photography by wasim.

Tag: photography

The Spirit Of The Mountain Calls Again – Here’re This Year’s Entries!

I can’t believe it’s been a full year since the last one. That photo contest that I was honored to place 2nd and 3rd in last year, the National Park Service sponsored “Spirit Of The Mountain” photo contest? Well, it’s back. I just submitted my two entries, the two you see above, “Family Time” and “Pole Position,” two images taken within the past 12 months in the Santa Monica Mountain Range.

If you happen to find yourself in the area between November 2 and November 23, stop by the Interagency Visitor Center at the King Gillette Ranch. It’s right across the road from Malibu Creek State Park, so make a day of it…trust me, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Oak groves and rock pools and lakes and streams…hard to believe it’s only 35 minutes from Santa Monica and Los Angeles’ Westside.

Anyhow, if you happen to make it on November 2, that’s the opening reception, and renown photographer Tom Gamache, the man behind the beautiful images in Matthew Jaffe’s “The Santa Monica Mountains – Range On The Edge,” will be there to critique the entries. Also, Gamache has his images currently on exhibition at the same visitor center. That there is worth it alone.

The images above were taken on Samsung NX300 and NX30 cameras.

For more of my madness, take your pick:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Ello: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy

October 14, 2014
Ello Ello Ello Ello – All Aboard! My First Week On The Thing

So I’ve gone and done it…I’ve hitched a ride on the food cart of the Ello train to sample their wares. Here’s how our honeymoon together, our first week, has gone so far. A friend sent me an invite, I logged on, I created a profile (as quick and easy as a username and a short description), and immediately was like, WTF? But then I noticed an actual WTF button on the page. I knew we had a future together.

Why? Well, Facebook has become, for lack of a better term, shit. I log on and all I see are sponsored posts, ads, games, and videos that, despite the fact that my psyche doesn’t give more than zero mehs about them, my eyes still can’t help but obsessively flicker and stutter. And every now and then, sprinkled very sparingly between those mehs, are perhaps a few posts from friends or family. And in those few posts, perhaps a non-political, non-religious, or non-narcissitic gem or two might stand out amongst the noise. Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends and family, and love seeing what they’re up to, but, well, it’s not all that easy to filter through the madness anymore. While taking screen grabs for this post, I literally scrolled through 11 posts before finally finding 2 – TWO – posts from someone I knew squashed between that casino floor. And this after hitting the useless ‘I don’t want to see this’ button EVERY TIME one of those posts rolls through for the past 3 months. I’ve deleted every ‘app,’ squashed every ‘game,’ to no avail.

Enter Ello.

Simplicity lies at its raw, but tasty, core. And not a SINGLE ad surrounds that.

Sure, there is extremely minimal functionality, which, between likes and shares and candy crush sagas and page feeds and random invites from sponsored posts (aka the equivalent of early 2000s pop-ups), might be a shock to the zombie robot humanoid system, but, once the withdrawal systems start to wane, you can’t help but realize how…wonderfully clutter-free…this thing is.

One, posts are simple text (with a nice nostalgic typewriter font) – you can link, you can bold, you can italicize.

Two, you can only organize contacts into ‘Friends’ and ‘Noise.’

Three (my personal favorite), pictures look GREAT!!! No compression, no stripping of EXIF data, no renaming to some randomized Da Vinci Coded shlabberdasshery of numbers and letters.

So yes…clean…clutter-free…simple.

