Day Fire a Year Later

[mtngal]

The Los Padres National Forest has re-opened many of the areas that were closed due to last year's Day Fire (locals called it the Day after Day after Day Fire - for almost a month we were on pins and needles, and did get evacuated for 3 days). Sunday I visited one of the areas for the first time and took some pictures. I don't think they quite measure up to all of the outstanding series that have been posted here in the last 2 days, but thought they might be of interest for those who don't have the opportunity to see the aftermath of a major fire. This type of documentary/photojournalism photography isn't my normal subject, so all comments are greatly appreciated (translation - I'm clueless about this!).

K10, kit lens:

[mtngal]

K10, kit lens. The area is near Lockwood Valley.

[mtngal]

K100, Phoenix 100mm macro lens (and ISO 800 without any noise reduction processing

[mtngal]

If you look at the exif for this picture, it says "135" for the focal length. However, the only 135 lens I happened to have with me was an M lens, and this one reports the aperture as f8. That means that it was taken with the A*300 and I forgot to change the SR setting!

This is also my husband's pic to be included here, I wasn't going to post it.

K10, A*300

[mtngal]

K10, kit lens.

This looks like it was a trunk that had fallen before the fire, but still didn't burn completely.

[mtngal]

Even though we've had a dry year, there's still new weeds, brushand grass growing, covering some of the bare spots. This area was a grazing area for cattle every summer - it will be interesting to see how long it takes to recover.

K10, kit lens.

[rhermans]

Wouldn't dare to call you clueless Harriet, those shots are good enough for me.
The first and 3rd being my favourites.

Ronny

[Dal1970]

Third one tops it for me!



Darren

[Driver3]

I like #3 as well. All are very well done. Huge fire area are fascinating! Even when Yellowstone burned back in the 80's, it ended up improving the health of the park.

Was the spring wet enough to have a morrell crop? Burned areas are the number 1 place to find those?

[mtngal]

Number 3 ismy favorite also, but that's one that is closer to my usual type of picture. I still am not sure I'm happy with how the series came out for the most part. Exposure was a problem as I was out at mid-day (bad time in general for landscapes) and the blackened trees created too much dynamic range for a digital camera - those that showed detail in the bark were way over-exposed otherwise. Moral of the story - if you are going hiking, go earlier.

No morrells that I know of - the area was still closed this spring, and I'm pretty sure it was way too dry for them. I think our local precipitation this year was between 4 and 5 inches, not the driest year but close to it. Most of what little we had was snow, and not much of that. Not much for wildflowers, either.