Yosemite

Yosemite National Park ( /joʊˈsɛmɨtiː/ yoh-sem-it-ee) is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of 761,268 acres (3,080.74 km2) and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. Over 3.7 million people visit Yosemite each year: most spend their time in the seven square miles (18 km2) of Yosemite Valley. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity. Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness. Although not the first designated national park, Yosemite was central to the development of the national park idea, largely owing to the work of people like Galen Clark and John Muir. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has an elevation range from 2,127 to 13,114 feet (648 to 3,997 m) and contains five major vegetation zones: chaparral/oak woodland, lower montane, upper montane, subalpine, and alpine. Of California's 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% within Yosemite. There is suitable habitat or documentation for more than 160 rare plants in the park, with rare local geologic formations and unique soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants occupy. The geology of the Yosemite area is characterized by granitic rocks and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and then tilted to form its relatively gentle western slopes and the more dramatic eastern slopes. The uplift increased the steepness of stream and river beds, resulting in formation of deep, narrow canyons. About 1 million years ago, snow and ice accumulated, forming glaciers at the higher alpine meadows that moved down the river valleys. Ice thickness in Yosemite Valley may have reached 4,000 feet (1,200 m) during the early glacial episode. The downslope movement of the ice masses cut and sculpted the U-shaped valley that attracts so many visitors to its scenic vistas today. via Wikipedia

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

LA bY NIGHT , CA USA

LA Light from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Song by Cinematic Orchestra http://www.cinematicorchestra.com/

Make sure to watch in HD full screen, with scaling off for best quality!

Just want to say a note of thank to everyone's support and comments.

I sought out to capture the electric radiance of Los Angeles at night.

It took me 6 months of on and off shooting to finish this project and I've learned a couple things along the way.

First off, LA might be the entertainment capital of the world, but it sure is difficult to shoot around downtown without having homeland security officers, police, or security take notice and harass you. Know your shooting rights!

Shooting time lapses is a labor of love and a study in patience.

This video is dedicated to the memory of my Grandmother, Mary Johnson who passed away after battling cancer. She spent most of her life bettering the lives of others and was the kindest person I've ever known.

Cinematography, direction, and editing by Colin Rich
http://www.facebook.com/colinrich1
http://www.pacificstarflight.com/Pacific_Star/Open.html

Produced by William Ahmanson
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=741029873

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

The Unseen Sea, SF, California USA

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

A collection of time lapses I took around the San Francisco Bay Area roughly shot over the period of one year.

Please watch in HD 

Find more of my work on my website www.simonchristen.com

or on my flickr account 

Music by Nick Cave - Mary's Song from the Soundtrack of "Assassination of Jesse James"

Golden Gate Bridge, CA.,USA

Golden Gate Bridge from Håkan Dahlström on Vimeo.

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu
Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

travel

Silicon Valley

"I believe that Silicon Valley is truly a place of excellence and the impact of this tiny community on the world is completely disproportionate to its size. " -- Jeff Skoll, first employee of eBay.


In case you're wondering, the shot is looking north, and eBay, Cisco, Adobe, Yahoo, Google, Sun, Intel, Apple and PwC (where I work) are all contributing to my picture somewhere towards the horizon line to the right.

Silicon Valley is the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the high-tech sector. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading high-tech hub because of its large number of engineers andventure capitalists. Geographically, Silicon Valley encompasses the northern part of the Santa Clara Valley and adjacent communities.

The term Silicon Valley was coined by Ralph Vaerst, a Central California entrepreneur. Its first published use is credited to Don Hoefler, a friend of Vaerst's, who used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled "Silicon Valley USA," began in the paper's issue dated January 11, 1971.

Valley refers to the Santa Clara Valley, located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, while Silicon refers to the high concentration of companies involved in the semiconductor and computer industries that were concentrated in the area. These firms slowly replaced the orchards which gave the area its initial nickname, the Valley of Heart's Delight.

After World War II, universities were experiencing enormous demand due to returning students. To address the financial demands of Stanford's growth requirements, and to provide local employment opportunities for graduating students, Frederick Terman proposed the leasing of Stanford's lands for use as an office park, named the Stanford Industrial Park (later Stanford Research Park). Leases were limited to high technology companies.

Its first tenant was Varian Associates, founded by Stanford alumni in the 1930s to build military radar components. However, Terman also found venture capital for civilian technology start-ups .

One of the major success stories was Hewlett-Packard. Founded in Packard's garage by Stanford graduatesWilliam Hewlett and David Packard, Hewlett-Packard moved its offices into the Stanford Research Park slightly after 1953. In 1954, Stanford created the Honors Cooperative Program to allow full-time employees of the companies to pursue graduate degrees from the University on a part-time basis. The initial companies signed five-year agreements in which they would pay double the tuition for each student in order to cover the costs. Hewlett-Packard has become the largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, and transformed the home printing market when it released the first ink jet printer in 1984. In addition, the tenancy of Eastman Kodak and General Electric made Stanford Industrial Park a center of technology in the mid-1990s.

• List of attractions in Silicon Valley
• List of places with 'Silicon' names
• List of research parks around the world
• List of technology centers around the world
• Pirates of Silicon Valley — Movie about the early development of Microsoft and Apple.
• Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
• Sustainable Silicon Valley (SSV)

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

Skywalker Ranch

Skywalker Ranch -- Main House, originally uploaded by mccun934.

This is the main house at Skywalker Ranch where George Lucas works.

Skywalker Ranch is the name of the workplace of film director and producer George Lucas in secluded but open country near Nicasio, California in Marin County. The ranch is located on Lucas Valley Road, although Lucas is not related to the road's namesake, a turn-of-the-century landowner in the area. The Ranch is not open to the public and keeps a low profile from the road.

Assembled parcel by parcel since September 1978, Skywalker Ranch has cost Lucas up to US$100 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. After neighboring ranchers complained that Skywalker Ranch was polluting the environment, Lucasfilm acquired 3,000 acres (12 km²) of adjoining land for a total of over 4,700 acres (19 km²). Only 15 acres (60,000 m²) have been developed.

The Ranch contains a barn with animals, vineyards, a garden with fruits and vegetables used in the on-site restaurant, an outdoor swimming pool and fitness center with racquetball courts, the man-made "Lake Ewok", a hilltop observatory, a 300-seat theater called "The Stag" as well as multiple theater screening rooms, and parking that is mostly concealed underground to preserve the natural landscape. Skywalker Sound was moved onto the ranch in 1987, now occupying the Technical Building. The Main House has a company research library under a stained-glass dome. Skywalker Ranch has its own fire station, which is part of the Marin County Mutual Aid system, and is often called on to assist firefighters in nearby Marinwood.

Skywalker Ranch is intended to be more of a "filmmaker's retreat" than a headquarters for Lucas's business operations. The headquarters of Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, and LucasArts are located in Lucas's Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. Lucas does not live on the Ranch.

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." -- Lao Tzu Copyright © Demetrios the Traveler

travel

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, USA

Rust and Surf # 2, originally uploaded by PatrickSmithPhotography.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County.
The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.