Lori Carey Photography

Dawn at Taylor Lake photograph

2013-05-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Some mornings begin with a whisper...

After a long hot dusty day exploring the mines and trails of the nearby Cargo Muchaco Mountains, when I finally reached the cool, verdant banks of the Colorado River I felt as if I had happened upon a mirage. It's hard to believe that this is in the middle of the Sonoran desert. We followed the trail south and when I saw Taylor Lake I knew this was were I wanted to be for sunrise. It turned out to be another cloudless California desert sunrise but with a gentle pink sky and birdsong greeting the new day, a hot cup of coffee and my camera, how could I complain?

When Sunset is a Bust - Photographing Seascapes at Little Corona del Mar

2013-05-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we organized a photowalk at Little Corona Beach (Robert E. Badham Marine Life Refuge) while Jeff Sullivan and Lori Hibbett were in town working on more images for Jeff's upcoming book on Southern California Landscape photography. Unfortunately here on the southern California coast this time of year we frequently have to deal with a heavy marine layer, thick and very low-lying clouds and fog, known locally as May Gray and June Gloom. It is most common during the morning and evening hours (the midday sun burns off the fog) but when it's really bad we sometimes only see the sun for a brief half hour during the day.

As luck would have it we had very overcast skies the night of the photowalk and there was no chance of seeing one of the gorgeous sunsets we are known for. A few photographers decided to head home because it wasn't 'worth their while' but those of us who remained took out our ND, grad ND and polarizing filters and set out to do some long exposures. Little Corona is known for it's spectacular tide pools and a few rock arch formations within reach of those who are willing to brave a long walk on the slippery rocks during a negative tide. The tide was up this night (low tide, but not low enough) and we couldn't walk out to our favorite spot near the arch but the rocks and tidepools of Little Corona gave many compositional choices.

For a brief moment it looked like the clouds were breaking up and we might have a spectacular sunset after all, but our hopes were soon dashed.

Photographers at Little Corona Beach in Corona del Mar

During blue hour Jeff spun light orbs for everyone to shoot but being a minimalist at heart I couldn't drag myself away from the warm/cool contrast of this scene with the arch lit from a light up on the cliff. By the time I felt I had what I wanted everyone was cold and ready to head up for drinks and food so I missed out on the orbs. Light orbs are all the rage these days on social media so I felt a bit like the nerdy kid not hanging out with the cool kids, but when I saw the results I was very happy that I made the choice to shoot what I did.

When I see a scene I like I try to always shoot both a vertical and a horizontal composition because you never know how the image might be used. I really liked how the texture of the clouds echoed the texture in the rocks, the way the arch seemed to fit into the gap in the tidepools and the tree perched on top of the point. I'm not sure if I prefer the vertical orientation of the photo at top or the horizontal orientation of this photo. I like them both!

Little Corona under Stormy Skies

While I tended to play up the drama and moodiness of the scene, a few took a more dreamy approach with longer exposures of swirling water while others decided to go with black and white images. I always enjoy seeing a scene through other people's eyes and it never fails to amaze how drastically different each of us can interpret a scene. I was hoping to be able to link to the photos from the other participants but since there are on a private G+ photo page only the participants are able to view them.

It was cold and windy but it was a great exercise for those of us who live here and are usually spoiled by our choice of beautiful sunsets. Most of us would normally take a pass and wait for a better night unless we absolutely had to shoot, so the conditions made us all put a lot of thought into what and how we would shoot to make the most of the conditions we had. And it is always great to spend time with old friends and meet new ones!

The Mother of All Joshua Trees

2013-04-02T17:09:00.001-07:00

In all my travels I have never seen a Joshua Tree as large and full as this one. It's big enough for several people to stand under and provides the only shade for weary travelers for miles around. The Joshua trees were in full bloom two weeks ago just north of Barstow, although about ten miles further north along the trail where I set up camp the bloom was just getting started.

Joshua Trees are found only in the Mojave desert and they require two things to bloom...rain and a hard freeze. Although there wasn't much rain this year there certainly was a hard freeze. I was sleeping in a tent for a few of them!

I have some catching up on posting to do, don't I? ;)

Sunday at San O

2013-02-12T20:12:00.000-08:00

I'm supposed to say something here, but I don't always have something to say.

