Camping at Lake Britton

My family and I spent Memorial weekend car camping at Lake Britton and exploring the area. It was kind of a last minute decision (within a couple of weeks) to go camping over the holiday weekend, and as expected just about every place we looked into in the Northern California within 3 to 4 hours of Sacramento was all booked up on reservations. This led me to start looking for "first come first serve" spots, and it turns out that PG&E has quite a few of them. I narrowed my search to the Hat Creek and Burney area and decided we would just go from campground to campground until we found a spot. First stop, Lake Britton where the majestic McArthur Burney Falls pours in to.

Lost Coast Again

I've been real quiet in blog-land, but I finally got out on another adventure; this time back to The Lost Coast. This year I decided to just do a portion of the trail so that I could explore some of the ridges above the beach, and so that I wouldn't have to pay for the shuttle (which is reasonable if you must do the whole 25.5 miles, but still $200 is a bit expensive). I got a hold of my nephew Josh and he readily agreed to accompany me on a few night stay. 

My Mean Face

I've found it fascinating for quite some time that by far my most popular image on flickr is the the one above featuring "my mean face". This image has been viewed over 5,000 times, well above any nature image, or beautiful child portrait that so much of my stream features.

Burney Falls

Every since moving up to Northern California two years ago, I have had two waterfalls on my mind that I absolutely had to visit. One was Mossbrae Falls, which I hit up earlier this summer on my Lake Siskiyou camping trip. The other was Burney Falls.

Ahjumawi

I spent last weekend paddling and camping at Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. Basically it is a huge collection of springs flowing into where Big Lake, Fall River, Tule River, Ja-She Creek, and Lava Creek converge. Together they form one of the largest collection of fresh water springs in the entire country. Yet this park only gets about 2,000 visitors a year making it the least visited park in the California State Park system.

Juniper Lake

Not wanting to give in to the end of camping season just yet, my wife and I decided to get away for Labor Day weekend and try someplace new. We had always wanted to check out Lassen National Park, and recently we read about a beautiful pristine lake there called Juniper Lake. What a magnificent place it was.

Artist Reception

My whole family and I made it down to the Urban Hive for the Vox Artist Reception night of the Second Saturday show that is going on tomorrow. A ton of great work up there. Didn't get a chance to talk to many people. Was too busy taking it all in and chasing my son around keeping him happy and out of trouble.

My First Art Show

VOX Sept flyer
Originally uploaded by jillallyn

So this weekend I'll be showing some of my photographs at the Vox Second Saturday Art Show. Every second Saturday in Sacramento there is a big art walk going on, so the people at Vox put together different showings with local artists. This month they are featuring local photographers that are part of the Sacramento Photographers group on Flickr. So it's not really like I was singled out for my talents or anything, but all the same I'm really excited to be a part of it.

Fun in the Tub

Had a little fun with bathtime the other day with Andrew, and pulled out my Westcott Apollo softbox. That thing really puts out a great light. It doesn't take much either. I think I had the Strobe set to 1/16th power (maybe it was 1/8th, I don't remember). That power is perfect for shooting portraits at F/2.8 or so. Nice shallow DOF, clean crisp focus, nice soft yet directional light, and recycle time is nonexistent.

More Paddling

Jennifer and I spent some more time paddling the backwaters and creeks of Lake Natoma. It was such a beautiful evening. Between the soft light of late day, and the rhythmic sounds of our paddles cutting through the water, our trip was so peaceful.