Hell, there isn’t even a ‘like’ button for posts. At first, my (un)natural reaction was, ‘oh snap, what do I do?” Then I realized…ohhhhh…right….communicate! I mean, let’s face it, for the most part, ‘likes’ are nothing more than a gratuitous nod to a stranger as you walk down the street. You don’t really give half a turd, it just seems the respectable thing to do. After all, half the time the person liking didn’t even see the post itself. For example, I’ll post a link to a video that’s 4 minutes long. Immediately I’ll get 5 likes. Within 30 seconds. Which means that either they only watched :30 seconds of the video or none of it at all. More often than not (call me jaded), I’m forced to assume the latter. (Hint to the obsessive likers – at minimum, wait until the length of the video passes before hitting that button…jus’ sayin’…)

On Ello, this is impossible. Because you have to communicate and engage in order to get the best experience and have those dopamine neurons fire. So this ‘no like’ button thing that started off as the first thing to irk me, ended up being my favorite part of it. After all, because of it, within the first week, I somehow find myself communicating with ‘The’ Thomas Hawk, engaged with my celebrity Arcanum master Robin Griggs Wood, shared with and interacted with my fellow Samsung Imageloggers in a much more photography friendly environment, and have been exposed to a whole slew of new artists, creatives, and thinkers that may have never crossed my path otherwise.

It seriously feels like everyone has just been waiting for something…anything…to help ween them off the Facebook nipple, and whether or not it lasts is anyone’s guess, but it’s already been worth it simply to have connected with new faces, once seemingly unapproachable faces, and ideas that were left simmering in the background before this platform forced them to ripen. Kinda like a cocktail party – feel each other out, and perhaps you’ll connect on deeper more meaningful levels on the periphery.

What it has done, at least for the meantime, is refreshingly brought engagement back. It’s brought a proper human element back. Thoughtful, real, expressive communication.

Sure, there are a few things that can be improved (like including a like-button equivalent on JUST comments – otherwise, acknowledging that you saw someone’s comment can quickly turn into an akward ‘Who’s got the last word’-fest), and no doubt as it becomes more popular, they will work on those things, but it’s nice to be a part of something in which the users have a say and impact on the output of what it turns into.

And even if it just lasted this one week alone, that was good enough for me. Because the true implications lie in this encouraging bit:

Despite all our techno-addictions, people still want and crave real connections with people.

So, while this ain’t our first rodeo, and know it can very well all implode at any given moment, until then…get at me!

www.ello.co/wasimofnazareth

Ello Ello Ello Ello!

For more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy

October 7, 2014
A Spontaneous Excursion Up Pacific Coast Highway – Part 3: More Big Sur

The next few days in Big Sur were nothing short of magical. We woke up the following morning, our first in Big Sur, and figured the most logical thing to do would be to hit the beach. And, well, who are we to argue logic? The universe led us down the 3/4 or so mile hiking path from the campsite, through a covered canopy of trees that straddles the Big Sur River, all the way down to the quaint cove that makes up Andrew Molera State Beach. We spent several hours here sunning, swimming, playing, fighting off the seagulls that boldly flew off with half our food, and watching the surfers slowly but surely converge at Molera Point as they anticipated the swells from Hurricane Marie, the category 4 that had hit Baja California earlier that day, to come ashore any moment. And boy did they! We watched surfer after surfer catch wave after wave that ranged from 3 feet breaks all the way up to what seemed like at least 8 or 10 feet for the more advanced.

We headed back into camp mid-afternoon, some rested, some napped, some ate. Myself and Stephen, we had USB battery bricks and phones to charge, and some business to handle, so we headed into town (and when I say town, I say this very generously, for ‘town’ consists of a grocery store, a restaurant, and a gas station). We took a seat at an outdoor table at the Big Sur River Inn, had some fresh coffee, and got down to business. We charged up our power bricks, and headed back to Molera, hiked back into camp just in time for a campfire and dinner. And that’s when we got a reality check from this fantasy world.

The rangers came up to us to inform us that as of 3 hours ago, the higher ups have outright banned campfires and even camp stoves until further notice. The reason? Drought. The California drought has gotten so bad and so serious, and the land so brittle and dry, that not only did they had to ban campfires and camp stoves 3 days before the famously busy Labor Day weekend, but they also increased the fine from $500 to $5000 to hammer home that this was no joke. If this state doesn’t get some much needed precipitation relief in the coming months, the ban could very well go through all of next year.

In any case, we figured since it was our last campfire, we’d go out with a bang…”S’MORESSSS!!”

