Gil and Jess posing at our first stop wine tasting in Napa: Trefethen!

Sammi and I went to Argentina and fell in love with Malbec wine. Trefethen has been growing Malbec for years but when we started going they never had one in stock. They kept telling us "next month it should be out" -- we'd go next month and they'd say "ahhh, sorry, next month." Finally we had to join the winery to get it with their 2007 Dragon's Tooth (we still haven't drunk it). This is a photo of the 2008 Dragon's tooth.

Aaron, Sammi, Jess, and Gil at Trefethen

Gil making a funny face. Yes, he can control each eye-brow individually.

Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 15 sec, ISO 2000, Tripod

FINAL RE-EDIT: Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 30 sec, ISO 2000, Tripod

Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 30 sec, ISO 2000, Tripod

Original Edit (see updated version): Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 30 sec, ISO 2000, Tripod

Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 68 sec, ISO 800, Tripod

Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 25 sec, ISO 1600, Tripod

Many photographers know about Horsetail Falls in Yosemite and that every February it lights up into a "Fire Falls." In fact, I photographed this exact event in February of this year and it was spectacular. Many photographers, however, do not know that the same phenomenon occurs via moonlight on some rare occasions! On Saturday, Feb 16th 2011 I woke up at 3am and headed over to the Picnic Grounds at Yosemite National Park. When I arrived the moon was really lighting up the falls but the angle wasn't quite right to turn the falls red. After a couple minutes of setting up and figuring out my camera settings all of a sudden the photos started turning orange! It lasted for about 10 minutes before the falls were completely dark. Note that to the human eye the falls appeared white but to the camera it appeared red! The human eye has 2 photo-receptors: rods and cones. Cones are really good at detail and color but require a lot of light. They don't work so well in low light (night). Rods on the other hand, are really good at low light but they can't detect color. So at night, in this scene, our eye only saw the brightness of the falls but the camera sensor saw the beautiful color! There is NO saturation change to this. The only thing I did after taking this photo was a small white balance adjustment, some sharpening, and some noise reduction! I'd also like to note the difficulties in taking this photo. It was nearly pitch black and the camera cannot focus at all. Additionally, using LiveMode, as I did during the sunset Fire Falls, doesn't work either since the LiveMode displayed a completely black view. I had to set the camera to focus at infinity, took a photo, and then tweaked the focus. I continued this until I got a shot that was in focus. Additionally, since there's so little light I had to bump the ISO wayyyyyy up. Additionally, I had to turn "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" and "High ISO Noise Reduction" off or I would have missed out on taking photos of the event. I did the noise reduction later on in Photoshop. Lastly, I had to keep the shutter short just to try to keep the star trails to a minimum. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR: 112mm, f/4.8, 76 sec, ISO 640, Tripod

After waking up at the butt-crack o' dawn to take Horsetail Falls lighting up into Fire Falls via moonlight I dropped my friends back off at the tent-cabin so they could go back to sleep and I went back out with my friends to take sunrise at Tunnel View. The sky light up fairly nicely but the rest of the lighting was kinda meh. The big HiTech ND Grad filters really helped here but I still had to do quite a bit of Lightroom work to pull up the darks to get this photo to come out. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 35mm, f/10, 1.6 sec, ISO 320, Tripod Hitech 0.9 ND Soft, 0.6 ND Soft, and 0.3 ND Soft GND, and Lee FK Filter holder No HDR for this shot.

After waking up at the butt-crack o' dawn to take Horsetail Falls lighting up into Fire Falls via moonlight I dropped my friends back off at the tent-cabin so they could go back to sleep and I went back out with my friends to take sunrise at Tunnel View. The sky light up fairly nicely but the rest of the lighting was kinda meh. The big HiTech ND Grad filters really helped here but I still had to do quite a bit of Lightroom work to pull up the darks to get this photo to come out. This photo is not HDR but it's not a single photo either. I call it "not HDR" because I didn't do Photomatix or any other "HDR" program to make this. I took 2 exposures: one extremely under-exposed for the sky, and one to expose the rocks (which didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped). I blended the sky into the rocks-exposed photo to get this result. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 35mm, f/10, 1.3 sec, ISO 320, Tripod Hitech 0.9 ND Soft, 0.6 ND Soft, and 0.3 ND Soft GND, and Lee FK Filter holder

