I just selected the 3 column option in the drop down menu.  I wanted an extra wide column for my large photos – all I did was type in the desired width in a little box and bingo, it changes!  Not only does it change, but everything lines up perfectly – something that was a constant battle before.  Would I prefer the side bars on each side, with the content down the middle?  You guessed it, just another click.  Rotating photos at the top of the sidebar - painless!  Supposedly they have great support, fortunately I didn’t need it, but I did drop by the online forum which has almost six thousand users.

Had this theme been around when I originally set up my blog with my limited knowledge, I could have freed up days of work that I will never get back.

Now here is the drawback, and one that took me a few hours to get past;  it isn’t free.  The theme only costs $87, which is more then fair, but with so many free alternatives, I had to exhaust my search for the perfect free theme first. 

So now, I can post much bigger photos!