The following day, we decided to head up the coast to Point Lobos State Reserve. In all the years of my coming to Big Sur, I’ve never stepped foot in here, and I was stupid not to. This place was incredible. We walked through a Cypress grove, we went geocaching at the old whaler’s cabin, and we hiked around the point, soaking in views of the famous coast. Perhaps the highlight of this part was the tide pools that dotted the rugged coastline. The closer we got to them, the more magical they became…we saw regular crabs, hermit crabs, a dizzying myriad of shells and sea urchins. It was beautiful.

As we sensed the sun begin to set, we figured it’d be a good time to head back to camp, eat some dinner and perhaps try to catch the sunset on the coast back at our beach, Andrew Molera State Beach. We were able to get back in time to feed the belly, but, the clouds started rolling in, so unfortunately, our sunset that evening was hidden from view. Which was alright. We marinated around the lantern, told some stories, had some scotch, and called it a night…figured since I was planning on leaving the next morning, I should get a good night’s sleep for the long drive back.

Below are the images from this part of the trip, all of which were taken on Samsung NX3000 and NX30 mirrorless cameras.

Click here for the final installment of this trip, Part 4: From Big Sur To Barbeque.

And if you want to start from the beginning, click here for Part 1: Morro Bay

And for more of my madness, including additional images and edits from this very trip: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

September 23, 2014
A Spontaneous Excursion Up Pacific Coast Highway – Part 2: Big Sur

So after the kayak melee in Morro Bay, it was time for Stephen Chiang, the photographer I was assisting, and I to drive up north to San Francisco for the job the next morning. Put two photographers in a car, give them the choice between A. a straight and direct, but boring route, and B. a windy, curvy, 2-hours-longer scenic route through Big Sur, and, well, you can guess which one they’re going to choose 11 times out of 10. So up the curvy Pacific Coast Highway we went, absolutely one of the most beautiful and scenic drives in the country. As we made our way through Cayucos, then Cambria, we stopped for lunch before PCH opened up along the Pacific Ocean for good from the lowlands of San Simeon (best known for Hearst Castle), all the way up the jagged picture-perfect sparsely populated Central California coastline to and through the majesty that is Big Sur. We pulled over and admired for a while, excited at the fact that just 24 hours from now, we’ll be back here to spend the rest of the week making the tough decisions of frolicking around the grand vistas overlooking the Pacific, or splashing around in this, the largest of the world’s 5 oceans.

But first, we had the task of finding dinner and a place to rest our heads for the night in San Francisco for the job in the morning, so we crossed over the famous Bixby bridge, rolled past Monterey and Carmel, made a pit stop in San Jose for my first experience with Yakitori at Gaku Yakitori in San Jose (I ate sea urchin!!! Anthony Bourdain would be proud!). There we used Airbnb.com, found ourselves a place to stay for the night, so after dinner, rolled into San Francisco around midnight. We woke up the next morning to fresh coffee from our host, who just so happened to be the photo editor for Via Magazine, an edition of the Automobile Club publications covering the western states, so, well, naturally, we all immediately clicked. (BTW kind Airbnb host, if you’re reading this, I have a feeling you’ll be hearing from us…)

The work day went suspiciously smoothly. It was a corporate headshot job, and we were in by 10am, out by 3pm. We didn’t even bother to stay in the city, opting to immediately get out, back along the coast, stopped in Pacifica at a roadside fresh produce stand for some snacks and supplies, and proceeded on down to Big Sur, where we were to meet my cousin, my aunt, and the family for dinner at Andrew Molera State Beach campground, our home for the next few days.

Luck would so have it (yes, all luck, no planning or rushing to break down the equipment and get out of the city by a certain hour of course), that we made it back to the infamous Bixby Bridge in time to find a few vantage points to get some solid sunset shots. What are the chances?

