Golden Gate At Night

I had to be in Los Angeles for a week for work so I decided to take a short detour and visit my native California for the weekend. My Dad and I went up to Point Reyes and hiked the huge amount of stairs at the lighthouse (308!), had a great lunch, and overall had a great day. On the way back to the South Bay, I stopped on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge and set up for this shot.

As I arrived at the small parking area, I was amazed to see about 25 photographers and their tripods all set up as night fell. It seemed there was a class going on. I carved out a small space for myself and spent the next hour completely immersed in taking photos, switching lenses, trying out filters, etc. I had an absolute blast. When I had decided I had taken enough (and realized I was really hungry!) I drove on down the road, across that great bridge, and towards the south.

Beer and Cheese

Last night, my wife and I attended a Cowgirl Creamery Beer and Cheese pairing class at LivingSocial’s new 918 F St building. It was a great Valentine’s Day gift that she got me. She really does know me well!

They had about five different cheeses and two meats paired with four different beers and one cider. It was a really educational experience and Adam from Cowgirl Creamery really knew his stuff and it was obvious he’s really into all things cheese.

As far as the new 918 F Street location, it’s a really smart move for LivingSocial. It’s a great shift towards entertainment from just the deals model and I’m happy to see that it seems to be doing pretty well so far. We’re looking forward to attending many more events there. I hope they are all as good! Next up? The LivingSocial BeerFest in DC in April!

Just after we sat down, I pulled out the little iPhone lens my wife got me for my birthday. It’s a wide-angle lens from PhotoJojo. It works surprisingly well and let me get this shot using the excellent Camera Awesome from SmugMug!

I’ve Been All Over

This morning I got my daily email from +Timehop. It’s a really cool service that emails you your Social media check-ins from last year; namely Foursquare, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Timehop reminded me that I took this picture, which I really like. It seems like both the driver and passenger here are travelers who’ve gone far and wide. The passenger seems to enjoy watching things go by.

Heavy Seas

My wife and I headed north this afternoon to Halethorpe, Maryland to check out the yearly Heavy Seas Beer and BBQ event at their brewery. We had a great time last year and I was excited to go again. They had a great selection of rare beers both on CO2 and cask and had some great, great food. There was even a place to stand outside where we could get a litte sun.

Just because I knew this was coming and I didn’t want to bring my big ol’ DSLR, I rented a Fuji X100 for the weekend. Like many have mentioned, it definitely has some focusing issues as we handed it over to a stranger to take our picture and it chose to focus on the thing way above us and I had general problems getting what I wanted in focus. Overall though, it takes really great, really sharp pictures. I could see getting used to carrying such a powerful camera around when I didn’t want to carry the Nikon.

While I was stuffing my face full of barbecue I was standing underneath one of their large fermenters where they had set up tables. There was a great skylight above it and the light fell down in an interesting way. I grabbed the camera (after wiping my hands, of course!) and took this shot. I processed in Lightroom and used some Nik plugins to enhance.

South Waterfront

Walking down a street in Portland, Oregon one night, I saw this train coming towards me. I hoped that I had my camera all ready with the right settings and this turned out pretty well. I’ve played around with the image for about a month or so, trying to get it to look just right. Just to play around a bit, I tried a desaturated version of the image. That seemed to work better with all the darks and lights and everything else going on in the image. If nothing else, it was a fun experiment!

Don’t Give Up The Ship

On a recent trip to the US Naval Academy grounds in Annapolis, Maryland, we got to go inside Memorial Hall. This great old building actually serves as the dorms for the school.

Use the slider and check out the two versions. I think I like the Black and White a little better. I might try messing with it in color as well, though.

Popular Photo Friday

LIke most people, I find looking at all the stats on my photo views and website views pretty interesting. So, this morning, I thought I’d share something that popped up to the top of the views for the last week.

I find this interesting because this isn’t one of the photos that I would have pointed to and said, “That’s a great shot!”. It’s interesting because you can see an abnormal interaction but other than that, its got too much space off to the left, the horizon is too high and I cut off the top of that hill in the background. All those problems and it got a lot more views than any other photo of mine on SmugMug this week.

I’m guessing this shows two things. The Internet collective as a whole loves seeing great photos but sometimes something interesting or different wins out. Or, maybe a large group of friends were making fun of the photo! Either way, I’m happy I could provide something for people to look at and maybe wonder a bit at what was really going on.

