Author: circadianreflections

My name is Deborah Zajac. I'm a photographer living in Nevada at the base of the Eastern Sierras. I am a passionate nature, landscape, night/astro photographer. I shoot predominately in color and use Nikon Digital Cameras, and lenses. I hope you enjoy seeing some of the photos I've taken while on my travels. Please feel free to leave a comment I'd love to hear from you.

Mission San Antonio de Paqua

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Mission San Antonio de Paqua, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004.

© 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

What an exciting evening we had! I and 2 friends went out for a last shooting hurrah! with a friend who is moving out of state.

I think I’ve mentioned before that this particular Mission is surrounded by an Army base. Well, not too long after darkness set in we were shooting our star trail sequence when we heard over the loud speaker coming from the base an announcement telling all personnel to get to their places. Then a few minutes later we heard gun fire, and tanks, and big vehicles moving around. Then there was another announcement which was followed by a fire truck blazing down the road that runs by the Mission, the more gun fire, and tanks moving. We think the artillery started a grass fire. You can imagine our wonder right!

Then a bit later we heard over the loud speaker bugles playing reveille but not really reveille because it also had a “charge” vibe to it. As this was playing Coyotes started to howl and sing in the trees behind us!! Oh my gosh. We weren’t worrying about rattlesnakes after hearing them!
Then right after the music stopped we heard a loud cheer from the soldiers.
Then a few more rounds of gun fire, and tanks moving about then all was quite again out here in the middle of Central California at Mission San Antonio de Paqua.

What an exciting evening and great farewell shoot with my friends. Jason I miss you already!

Nikon D300s
PP- 2 frames- Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 @ 17mm, f/5, 60seconds, ISO 400

Vibrance, clarity, saturation, mid-tone curve adjustment, and resized.

At a Mountain Top Bistro

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Mt Shasta , originally uploaded by dmzajac2004.

© Copyright 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Driving up a road to look for a sunset location I spied this view and pulled over to take a shot or two. The volcano looks as if it’s steaming or blowing smoke, but those are just clouds.

It was so quite and beautiful up here.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-200mm VR 3.5-5.6
Singh Ray LB Color Combo Polarizer/Color Intensifier
Singh Ray Grad Neutral Density filter

Under the Canopy on a Sunday Morning

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© Copyright 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

I headed out of my hotel early to do the mile hike out to Root Creek Falls that for me was easy rolling hills densely forested with pines. Here the trail ends. The fall is little now. The snow is nearly melted I guess. I headed back and caught Crag Trail hiking up a ways then turning back when it began to get too hot and I left the shelter of the trees. The high on this day was 100 degrees. By 11:00AM it was 80 already.
When I got back to the parking lot I met a Ranger and spoke to him about the falls, and other shooting locations in the park. He told me I really need to get back to Root Creek Falls in April when it’s gushing and huge. I hope to do that! He told me about a spot where the fall has a 500foot drop. I’d like to see it.

© Copyright 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.


PP- Not a lot done to these. My standard sliders are vibrance, and clarity. No crop, but did resize them.

Nikon D90

Nikkor 18-200mm VR 3.5-5.6

B+W Neutral Density Filter

SinghRay LB ColorCombo Polarizer/ Color intensifier

“Serenely full, the epicure would say, Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.”~Sydney Smith

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© Copyright 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

We stopped on the way to Mt. Shasta in downtown Vacaville. A cute little town square that I would love to have had time to do a Photowalk in…we stopped for lunch at a little Taqueria. I didn’t get the name of it!
Harrison is it your local? What’s the name of it? I met Harrison there. A pianist, and composer of movie scores.
This was the vegetarian burrrrito. With lots of salsa, and Echabache (sp)
I ate nearly the whole thing so it turned out to be lunch and dinner for me.

PP- Vibrance, clarity, a bit of recovery, and slight crop then resized.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-200mm VR 3.5-5.6 AF-S

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

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© Copyright 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Sunset Mt. Shasta, Mt. Shastina, and Black Butte Mountain.
Shasta Trinity National Forest

Sunset last night.

Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-200mm
Singh Ray Grad ND filter
B+W Cir Polarizer w/warming 81A

“The Lord is King over all the earth- Sing praises to his name, for he reigneth over all.” Psalms 47

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© Copyright 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Myself and two friends went back over to Mission San Juan Bautista to shoot Star Trails. This time lining up the No. Star so it would be somewhere in the grasp or line up in the hands of the Praising Man statue located in the Missions Plaza garden. My goal was to have the circle of star trails whirling around the statue.
I think I lined it up pretty well for what I wanted to achieve.
A longer exposure probably would have netted me longer trails, but my invelometer fell apart on me so I was back to timing the old way with my basic cable release so I decided to keep my exposure time at 30seconds. All in all I’m happy this turned out as well as it has.
A new timer release cable is on it’s way to me now.

30 Frames @ 30seconds stacked in CS5.
Nikon D90
Nikkor 18-200mm