We pulled along the side of the road at Rocky Point Restaurant, managed to get a few good shots and angles, not a difficult task in a location like this, but something still told us that we should continue on. So we did, and about a mile further down the PCH, we found a small turnout to park alongside what seemed to be a candidate for a perfect overlook. We took a trail along the bluff (extremely careful to avoid the poison oak that seemed to be in full bloom), which ended at the edge of an abandoned property that we didn’t realize until we were already on it. The boarded up house and remains of an old firepit gave it away. But when we turned around, there was no way we were backing off right away.

This.

View.

Was.

Perfect.

We spent the next 15 to 20 minutes capturing the last rays of sunlight over the Pacific and shining onto the coastline hugging the Bixby Bridge, turned towards each other with a knowing “that’s why we do this” smile, and walked back to the car.

Hungry.

We finally pulled up to Andrew Molera State Park, hiked through a 1/2 mile tree canopy into our campsite where the rest of the family was waiting, burgers already grilling, beers already poppin,’ and hence began our stay in Big Sur.

Check out the gallery of images from that day and evening below, taken on Samsung NX3000 and NX30 mirrorless cameras.

Click here for the next part, Part 3: More Big Sur

And if you missed it, here’s Part 1: Morro Bay

And for more of my madness, including additional images and edits from this very trip:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth
Ello: www.Ello.co/WasimOfNazareth

September 7, 2014
A Spontaneous Excursion Up Pacific Coast Highway – Part 1: Morro Bay

It began as a work trip. Well, sort of. I’m finding more and more and more these days I’ll fish for any excuse to leave Los Angeles…just the thought alone gets me excited. So when Stephen Chiang, a photographer friend that I occasionally assist mentioned he needed an assistant for a gig in San Francisco, I jumped at it. When he mentioned it would begin with a night of camping in Morro Bay State Park, and end with 4 nights of camping in Big Sur, that wasn’t just the icing on the cake, that WAS the cake.

We hit the road on the Sunday before Labor Day, caravanning with his family (his wife, who happens to be my cousin, their kids, and my aunt), got to Morro Bay, took a walk along the shore for the first sunset of the trip, and then headed down to the village for a seafood dinner at The Galley. Afterwards, we headed back to camp, lit the campfire, shared some scotch and stories, and crashed.

The next day was an adventurous and activity filled one. It also ended up being the first time I’ve ever entered and operated a kayak. My cousin and one of her kids hopped on a paddle board, her husband and the other kid hopped on another paddle board, and my aunt and I jumped into the kayak – both rookies mind you, and it was immediately apparent. It took a few twists, turns, and devising a system to coordinate our left from our right, but eventually, we got the hang of the bugger…for now.

We made it across the bay to peninsula on the western side of the bay that ran along the Pacific coast towards the icon of the town, Morro Rock. The sandbar was about a half mile wide and covered with sand dunes that we traverse to get to the beach side. We spent a couple hours in the sun, had a packed lunch, and then made our way back over the sand dunes to our ‘transportation.’

The return trip was not NEARLY as easy as we had anticipated. No matter what we did, all we could manage was to spin around in circles while the undercurrent pulled us further and further away from the direction we were trying to go in. Apparently the tide has dropped and we were trying to kayak through 12” deep water. Well, needless to say…that didn’t work out too well. We ended up spinning around in place while the current was pulling us in the wrong direction almost snapping the paddles as we dug them into the sand to try to stay put. No bueno. I’m partly embarrassed to admit we ended up holding onto the back of my cousin’s paddle-board as she towed us in…

And since I feel compelled to find a way to make you forget about that last sentence and focus on something else, here are a few images from that first day in Morro Bay, all of which were taken with a Samsung NX3000 mirrorless camera…

If you’re ready for Part 2: Big Sur, click here.

Finally, for more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Ello: www.Ello.co/WasimOfNazareth

September 2, 2014
My Experience In Trey Ratcliff’s The Arcanum – Levels 1 & 2

So if you haven’t heard of it yet, you need to hear of it before yet. Like now. Right now. It’s the future of learning and education, it’s based on the master/apprentice model, it was created by Trey Ratcliff, and it’s called The Arcanum.

