In a world of so many great photographers and writers, I am venturing into some unknown territories, leaving comfort zones, finally very willing to practice the art of seeing. By maintaining the practice of posting daily photos, I hope to continue learning about the possibilities that I trust are out there for the taking.
Driving home from LA last night, I spent most of the two and a half hour drive looking for shots. Ray never complained that I wasn’t really present for conversation either:-) It’s amazing how I can get lost and time flies when my eye is to the viewfinder. I believe they call my love of photography an obsession.
Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 treatment.
HDR Efex Pro 2 treatment.
Las Vegas Blvd.
Carol Leigh’s alumni class has the theme “M’ this month.
Practicing panning with the motion.
New York New York has a roller coaster ride. See the ride cars?
I squatted low on the curb waiting for something interesting. This is what I got.
Canon 5D Mark III
24-70mm 2.8 L lens
ISO 640, focal length 24mm – for all five shots
On the last 3 photos I used auto exposure bracketing (5 shots at a time) with the exposures ranging from -2 to +2 (The -2 shot was really dark, the -1 shot a little less dark, a 0 shot, and then a much lighter +1 shot and really over exposed +2 shot). I did this so I would have some photos light enough that when all were merged together I could see detail in the darker areas of the photo. (But in Lightroom I realized I couldn’t use the bracketed shots merged together because (duh) some of the bracketed exposures were too slow (like 15 seconds) and that length of time caused blurring in the moon, clouds and water!)
Some of the photos below, I just chose the best of each of the 5 photos and edited that one to get what I’ve posted.
This was the color that got me out the door. The remaining shots were taken over the next 20 minutes.
This is a nine shot photomerged pano of the sunset tonight. The San Jacinto Range was bathed in red color for a while. This wasn’t the peak color either.
This shot faces more northwest than the previous west shot. The light part on the right hand side is where the I-10 passes through San Gorgonio Pass.
I included this shot because the water smoothed out with the long exposure. 15 sec at f/8.0.
Then I had to see what the night sky looked like in black and white.
Ray heading into Palm Springs Airport.
Brother-in-law Dennis and sister Leila arrive at the PS Airport first.
Leila, Ray and I waiting for my other brother-in-law Walid and sister Ginny to arrive.
Walid and Ginny.
Ray surprised me when he offered to take me to the Salton Sea yesterday afternoon for my birthday. We arrived around 3pm and stayed until about 6pm. Because I find myself wanting to keep going back to the Salton Sea, I’ve started uploading some of the keepers to a Gallery in the Portfolio section of my website. Click here to see more of these keepers from the trips to the Salton Sea I took this past week. If you do go to view the other photos, click on the Slideshow Tab above where the individual photos are displayed for better viewing.
The curved water look around the Pelican happened when in Lightroom, aftering using Dfine 2.0 noise reduction software, I applied the camera lens profile correction. I liked the look and left the water looking distorted and curved.
I got some great photos of Ray.
Backlighting shot of Ray I might use for a photo assignment.
Jen’s shot of me. We set up one Speedlite 580EX II, using a 1/2 cut orange gel.
Jen.
Light color change from this perspective.
After this sunset shot the color changed and I began liking the rest of the dark sky lighting.
Pointing my camera straight up after Jen noticed the ring around the moon. Eerie, especially on the day everyone’s talking about the world coming to an end:-)
Me and my shadow.
Obedience bird stands still for a 14 second exposure!
My favorite of the night.
Ryland and Jen on our 5:10am hike this morning. Jen asked that we hike earlier than 5:30am so she could get to school for her kid’s exams on time.
Wonder what the temperature was on our hike if this is the temperature as I’m driving home from the hike.
It’s still pretty dark most of our hike. This morning I noticed a cute heart-like design being projected onto the trail from my new Mini Maglite flashlight called Flashlite Friend. Once the moon goes behind the mountains I need a flashlight to help me see the uneven trail tread. Thanks to my hubby who yesterday gave me this unopened flashlight he’d had in his prop box from before he retired, some 8 years ago.
It’s no call Tuesday. All that was scheduled was working out with my trainer and getting my car serviced (Thanks to Ray).
Morning shots that made me 7 minutes late for my trainer at the gym:
Last of last night’s full moon – this morning.
Looking up over our home.
Turning around……..
Seeing the light on the oranges as I turned back to look at light on San Jacinto again.
The rising low sun makes for some interesting side lighting.
Variations.
Now for the evening shots: (I hadn’t planned on going out to shoot but found I couldn’t resist going out in the balmy late day sun with my camera.)
I need to work on panning. I had the shutter too slow on the 70-200 f/2.8 lens. Think it was 80th sec.
These three shots are all cropped way down.