Clear Skies

2013-02-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

Nothing is more disappointing to a landscape photographer than to spend several hours venturing into the wild only to have a boring sunset and sunrise. Of course we want those cloudless skies for starscape photography but that same cloudless sky at dawn or sunset is a terrible let down. It's enough to make some photographers pack their bag and head back to camp.

I like to use those opportunities to capture the subtle gradation of colors in the sky at twilight. Twilight is actually one of my favorite times to shoot because I like the watch the sky turn from day to night, or from night to day. I love the beautiful purple color in the sky that can be captured in the evening just before it gets dark. And I especially love to hear the birdsong at dawn announcing the new day as I am working.

One of my favorite techniques at twilight is a silhouette as in the photo above. Simple compositions usually work best for silhouettes and convey the sense of peace that I feel at this time of day. Trees, rock formations, buildings, people, anything that conveys the sense of place can work well. The key to a good silhouette photograph is to meter for the sky and let the shadows go completely black. This usually means underexposing from what your camera will tell you is the correct exposure (if you are using evaluative metering).

The clear crisp desert air usually shows a well-defined Belt of Venus or earthshadow, especially at dawn, as in the image below. The pinkish glow is the anti-twilight arch and the darker layer below is the earth's shadow on the atmosphere. For this image I waited until there was just enough light peeking over the horizon to provide light on the Joshua Trees in the foreground. Metering is a little trickier when the sun is this close to the horizon because unless you intend to merge multiple bracketed images (HDR) you will need to carefully weigh the exposure on the foreground with the exposure for the sky to bring out the best in both and avoid under/over exposing either. It can help to bracket several frames to find the sweet spot if you aren't used to shooting at this time of day so you can evaluate them more closely once you are back home and looking at them on a big screen.

So don't let those clear skies get you down, hang around before the sun has risen or after it sets and look for opportunities to play up the beautiful gradations of color in the sky.

Thought of the Moment

2013-01-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”
― Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Man plans, God laughs

2013-01-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

When I looked back at the 2012 archive for my blog I realized that I hadn't been posting nearly as much as I thought I had been. One might think I hadn't been shooting much at all, but nothing could be further from the truth. I don't know how some photographers can successfully juggle multiple social media sources...Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, 500px, Google+, personal blogs and guest blogging. I had been focusing most of my efforts on Google+ mainly because of the level of interaction there. If I tried to do all of that I'd never get anything else done! I'm still holding out hope that someone will create a Blogger plugin that functions the same way +Daniel Treadwell's Google+Blog functions with Wordpress. Seems silly that there isn't better integration between Google's own products, but right now the integration only works one way...I can share a blog post to G+ (via a link) but I can't import my G+ posts and interactions here to my blog the way Google+Blog users can. In the meantime I just need to work on finding a better system that works for me.

Anyway...one of the places I've been spending time shooting is the Salton Sea. For those who aren't familiar with the Salton Sea, it is an 'accidental' sea formed in the southeastern California desert in 1905 when the spring flood waters crashed the gates of the canal and the Colorado River filled the Salton Basin -227 miles below sea level. It took eighteen months to get the river under control and by then a sea 45 miles long and 20 miles wide was born. Marinas and resort towns popped up all along its shoreline and it soon became a major tourist destination. At one point it attracted more tourists than Yosemite. It is vital avian habitat in the middle of the harsh desert and a major stop on the Pacific Flyway. Two-thirds of the species found in the US can be seen here at the Salton Sea.

Two tropical storms in the late 1970s wiped it all out. The sea flooded the streets, the developers had already cashed out, the people all left and no one wanted to take responsibility for fixing the problem.

There is very little inflow of water (mostly agricultural runoff) and no outflow, and as the sea bakes under the hot desert sun and the shoreline recedes, the salinity rises. It is currently 50% saltier than the Pacific Ocean and continues to rise. The water has very little oxygen. Fish die off at alarming rate and instead of sand the beaches are made of dead fish bones that crunch under your feet as you walk along the shoreline. It smells really bad in the summer, not much better in the winter. No longer paradise but not fully dead...it's still a haven for birds and somehow 400 million tilapia still survive, but the people left long ago (except the ones who are escaping from society) and it won't be long before the entire ecosystem collapses. It's a post-apocalyptic no-mans-land caught up in politics and bureaucratic red tape.

