another exploration of downtown los angeles. this is the disney music concert hall designed by frank gehry.this was one of many spontaneous shots i took of the building.


I had to battle wind and sand in my face and camera equipment. I spent a couple of hours here just before sunset and by moonlight - this image is by moonlight. It was really hard to keep sand out of everything! My Canon lens is in the shop for cleaning - I hope it's not ruined! Death Valley is beautiful this time of year. The desert flowers are in full bloom but not as spectacular compared to previous years, but still beautiful!

Luckily, a buddy called as I was driving home or I would have missed these shots. I pulled over at a stop sign in the desert to talk, and snapped images through the windshield with one hand while holding the cellphone with the other as the sun continued to set. The tumbleweed, snagged pretty high up on one of the telephone poles, caught my attention. In the second image, it mimics the shape of the cloud to the left of it. Love the intersection of lines.

Tried using Nik's Color Efex Pro on these two images with some real success. On both, I used "Brilliance and Warmth" to warm, and "Tonal Contrast" to make this lovely couch pop from the background and sing once again. Shot both handheld with an image stabilizing lens. The first image was taken at f22 to get the starburst effect and is surprisingly sharp. The second one is sharp because I didn't shoot at f22. Had to add the starburst from a second image I took at f22, but which was too blurry to use otherwise.

The moon is coming up behind the mountain on the right. A color tint change. (f/5.6, 30 sec, ICO 400)


The reflections are quite different in the water without sun light. The full moon gave it life after dark. (Canon 5D Mark II, f/22, 5 sec, ISO 250, 24-105@73mm)




One of the most amazing life experiences I have ever had was, walking through a rushing river and photographing the entire experience. While resting after this experience back at camp and because we had so much energy LOL Robin and I decided to try some night shooting. With a very swollen ankle and still frozen from the river we decide to stand in the middle of the road and stare up at the sky hoping we would not get run run over and succeed in creating a photo of the stars and sky. Of course Wendy being the biggest kid out of all of us decided to join in I think we should encourage her to post her images they are wonderful. Anyway I hope you enjoy what I came up with. Bulb and I think 125 ISO and 3,5 with a cable release I could be a little off we tried it some many different ways.

I got home late tonight and the moon was high and bright above the house. Abbey was whining for me to tuck her in and Katie was running around like a naked maniac while her shower warmed up. Curtis would have appreciated my help, but the moon, and more importantly the moonlight, beckoned me to shoot. I swooped in grabbing the camera and the tripod before any one knew I was home.
This was taken at 10 pm with a 5D from school. 1600 ISO. 30 seconds. F 5.6
I was thinking the other day (always a scary proposition) on the bus to the St. Francis Dam site that it is odd that we humans go to great lengths to visit nature or historical places. I think our forefathers would laugh at what we go through. We are loaded on buses with folks we probably don't know, given provisions just so we won't faint away (like we can't plan ourselves?!) and guided to the exact location so we can "experience" the setting. It is almost comical. Anyway in researching a historical place, I too bought into this kind of behavior, at least I can report that I did hike up to the top of one edge of where the dam once stood :)

These two images were taken using a 5D, a Sigma 50mm 1.4 lens 

I shot both of these at around 9 or 10 PM las night using the Canon 5D the top one was shoot at iso 100 and the second was shot at 1600. The only light available for both shots was a street lamp outside (wich could be seen clearly ) and in the first shot I also had some light from the TV in the room next to the kitchen help with the exposure. They were both extremely warm so I tried to fix that a bit.