A recent hike with the Renegade Photography Meetup Group turned into a visual study of the similarities between natural and manmade beautiful things particularly those involving water for me. One of my favorite photos of the day was this one, the manmade fountain outside Artesa Winery that a few of us visited after a long, yet fun and photogenic hike of Archer Taylor Preserve.
The hiking group was lead by two members of The Land Trust of Napa County, a group of volunteers who take groups through the preserve, one in the front, one at the back to make sure everyone is safe and accounted for. Though it wasn’t planned, we soon separated into two groups, one the members of the public, many of whom were probably surprised to see so many cameras, and the Renegade Photographers, who often wanted to stop and take many photos, and explore everywhere we were allowed to visit.
Though I knew the preserve would have falls, I didn’t know the extent of how vast they would be (I don’t usually research Meetup places in advance on purpose to be surprised and have a fresh pair of eyes to view and photograph locations). Still when our group came to the impressive set of manmade falls (right), I thought the natural ones would be even bigger (perhaps I was picturing something more common to Hawaii). The actual natural falls (left) were more subdued, yet were especially beautiful surrounded by all the lush greenery of nature.
That being said the manmade falls themselves were surrounded with greenery and made a nice photo opportunity showing natural and manmade beauty all at once.
One of the best parts of taking this hike as a guided tour was that we learned history of things along the way. I learned that this amazing patterned rock was originally part of a mountaintop formation, which explained its uniformed structure. I photographed this from many angles before finding just the right one to show it off.
I was delighted to learn that Harold Davis, a renowned photographer and author, was on the trip with us. While he adapted a hollowed out log to hold his tripod, I took a photo of him with some aspects in silhouette form. In post processing I experimented with making all of him a silhouette, however, I think this version is the best of the moment.
Along the trip our guide spotted a salamander which everyone wanted to photograph. Though we tried putting him on a fallen tree for photos several times, which s/he promptly moved off of time and time again, the photo of him or her in the native leaves, ironically where we had spotted the creature, was my favorite of the series I shot.
by Danielle Stolman
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