The marinas and little resort towns have all been left as they were. The elements have done a lot of damage, vandals have destroyed many buildings, and the powers that be have demo'd others to get rid of the "attractive nuisance". What's left is rapidly disappearing, two buildings that were fully intact just a few months ago are now nothing more than a few standing walls, so for the past year I've been trying to cover as much ground as possible to document what's left before it is all gone. Despite how nasty and spooky it can be out there it's also strangely beautiful in a surreal kind of way. No matter what you like to photograph, you can find it at the Salton Sea...birds and wildlife, beautiful scenic nature and Urbex.

These photos are the bathhouse at an abandoned mineral spa. The area has a lot of geothermal activity and there are hot springs and mudpots in the surrounding area.

Shooting Sunstars for Creative Intent

2012-12-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Late afternoon at Trona Pinnacles

I've been playing around with bringing the sun into some of my desert photos to give a better feel of the desert environment. The strong backlighting in this scene at Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark caught my eye throughout the afternoon and I shot it a number of ways, but this image with the sunstar is the one that felt right. This is what the desert looks and feels like in the late afternoon on a winter day.

Sunstars are relatively easy to achieve. They are caused by diffraction as the light enters the lens and the number of spikes you see is determined by the number of aperture blades in your lens. Each straight edge of the iris creates a pair of spikes, however if your lens has an even number blades you will only see one spike per blade because the blades are parallel and the spikes overlap.

To shoot sunstars:

- Use a small aperture (f16 or smaller, and remember the bigger the number the smaller the aperture)

- Remove any filters because they will typically add too much flare as the light passes between the filter and the lens

- Because you are using a small aperture you will want your lens and sensor to be spotlessly clean unless you want to spend a lot of time in post cleaning up dust spots

- Although it is possible to achieve sunstars when including the entire sun in the frame it is much easier to achieve good results if you have part of the sun blocked or hidden. Try having just a bit of sun peeking out from behind a rock or tree, or leaving most of it out of the frame as I have done here.

- Many tutorials recommend using Aperture-Priority. The problem with this is that the bright sun will usually trick your camera's exposure meter into underexposing the scene. It's better to shoot in Manual mode, bracket and determine the correct exposure that will achieve your creative intent. If you don't want your foreground underexposed you will need to use a slower shutter speed than what your camera recommends.

- Using a small aperture in low light situations usually means you will be using a slower shutter speed...which means a tripod is a must.

- Adding contrast and clarity selectively in post can help make the spikes sharper if that is what you want. Again, it depends on your creative intent. In the image above I did not want a sharply defined star and chose to give the impression of sun rays.

This same technique is used to make points of light appear as stars in night photography, especially cityscapes.

Have you shot any sunstars that you want to show off? Feel free to link to them in the comments!

Camp, Trona Pinnacles

2012-12-08T14:58:00.001-08:00

He keeps camp while I wander the night. I couldn't ask for a more perfect location to spend the night than this spot where we set up camp at Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark. It was a beautiful evening with an almost full moon and I roamed the desert for hours.

Have a Seat

2012-12-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

This is not the shot I wanted...there was a television about a half mile back and we were supposed to go back to grab it so I could set up a shot after we checked out the airplane graveyard in the background at the base of the mountains. But then there was a turn that looked interesting, and then another and another...next thing we knew we were miles away.

Cathedral City at Night

2012-11-28T22:10:00.000-08:00

Trona Pinnacles at Night

I'd been wanting to do some night photography at Trona Pinnacles for a while now and finally made it out there last weekend. With the moon close to full it wasn't the best timing for dark skies but it was great for moonlight on the surreal rock formations. If you have a high-clearance vehicle you can get out beyond the main grouping to the younger Northern Group further out in the Searles Dry Lake Bed (where there are no other people!), an incredible beautiful place to spend the night, then take the trails out to Ridgecrest or Red Mountain.

These ancient spires once known as Cathedral City are tufa (calcium carbonate) towers formed formed underwater more than 100,000 years ago when the surrounding area was at the bottom of Searles Lake, part of a chain of lakes that once stretched from Death Valley to Mono Lake. They are the same as the tufa found at Mono Lake, California.

If the landscape looks strangely familiar, it might be because many science fiction movies were filmed here, including Planet of the Apes, Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek v: The Final Frontier and others.

I still have a couple hundred shots to work through. This trip was back to back with a Salton Sea trip so I think I might take advantage of the coming storm to get caught up on my processing!

