A few weeks ago I took my Documentary Photography class down to the salt ponds for a field trip. After poking around La Riviere Marsh, the Red Hill Gravel Quarry and the Coyote Hills we headed out to Dumbarton Point to see the old landing. There, to my delight, was the Mallard II clamshell dredge, which was working on rebuilding the levees along the former course of Beard’s Creek.

Images from the Documentary Photography class field trip.

Having planned a quick demonstration of kite aerial photography for the end of the field trip, I set up a quick session with the dredge as a subject. Unfortunately, the time was late and the winds were fading so aside from a few low and distant shots I had little to show from that demonstration session. I made a note to return and last Sunday had a chance to do so.

Making new levee

When I returned the Mallard II was still parked along the Beard’s Creek levees but was not actively dredging on the weekend. The dredge was about 500 feet downwind from the road adjacent to a levee made impassible by deep soft mud recently placed by the dredge. It appears from the aerial photographs that the dredge is making a second pass down the levee adding additional spoils along the levee centerline.

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I took my VS186A: Documentary Photography class out to the Weep last Friday. It had been almost a year since I had visited the Weep and I enjoyed finding it moist and vibrant. I promised to post a link to the article in Bay Nature that Wayne Lanier and I wrote about the Weep. The article is also referenced in an earlier post on this site.

I have posted a dozen or so images from Friday to a Flickr set (visible after the jump). I am curious about what you observed and photographed on the trip. Post a few images if you get the chance.

The ACE train rolls northward.

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If you find yourself in Indianapolis I have South Bay photographs on display as part of a group exhibition at the Herron School of Art and Design.

The New Naturalists: contemporary artists in the realm of natural history, opened in the Robert B. Berkshire, Eleanor Prest Reese and Dorit and Gerald Paul Galleries on January 13 and continues through February 16.

From the catalog:

“The practice of carefully observing things and phenomena in the places where they are found led naturalist Charles Darwin to arrive at conclusions that have been generating discussion for more than 150 years. Supplanted by specialty and laboratory-based experimentation, naturalists in more recent years had come to be seen as anachronistic amateurs. Pushed to the margins, they became as endangered as some of the species they studied.

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During my recent trip to Southern California I camped by the Trona Pinnacles near Ridgecrest, California. The Pinnacles are ancient tufa (calcium carbonate) towers rising from the bed of the Searles Dry Lake basin. They were formed underwater 10,000 to 100,000 years ago when the area was an interconnected chain of Pleistocene lakes stretching from Mono Lake to Death Valley. I visited the Pinnacles last year but there but there was not enough time to photograph. On this occasion there was plenty of time but zero wind so no KAPing. Still, it was fun camping out in the middle of nowhere – the sole occupant of an eerie landscape.

A panorama of the Trona Pinnacles – in the larger version you can see the pole shadow and my Westfalia camper down below.

In the morning I climbed to the top of the highest pinnacle with my (shortened) Ron Thompson 13-meter carp pole to shoot a panorama of the area. The camera rig was my trusty Panasonic Lumix LX3 without the wide-angle adapter – a payload of about 450 grams (1 lb.) I completed the image sweep for the panorama (above) and then leaned the pole over the top for a shot down the cliff face.

Kapowwww!

The pole failed with a spectacular pop. The original break was in the middle section of the pole a few inches above the slip joint. After failure, and within a fraction of a second, the upper section of the pole fell downward, hit the cliff, and ejected the uppermost pole section with camera and bracket. I had no forewarning of the failure and had inspected the pole before the trip. The suddenness of the incident was disquieting.

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In early January 2012, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) hosted a gathering of folks who take low altitude photographs using unconventional means. I drove the Westfalia down from Berkeley, an 1100-mile round trip, and had a great time camping along the way.

Aerial camera resolution target – Cuddeback Lake

The group included rocketeers, kiters, balloonists, radio control aircraft fliers, pole balancers, throwers of balls, and more. The aerialists convened at CLUI’s Desert Research Station near Barstow in the Mojave Desert. We then ventured forth to the Cuddeback Dry Lake Bed to photograph a series of three resolution targets used in the testing of aircraft-based aerial surveillance platforms (think SR-71). Our photography platforms afforded a working height several orders of magnitude closer to the ground.

