California Fires - 13 original images, Nov 8 2018
We saw the cloud roll in. At first it seemed like fog, then a brown cast became subtly visible. Looked again minutes later and the whole world had changed. If I had any idea this was about to happen, I'd have started shooting way earlier.
Normally the wind comes from the west. In southern california they call these easterlies Santa Ana Winds, here traditionally they're called El Diablo. To historic local tribes the words kinda mean the same. They are winds that come the wrong way and last year caused the historic devastation all over norcal.
Hoping to get on the roof of the new building I raced to the job site. Everyone between the office and the car had to make a comment about the camera I held, and while I love talking with locals, this time I really wanted to go. I
The tree line on the east side of the job site is what I wanted to catch. While I was driving the five minutes it seemed the colors were changing by the minute.
The scissor lift was already up, and I didn't want to wait for them to bring it down. Mostly because I didn't really know what kind of shot was available up there and time seemed critical. I wanted to head towards the oak tree. We have a client who wants a film print of a single oak--the lonely tree on the hill--and we've been trying to find the right tree. But I had to get a couple before heading for the trees.
The lighting was so low I needed to crank my ISO to 1600 and I could still only shoot around f4. Despite it being 2 pm. Like the longest eclipse ever.
Took a couple of the building itself, but I figured that wasn't where the magic would be so I didn't really stop.
I dropped the aperture to 2.8 to make sure the shutter could freeze the images, recently I had again shot a few that proved out of focus and didn't want to make the mistake again. Probably should have grabbed the tripod from the van but I first thought of it when I was super far away.
This (below) is the shot I was looking for, but as I kept heading north, the images kept changing all over. The hills kept filling more of the frame, I felt I had to keep going quickly because the light was unpredictable to me. I really wanted to be everywhere at once.
To get one shot, necessarily I was missing another. Choices...decisions, its all very hard.
As I kept heading north, everything just kept getting even farther out of this world.
For an hour it seemed no matter where I pointed the camera, every angle was truly incredible. They say the fire was an hour away but it sure seemed just over the hill.
We study all this science to try and predict and explain but I'm still mystified after all these years by freak events like what happened yesterday.
All images ©ramsayphotography
canon Mark II, 16-35 2.8, no filters
November 8 2018.
Hi @voder, thank you for sharing the photos, although we love to see the photos but please stay safe as well. I didn't know the effect so great that it turn the sky color and it look scary.
The situation now under control?
The fire that sent the smoke in the photos seems to be controlled as of right now, apparently there are some doozy situations south of here though. We're in a town of 20 000 people, and they can usually protect places like this okay, although with the winds changing its pretty hard to know what is coming where. Last year whole neighbourhoods nearby burned with no notice. Every part of the world has risks associated with its environment, tornados, floods, or in this case, random fires.
Thanks for your concern. We're pretty good here because a courthouse and a cop shop are nearby and those never burn. This year when the fires were potentially threatening our town, we got the 747 water bomber to show up and protect. Its the people in the country with the horses and goats that really are at risk.
@voder glad to hear that everything under control. What caused the fire, open burning or the weather? I could imagine the haze. In my country, every year also faced the same situation, haze from our neighbor country because of fire due to open burning. The wind blow the haze to all her neighbor countries, My country would be one of them.
These are absolutely breathtaking in a 'end of the world' kind of way. Living in California as a non-Californian native there's an odd fascination with wildfire. I remember driving out of Visalia last year when the Railroad fire had only just started and being able to see the red glow of the flames on the underside of the clouds or smoke on the distant horizon. It was beautiful and terrifying. These images evoke the same feeling in me.
Thanks for sharing!
~ Mako
Stay safe!
Thanks! I guess its an hour east. And we have a pretty good fire break built by last month's River fire. I actually can't believe there is anything that could still burn.
Howdy voder! Oh man, those fires and smoke are wild and dangerous but wonderful to take photos of the sky and the colors so great job, very strange and eerie effects of the fire. The photos are excellent and I could almost smell the smoke.
Is this the first time you've been close to a fire like this?
The smoke was from the fire that burned the town of Paradise, and that's a couple hours away. So I wasn't really that close, but we did all have to double check to make sure. Seemed like it was much closer than it was. This fall the mendocino complex fire started about 4 miles from here but the wind was blowing normal so it went the other way. We could see the flames from the office and that was a little disturbing.
Thanks for the comment and for the compliments!
howdy again sir voder! Wow, that seems like you're close to too many fires! I'd probably get paranoid.