Jupiter and Tufa Towers, Trona Pinnacles

Dana Point Harbor

2012-11-06T10:56:00.002-08:00

A view of Dana Point Harbor looking pretty as a postcard from up on the headlands. I hadn't been up to this location in about a year so this was the first time that I've seen the results of the construction along the Strand. There is now a road providing scenic views where before it was just open land. The view was so pretty this day that the road was lined with cars from people who had pulled over to take photos. And of course that means someone asked me to take a photo of them.

"Would you mind? You look like you know what you're doing." the woman said as she eyed my hard-to-miss white 70-200 (haven't we all wished to be able to camouflage that lens somehow at one point or another??). The truth is that I absolutely dread when this happens. I do know what I'm doing...with an SLR. It's not that I mind, I am more than happy to do so, it's just that I have absolutely no idea what to do with a P&S other than hold the thing at arms length, frame the photo by zooming with my feet and clicking the button they show me to click. I don't really understand how people can frame a photo by holding a camera at arms length, I've been looking through a viewfinder for 30+ years. I can't hold it steady (massive caffeine intake has a lot to do with that), I can't evaluate what I am seeing the same way I do when I look through a viewfinder. I can't choose my aperture and shutter speed, I can't choose the proper focal length for the image I want, I don't know how to tell you that the spot you are in puts harsh shadows on your face that will look terrible or that you are backlit because I know that you want a photo with you standing in that exact spot with that exact background and the last time I asked someone how to turn on the flash in the middle of the day they thought I was crazy. I have a panic attack because you think I know what I am doing and I am afraid I am going to disappoint you because I really don't know how to do anything with your camera except to click the button. You'd probably be better off asking the guy standing next to me using his cell phone. (I'm no good at cell phone photography either!)

So that is why when you ask me to take your photo using your point-and-shoot I get a strange look on my face...it has nothing to do with you, it's all about me.

Sailing on Clouds II

2012-10-31T21:56:00.001-07:00

This is the companion piece to the image I posted last week, this time with two sailboats and the spectacular white cloud reflection in the ocean off Dana Point, California.

I thought I had posted this image last week but this morning I realized that I hadn't because I didn't like how the automatic watermark looked since it covered an important element of the photo. No time to make up a new watermark right now if I want to get one more post out before October is over.

So why bother watermarking at all when so many people vehemently despise watermarks? I'm not silly enough to think that watermarking is going to prevent someone from illegally downloading/copying my images, anyone with a basic knowledge of image editing can easily remove a watermark, but since I do post large high resolution images on my website (which are embedded in my blog) I'm not going to make it too easy for them. The most important reason is that Section 1202 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to remove Copyright Management Information from an image to conceal infringement and each violation is subject to statutory damages of no less than $2,500 up to $25,000...whether or not the image was previously registered with the copyright office. Given that the protection afforded me under the DMCA is my primary reason for watermarking I have been rethinking the size and placement and believe that I will start using something a bit more discrete going forward.

Sailing on Clouds

2012-10-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

I don't ever in my life remember seeing such beautiful white cloud reflections on the ocean in the middle of the day. I used a polarizing filter to make the reflections pop and spent a few hours shooting with three different lenses as the sailboats sailed by. This was my first pick after reviewing my shots.

Prints here

Tempest

2012-09-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

Tempest

When I first started photographing the desert I was in love with the rich sun-drenched colors. Over the years I gradually began desaturating many of my images because I felt that the strong colors frequently took away from the mood I was trying to depict. Most recently I have been doing a lot of black and white. I think it's partially in response to the hypersaturated overdone HDR images that seem so popular these days, but also because I believe that color can add to an image or it can take away from an image. When color doesn't actually add anything to an image I prefer it in black and white.

This is the Trona Pinnacles under stormy skies. They are tufa towers, similar to the ones found at Mono Lake, formed of calcium carbonate rising the from the ancient Searles Dry Lake bed. One of the strangest landscapes you can ever see, this has been the filming location for many movies such as Planet of the Apes, Lost in Space, Battlestar Gallactica and Star Trek: The Final Frontier. The Trona Pinnacles were designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1968.