The idea is simple…a master chooses an apprentice, and the apprentice learns the craft. The craft in this case is photography. The execution…is seemingly brilliant. Using today’s technologies – everything from real time screen sharing and VR on-location sharing – mixed with a structured and tiered leveling system, and you have yourself what could be a glimpse into the future of education.

Here’s a quick video that’s worth watching to give you a primer of what it’s all about:

I submitted my application when I first heard about it late last year, and once beta ended I actually heard from a master, Ollie Dale, who was interested in my application and asked me to be an apprentice. While I was insanely humbled, I had just been involved in an automobile accident and my finances weren’t exactly in order, so what I was waiting for for 6 months, I had to turn down. Luckily, soon after the accident madness died down, I was asked by another master, Robin Griggs Wood. And if you don’t know Robin yet, GO check her out. Her work is incredibly inspiring and surreal. I could NOT find it in myself to turn down the rare opportunity twice, so I freed up the room on the ol’ Visa, and boom! Here I am. A registered and active student apprentice to a bonafied master photographer and artist!

Our first assignment in Level 1 is to provide 5 images to be critiqued, along with a description of ourselves and our goals for those images and what we’d like to get out of all of this. This one was easy, but served as an introduction to the private group, my cohort, of fellow apprentices under Robin. We see each others work, get get to know each other a bit, and we share our journey with each other.

I think the greatest thing about this model is the sense of accountability. After I submitted my Level 1, and was ‘leveled up’ by my master, I saw the stream of work people were submitting on a regular basis and, well, it got a bit intimidating. I kind of froze for about a week or so wondering if I was in way over my head, but then as I dug deeper, I realized that everything that was happening was all extremely encouraging. People weren’t judging anyone or anything, they were helping each other out. That’s when I actually started to feel ‘bad’ about not completing my assignments and interacting with the group – not because of guilt, but because, well, you realize you’re going to get out of this what you put into it, and if you put nothing into it…well…you get nothing out of it. And I wasn’t here to get nothing out of it.

A 135 year old moreton bay fig tree.

So I finally manned up and got crackalackin’ on my Level 2. The assignment there was to peruse the Grand Library of inspiring and educational videos available to the members of The Arcanum, find one that spoke to me, and apply the technique. Since I was in a bit of a rut, the one I found and that spoke to me was Rick Sammon’s “Top Ten Techniques To Get Inspired”. So I took a few of those techniques, got out of my little comfort zone, and headed out to a town I’ve never been to that’s relatively close by, Santa Paula, California, the “Citrus Capital of the World.” The gallery of images you see in this post are from that excursion, all taken with a Samsung NX3000.

Anyhow, if you want to join me and see how this thing goes, enter your email and subscribe to my updates right there in the right column. I’ll provide regular updates of my experience in The Arcanum here as I continue on and get deeper into it.

And if you haven’t yet, check it out at www.TheArcanum.com, see what it’s all about, and if you’re feelin’ it, fill out and application, wait, and see what happens. You never know what synapses might start firing and what doors may open up. Perhaps I’ll see you in my cohort…

To read about my experience in Level 3, click here.

For more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 20, 2014
5 Photo Projects You Can Start And Finish In A Weekend

So this one’s going to be a little different. I recently had the insanely humbling experience of being a guest on the popular Improve Photography podcast with Jim Harmer. We recorded the show with the understanding that it could, or could not be, posted. Well, the team at ImprovePhotography.com were gracious enough to post it this week. The topic we discussed was ‘5 Photo Projects You Can Start And Finish In A Weekend,’ and rather than list them here, I’m going to direct you over to the podcast link so you can listen away! There’re some good ones in that sucker I must say!

