Merry Christmas 🎄 from Seal Beach, California. It wasn’t a hot day, but warm enough to surf and play in the sand a few days before Christmas.
Category: Photo Blog
Driving at Night
I recently came across Will Yurman’s A Day A Photo project, where he has posted a photo a day for 15 years and going! Sadly, I haven’t posted anything for 8 months, so this post will start off a new effort to post more frequently. I’m going to try a daily photo and see how… Continue reading Driving at Night
Twelves #12: Joshua Tree
December is a fairly busy month, combined with a bought of flu going around our house, I didn’t quite get as much photography done as I might of hoped. Plus I’ve playing with a new hobby, more on that later, but it ends up with my final twelves entry a little short and a bit… Continue reading Twelves #12: Joshua Tree
Construction in Autumn
One thing constant around the area is the on going construction. Here are a few shots from the construction site for Stanford's new Redwood City campus.
After the Festival
Each year Half Moon Bay has one of the largest pumpkin festivals in California, started back in 1971 as part of a city beautification project to help revitalize a crumbling downtown. Here are a set of shots, about a month or so after the festival, plenty of pumpkins still litter the farmland. They'll eventually decay… Continue reading After the Festival
Night of Holiday Lights
Our home town had a nice Night of Holiday Lights with real fake snow, a grinch, a father winter, and of course Santa Claus ringing in the season.
Autumn
A set of autumn photos from around town. Who says California doesn't have seasons and changing leaves. Ok, might not be to the extent of a New England Fall, but I'll take what we've got.
Twelves #11 – The Necropolis of Colma
The Town of Colma, featured briefly in this weekly post, is known as the only necropolis in the United States, a City of the Dead. The population of Colma is 1,600 living residents, and over 1.5 million deceased residents across the 17 full-size cemeteries. It’s great to be alive in Colma Town Motto The town… Continue reading Twelves #11 – The Necropolis of Colma
Town of Colma
Colma is a small town a few miles south of San Francisco. The city is one of the stops along the El Camino Real and the adjacent railroad line. With just 1,500 residents, Colma is the smallest city in San Mateo County. The Colma Station, pictured above, now sits at the Colma Historical Museum moved… Continue reading Town of Colma
Burlingame
St. Dunstan Catholic Church
While out shooting for my El Camino project, I came across the St. Dunstan Catholic Church in Millbrae. It is a quaint church sitting on top of a small hill just a block above the El Camino Real. The red and gold colors of the church stood out to me against the blue sky. St.… Continue reading St. Dunstan Catholic Church
Salsa Festival
The Redwood City 10th Annual Salsa Festival featured hot sauce and salsa dancing, I focused on the sauce. The salsa tasting competition included 8 competitors from mild to spicy, though none even got close to my perfect spiciness, defined by: The perfect salsa is just hot enough that you can't stop eating, because when you… Continue reading Salsa Festival
Twelves #10 – El Camino Real
The tenth part of my twelves project is another set from El Camino Real the major road that runs through California from San Diego to San Francisco. You can see two other sets from El Camino Real in Part I and Part II.
New Almaden
One of the reasons for the Bay Area's prosperity and growth is from the mercury mines in south San Jose. The New Almaden Quicksilver Mine was the largest, richest mine in California history, more than any gold mine. They were named after mercury mines in Almaden, Spain. There is still a small town tucked down… Continue reading New Almaden
Ardenwood Farm
Ardenwood Farm is a historic farm in Fremont, CA. George Patterson started the farm in the 1850's after failing to strike it rich mining gold. He ended up doing quite well farming and acquiring land to sell fruits, vegetables, and grain to the growing population in the region. The 6,000 acres of Ardenwood Farms still… Continue reading Ardenwood Farm
A Walk to Alta Lake
The last post in my Whistler series, see previous posts: day, night, and spooky. After so many trips to Lost Lake, John and I wanted a change of pace and went to Alta Lake. This confirmed that Lost Lake is probably the better walk. The walk to Alta Lake is along a golf course and… Continue reading A Walk to Alta Lake
Lost Lake Park
While out doing night photography with a group , I took a break from shooting the lake and stars and walked around Lost Lake Park. You can see my lake and stars photos in last week's post. Even with the lights on at the park, it was quite dark. Being in the middle of the… Continue reading Lost Lake Park
Twelves #9 – City Beautification
I quite enjoy the art projects and surprises around Redwood City. The painting of utility boxes is a great idea turning unsightly but necessary utility boxes into canvases for artists. Another fun art project in Redwood City is the various shadows on the ground. They are little surprises scattered about the city, such a delight… Continue reading Twelves #9 – City Beautification