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I just recently discovered that when my website host migrated their pricing function to a new system they messed up my pricing. I had checked a few galleries when they first did the migration and verified that all was fine, unfortunately I did not realize that most of my galleries no longer showed the option to buy prints. I'm not very happy about that, but it is what is. It has now been corrected (I think I fixed all of it). I also now offer mounting, matting and framing for all traditional prints in additional to my canvas gallery wraps and float mount metal prints. If you would like to purchase a print of Tempest you can do so here.

Of Barbed Wire and Hubcaps

2012-09-17T10:59:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if I should try explaining why I photograph the things I do and why I "ruin" a beautiful landscape with man-made elements. I wonder to myself if people will understand that somewhere along the line all of the pretty landscapes became just another pretty landscape to me, pretty to look at but with rare exception after a while they all started to look and feel the same. (This is not in any way meant to denigrate traditional landscape photographers, they enjoy what they do and the world loves and needs beautiful photos.)

I don't often share much of myself except through my images. Would you understand if I tried to explain that it's the story of the desert, the struggle of life and death, questions of mortality and immortality, man's constant attempts to conquer the desert ( Check says man, Checkmate says the desert), that it is all about the incongruous juxtaposition and meant to challenge your assumptions about traditional beauty, that it's about aloneness but not loneliness, that it's about strength and resiliency and loss and broken dreams but not loss of hope? Would you understand my need to roam around aimlessly for days on end looking for exactly this?

Does it even make sense to try to explain these things, or will it all sound too much like the pretentious rambling of some art school dropout wannabe? Should I post some random poem or song and let you make of it what you will? Or maybe I should post just the photo with no words knowing that most people won't understand because it doesn't meet their definition of beauty?

One day I will have this all figured out.

Curator's Pick - Story Number 23

2012-09-06T23:17:00.001-07:00

I was very honored to have this seascape image chosen as a Curator's Pick from among all of the images submitted this week in the G+ Fine Art Photography theme of MinimalMonday. Many incredibly talented photographers participate in the theme and I've only recently started sharing my abstract minimalism so it was a very validating experience to have it compared favorably to works by one of my favorite photographers Eric Fredine.

Last weekend of summer...

2012-09-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

Even though sunrise light is very hit or miss on a west coast beach it's still my favorite time of day to be there...no one around except the surfers, some joggers and a few workers getting everything ready for the crowds...I like to watch the world wake up. Every once in a while if I'm lucky and not socked in with fog, even though it's rare to get good color I might get some really cool clouds.

I'm selfishly glad that the official summer season is over; we'll still have summer-like weather here for at least another month or so but without the crowds and traffic and I'll actually be able to find a parking space close to my destination again. And hopefully soon we'll have some relief from the marine layer that has been hovering since March this year, making it more worthwhile to head to the beach for sunrise and sunset. All of my best beach sunsets were taken during the winter months.

This is technically an HDR image. The sun had only been up for a few minutes so the foreground was still quite dark, requiring multiple exposures. I'm not a big fan of overdone HDR for landscapes, especially ones that are oversaturated and have glaring halos. I blend multiple exposures quite often in my work but I prefer a more subtle and realistic look.

For Photographers: FBI Anti-Piracy Warning Seal

2012-08-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work
is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement
without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable
by fines and federal imprisonment.

As of last week you can use the same FBI Anti-Piracy Seal that you see at the beginning of movies on your copyrighted works, including your photos, as long as you follow the conditions outlined on the FBI website. It must appear on or in connection with copyrighted works (the work does not need to be registered with the Copyright Office) and must have the authorized official warning language immediately adjacent.

I personally think it's a bit much to put the seal directly on my photos, but I'm wondering if other photographers think that placing this warning somewhere on their website or maybe printed materials might help deter copyright infringement? Does anyone out there plan to make use of it, and if so, how?

Here's the link to the page on the FBI's site containing the specifics and the link to download the official FBI Anti-Piracy Warning Seal. Note that you will need to agree to the conditions before you can download the file.

FBI Anti-Piracy Seal

California Pepper Tree

2012-08-14T15:21:00.001-07:00

There aren't many trees in the California Coastal Scrub habitat. It is unique to southern California, found from sea level to 1500 feet in elevation, the coast to the foothills. The shallow dry soil and Mediterranean climate is home to mainly soft-stemmed drought resistance chaparral. Other than ornamental landscaping trees, most of the few trees you do find were brought here from somewhere else (and now are considered invasive). The California Pepper Tree (Schinus molle) is actually native to the Andes Mountains of Peru and was brought to the early missions by the Franciscans who needed a drought resistant shade tree.