The image above is of Topanga Canyon artist Robin Becker working. She is a mixed media artist who enhances her photographs with paint. Needless to say, it’s incredibly stunning. Check out her work at www.RobinBeckerArtist.com

And for more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Twitter: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

August 14, 2014
How And Why I Finally Made The Switch To The Adobe Creative Cloud

So I fought it for a year. And I fought it hard. I didn’t want to rent it. I wanted to rightfully own it. The way I have for years. The way we all have for years. Why should I have to ‘rent’ the software I need for my work? Why can’t I buy it anymore? It made no sense. And it didn’t seem right. And it didn’t seem fair. So there was only one thing left to do. Rent the software.
Yeah, that’s right, I did it. I made the switch to the Adobe Creative Cloud. And here’s why it finally just had to happen.

A big part of my decision was Adobe’s recent commitment to photographers to keep the price at 9.99/month for the two tools that photographers need most, Photoshop and Lightroom. Which, once you crunch the numbers, one you sit down, and really crunch the numbers, you realize that at 120 dollars a year, it would still take about 5 years to cover roughly what a full version of Photoshop used to cost for purchase. Considering the fact that a new version normally came out every 2-3 years, in essence, and in the long run, you’re actually saving money.

On top of that, getting the updates for free on the fly is quite the welcomed gotcha! Well, sort of. While you lose some of the big-box anticipation of all these new features at once, which was always a fun reveal and sense of discovery, the way it is now actually allows you time to adapt and use and test and play without being overwhelmed by new features all at once. By easing you into the usage of these new features, you are able to actually focus on them rather than try to fish through an onslaught of madness, only to forget half of them existed 2 weeks later. Basically, I’ve begun to get even more use out of each new set of features that has been released since subscribing to the Creative Cloud 2 months ago.

So I’m 2 months in, and once I got over the whole ’subscription’ thing, the process has actually made my workflow easier, and that’s due in large part to the feature set that they offer in the Creative Cloud, most notably, the syncing with the new Lightroom mobile. This workflow, Lightroom mobile, on an iPad mini? It’s simply divine. Instead of laying on the couch feeling lazy and proscrastinaty, now I’m actually getting work done. I’m able to star, flag, and pre-edit my images, and when I do finally decide to act like a ’true professional’ and get up off the couch, and walk to the computer, or head into to the office or studio the next day, what a treat to see that all the edits have automatically synced with Lightroom on the desktop…I mean…c’mon! That alone might be worth the 10 bucks a month.

So yes, needless to say, so far, I’m happy I made the switch. Adapt or die right? I’ve still got some gotcha in me hot damnit!

Anyhow, click here to get in on the action!

For more of my madness:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Twitter: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

July 31, 2014
A Surprise Journey Through The Range Of Light – Part 1 – Mammoth Lakes

So this is what was supposed to happen. My landlord’s friend has a condo up in Mammoth. He wanted new pictures of it in order to prepare rental listings for the coming winter season. It hasn’t been rented in several months, so I figured this would be a good week to go. I got the green light from him, from the landlord, and off I went, driving along the Eastern Sierras of California…the ‘Range of Light.’ A relatively painless drive to spend a few days in a part of California I’ve never been to, take some pictures, get some writing and some work done in the solitude of the Sierra Nevadas for a few days, and then head back home.
Well, let’s just say, that got derailed in a big way, spontaneously turning this into much more of an adventure than I expected.

I showed up to the condo, and was immediately taken aback by how beautiful it was. How this wasn’t being rented, I’ll never know. Three immaculate bedrooms, a gorgeous living area, and it was big. I walked out the back patio door and it lie RIGHT on a river looking up at the sunset. I grabbed my tripod, slammed the camera on there, scarfed down my now cold meatball sandwich from John’s Pizza Works, and started snapping away. As the sun dipped behind the Sierras, I noticed that the light was going to make for a spectacular twilight shot of the condo. It was essentially isolated, with a river running by it’s side, and the golden pink skies were beginning to turn that lust-worthy shade of deep blue. I set up my tripod for the shot, ran in the house to turn on all the lights, and…(insert record scratch sound here…) a woman was standing inside.

