Sacramento Valley Rice Harvest from the Air

Last week I went up to get some aerial photos of the rice harvest in the Sacramento Valley. Unfortunately, it was very smoky, which limited the views and angles I could get, and we also ended up having some electrical problems with the plane, which cut our flight short.

Still, I got a number of good images of the harvest, and hope to go up again next week - before the next storm comes in.

California Apples

A few weeks back, I had a shoot with the California Apple Commission to photograph apple packing facilities in the Central Valley during the peak of the gala and Fuji apple harvest.

I know, I know. California produces apples? Indeed we do, as I got the opportunity to see at a couple of apple packing plants in the Central Valley near Stockton. I always find such processing facilities fascinating, and the ones we visited on this shoot were no different.

Here are some images from the shoot.

Gala apples being sorted

Sized gala apples floating toward their next destination.

Sized gala apples floating toward their next destination.

A sea of gala apples.

Apple boxes stacked in an enormous cold storage facility. It was refreshingly cool in there.

After shooting the interior of the busy packing facilities, we took a few boxes of apples to make some beauty shots with. I set up my speedlights in a corner of the kitchen and we arranged some apples on their cardboard trays. It was quick set up, quick shoot, quick tear down, but I think the results were excellent and show off the color and texture of our local apples.

Fresh organic gala apples

More galas

An especially nice gala

Fuji apples, ready to ship

Postscript: The day after this shoot, I went into Trader Joe's in Chico and noticed that they were selling gala and Fuji apples from Chile and New Zealand. I was very unhappy and disappointed. First, because Trader Joe's positions themselves as a 'green' company, with their reusable shopping bags and granola-crunching clientèle. And second, obviously, because we were harvesting California grown gala and Fuji apples less than a hundred miles away.

They could have been selling fresh-picked, locally grown (and even organic) apples instead of apples that were harvested last February, stored for six months and then shipped halfway around the planet. Those Chilean and New Zealand apples weren't fresh, environmentally sustainable, or economically responsible (given how the US and California economies are struggling).

I wish that retailers and consumers would be more aware of where our food comes from and would focus more on buying locally. Here in California, the fate of the agricultural economy is the fate of the state's economy.

Downtown Sacramento Skyline

While I was in Sacramento a few weeks back doing the shoot of the Bank of the West building, I decided to take the opportunity to update my portfolio of images of the Sacramento skyline, mostly taken from the Sacramento River waterfront on the Yolo County side of the river.

Here are a few images from that shoot:

Bank of the West Building, downtown Sacramento

I recently had a shoot of the new Bank of the West Building in downtown Sacramento. The goal of the shoot was to get some good architectural elevations of the building in various lighting conditions.

I started out early in the morning, right at sunrise in order to try to catch a bit of sun on the face of the building. Unfortunately, the US Bank building across the street blocked most of the sun at that early hour. Still, I did manage to get a few decent views.

I used my 24mm tilt/shift lens to correct the distortion that appears when you shoot tall buildings. It's a must have lens for professional architectural photography. The image above was one of the first images I took, and it's my overall favorite from the shoot.

Still, the lighting wasn't the greatest in the morning because of the shadow the US Bank building cast. If I had come a week or tow earlier, I wouldn't have had that problem, but you do the shoot when you have to do it, and you make the best of the conditions you have. 

I had better luck lighting-wise when I came back after sunset to catch the building as its lights came on at dusk. The colors of the building and the sky were fantastic, and I was able to get some excellent angles. I used both my 24mm tilt/shift lens and my 17-40mm wide angle zoom to capture various angles.

Overall, this was a fun, easy shoot, and provided very satisfying images. 

Studio Shoot for SunWest Foods

Last month I shot the full product line of rice and nuts for SunWest Foods in Davis.

They actually sent there entire product line (including 50 pound bags of rice) to my studio.

I shot everything from their full product line in a single shot (well, actually three shots stitched and blended together), to individual products, to loose nut products.

This was an interesting and difficult shoot. First of all, my studio isn't really big enough to have a bunch of 50 pound bags lying around for several weeks. Secondly, those bags are heavy and difficult to move around.

But the biggest problem with the big bags was the fact that they sagged when you stood them up for their portraits. So, for some of the shots, I laid the bags on the floor to smooth them out more.

Another approach I took for dealing with the wrinkles caused by sagging bags was to light the bags from several different angles and then merge the differently lit shots in Photoshop to minimize the shadows and glare. Though this was a bit labor intensive, it produced excellent results.

I had a little fun with a couple of shots, scattering loose rice around the product jar.

Of course, after sitting in my studio for a couple of weeks, the 300 pounds of rice and nuts we had photographed couldn't be sold, so, with the permission of the folks at SunWest, we donated it all to the Chico Jesus Center. Here it is in the back of my truck ready to be delivered.

Although challenging in some ways, this was a successful and fulfilling shoot.

New Images: Shasta Dam from the Air

The same client that needed the high resolution panoramas of the Sundial Bridge also wanted some aerial photography from the Redding area as well. While I took a lot of aerial photos of the Sundial Bridge (which I'll post next week), I also got several images of Shasta Dam from the air. Since the lake is virtually full (for the first time in years), this was great opportunity.

Even though it wasn't the perfect day for it, I managed to capture some really nice images showing the dam, the lake and Mount Shasta in the background.

Mt. Shasta and Shasta Dam from the Air

Mt. Shasta and Shasta Dam from the Air

Shasta Dam from the Air

Shasta Dam from the Air

Shasta Dam from the Air

New Images: Panoramas of the Sundial Bridge in Redding

I recently did a job for a client where they needed some very high resolution panoramic photos of the Sundial Bridge in Redding.

I spent a very beautiful day shooting around the bridge, making high resolution panoramic images, consisting of three to six stitched 21 megapixel images. The resulting images are 9000 to 12000 pixels wide.

You can see the full set of panoramic photos from that shoot here, or look at the samples, below (best viewed larger).

A duck flies by the silhouetted tower of the Sundial Bridge

People on the bridge are silhouetted against the sunset

The Sundial Bridge at Dusk

Detail of the Sundial Bridge

The Sundial Bridge spans the Sacramento River

Spring in Bidwell Park - Part 2

The second set of spring photos of Bidwell Park  in Chico in the Spring.

These were taken upstream from One Mile, but still in lower park. At this time of year, the forest is amazingly lush and green.

The road that winds through Bidwell Park

A bicycle rider rides through Bidwell Park

People riding and running though the forest in Bidwell Park.

Riders in Bidwell Park
(taken with my 24' tall camera stand)

Panorama of the woods in Bidwell Park

Spring in Bidwell Park - Part 1

Bidwell Park is a jewel in the middle of Chico, and has become one of my favorite locations to shoot. Here are a few photos from One Mile Pool.