Lost Lake By Night
A group of us went out to Lost Lake to shoot at night, with hope to see the northern lights. Supposedly, it was good aurora season, we’re not quite sure. I don’t think we saw much if anything. The sky was not filled with brilliant colors and light as we hoped, just a bit of… Continue reading Lost Lake By Night
Lost Lake by Day
At our company meetup, Alex and Matt challenged each other to photoblog more often. The challenge was also put out to the company, thus my official first entry in the #photomattchallenge at least one photo every other week to my site. Also, I will only use the new Gutenberg editor which is a new editor for… Continue reading Lost Lake by Day
Twelves #8 – Sturbridge
Old Sturbridge Village is a re-creation of an 1830’s New England Village, a large outdoor living history museum. The village sits on 200 acres and consists of 40 original buildings you can explore, including homes, meetinghouses, a school, country store, bank, pottery and glass trade shops. Sturbridge Village is a great way to see how… Continue reading Twelves #8 – Sturbridge
Cape Neddick, Maine
This summer our family took a summer vacation out in New England, this is the first of a few sets of photos from that trip. We stayed in Newton, MA, a town a little outside of Boston, it was a good base to visit Boston and do a few day trips. Our first road trip… Continue reading Cape Neddick, Maine
Twelves #7 – Vancouver
The seventh set in my Twelves series is from Vancouver, British Columbia where my wife and I traveled for our anniversary. It was a wonderful visit to Canada and the first time both of us got to explore the city, I’d stopped there only briefly many years ago. This is a bit of an eclectic… Continue reading Twelves #7 – Vancouver
Twelves #6 – County Fair
A Day at the County Fair is the June set for my Twelves project. This one ended up being a little more challenging since I was at the Fair to enjoy with my family and photography was secondary. Lots of great opportunities but my attention was more focused on my kids and enjoying it.
Twelves #5 – Flash
For my fifth installment of twelves project, I focused on non-natural light in the form of off-camera flash. You can see my setup in initial post, and also two updated articles in basic portrait and moving around posts. It turned out to be relatively easy to get good results, primarily two things getting the flash… Continue reading Twelves #5 – Flash
Lighting 02 – Moving Around
The second part in my series to learn more about flash and lighting, I played with moving the light around. You can see the first part in Lighting 01 which I worked on shooting basic portrait lighting. Gear update: everything is the same as listed in my initial lighting post, however I returned and replaced… Continue reading Lighting 02 – Moving Around
Lighting 01 – Basic Portrait
As mentioned in my previous post, I’m going to start working on non-natural lighting. First up was a basic setup using a single flash into an umbrella, placed about 45 degrees to the front-left of the subject. I made a short video that shows the complete setup and test shots. Update: I had music playing… Continue reading Lighting 01 – Basic Portrait
Non-Natural Light
I haven’t been able to get good results using a flash, ever. My photos usually end up too bright, too dark, or just bad with weird reflections. I was inspired at the Shutterfest conference to improve this deficiency, see previous post. Shutterfest has a ton of hands-on tutorials, light setups, and off-camera flashes. I was… Continue reading Non-Natural Light
Twelves #4 – Shutterfest
My April edition of Twelves project is a set from Shutterfest. Shutterfest is a photography conference in St. Louis that focuses on hands-on learning and lots and lots of shooting. I was there as a vendor for work, WordPress.com, so didn’t get too much opportunity, however walking around on breaks and lunch did get the… Continue reading Twelves #4 – Shutterfest
Twelves #3 – Spring
The third installment in my Twelves project was focused on Spring and includes three looks at Spring time. There is something a little magical about Spring, coming out of winter, all the trees and flowers wake up and blossom to greet the new season. We had some much needed rain and a colder winter in… Continue reading Twelves #3 – Spring
Twelves #2 – Barcelona
The second set in my Twelves project is Barcelona. I was fortunate enough to have a work meetup in Barcelona for a week and then my wife joined me for a second week. It was the longest time I’ve spent in a single city while traveling. Even there two weeks is not enough to see… Continue reading Twelves #2 – Barcelona
Twelves #1 – Construction
Construction is the first set in my new Twelves series, producing a cohesive set of twelve photos each month for the year. The San Francisco Bay Area is seeing a great deal of construction from housing to office buildings everywhere around the bay you see lots of growth. Back in 2000, I worked in an… Continue reading Twelves #1 – Construction