I have no idea what causes these fires but I never really thought that it has to do with the wind blowing through the wrong way. Just like you, I think there is still more mystery behind it. Hope you are somewhere safe?
The sky and light turn this colorful once it is about to start? Wow! Your photos really are fascinating. Its at times like this that there are so many pictures to take at different locations, yet so little time. I guess it was tough making some of these decisions bit you photos did turn out to be really stunning. It's something I haven't seen before....
It's like the magical sunset shining all over the place and defeating darkness, it's just so sad though that what follows this beautiful view might be disastrous.
I think the tree branches grow to deal with wind from the west, they just didn't know to prepare for this, like a knee bending the wrong way. Then the branches hit the power lines. Although this one was apparently started by someone trying to light a campfire.
I've never seen this happen before, it was a smoke cloud that rode into our little valley on these crazy westbound winds.
Thanks for reading!
Hi voder,
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Thank you for sharing such interesting natural phenomenon, it is amazing that nowadays we have such preventable to capture these unique natural wonder. I can understand how difficult it is to make a picture of certain thing when everything is changing every second. What I thought, was there no record function of your camera, that could be probably helpful to capture everything on continuous recording. Nevertheless great pictures, you were lucky to have such opportunity :)
It indeed looks like the fire is far closer than an hour away. I can imagine that the damage caused by fire is horrible and I hope that there are not many victims of this fire. You are very brave when you go chasing the fire :) People panic and run away and you run towards it. But I'm sure that your client was happy with your work. I didn't know that California was suffering such fires. I understand that the place is dry but we mainly get to hear about fires in Australia.
If I don't think about your fact that the effect is caused by fire, I love your photos :) The colors are full and vibrant and the mixture of colors in this way can only be done by nature. I especially like the ones with birds escaping the fire and the dark red ones with people on the roof.
It's amazing and scary to see how powerful our nature is and what damage it can cause (not that we are not causing any harm to the nature ourselves).
Thank you for sharing! And congratulations on your curie vote!
Thanks! I've heard it said that the best photographer is the one who actually has a camera. Just got lucky with being in this valley at that time I guess. I didn't do any color corrections, only straightened horizons and cropped in a bit. As you say, only nature can come up with those gradients, I too was merely an observer.
Thanks for the comment and for checking out the blog. :)
These images are beautiful as they are disturbing. I'm in Sacramento right now and was thinking about driving down to LA this Monday. How difficult was the drive for you? Did you move far up north or stay close to Santa Ana?
Thank you for the compliment! We are in mendocino, the big fires burning in malibu are like 12 hours south. The smoke in the photos is from the camp fire in lake county, just north of you actually. Wonder if you can see the smoke where you're at?
Wow man. These photos are stunning. I love the one you captured of the birds against the big smoke clouds. It's got a very eerie Alfred Hitchcock feel. It really does look like you could have pointed your camera anywhere. It's something so rarely seen that it creates this feeling of awe when you're looking at the pictures.
It's such a sad phenomenon. How do the fires keep starting? I don't think I've ever been sure of the cause. I lived in Glendale, California for nine years and encountered fires on many occasions. I actually just left about a year ago. In that time I saw fires in the hills, fires along freeways and was once evacuated from my house because of a fire on a hill at the end of my neighborhood. It was the craziest thing ever to look up and see flames slowly crawling closer to you. I've never packed a car so quickly full of items. It really puts things in perspective when you're only able to take the most valuable things and only have a short time to do it. Luckily there was no real damage done to my home other than everything smelling of smoke.
Stay safe!!! And thanks for sharing. We really need to find a way to stop these fires. They've not only affected me but friends and family across the state.
Hitchcock filmed "The Birds" about an hour from here in Bodega. We have photos of the church they used and the hotel both, but no birds in any of our shots.
I've not yet been evacuated so haven't had to pack the car frantically, but I appreciate what you experienced because I've heard the story a couple different times.
I don't know if stopping the fires is a reality, but building from things other than lumber and shingles may be a pretty valuable decision. The roof part is tricky because earthquakes tend to flatten everything else. Maybe the trick is to have less attachment to stuff and like the native Americans from years ago, be somewhat mobile.
Thanks for the comment. :)
No problem man! I've seen some crazy photos come out. I'm not sure what the solution is but they gotta figure something out. These wildfires are just insane. Everything from Nor Cal to So Cal has been on fire in the last year. Insane! Perhaps different building materials are the solution. Good luck!