Seeing Clearly

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Red Umbrella

I played with this one in photoshop a bit so I'm posting the before and after...

After:

Before:

The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should be a place where each individual's dignity and self-respect is strengthened by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today.
~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The City

Got to go into downtown and finally got to spend some decent time shooting. It was so much fun. You'll have to excuse me if I went overboard on posting...

Disney Concert Hall

Mariachi Band in the Central Market

The Standard

Fly Away

Bringing Back Broadway

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
~ Aristotle

Snowy Sunrise

We have had an onslaught of rain the past week or so and with it has come some beautiful snow in the mountains. I had to skip my run to go get some shots early in the morning.

I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.
~ Katherine Mansfield

Band

I subbed for junior high band thinking it would be a pretty easy day. Turned out to be one of my hardest days subbing ever.

Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
~ Oscar Wilde

Deconstruction

I demolish my bridges behind me - then there is no choice but forward.
~ Firdtjorf Nansen

The Trash

I did a very dumb thing this week. I accidentally deleted all of my photos... dumped them in the trash... and then emptied the trash. Not a smart thing to do when you have a Mac. I panicked and cried and got very mad at myself. I read everything I could and found out I had very little hope of getting anything back at all. The one thing I did read tho was to not use the computer much at all if you want to recover anything. That is the reason for my long absence on this blog. I took a lot of photos during the week which I will be posting today and tomorrow and maybe throughout the week. And the absence was well worth it. A good friend was able to recover every one of my photos. Unbelievable. I don't think I will ever delete anything again.

Sepia

I found a new place to take pictures yesterday. It's not the most beautiful place in the world, but it was new so I had fun. I was only out for about a half hour. It felt so good to be out though. Unfortunately somehow my shaky hands slipped and I ended up on a really high ISO so most of them came out grainy. I put a sepia filter on these and love the look of them.




This last one is a piece I just finished last night. I don't have a title for it yet.

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.
~ Brooks Anderson

Hair

I was going to go to LA today to shoot, but decided not to at the last minute. Instead I made a much needed (and hated) trip to get my hair done. As you can tell from the first photo, it was desperately needed.
Before:

After:

We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for.
~ Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

Shooting Models

I went to class today expecting to get a lecture on how to build a portfolio. Instead, I found myself in the studio shooting models with 50 other students. The first shot was one I took when I was hooked up to the lights and had my two minutes to shoot on my own. The second was taken "paparazzi" style - shooting without a flash while it was someone else's turn. I like this one much better even if it's noisy and soft. The whole class was definitely out of my comfort zone, but worth it.

I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it.
~ Author Unknown

Faded

This is how I've been feeling lately...

Beauty's a doubtful good, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour; And beauty, blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.
~ William Shakespeare

The Bird

I took this this afternoon while sitting in the jacuzzi. :-)

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
~ Maya Angelou

Trails

I was driving down the freeway today and saw this airplane off in the distance. Needless to say, I got very impatient with other drivers taking their time and getting in my way as I tried to make my way over there. I guess there is an air show this weekend so they must have been practicing. It was pretty incredible to see.


If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.
~ Chuck Yeager

The Light

I didn't have much time to get out today so I ended up with this candle shot. I decided to post a before and after shot (or after and before). I hated the cat hair that was on the glass so I cropped it in pretty tight, although you can still see a bit of it and if I had more time I'd get rid of it. I got rid of the noise in Photoshop and then added something called "New York Effect" in Lightroom.


We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.
~ Mary Dunbar

The New Lenses

They finally arrived today so the old one goes back tomorrow. I'm very very happy with these. I took several trial shots just to compare and there really is no comparison. I took this one of E at 300mm handheld. Not bad considering I couldn't get one decent shot with the other lens at 200mm. I didn't do much post-processing on it. I lightened it a little, added some contrast and some vignetting.

Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.
~ Yousuf Karsh

First Snow of the Year

We had the first snowfall of the year over the weekend. Not nearly as much as I had hoped for, and certainly not enough rain, but it was enough to make the mountains look beautiful again. I'm sure it will be gone next week so I had to get out today and get some shots.


There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
~ G.K. Chesterton

Inspiration

This is Father Bill. He is a local artist/priest and so inspiring to me. His artwork has so much depth and texture to it and there is so much to see. He even encourages you to touch it. Seeing it on the web really doesn't do it justice. You can see more of his work, though, if you click here.

This is a shot of his studio/home.

One thing I love about not being tied to the 365 project is that I can post more than one photo. I took these after the rain we had last night. I liked how they turned out after some tweaking in Lightroom. I had to get some more sharpness in there since I'm still using the soft lens. The new one comes next week.


Inspiration and genius--one and the same.
~ Victor Hugo

The Impossible

It's been dark, gloomy, and rainy today so I decided to do a self-portrait. I want to do more of these this year even though I find them very difficult. It will be a good challenge for me. Luckily no one was around for this.

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
~ Lewis Carroll

City Sunset

I hadn't even picked up my camera for two days. How awful is that? I went out today and shot a bunch of sunset shots. I know those are a dime a dozen but it was just gorgeous. I had to do some multiple exposures and did some experimenting in Photoshop with blending, dodging, and burning. I'm still using the old lens (the new one comes on Tuesday) so the shot is soft, but it'll do for now.

If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.
~ Richard Avedon