In a champagne supernova in the sky
This summer, I had a chance to visit Germany. It was a business trip, but I managed to have leisure time to wander around Frankfurt and Munich. I even had chance to cross a bucket list item—driving on Nürburgring Nordschleife! Sadly, I don’t have any…
XF 56mm f/1.2 is my go-to lens for portrait. However, when you’re on vacation with friends and you want to shoot both landscape and portrait, sometimes there’s no time for you to change lens. You can only use what’s mounted on the camera. In a…
This year, I spent the Thanksgiving weekend in Mammoth Lakes with my friends from Taiwanese Student Association. It’s wonderful that a group of people from the same country go to the same university in the same city abroad, and visit another city that has a totally different weather in the same state.
We took a short stop at the Mobius Arch loop. From here, we can see the famous Mount Whitney. Don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to go there.
The first night we arrived, a snow hit the area. The snow was not heavy, but for us from south California and east Asia, it’s a very special experience.
We left the BnB early in the morning the next day, in hope to catch the sunrise. Of course, because of the tiredness and the snow, we failed. Still, when we were on our way to the Twin Lakes, the light was still great enough for me to snap some nice pictures.
During this trip, I found that I’m using telephoto lens for landscape more and more. Fujinon XF 10-24mm was my main landscape lens, but all the photos I decided to keep in this trip are all taken with XF 55-200mm.
When I was just starting photography, I always feel difficult to shoot in fall or winter because of the lack of color. Years later, I started to like the desaturated look. The only thing you need to make a view pop is to capture a color standing out in the scene. In this photo of Twin Lakes, the light just hit the top of the trees and made it golden, giving it a balanced and beautiful look.
An half hour into the north from Mammoth Lakes is June Lake. The plan was to visit here for the morning golden hour. We failed to do that but still enjoyed our time there in the noon.
I really like preparing foods with friends. Going grocery shopping, cooking, and dining together, what an experience. Although I didn’t take participate in the cooking part since I was too tired cause of driving.
It was an amazing experience. I will definitely come back to visit Mammoth Lakes again (I’ve said similar things to a lot of places, oh well…)
California is really special. There are always so many beautiful places to visit. I have a hard time to imagine I’d ever want to leave here.