Mammoth Creek Roadside, CA

The Town Loop is 7.8 mi and a great run/hike. On the nature part of the loop is the Mammoth Creek and it is beautiful when snowed over, as seen from this roadside view which parallels the trail. Most people just ski during the winter, but hiking and running are fun too. The loop provides a family-friendly tour of town with access to a variety of outbound trails and staging areas. Mammoth Creek Park is a popular start point from which you can tour the eastern half of Mammoth–offering sweeping views of the Sherwins and connections to local schools, the library and dining/shopping–or the western portion, which cruises sleepily through Old Mammoth and past the Valentine Reserve to Eagle Lodge before turning into a quiet neighborhood on its way back out to the Main Street frontage road.

Mammoth Historic Knight Wheel


My kids loved climbing up on this.

Gold was discovered in the vicinity of Old Mammoth in 1877 and thousands of men rapidly flocked to the region in the hopes of striking it rich. Today, evidence of these industrious pioneers remains throughout Old Mammoth and no object is able to tell the story of Mammoth’s early history better than the historic Knight water wheel.

The photogenic Knight water wheel, located along Old Mammoth Road, is a preserved remnant of Mammoth Lakes’ industrial beginnings. Now positioned in the quaking aspen adjacent to the paved bike path, this cast iron water wheel has a row of spoon-shaped buckets (Pelton-style) and was a technological marvel in its time. This innovative turbine design allowed late 19th-century industry to generate more power with less water. Previous water wheel designs were inefficient, cumbersome, and required sources providing high volumes of water.

Due to the design’s practicality, Mammoth’s Knight water wheel has a very unique history. The wheel was originally manufactured by the Knight Foundry, located in Sutter Creek, California, in the mid-1870’s and was hauled from the Mojave area to the Mammoth Lakes Basin by mule and oxen team.

Mammoth Mtn Bike Path Bridge


Did some skiing this winter up at Mammoth Mountain with the family and got them to do a morning run with me. Along the adventure we crossed this bridge located just to the North of Old Mammoth Road up and to the end of Waterford Ave. Sometimes the kids would stay still enough to get a cha-cha. My trusty Fuji GA645w is the only light enough MF camera I can take on an adventure hike/run, but you have to do cha-chas, hoping the left and right images are still enough to give the stereo illusion without retinal rivalry.

Lock Machinery, C & O Canal

This device is mounted next to Lock 10 on the old Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, near Cabin John, Maryland.  I think it opened & closed a sluice gate that would flood the lock to raise the canal boats up, as they travelled up the Potomac from Washington.  Unfortunately, the canal fell into disrepair & stopped being used in the early 20th century.  But it was made into a national park, and some of the locks & aqueducts are maintained as historic tourist attractions.

I took this photo with my Sputnik on Provia 100F, around sunset under a cloudy sky.  I think my exposure was 2 seconds.  I carried a digital SLR with me to serve as my exposure meter (and to take a few 2D photos & cha-chas.)

–Paul Gillis

Jaguar

Jaguar

Jaguar

 

While walking into the center of town to visit the local museum my younger daughter and I came across this very nice Jaguar parked in the middle of the town square. Unfortunately it was not parked in a way that would allow me to get the town fountain and the museum in the background. Later, when we got out of the museum, the car was gone.

This was taken with a handheld (string monopod) Sputnik on Fuji Provia 100F (aka RDP III). The film was developed and scanned by TheDarkroom.

Grand-Staircase Escalante

In April 2018 I went on a road trip to Utah with a few friends. We stayed in the campground in the town of Escalante and went on day hikes to Lower Calf Creek Falls, Escalante River and the Dry Fork Slot Canyons.

Grand Staircase-Escalante – RDP III – Sputnik (Location)

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was (until recently) the largest National Monument in the contiguous US and comprises enumerable canyons, including some famous ones such as Bryce and Zion. On our first full day, we decided to visit the slot canyons nearby after speaking with the campground owner. I took this slide at the top of the Dry Fork trail which leads down to the slot canyons.

Slot Canyons – RDP III – Sputnik (Location)

This was taken at the mouth of Peek-a-boo slot canyon. It’s quite high up and it was a bit tricky to get up with my tripod and Sputnik. There wasn’t too much stereo photography that could be done within the slot canyons since the narrow corridor would cause window violations. It’s a really neat place, and I recommend going if you get the chance. The road to get there is like a washboard though, so don’t take a nice new vehicle. Peek-a-boo was the shortest and easiest of the slot canyons here. We also went down Spooky canyon, which was extremely narrow at several points — I couldn’t get through with the backpack. It was also very dark in some places and the sky couldn’t be seen at all. Apparently the third canyon, Brimstone, is even narrower and has pools of water you have to wade through! We ran out of time to attempt it.

Heroic Hikers – RVP 100 – Sputnik (Location)

On our drive back home, we stopped at Bryce canyon and hiked the Fairyland trail. It’s a very beautiful hike. These are my hikineg friends: Gabe, Derek, and Elliot.

