All the week’s veggies are cooked: Steamed kale, brussel spouts and green beans, baked spaghetti squash and acorn squash. (And plenty of broccoli and baby carrots on hand as Ray doesn’t like cooked, soft, veggies. It’s a texture thing.)
Costco’s 2-to-a-package flank steak has been dehydrated for healthy snacks. (Who says you only make beef jerky for backpacking trips.) Ray is a happy camper as his favorite golfing snack is the beef jerky I make.
Chicken is cooked and vacum sealed for air tight freezing.

While looking at the finished chicken, I thought, “I could kill two birds with one stone………A blog photo and cooked, ready to eat chicken”.

Planning ahead.

So I remember:
Canon EF 50mm 1:1.4 lens
Exposure 4.0 sec at f/20
ISO 100
Manual focus

I took a number of shots. I got out the diffuser/deflector and tried holding in various positions to alter light from the kitchen door, hopefully preventing bright/hot spots on the pan. I noticed I got rid of the hot pan spots but then the chicken lacked highlights and looked dull. I ended up taking a flash light and quickly moving it over the chicken during the 4 second exposure.

You gotta know there is something interesting going on outside for me to pick up my camera before I pick up my coffee.

It was a beautiful morning. I’ve noticed how many egrets and other white birds are regularly around lately. It must be breeding season. I watch them from my office and have tried shooting white birds before. It’s hard not overexposing the birds. (Today I stopped down the exposure by -1 EV and -1 1/3.) It’s also hard to stop the birds’ in-flight motion, as I’m usually out shooting them in lower light situations, after the sun has set or before the morning light is very bright.

The longest lens I have is the Canon Zoom EF 70 – 200mm 1:2.8 L IS USM so getting close-up shots is difficult since the birds fly off when I get within 80 yards or so. But I liked these photos better than any others I’ve taken. The sun was bright enough that I could set the shutter speed faster, above 250, without having to bump the ISO up above 100. I put the spot meter in the center and seemed to have more success than when I put it in the upper right or left corners.

7:10am, 100 yards from my backdoor.

So many birds were out this morning.

They don't stay still for long.

Flaps up.

I’d planned a short hike up Bump & Grind for the MHCC Hikers, just to get in some quick exercise, realizing we’d have rain today. Thursday and Friday I received canceling emails. At 7am this morning I received a “won’t be making it” phone call. I certainly understood. It was pouring earlier this morning.

But I’d made a decision I was hiking no matter what. This decision was reinforced yesterday when I also made a decision to give up a one bag a day habit of eating Trader Joe’s popcorn. When I stood on the scale and read my weight, I knew it was time for some changes.

I pulled into the normal MHCC hiking group meeting place just to make sure someone wasn’t planning on hiking that I didn’t know about. After 5 minutes, I was on my way to hike. Me and my I-Pod Touch loaded with Black Eyed Peas, Lady GaGa, etc.

I talk about the Bump & Grind hike so here is a cloudy, misting day photo essay of the area. The hike took me 2 hours today as I stopped lots to take photos.
Length is 4 miles (2 up and 2 down), elevation gain: 1000 feet.

Driving on Bob Hope to Bump & Grind.

View down on the Target shopping center after hiking for about 6 minutes.

Clouds gave way to shafts of sunlight.

Nearing the top (where hikers are standing).

At the top.

More hikers beginning their hike as I'm descending.

This week’s subject for the Photomotivation Class is Circles. I haven’t really been into shooting this assignment, but what I feel anymore is no longer a driving force.

So after the 1pm massage, and only one block away from El Paseo Dr in Palm Desert, I drove over to art filled El Paseo, parked, and walked about looking for some Circles.

Spotted this car next to me when I parked outside where I was going to get the massage. I took a couple of minutes before going in to Jessie’s and shot the next three photos.

First day shooting circles.

Same car.

Cloudy day gas cap shot.

Paseo Art.

A little complementary color.

Found this message when we reached the top of the hill this morning. A backpacking friend calls this trail graffiti. But Stacy and I wanted to take our pictures with the I love you. I think Stacy is going to use another one of the seated poses I shot for her husband’s Valentine card.

Top of Bump & Grind

Stacy Jacobs.

Stacy thought we looked better sitting up.

Trying to create something for the blog.

Days are going by too fast. No dedicated photography time. Boo hoo.

Tomorrow.

p.s. This week’s photo subject is circles.

Just back from the 1st Tuesday meeting in LA. A few of us stopped at the Starbuck’s in the Barnes and Nobel at Hayvenhurst for coffee before the meeting. Knowing I didn’t have a photo to post on my blog tonight, I asked these men if I could take their photos. All said yes except for the gentleman front left. He was ok with me shooting, he just didn’t want to face the camera. What characters.

Got my photo for the day and got the blog entry up before midnight.

I don’t know why I couldn’t sleep last night. When I finally got up this morning I thought the clock read 4:30am. I figured I was getting up at 5:00am to go hiking at 6:20am, so why not just get up a half hour earlier. Ray heard me up and asked what I was doing. He said, “Do you know it’s 3:30am?” No, I didn’t know.

But I stayed up anyway. This photo below is a picture of the guest room I wrote my morning pages in. Occasionally I sit in the chaise in this room to write when Ray is still asleep. I love the feel of the room and so do all our guests.

The guest bedroom.

Took this photo with my compact camera while stopped at a signal. I actually took a few photos and this pretty girl never looked over at me. Intense.

There is a wonderful photographer I follow online named Emon Hasson. He’s a photojournalist. People ask me all the time, “What do you like to photograph?” or “What type of photography do you specialize in?” I haven’t a clue. I just shoot friends or whatever it is that’s in front of me that catches my interest. I haven’t thought about whether there is a common thread in what interests me. I know morning and evening light on subjects gets me excited. I like reflections, shadows and pretty colored playful vertical or horizontal motion blur.

When I look at Emon’s photos I realize how stuck I am in what I see and what I photograph. All my photos seem to have the same look. There is little variety in position of subject, angle of shot, stopped or blurred subject motion, varying depth of field, etc. Emon shoots everything. Emon seems to know what to shoot. Emon doesn’t look like he worries about what he is shooting or what anyone will think of his shots. When I look at his photos I see a photographer experimenting, exploring, enjoying, seeing and creating. I like how I feel when I view his work. I really like learning from others. The internet is great for someone like me. I appreciate everyone who posts their photographs. Today, I especially thank Emon.

Here is a promise of more photojournalist shots to come. I am busying learning what a photojournalist is.

Unknown texter.

I am the Saturday hike leader and was thrilled to see how many hikers came out to hike today. Where we hiked, Mission Creek Preserve, is about 45 minutes from where I live. You can see that when  hiking there you might feel you are  in the wilderness miles from home. From where we started hiking, it was only 1.9 miles to access the PCT north of the Whitewater Cyn area.

I’ve uploaded and captioned lots of photos from the hike. They are viewable here.

This is a 2 shot handheld pano of where we hiked. Snowy San Bernadino mountains are the back drop.

Mission Creek Preserve

11 hikers in all.