Another one of those crazy weekend.....

Went up to my favorite place again on Sat, took off from the house 1PM, arrived the park at around 5:30PM, it was raining earlier that afternoon, by the time i got to park the rain stopped and the sun came out again, when I got to Tunnel View there was a line of crazy photogs lining up for the sunset, and I had a real hard time to find a good spot to set up, what? 5:00PM already too late to get a good spot for sunset? what the.... that's crazy !!! But guess what, all of a sudden I ran into a few familiar faces, woohoo.... so I got my spot, right in the middle too, LUCKY ME!!!!

Sunset wasn't that impressive at all, of course I still grabbed a few anyway. I actually like the shots with ground fog and darker clouds. Anyway, after 7:30PM everyone left, only me a few friends stayed to go on for star shooting, but the cloud was so thick, no stars to be found, so we were all just standing around and BS'ing for a few more hours, after 9:00PM, even my friends quit, and i looked around only 3 people staying and waiting for who knows what miracle to happen, and around 11:00PM, sky finally opened up a little and star started to show up at the west side, then the other friend of mine finished his family dinner at the hotel and came joined me, what a perfect time this guy showed up, and then another group showed up, turn out to be some people I met in SF a while back, so about 10 of us shot for a few hours, we got some star shots, valley low fog shots.....all kind of cool stuffs, then they all took off around 1:00 or 1:30AM, and of course I am not going anywhere, and sleeping in the car is definitely not an option, I didn't drive 4 hours up here so I can sleep in the car, LOL. Finally feeling a little cold and hungry after everybody left, well, it was 34 degree and wind was blowing like crazy, so I hanged a few sand bags to my tripod just in case, then I put on my snowboarding jacket and pant, took out my portable stove and made myself two cup noodles and open a can fish and broiled an egg, and a cup of hot chocolate....so from 1:00AM to around 5:30AM, I had the whole mountain for myself, may be with a few who knows what animals as my neighbor watching me in dark, LOL, so quite and peaceful...... and around 5:30AM, people started to showed up for the sunrise...... and sunrise on that day wasn't impressive at all either, I have seen 10 times better, but what the hack, I am here for more than 12 hours already, so what's another few more hours, so I just sticked around and have some good chat with the fellow photographers, made a few more friends, and grabbed a few more shots.....

So after 14 hours staying in the exact same spot, didn't even move my two tripods for an inch, from rain to sun, to low fog to cloudy, sunset to sunrise, here is a few shots I have processed so far, I believe i have a few more keepers from the middle of the night but I jut need to find time to process them. So after about 40 hour without sleep, i think I got a few keepers, crazy? stupid? yes, but well worth the efforts if you asked me. By the way, I did the same the following weekend, but unfortunately the weather wasn't co-operating, "too clear" nothing dramatic, just like any everyday picture, so didn't have any motivation to process those shots yet. Will probably give another try this weekend again for the Milkyway over the valley if the weather is cooperating, so if you don't feel like sleep this weekend, just give me a ring and we will go do something.