Mathew Lippincott’s Tyvek delta above target #1

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In late October 2011, Claudia and I spent a nice Sunday afternoon down near Drawbridge. The mission of the day was adding another image to my Salt Pond A21 vegetation series (see previous post).

But the real entertainment for the day was shooting Salt Pond A23 again. I confess a great fondness for Salt Pond A23, which lies just north of the Station Island ponds and Drawbridge. The pond has not been used for active production in the five years I have been visiting. Instead, it fills with rainwater in the winter and dries out in the summer. As it dries it takes on lovely red colors and interesting textures.

Looking north across Salt Pond A23.

On this particular Sunday the winds were quite light – hovering around 5 mph or so as measured on the ground. I needed just the right kite to pull off my A21 image mission and then play with Salt Pond A23’s tasty textures.

I often explain the role of kites in our KAP pursuits with a golf analogy. Here our kites are like golf clubs. The golfer gauges distances and obstacles then selects a club to fit the circumstance. We can do the same with kites. I suspect it is devilishly difficult to play a round of golf with one or two clubs and so it is with KAP as well. I routinely take eight or nine kites with me in the field ranging from my ever so delicate Peter Bults Maxi-Dopero with light carbon frame to the tough-as-an-alley-cat Paul’s Fishing Kite for the high Beaufort numbers (more here). This allows me to select just the right kite for the wind and my 1.6Kg dSLR payload.

The camera is barely hanging in the air – note the still water surface.

For this photo session my lightweight 8′ Rokakku got the call. The 8’ Rokakku, part of a three pack of Rokkakus I’ve sewn, is framed with lightweight SkyShark P400 spars and used in very light winds (4 – 9 mph as measured on the ground). Using the 8′ Rok I found myself flying the Canon Rebel far out over Salt Pond A23 when there was not enough wind at ground level to spin the little propeller of my little Kestrel anemometer. The kite and camera were just barely hanging in the air but hang they did. There is no way the Sutton 30 would have flown in those conditions.

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I have updated my post from early 2011 by adding two new views of the small marsh channel in the northeast corner of Salt Pond A21. The images are now organized with late Spring views on the left and early Fall views on the right. This pond was connected to tidal flow in 2006 and the return of vegetation has been fun to watch.

Here is a Google Earth placemark if you would like to find the location of this scene in the South Bay.

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To celebrate completion of the first week of my Fall Semester I made a late Friday trip down to Alviso to check out Salt Ponds A6 and A8. These ponds lie just west of Alviso and have been opened to tidal flow in the last year.

Salt Pond A6 before and after breach

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Claudia and I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon this week at Bayfront Park in Menlo Park. As it turns out I was at least the third kite aerial photographer to visit the southwest corner of the park in the last two-week period, having been preceded by Michael Layefsky and James Lent – sort of an asynchronous Mini-KAPiCA.

A 360-degree panorama – click through for a large version

Bayfront Park is Menlo Park’s former garbage dump. Like other former dumps around the Bay, it forms a peninsula into the former wetlands. It is an interesting park in that it is adjacent to former salt ponds (R4 & R5). This gives the public and KAPpers alike close access to a colorful, high salinity salt pond landscape. I have photographed Bayfront Park on a number of occasions and notice that the sparse vegetation on the plateaus of the dormant salt ponds seems to be a bit more established with each visit. I take this to be a good sign.

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I returned to the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve to walk the new levee separating Salt Pond E13 to the north from Salt Pond E14 to the south. While there has been a levee in this location for a long time, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project has constructed an improved levee here and between E12 / E13 and E14 / E9 as well. These new levees are built of imported earth rather than local dredge spoils and they are substantial.

In examining the images from earlier sessions this month along Eden Creek Marsh and Salt Pond E8X it looked like Salt Pond E14 would be interesting to photograph in its current colors and indeed it was. After a quick visit to the western end of E9, I walked the new levee from west to east. This walk begins near the old 19th Century Whisby Salt Work ruins, continues past the row of 11 defunct wind pumps on the old course of Mt. Eden Creek, and continues down to a former pump house near the marsh section. This makes for an interesting walk.

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