Sinking Ship – RVP 100 – Sputnik (Location)

All along the hike, I was wishing I had some sort of twin camera rig, or a bit more time to do some cha-chas. It’s sometimes hard to balance photography with other activities, like hiking with others. I do a lot of walking, so I’m able to take photos and keep up quite well, but it still takes a fair bit of time to stop, set up and level my tripod, meter the scene and take the shot. When we arrived back at our vehicle at Fairyland point, I decided I really ought to take a hyper — cha-cha style. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lens cap or Mike Davis’ spreadsheet, but I found a railing to slide my camera on and I covered one lens with my hand. My apologies for the slightly excessive on-film deviation and corresponding window violation. Otherwise, I’m quite pleased with how it came out. I wish I had taken more hypers, but we had to get going. I hope to come back some day and really take my time shooting. The tilted landmass in the distance is called Boat Mesa or the Sinking Ship.

Thanks all for sharing your wonderful images. It’s such a pleasure to participate in the folio.

Ian Andvaag
Saskatoon, SK

Reflection Lake Star Trails #3

Long nighttime exposure, with star trails, of Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lakes


My best guess is this is from 2010. This is a one-and-a-half hour exposure at f16 from 2 Hasselblads. These would be the 50mm lenses, and the film is Provia 100F. I don’t remember if I’d planned it this way, or if I later determined I’d gotten the exposure very wrong, but I ended up pushing the film 2 stops which was clearly the right thing to do. (I may have taken a test exposure from another film magazine to make the determination; just don’t remember). I probably had some children’s socks tied around the lenses, with handwarmers inside, to keep the lenses from fogging.

I’m impressed with the color and how blue the sky looks. Well, it is sunlight after all, it’s just getting to the scene via a large reflector in the sky. The moon would have been pretty full here. The challenge with these shots is to get enough light on the trees on the other side of the lake without blowing out the top of the mountain. I do like the reflected star trails in the water.

Snowmen

I  took these slides on the first day of spring, March 21, 2018. For those of you from balmier climes, yes, there can be this much snow in Montreal on the first day of spring.  These snowmen had melted a little, and were starting to lose the form and details bestowed initially by their young creators. A couple of them have lost their eyes. Some of their features are starting to look a bit abstract. I initially saw them as somewhat nostalgic relics from the long winter we had been through, perhaps on a smaller time scale the way ruins remind us of a long-gone past, like the statues on Easter Island. My wife found them scary, as though they had escaped from a horror movie, and the more I examined them, the more I could see her point of view. Shot with a Heidoscop on a tripod with Fuji Provia 100F film. Exposures were as follows:

Snowman with a cap and scarf –  1/50th @ f25.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowman with small head – 1/20th @ f25.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowman with scarf and toque – 1/25th @ f25.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowman whose grapefruit eyes fell off – 1/40th @ f25.

 

 

 

 

 

Ape Caves, Mt. St. Helens, Washington

The Ape Cave is a lava

tube created about 3,000 years ago. It heads south from Mt. St. Helens volcano, stretching for about a mile and a half, narrowing and expanding into a long stretch of total darkness.

My girlfriend and a couple of friends hiked over the top of the tube to the northern entrance of the cave. By doing so, we would be able to walk through the lava tube more or less downhill, to make things a little easier. It takes a bit of time to navigate the tube due to it’s loose rocks and uneven ground. In some spots, you needed to ‘drop down’ a few feet to a lower section of the tube to continue on. This is not a place for people who are claustrophobic or those who are afraid of the dark.

It’s pitch black down there, and very good headlamps are needed to avoid any injuries. For me, this was my second time through the cave and knowing how dark it was, I brought along a pair of Profoto B1 500 watt lights to help fill the space with light.

One of the lights can be seen at the far end of the cave in the photo. This was a mistake mind you, but one that I let slide for the sake of correct exposure, composition, etc. This was taken with my Sputnik on Fujifilm Provia 100f, using a Profoto Air Remote as a trigger. I had also brought along my digital Canon 5D Mk III, but no 3D was taken with it.

If you do happen to find yourself in the vicinity of Mt. St. Helens, have a good set of knees and a decent headlamp, then I would recommend a visit.

There is a way to see a smaller section of the cave, without going the whole mile and a half. I believe it’s about a quarter of the cave, and well worth a look.

Ghost Bike for Justine Charland-St-Amour

A30 - Ghost Bike for Justine Charland-St-Amour

This Ghost Bike commemorates Justine Charland-St-Amour who was 24 when she was killed August 22nd, 2016 when hit by a truck at the intersection of d’Iberville Street and Rosemount Boulevard in Montreal. I was moved to create this series when she became the fourth cyclist struck the same week in Montreal. I included a Ghost Bike for each of 20013, 2014, 2015 and 2016  in the series, but 2017 continues to be a very deadly for cyclists in Montreal despite measures taken. Sorry about the dust mark in the right film chip.

Ghost Bike for Bernard Carignan

A30 - Ghost Bike for Bernard Carignan

This Ghost Bike commemorates Bernard Carignan who was killed on August 22nd, 2015  on St-Denis Street in Montreal when his bicycle struck the door of a parked car that had swung open in front of him. I included this series of Ghost Bikes as I bicycle to work and am cut off by a car on average once per day. Original slide taken with a tripod-mounted Heidoscop using Provia 100F exposed at 1/4 at F22.