As far as what was really going on in the photo, my wife and I were taking a night cruise out along the coast of St. Lucia. It was a great party boat; loud music, rum punch, hors d’oeuvres. We had a great time. As we were sailing out, we could see this guy flying towards us at high speed in his small boat. As he got towards us, he slowed down and stopped next to us and had a conversation with the captain of our boat. They had a good talk and then he zoomed off back towards the dock we came from. It’s a pretty small island and every one seems to know everyone else but it was still odd for us to see this happen as its so far outside what we are used to!

The Cascades at 18,000

Just after the chime sounded in the airplane during takeoff, I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures. The sun had come up right as we were taking off and it made for some really great light. As we headed back East, I got this shot. I’m kind of proud of this shot. It might not be the most amazing photo ever but I think its rather dramatic!

Bare

We went out to Fort Washington in Maryland last Sunday for a little evening photo walk. I realized when looking at my pictures that I was moving around too fast, not really trying all the angles and not paying attention to my settings. I got a few pictures out of the day but not as many as I would have liked.

This shot of a tree is rather interesting to me. I find that I prefer it almost colorless even though there is some great evening light hitting the tree. Which do you prefer?

Use the slider on the photo to see each version. Alternatively, use the two links directly below the photo.

Le Bateau

The weather is getting cooler here in Washington, DC which reminded me of our trip last winter to Boston. Probably not the best time to take a trip to the northeast but, as a kid growing up in California, I saw all these winter time pictures I didn’t understand. Snowmen in your yard, really cold temperatures, etc. See, all those textbook publishers are in the northeast so, to them, it made sense!

Either way, it was nice to enjoy a true northeast New Years up in Boston. While we were there, walking around, I grabbed this shot.

The Ocean Blue

We stayed in St. Lucia just off this beach for a week. On the last day, we took a stroll around the beach and someone had left this small boat there, ready to go out. It was a really enjoyable trip and I hope we get to go back someday, although, I’d like to visit a few other Caribbean islands as well. The big thing I learned about photography on this trip was that a really wide angle lens is really wide. I rented a Nikon 10-24 from BorrowLenses lens and was surprised how much I could get in, how much closer I could get, etc. It’s a really great lens and I encourage everyone to try it out. That 18-55 kit lens can’t even compare for great wide landscape shots, in my opinion.

iPhoneography

I’ve been wanting to take a picture of this fountain late at night for a while. I think the fountain with the lighting looks great and the color adds to the overall effect. The color changes over time but I didn’t wait around too long. I’ll have to go out there with my real camera sometime soon. The fountain is across the street so I really don’t have that much of an excuse.

I shot this on my iPhone and then used the iPhone Snapseed app to correct it a little.

Fare O Matic

As I was walking down the street in Annapolis, Maryland I saw these old Duncan Fine O Meters mounted below several of the parking meters. I’m not sure how old they are but it seems to be an old way of paying your parking fines. The last time I got a parking ticket, I paid online and knew instantly that it was taken care of. It’s pretty amazing how far technology has come.

I’d like to look into these a little more and see when they were around, how they were used, etc. If anyone knows anything about these or has first hand experience using one, I’d like to hear about it in the comments!

As far as this shot goes, I took the picture towards the end of the day. I cropped out a bit around the edges to remove a car from the picture and bring the focus in tighter on the meter itself. I increased saturation, sharpness, and blacks to give more “feel” to the meter. I blurred a little around the photo to make the meter stand out even more. Lastly, I added an ever so slight vignette to decrease some of the brightness and shine from around the edges. All in all, I think I’m starting to do marginally better after processing a couple thousand photos!

What’s in a blog?

Its an important question. What will your presence look like? Its both an extension of yourself and what others know of you. Many people who read this don’t even know who I am so its important. I looked for a theme for days and days, not really wanting to pay a whole lot. In the end, I found something simple and free deciding that, in the end, a blog that’s actually turned on is more effective than one that’s merely sitting there waiting. As I get more advanced at this and if I continue with it, I’ll try something a little better. Who knows, maybe I’ll even decide tomorrow that I want something better!

All that aside, here’s a picture I took a while ago. It was taken in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC which is close to home. My wife and I were being tourists for the day and I wanted to visit what is my favorite museum in DC. As soon as the doors opened, I ran towards this spot to the right of the National Mall entrance and grabbed this shot before anyone could walk down the hall. Through the door is one of my favorite indoor spaces with large trees and a fountain. It’s just a great place to see!