Big Island Platinum Workshop

The next photography and platinum printing workshop will be on the Big Island of Hawaii in April.  Since my first visit there in 1989 it has been one my favorite photo trips. From sea level to almost 14,000 ft up the mountain there is so much variety for photographers. Black sand beaches, waterfalls, Lava in all forms, an abandoned  resort, on top of the clouds on the mountain with the observatories at the summit, and a wide variety of vegetation make for great photo opportunities.

My last trip there was a year ago and from my condo you could see the glow from the Lava lake at night. The day I left the crater collapsed and they had lava flowing for weeks. Two of my favorite places to photograph were covered in lava as were roads and many houses in the area.  The flow has created a great new black sand beach. Looking forward to seeing all thats new.

Tree, Hilo

Joshua Tree Photography and Platinum Printing Workshop

Joshua Tree was colder than in the past but lots of rain, clouds, and even fog made for great photos the first part of the week. The last half of the week was used to make negatives and great  Platinum prints. Don's Workshops use Epson printers and Jon Cones inks to make the negatives and Don has made profiles that work for the metals and the paper.

Barker Dam, Morning

Behind Barker Dam

Livestock Trough Below Dam

Sunrise at Barker Dam Trail

On day we even had fog. It had rained hard the day before and gave us fog the next morning, very rare in the desert. Knowing it would not last long we hurried from location to location trying to keep up with it.

Wave Rocks in Fog

Live Oak in Fog

We made a couple trips to Keys View. From here you can see the mountain on the Mexican border beyond the Salton Sea on the left all the way to Palm Springs and snow on mountains on both sides valley beyond. Normally all you would see from here is haze but the rain cleared it out for us.

Palm Springs under Cloud to the Right

Dalton Sea Center Left

From Wednesday on we were busy with making negatives and prints with a few breaks for photography.

At Live Oak

Joshua Tree and Shadow

Ocotillo Patch

Rainbow, stayed ahead of us all the way down the hill

Sea of Rocks

Morning near Hidden Valley

Near Hidden Valley

Some of the Prints Made

Road to Joshua Tree

On the road to Joshua Tree National Park to help with the Photography and Platinum printing workshop by Don Messec.  Its the third year in a row for this workshop at Joshua Tree and yes Platinum printing includes making the negatives on location.  As always we drive through Box Canyon on the way but this year the road has been closed for weeks do to flooding. Actually more than flooding, the road was ripped out and doesn't look like the state of California is in the mood to repave it which would be a major and expensive project.

With Don's 4WD we were able to make through the canyon. A lot of the vegetation was washed away  but the canyon is great and maybe it should be left like it is for 4Wd access and camping. It parallels the interstate so through traffic doesn't suffer but some trucks used to use it to save a couple minutes.

Flowers in Box Canyon