July 14

Ok, this was much harder than I was imagining!  We're going to try again on the 15th because one of our local newspapers listed the full moon on the 14th and the other listed the 15th.  Plus we need the practice!  The main problem was the trees in the background.  We had to put Eric on a hill, but the only option was to make him a giant.  So I need to scout out a field with a clear shot facing east, then I can get a good distance between us and zoom in the make him closer in size to the moon.  Also I don't like how dark this came out.  But if I made lighting adjustments we lost the silhouette effect.  So with any luck, I'll post a second try at this for the 15th!

The thing I like about this shot is that he looks like Kokopelli.  A whole mythology could be built around this giant who controls the moon...

July 13

Ah Rd.96.  My favorite country road around here.  Last year there were watermelons growing in this field for seed.  I cut through here today on my way home because we had a nice sky with clouds again and I thought it would work well with the sunflowers, but ended up using the windmill instead.  I think this is f/14, and I had to move my ISO up to 400 with my polarizer on.  Although I'm not seeing the polarizer here, so I think I didn't adjust that as I was changing angles, so it was wasted on light loss.  I'm surprised by how blurry the windmill is still.  I guess it's because I'm standing so close to the sunflowers (the photo was hardly composable as I imagined it...I'm already right at the edge of the field and I didn't want that redwood in the shot).  The sunflowers should be up for a few more weeks, so I'll try again before they fade...

July 12

It's a Black-Crowned Night-Heron!  Before today I didn't know it existed, and now I have another bird in my Pokedex.  Always a good day :)  I drove through the Yolo Basin this morning, and he was sitting in a pond right at the edge of the road, so I actually took this photo through the passenger window (rolled down).  I've got plenty of him standing and also squawking.  And some showing his demonic red eyes.  I hardly ever catch a bird taking off like this.  That's because I lack patience.  I either give up waiting for them to take off, or I somehow miss the moment it happens because I'm not looking through the view finder at that second.   This time I could tell he was about to take off and caught it...although with a little bit of lag time.  This was as quickly as I could press the shutter release.  Afterwards I remembered that I had my camera set so that if I kept the shutter release pressed, the camera would take multiple photos.  That's a setting that I regrettably never remember to use.  I also wish that he took off in a different direction.  I guess this view shows his nice little jacket.  And he's got this feather string coming off the crown of his head that you can sort of see too.

July 11

Another food photo today...

This one is from my garden though.  It's my first harvest that's big enough to make a salad with :)

I've been harvesting herbs and some tomatoes for a while now, but all of a sudden things are really taking off.  The tomatoes in the front are a Genovese heirloom.  There are also some others in there that are more pear shaped; I've lost their tag so I don't know the variety.  The pear shaped ones are tasteless and too meaty.  I'm curious about how the Genovese ones will taste!  I've been picking cherry tomatoes for a while now, but they never make it into the house; that's my gardening snack.  They are the most flavorful.  Also in the bowl is a little purple pepper, my second.  It's called amethyst.  It's thin like a poblano, but not hot.  And in the back three varieties of basil.  So that's the salad for tonight.  I've got lots a squash growing too...my most prolific plants are butternut and spaghetti.  No pumpkins yet.  Some peperoncini and cayenne peppers, but no other bell peppers growing besides the purple ones.  Three tomatillos, and a zucchini.  No cucumbers yet either.  Also plenty of blooms on my eggplant but no little plants.  The blooms are pretty though, so I'm thinking of photogrpahing them soon.

As for the photography, it seems like most food photography in magazines has this slightly overexposed look, so that's what I went for.  It's metered on the tomatoes, so they've got the best color. I think it's f/2.8 so it blurs pretty quickly deeper in the photo.

What is that speck in the lower left hand corner?  A crumb?  It drives me nuts; it's very distracting!  But it's too late to redo...

July 10

Just liked the glow on these day lilies. I don't think the composition is that great, and overall maybe it's too stark.  It was taken around 10:30am, and probably facing south because it's backlit.  THe background is either a house or fence.  Not sure what the white specks are; maybe light coming through the fence?  And I'm shooting in manual and spot metering on the lilies.  That's why the photo is overall so dark.  But the glow is cool...

July 9

I'm not really a food photographer, as you can see.  But I think I'm a pretty good pie baker!  This one was a labor of love.  Key Lime Meringue Pie for someone's birthday today.  Cooling on the counter for later today...one question is where will we put the candles?

July 4

Happy 4th of July!  This was shot at our local 4th of July celebration here in Davis at the field behind the high school.  We arrived sort of late, so we ended up at this spot under a tree, which worked for viewing about half the fireworks.  Too bad the rest opened behind the tree.  I liked the idea that there would be some framing in the shot, but I don't think the tree really needed to be in that much!  I definitely wanted the people viewing the fireworks to be part of the framing.  We didn't realize it when we arrived, but we sat right under a street light, so I think that helped add light to the spectators.  This particular fireworks was the one that sizzles and pops.  I think it came out really nice in this photo.  It sort of looks like a space ship just went into hyperspace mode. Or maybe like a swarm of fireflies. The other thing I like about this photo is the blue twilight glow in the sky.  They did actually start the fireworks before it was totally dark, which I've never seen done before.  It seemed dark at the point this was taken, but it's a 3 second shutter speed here, so it just brought in all the residual light, and made that deep blue color, which makes a really nice graphic night sky.

