Adventures in a desolate land....

Was in the desert for a few days with one of my good buddies and some people from church. Much conquering of hills and rocks was had and we all had a great time. More photos coming soon, enjoy these for now.

They cant all be a success....

Went out yesterday in a big hurry after being at the DMV for what seemed like an eternity, had a location in mind but had some set back when i arrived and very little time to shoot. So i didnt come away with as many usable photos as i like but still managed to get some good one so it wasnt a total waste. Full write up and a couple more photos coming later today, you can enjoy this one for now.

Right in my own backyard

well not my OWN backyard but literally minutes from my house. I decided to go explore Lake Calaveras yesterday, it was a great time but a las the afternoon came with some heartbreak since one of my lenses bit the dust and transitioned into the afterlife. Other than that i considered it to be a very successful afternoon, this was merely an exploratory journey, i took some shots but was more in search of good photos and areas to be in for the next time around. One of the very defining features of Lake Calaveras and the focus of most of my pictures is the center piece of the whole place Mount Calaveras. Its not really a mountain but rather a (and i wasnt aware of this until after i did some research) 22 million year old volcanic plug. A volcanic plug is a mass of volcanic rock that solidified in it's vent and feeding system millions of years ago. When the volcano becomes extinct and starts to erode away, the "plug" is all that is left behind. Mount Calavera is one of only three volcanic plugs in Southern California, so there you go hope you enjoy the photos and hey maybe you learned something too. Enjoy!

P.S.
i manages to pull of a 22 image panorama before the sun went down, hope you enjoy that too :)

ill post some more photos later this week.....

Lake Calaveras

Took a little stroll around the block today, about 5 minutes from my house. More coming soon.

Washington DC, The Mall

Last year my wife and i took a short trip to Washington DC, we went in search of some fall color but arrived a little to early to catch it at its peak. We did however do a lot of walking and took in some museums and checked out the sights and great food. We had a blast and definitely will go back again someday, these are previously unreleased photos that i have just recently gone back to edit. These are of the capitol building and some of the National Museum of the American Indian which was architecturally beautiful and lent itself well to black and white. My only disappointment was that i was so overcast and gloomy that there was no way to really add drama to the whole thing and the light was really flat. Ill be adding more photos to this post later so stay tuned. For now enjoy these :)

Plenty of clouds.....very little color

Thursday i went out to catch the sunset, ive been enjoying visiting the different beaches in carlsbad and Encinitas and plan on making my way further south. So back to the sunset, it was pretty disappointing to say the least i was pretty excited to go out earlier in the day as with the recent storms there were some great clouds in the sky which i was hoping would reflect some of the sunset. Sadly though as the sun got lower in the horizon it hid behind a thick cloud bank and it obscured a lot of the color, i was pretty bummed and not to mention that i had underestimated how cold it was going to be i was out there in sandals and shorts and was freezing my butt off. Eventually i called it quits as i started to get numb from the cold but on my way to the car i saw the moon rising over coast highway and thought to myself "yeah theres a picture here" the moon wasnt clear but was behind a bunch of clouds, the backlight brought out a lot of details in the clouds, there was a good amount of movement in the clouds so i knew it would make a cool long exposure and with cars coming down coast highway it would add some great movement in the foreground. I wanted to capture everything in one frame but the only lens i had that was wide enough was my fisheye lens, i dont normally use the fisheye lens as its very easy to overuse but it was the only thing i had that would pull it off so on it went. i figured out exposure and lastly decided to leave my white balance on cloudy, while most of the time i would shoot night stuff with a tungsten WB to render the scene in blue as moonlight has a very "cool" color temp i liked the color that the warmer WB rendered. Plus when i looked around i could see that the clouds were reflecting a lot of the orange light from city lights in the distance, the cloudy WB showed this were the Tungsten one did not. All in all eventhough i didnt walk away with much its was still a productive evening plus i got a nice 12 shot Pano and found some of the images worked well in Black and White. So there you have it, heres some photos for you. Enjoy!

Moonrise over coast highway

Last shot of the day before i got back to my warm car. More coming tomorrow. Enjoy!

Return to the Cliffs

A few weeks ago i did a post with a series of photos i took at the Wiamea Pier, in that post i had stated the importance of not only looking for beauty beyond the surface of a place but also the importance of going back to see what different things you can capture. You can check the post out here now this is all just my opinion and nothing more. I bring that up because last night i went back to the carlsbad cliffs, you can check that post out here. The last time i went there i did some shots of the water drops falling off of the wet moss that clings to the rocks, i loved the delicate nature of the drops and how they seemed to encapsulate the sunset within. The golden color of the setting sun add beautiful light to the colorful moss, alas when i came home i wasnt all that happy with what i had shot. The concept was fine i just shot my closeups to late into the evening and didnt like what i had captured. Not only that i went there with the intention of shooting some great landscapes, so i decided to go back with my full attention devoted to getting those closeup shots that i had missed. Along the way i shot some landscapes as well but like i said that just wasnt my main focus this time around, i managed to get some different stuff but ill let you all be the judges of that. So heres some photos from last nights outing. Enjoy!

The marine layer.....bane of my existence

Against by better judgement i went out yesterday afternoon. I knew that the marine layer was going to be coming in but i was holding against hope that there would still be a great "show" for sunset. Alas i ended up being wrong, oh well maybe next time. All was not a loss though, i actually came away with 3 pictures that im not totally excited about but happy enough that here i am making a blog post about it :) The one with the coaster i have been trying to get for a while and it looks like i will be going back to try again. Everytime that i go out there and try to get the shot it seems that everything is against me! This time it was the stupid marine layer that just gave everything this hazy look, oh how i hate you marine layer! Anywho heres the 3 pictures. Enjoy!

I keep trying to get this shot but whenever try something seems to wrong, all the elements are there to make a good image but i just need some clouds or something in there to really make it great.


An old stump that i found where i was shooting


Had the wrong lens for this but no time to change it, i think it would have worked if the dang birds would have flown lower in the frame

Return to Cardiff

Yesterday afternoon i decided to go back to Cardiff, i had shot some photos there to start off my challenge a few weeks ago. I got there and to be completely honest there wasnt much that was inspiring me, but it was to late to drive to another location. i decided to shoot small detail stuff instead of shooting landscapes, i love how shooting close up stuff slows you down and let you see details that are so often missed. Still when the sun went down things got really nice and i couldnt help myself and shot a couple of landscapes. I had a lot of fun but i think Monday ill go out and do some location scouting to find some different spots. Enjoy!

Todays outing.....

Heres one from this afternoons little outing. Full post coming soon so stay tuned. Enjoy!