Here a lone Pepper Tree provides a bit of drought resistant shade on the parched hills.

Cinder Cone National Natural Landmark in the Mojave National Preserve

2012-08-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

Cinder cones are small hill-sized volcanoes with steep sides, conical shapes and a small crater at the top. There are over 30 in this area of the Mojave, along with thick black basalt lava flows and underground lava tubes for the adventurous to explore. The eruptions that formed these cinder cones and lava flows found in this area began 7.6 million years ago and finished about 10,000 years ago. It is thought that the lava came to the surface as the region was pulled apart creating the Basin and Range province.

I see my path...

2012-07-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

I see my path, but I don't know where it leads.
Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.
Rosalia de Castro

Fly Me to the Moon - Shooting Fair Rides at Night

2012-07-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

We went to the Orange County Fair Sunday night and I had my sights set on photographing the rides at twilight. Getting the new crescent moon in my shot was a definite bonus.

I love shooting lights at night because it takes a bit of skill. You can't rely on your camera's metering because a large amount of dark sky will cause you to blow out (over expose) the lights, especially the moon, and that doesn't look good at all. Three key things to taking great images of lights at night:

- Shoot at twilight when there is still some light in the sky.

- Using a tungsten light balance will make your sky a deep blue. If you shoot in RAW and use auto white balance you can always adjust your color temperature in post with Photoshop.

- Meter for the highlights. Have the 'blinkies' set on your image preview to show any blown highlights and keep dialing down your exposure until you have no blown highlights.

In this case I wanted a shutter speed low enough to give me some motion blur so it was a matter of finding the right shutter speed/aperature combination. With some of the riders closer to me than others I was able to show some motion while freezing the riders at the far right.

Stuck in Suburbia - Reload or Refresh

2012-07-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

We see what we want to see.

I'm sure that only the geeks will get it.

Hiking in Mountain Lion Country

2012-07-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Los Ramblas Trail

I love that even though I live less than a mile from the beach I have over 50 miles of hiking/equestrian trails right in my backyard (not counting the neighboring towns' trail networks they hook in to), most of it through wilderness areas. The signs placed every few yards remind us it is active mountain lion country. The photographer in me would love nothing more than to have an opportunity to photograph this beautiful animal in the wild but I will confess that sometimes I get a little nervous when I'm hiking alone, especially if there's been a recent attack or repeated sightings. Chances are you could hike for years in this area and never see this elusive animal, but as we continue to encroach on their territory the sightings have become more frequent and encounters occur more often. Since there was an attack in Norcal a few weeks ago and Whiting Ranch was closed earlier this week until they captured a young 100 pound male who was not afraid of humans and was exhibiting unusual behavior, it's a good time to review some best practices for hiking in mountain lion country.

- It's best not to hike alone. The noise and size of a group seems to deter attacks. Make plenty of noise to avoid surprising a mountain lion.
- Keep children close to you and dogs on a leash.
- Be extra alert at dawn and dusk when mountain lions are most active.
- Don't bend down or crouch. It makes you appear smaller and less aggressive, more like prey, and exposes the back of your neck and your head. If I need to bend down to get something out of my backpack I either put my back against something like a cliff wall if I'm alone or I have someone stand directly behind me.
- If you see evidence of a deer kill, immediately leave the area. Mountain lions usually drag their prey a short distance away from the kill spot and cover it with sticks and leaves, returning to feed on it for several days. Evidence of a kill is a good indication that there is a mountain lion waiting nearby.
- Hiking poles are good to have as they can be used to make yourself appear larger and to fend off an attack if needed.

If you see a mountain lion and it doesn't run away:
- Make sure to give the animal an exit route; most mountain lions want to avoid you just as much as you want to avoid them.
- Make yourself as large as possible; raise your arms, open and raise your jacket, wave a stick over your head.
- Make noise; yell and shout at the lion. Use a whistle.
-If you have small children, pick them up off the ground (without bending over).
- Maintain eye contact and do not run away. Running triggers the chase instinct. Back away while facing the animal.
- Be prepared to defend yourself. Hikers have successfully fended off attacks with sticks and rocks. If attacked try to remain standing and facing the animal.
- The most important thing to remember is to be the aggressor and don't act like prey!