After waking up at the butt-crack o' dawn to take Horsetail Falls lighting up into Fire Falls via moonlight I dropped my friends back off at the tent-cabin so they could go back to sleep and I went back out with my friends to take sunrise at Tunnel View. The sky light up fairly nicely but the rest of the lighting was kinda meh. The big HiTech ND Grad filters really helped here but I still had to do quite a bit of Lightroom work to pull up the darks to get this photo to come out. Nikon D300s w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/10, 1 sec, ISO 320, Tripod Hitech 0.9 ND Soft, 0.6 ND Soft, and 0.3 ND Soft GND, and Lee FK Filter holder

After taking photos of the sunset at Tunnel View we went over to a random spot listed in a book to get a reflection of Cathedral Rocks in the Merced River. The river was gushing a little too quickly to get reflections but we found this one teeny area that was calm enough to reflect. The 4 of us lined up our cameras as close as humanly possible so we could all shoot this. Kinda a meh scene.

After taking photos of the sunset at Tunnel View we went over to a random spot listed in a book to get a reflection of Cathedral Rocks in the Merced River. The river was gushing a little too quickly to get reflections but we found this one teeny area that was calm enough to reflect. The 4 of us lined up our cameras as close as humanly possible so we could all shoot this. Kinda a meh scene.

After waking up early to shoot Horsetail Falls via moonlight and then going to Tunnel View for sunrise and then going to get first light on Cathedral Rock we went over to "Fern Springs" (right as you get into the valley and it becomes 1 lane). We liked the green moss on the rocks and the neat pool of water/little waterfall. Unfortunately the sun had risen too high and we got some weird lighting when we got here.

After waking up early to shoot Horsetail Falls via moonlight and then going to Tunnel View for sunrise and then going to get first light on Cathedral Rock we went over to "Fern Springs" (right as you get into the valley and it becomes 1 lane). We liked the green moss on the rocks and the neat pool of water/little waterfall. Unfortunately the sun had risen too high and we got some weird lighting when we got here.

After waking up early to shoot Horsetail Falls via moonlight and then going to Tunnel View for sunrise and then going to get first light on Cathedral Rock we went over to "Fern Springs" (right as you get into the valley and it becomes 1 lane). We liked the green moss on the rocks and the neat pool of water/little waterfall. Unfortunately the sun had risen too high and we got some weird lighting when we got here.

When I finally got back to the tent-cabin at about 8:30am my friends were still asleep. I let them sleep a bit longer and started reviewing my photos. Once they finally woke up I realized there was this neat silhouette of the trees on the tent-cabin, which has a thick fabric sheet as the walls.

Once my friends finally woke up and ate I took them on a tour of Yosemite Valley. The first stop was Yosemite falls and we walked to the viewing spot for the Upper Yosemite falls location. I thought this log made a neat frame.

Once my friends finally woke up and ate I took them on a tour of Yosemite Valley. The first stop was Yosemite falls and we walked to the viewing spot for the Upper Yosemite falls location. I thought this log made a neat frame. Gil and Jess pose in front of Yosemite Falls.

Once my friends finally woke up and ate I took them on a tour of Yosemite Valley. The first stop was Yosemite falls and we walked to the viewing spot for the Upper Yosemite falls location. I thought this log made a neat frame. Sammi and I pose in front of Yosemite Falls.

My best friend and his girlfriend were in town visiting me for the weekend (finally after not visiting for 5 years!) and I kept waking them up early to go do things. Gil loves to sleep and was quite upset with me for ruining his sleep during his entire vacation. Once he was finally up he kept telling me "this better be worth it!" Sure enough, when I took them here, "IT WAS WORTH IT!" This is Tunnel View during the daylight now.

My best friend and his girlfriend were in town visiting me for the weekend (finally after not visiting for 5 years!) and I kept waking them up early to go do things. Gil loves to sleep and was quite upset with me for ruining his sleep during his entire vacation. Once he was finally up he kept telling me "this better be worth it!" Sure enough, when I took them here, "IT WAS WORTH IT!" This is Tunnel View during the daylight now. Sammi poses in front of valley view and actually lets me take a photo! Look at those cute dimples!