Nepal Slideshow coming to The Hearst Castle Theater in October

For those of you who missed the March event, I am once again able to give a slideshow presentation of our three week trek in Nepal at the Hearst Castle Theater on the giant screen.
It will be on October 5th. at 7PM. We suggest arriving 15-20 minutes early. Free parking is available in the Visitor Center parking lot.
There will not be a fee for the evening, but we will be accepting donations for the Chalise, Dhading District School and village in Nepal.
If you have been following my posts, we were able to supply over 70 students with books and  backpacks, along with sports equipment and instructional aids for the teachers. All of this was made possible by generous donations from the first show and our good friend Chandra Gurung in Nepal.
The guide services of Mother House Trekking, and specifically Chandra, who now has his own trekking business, Himalaya Guide Nepal, made our perfect trip possible. He organized and delivered over $2500 worth of supplies to the school in the Himalayas of rural Nepal.
I am excited to share the incredible people, culture, and landscape, of the Manaslu and Tsum Valley areas as we walked for three weeks through the high Himalayas on the border with Tibet.
If you are interested in attending please let me know as there is limited seating.

The Perseid Meteor Shower

I dragged myself out Sunday night with friends to see the Perseids shoot across the sky above Cambria.
The top of Santa Rosa Creek road was quiet, clear, calm, and the meteors came out to play. Well worth the late night and lack of sleep.

Choose an image to enlarge.

Looking West down Santa Rosa Creek canyon at the moon setting above Cambria

Our galaxy

A little closer

The Perseid showers start

They display an interesting white/yellow streak with a green tail

One flies straight down the Milky Way

Eastern Sierra weather. Sun, rain, hail, heat, cloud filled days and clear nights.

Four days on the Eastern Sierra slopes in late July with every type of weather. From Bridgeport south to the mojave.

Choose an image to enlarge it with your browser wide open.

Clear skies and the milky way above the Northern Sierra

Stars, stars, stars

Another brilliant Eastern Sierra sunrise

Summer aspen slopes above Conway Summit

A lightning strike from a Summer squall

The black and white version of Green Lake

The Green Version

Red Fir

Ranch house, Big Pine

Mt. Williamson, Onion Valley

Mojave Desert

Southern Big Sur Coast

Another round of evening spectacle, this time along the southern Big Sur coast. Once again I stayed until after dark in the calm and warm Summer evening.

Southern Big Sur Coast 

The Pacific Edge

San Simeon Glow and Moonlight

Monsoon Clouds

Monsoon clouds made for spectacular evening light Wednesday. I stopped at the North end of Estero Bay, walked out to the bluffs and stayed from 6:30 to after 9pm. I can't say that I caught the mood, but the light and color was really special. To get the full effect open each image to full resolution.

The clouds streaming northward over Cayucos

A small shrine above Estero Bluffs

Looking Northwest at the painted sky from Estero Bluffs

Even the tide pools had unusual colors

A rare sunset rainbow over the bay

The colors went from subdued to vivid oranges and reds.

Is Calm Pacific an oxymoron?

Lake Tahoe Basin, Summer Storms and Valley Heat

A quick early Summer trip to the Lake Tahoe Basin surprised us with cool, wet weather, spectacular cloudy days, some wildlife, and extreme heat through the Central Valley. The difficulty photographing the area is the number of visitors prowling around. Perhaps due to the weather, or the one-week-before-the-fourth-of-July the crowds were avoidable. Early mornings on the lake are always a treat, as were the views between storms. The Central Valley was cooking as we passed through.

Full super moon rising over the Sierra

Light playing through a clearing storm across the lake

Pier posts from the past.

Layers of Pine Trees

Hiding from the dogs, a yearling black bear waits us out.

Scratching for grubs in the rain

Flicker feeding in the forest service building

Skunk Harbor window detail

Some fine Truckee accommodations

An afternoon storm builds above the Tahoe Meadows lupines

Pier, King's Beach

Secret beach, that's the name, and there are 100 people here by midday

Sunrise Calm

Four Rocks, Sunday Morning

Granite and Blue Water

6 AM, Northeast shore

Three Pines

106 degrees near Stockton

Highway 5

Salinas Valley Barns

Inspired by a request from my friend Terry DeLapp to get some photographs of the farms and farmland of the Salinas Valley, a series of new imagery is emerging. The photographer Dorothea Lange called it "The New California - The Unfinished Business".
Thriving small family farms are mixed in with corporate agribusiness across the open plains of the Salinas River watershed, an arid, windswept corridor mostly irrigated by man's engineering possibilities. Missionary priests walked through this valley three centuries ago and brought with them varieties of food crops that resemble some still growing here. Their language flourishes here as their ancestors live and work and feed us continuing the work of characters in Steinbeck's novels.

Click on any of the images to enlarge.