Photographing California Book

Five years and tens of thousands of road and trail miles in the making, my Photographing California guidebook to California landscape photography locations started shipping in September, 2015.

The book covers the southern portion of the state from Yosemite south. It includes a lot of what you’d expect, including Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park, Channel Island National Park, Pinnacles National Park, Mojave National Preserve, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Devil’s Postpile National Monument, several chapters on the Eastern Sierra, a number of backpacking destinations in the High Sierra, and the California Coast from Santa Cruz to San Diego.

It also includes many state parks and beaches, sites on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Natural Landmarks.  I weighted coverage by scenic and photographic value, so the dramatic and accessible Eastern Sierra side of the Sierra Nevada gets separate chapters for the Mono Basin, Mammoth Lakes area, Bishop Area, and Lone Pine to Mojave.

Most of the locations covered can be reached easily by car or via a short walk, but also included are a few stunning destinations best reached using high clearance or 4WD vehicles, overnight backpacking, or horses.  In all, over 350 photos are provided to illustrate over 300 locations, and many site entries reference additional nearby sites and areas worthy of additional exploration if you have the time.

The photographic potential of a site can vary by season and by time of day, so I advise readers on both seasonal timing and when the light is best.  Where there are special technical photographic considerations such as optimal focal lengths or filters to use, I describe those as well.  Seasonal considerations can include the angle of the sun, wildflowers, fall colors, peak waterfall flows and special events such as lunar rainbows. Somehow I packed this all into 320 pages!

The book is the latest volume in the publisher’s series covering many Western states.

This project was a massive undertaking, taking twice as much time as I expected, close to 5 years.  To complete the book I drove a distance roughly equivalent to halfway to the moon.  Death Valley alone warranted approximately 20 visits to explore new locations, even after having already visited the park that many times already over the prior 5 years as well.  I’m crazy about nature, landscapes and photography, so I’d do it over again in a heartbeat.  Completing this book was the experience of a lifetime!

You can order an author-signed copy (U.S. shipping addresses only) via PayPal and credit cards for $32.95 (including shipping) here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NQR7ZALAXJJG4
Please be patient on shipping, I live in a very rural area and go to town about once a week for errands, including shipping books. During Covid it makes sense to minimize trips to no more than once a week

I’ll recoup my travel expenses slowly and it may be years before I get anything extra to cover my time, but I keep the retail markup on the author-signed copies, so your direct purchases through me provide maximum support for this project.

If you tell your photographer friends about this book, it you buy copies for birthday or Christmas gifts, review it with a rating on Amazon, or even just “Like”, comment on, or share my social media posts to help spread the word on it, you’ll be doing me a huge favor.  Thanks in advance for your support, in any form it might take!

Based on the success of this book release, I’ll decide whether to move right into another travel guide.  If I do, what would you like me to cover next, Nevada, the High Sierra, Wyoming and/or Montana?  Drill down in more detailed regional guides (Yosemite, Death Valley, Eastern Sierra, Mojave Desert)?  Something international, perhaps Patagonia or Iceland, or more developed travel destinations like Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey?  Or should I write a book on photographic technique, such as night photography?  Tell me in the comments.  If I can pick my next project now, I can set it up on Kickstarter and use photo prints and this first book as some of the rewards for your support on my next one.

Last but not least, thanks to everyone who cheered me along over the years, on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram,  YouTube, and more. You kept me going on this long road. Thanks also to my photography workshop customers, you kept food on the table, a camera in my bag, a computer on my desk, and my car in working order. Thank you so much for your support, including likes, comments, shares of this page and/or shares of the link to order author-signed copies!  https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NQR7ZALAXJJG4

Pro tip on this book: As the introduction discusses, I am very sensitive to the capacity of photographers that locations have at any one time, and especially the impact that too many photographers might have on fragile or environmentally sensitive locations. To help address this, some of the more photogenic locations are described as “nearby locations”.

Readers tempted to skim the pages and solely cherry-pick locations from the photos might miss a few of those nearby locations. I suspect that people might value things proportionate to the work they have to invest to achieve them, so I’ve hidden a few bonuses for readers willing to embrace a “leave no trace” ethic. A “trace” includes naming or geo-tagging the location of a photograph, so I hope that if you discover some hidden gems through my book, you will value their solitude and untrampled nature, and not contribute to the “look what I found” ego-stroking on social media. Even if a location has been revealed by someone, every time contributes to the stream of trampling feet, and extends the recovery time. People will do what they want; but when you find a place without crowds and with minimal trampling damage I hope that you’ll consider having minimal impact.

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