June 30

I took this photo for my nephew's birthday card.  There's a theme for the birthday gift, but I won't give too much away here, since maybe he'll check the blog before his birthday :)  It's pretty obvious anyway, right?  I'm happy with the photo...it came out just how I was imagining it, which is pretty rare for me.  I guess I wasn't imagining a guitar/violin combo, but the patterns are pretty I think.  It's my prime lens set to f/1.8 again, which creates the blurry background.  The folks at Watermelon Music in downtown Davis were kind enough to let me set up my tripod and have fun with the camera.  It was a cool store; large and casual with lots going on.  It would be the perfect setting for a sitcom, with a cast of regulars (the employees) and a group of regular customers who stop in and work through life's little issues while playing a lot of guitar music.  Just being in there for a while makes you want to play guitar!  It doesn't hurt that I just read the Keith Richards book either...

June 29

We took a little detour driving to Antioch today, and ended up winding through the Montazuma wind farm.  It was the crystal clear air and clouds that drew me astray.  The clouds and the windmills of course.  I photographed plenty of windwills and clouds, but in the end it was a photo of this little old dinosaur of a windmill that I ended up liking best.  You can see just a few of the hundreds of modern windmills peeking over the hills.  But this little guy has such nice contast...and character!  It's a great place for a wind farm; near the delta coming from the bay, it's a breezy spot.  You don't live here long without loving the delta breeze in the summer!  I could have driven around and photographed here all day today, but for my son complaining from the back seat (after all, it was his errand we were on.)  Still I never would have driven to Antioch without him, and I'm so glad we made the drive on such a photo friendly day! And that I remembered my camera!  I used to complain about photographing here in California where it's blindingly sunny all the time.  But I'm adapting, I think.  I love that I can fill all the pixels in a photo like this.

June 26

Question: Peaking at almost 4000 ft, why did we drive to the top of Mt. Diablo?  To see the other side?  We drive to Doug and Cora's coming down 680 from the north, so here is the view of 680 leading south toward San Jose.  To see the view from the top?  Clearly hazy... but it did make for a nice vista shot.  I like the road leading into the photo, and wish I'd positioned slightly to the left so you could see it trailing off toward the distant peak (will update later with its name), but this was the shot with the deepest tones so I went with it.  I think it's underexposed by about three stops and I wish I would have tried underexposing even more!  We passed many cyclists making their way up the winding path.  It was an easy climb in the car.  I'm glad we went to the top though, because we can see this mountain all the time in the distance from our town.  Thanks Doug and Cora!

June 23

So this is very cool.  It's called Titan Arum...this one is named "Ted the Titan", and it only blooms once every two years for 48hrs.  It started blooming today at the UC Davis greenhouse!  When it blooms it gives off a smell like rotting meat.  The smell wasn't as strong as I was expecting but it did sort of waft out a scent like the garbage needed to go out a day or two ago.  It turns out this scent helps it attract flies to pollinate it.  Weird.  Technically it's not a flower but an inflorescence...a huge leaf holding hundreds of tiny flowers.  As for the photo itself, I wish the photo included the top and bottom of the flower.  Also compositionally I wanted a photo with just the bloom, but I realize that makes it harder to tell its size.  You can see a little bit of someone's elbow poking in the right had side of the photo under the leaf, just to give and idea of the size.  Here's a link to the greenhouse website if you're interested in reading more about Ted: http://greenhouse.ucdavis.edu/conservatory/

June 21

Not much to this photo really, but I haven't posted in so long, and that was really eating at me.  Just too busy.  I was thinking this morning that I probably wouldn't have time to go out with my camera today, but when I walked out the front door to get the newspaper, the light was just right on these stems, so voila!  No it hasn't rained here...we're well into hot and dry summer...our sprinkler ran this morning.  At the end of these stems are little purple flowers, and they smell like chives.  I've photographed them before (maybe in September).  The flowers aren't chive flowers though they're obviously related.  Anyway, hoping to turn over a new leaf and post more often.  Twice a week would be a good goal I think! :)

May 30

Attempting a Memorial Day photo, I went early to the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery.  This isn't a usual Memorial Day activity for me, so I have to say I was amazed by the number of cars filing in for the morning service!  And I don't know where the wind was coming from but it was harsh, which is why that flag looks like it's ready for a lunar landing...it actually was that windy!  As for the photo I have to say I'm a little disappointed in it because it seems so cliche.  I'm not sure what I was looking to photograph, but I don't really feel like I captured it here.  Too bright, too windy.  Maybe too empty given all the people there today.  I'm glad I went out there though.

May 28

So how bout that!  I got myself a 50mm prime lens with a 1.8 aperture, and I'll tell you what, it's going to be a while before I can make myself switch out of f/1.8!  Such a new experience that I'm addicted for now.  I'll admit the effect is a little exteme, but it's a new effect so it's fresh.  This was shot in manual mode, which is also something new for me from my workshop a few weeks ago.  I'm happy with the overall lighting and effect. 

May 14

So this was a new experience for me.  I attended a photography workshop over the weekend, and the focus was portrait photography...babies, kids, families.  I've been saying for a while that I need a new lens and this workshop really solidified that idea for me.  I'll probably get a 50mm prime lens, so I can get a 1.8 aperture.  What I really want is the 70-200mm professional lens, with 2.8 aperture, but I'm not going to spend that much just yet.  I might rent it for the weekend though just to try it out.  Wish I were closer to family right now, because  I've got some babies I could photograph :)