Apparently she had the place booked with her family, and for some reason, the owner didn’t know, and the property management company failed to notify him of that. Who knows what kind of tomfoolery is going on but, well, that’s neither here nor there. What’s here is that I was just thrown out into the streets of Mammoth with nowhere to go. As I was cursing my luck and wondering if I’d killed someone in a past life, I sat in a parking lot, debating whether or not to make the 5-hour drive back to Los Angeles. I was finally able to get a hold of my landlord, the one who helped set it all up, who was just as surprised as I was. They agreed to get me a room at the Mammoth Mountain Inn for the night so we can get things sorted in the morning.

As I checked into the hotel, I noticed a flyer for Yosemite’s Tuolomne Meadows on the front desk, so I grabbed it. I’ve been trying to make it there for years as the roads are only open a few months out of the year (they’re snowed in most of the year as it’s the high country). When I asked the desk agent how far it was from where I was standing, he said no more than an hour.

Done.

Was NOT planning on this, but I’ll be hot damned if I’m 60 minutes from a place I’ve been trying to make my way to for almost a decade and NOT turn this into an impromptu trip to Yosemite National Park’s Tuolomne Meadows.

In any case, here I sit, room 114 at the Mammoth Mountain Inn, getting more and more excited for whatever the next few days have in store for me. I forgot how nice it is to just let go and see what happens. This should be interesting. And above? The only shot I was able to snap before being sent to the streets.

For Part 2: A Surprise Journey Through The “Range of Light” Part 2 – Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite, click here .

And to find out how to get sunset and star-burst shots like the one above, click here .

All images in this series were taken with a Samsung NX30 and a Samsung 18-200mm lens.

And for more of my madness: Instagram: @wasimofnazareth Twitter: @wasimofnazareth Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth

July 30, 2014
Cover Your Bases – Here Are Some Of The Best Photographers Insurance Options

Photographers bread and butter depends 100% on their camera and their camera gear, and the simple fact that this gear must be on our backs at all times, very often in sketchy situations and locations, lends to the necessity of insurance for their gear. There are many options for insurance tailored to photographers and creatives, so here are a few of those to check out:

Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Well known and well-established, the PPA is a great choice for photographers seeking insurance. They’ve been around since 1880. Yes, you read that right EIGHTEEN EIGHTY, and that puts them in a unique position to know and cater to photographers needs since, well, photography existed. The one catch here is that you need to be a PPA member to reap the benefits of PPA photographers insurance. However, with membership dues running between 273-323 per year, that includes a host of additional benefits, it’s a small price to pay to cover up to $15,000 of your equipment. Click here to check em out.

Hill & Usher – This 20 year old company started off as just a construction-insurance company, and has since expanded to all sorts of industries and niches, including photography with their specialized Insurance for Media Professionals Package Choice. They have options for everything from personal gear to full studio insurance. Premiums range between 4-500 dollars depending on location and other factors including how much coverage you need. Click here for more information.

Tom Pickard Insurance (TCP Insurance) – Tom Pickard Insurance specialized in Photographer Insurance, with both long term and short term policies available. Long term insurance is about $500 for the year, which includes portfolio and computer equipment coverage, which is very competitive and reasonable. Check them by clicking here.

Homeowners/ Renters Insurance – Another option is to look into your homeowners or renter’s insurance policies. Oftentimes they cover a good portion of your gear, with some restrictions, and if it’s not on your policy, it’s worth asking, because chances are good they’ll have an offering or be able to refer you. I mean, after all, have you ever heard of an insurance company that would turn down business?

Additionally, if you’re a member of the American Society of Media Professionals (ASMP), or American Photographic Artists (APA), they also have access to resources to lead you in trusted directions for photographer insurance, so it’s worth asking them before you choose one of the above options.

And finally, make sure to also register your equipment with Lenstag as an additional useful (and free) precautionary measure. Click here for a bit about that!

Hopefully this information will help you rest assured that no matter what photography psychotica situation you might find yourself in, someone’s got your back!

For more of my madness:
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July 29, 2014