A Photo a Day by Bill Heller

Pacific Photos
 
Saturday, April 26, 2008

San Simeon Sunset

 This was taken the evening before my VR Highway 1 Sunset, just a little further up Highway 1. If you turned around from where we were standing you could almost see the top of Hearst Castle in the hills.

Of course if you looked to the left... and I apologize in advance for ruining the tranquil California sunset day dream you're having right now... there were a bunch of Elephant Seals. And they were quite loud and very comical. I'm sure I have a few shots of them to get on-line soon.

Now back to the regularly scheduled day dream... Right up the road, a little closer to the lighthouse is a scenic point that has less seals, and when we were there they were just laying enjoying the evening sea breeze. One had her flipper over her baby like she was hugging it. So if you'd rather picture yourself there that would work too. :-D

 
Saturday, April 5, 2008

Cottage Inn

 So in the process of stitching the images together to make the panorama of yesterday's image there are a nuber of stages along the way. (Or, to be technical for the cartographers out there, different projections). Taking the flat images to represent a spherical view of the world and then projecting them back on to your flat monitor is not unlike making a flat map out of the round globe. Of course, along the way there is room for a little bit of creativity.

 
Friday, April 4, 2008

Cottage Inn

 Well, there were some technical difficulties with publishing to the site so I'm sorry for the wait! I have quite a few images that should be posted in the near future, but with several big projects and tax day (what fun!) it has been hard to get to the maintenance of my site.

A few days ago we were in Pismo Beach for a project. When I went out to get breakfast the morning fog was just breaking up. I thought about skipping breakfast to take pictures, but I finally thought better of it so I would have some energy for the drive home. (Besides they have REALLY good waffles.) The timing was perfect though. This was right after breakfast. All of the clouds in this shot are actually wispy remnants of the morning costal fog. They are almost close enough that you could reach out and touch them. Not 20 minutes later the fog was back thicker than ever.

 
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Santa Barbara Harbor Sunset view from the Breakwater

 Another beautiful sunset and another massive image. If you look closely you can see stearns wharf in the image off to the right. (if you have Flash 9 installed, you can use the up arrow to zoom in)

 
Sunday, March 2, 2008

Highway 1 VR Sunset

 If you have Flash installed in your browser, click and drag on the image once it loads, you should get a pleasant surprise.

This image has been quite a few days in the making. I had the good fortune to be in Cambria (north on the coast, 'bout half way to Monterey) last week around sunset and I just happened to have my new panoramic tripod head with me. Seeing as how I don't have a good fish-eye for my digital camera, I used my widest lens available. To get the whole image it took 36 shots. Of course, the difference shooting into the sun, and away was more than a single exposure setting could handle. So I had to take three separate exposures and combine them into a High Dynamic Range Image.

From that point, I just had to see how far I could push my computer. Rather than scale the images down I wanted to see just how big I could make the image. In the end the 108 images combined into a two gigabyte, 240 megapixel image. I figure it would print nicely at around twelve feet wide. I spared your internet connection the full size image. But as I mentioned above, users with Flash should be able to experience a nice point of view. I can tell you the VR interface gives the closest experience to actually standing there taking the photo I can imagine.

Enjoy, and please let me know if you experience any difficulties with the new interface.

 
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

East Beach Woodcut - No Lifeguard On Duty

 I went out this evening to get some evening shots of the city. I was not sure exactly what I was looking for, but when I drove by East Beach I saw it. :-D

This scene reminds me of a woodcut technique where the black silhouette is printed over a gradient background. The sky was cloudless, the dark outline at the left on the horizon is Santa Cruz Island part of Channel Islands National Park.

 
Monday, December 3, 2007

Sunset Wharf Walk

 The clouds in the distance are actually our "Marine Layer" (fog) that rolls in to the beach in the evening. It was a good night for a walk on the Wharf.

 
Thursday, August 23, 2007

California Sunset

 Santa Barbara (where we live) is beautiful in general, don't get me wrong. And, I have heard people try to extol the virtues of our south facing beach. But you just don't get a sunset like this off of a south facing beach! Which is probably one of the main reasons I like exploring the rest of California.

 
Saturday, July 1, 2006

Catamaran Beach

 Another Santa Barbara sunset shot taken a few minutes after yesterday's.

 
Sunday, October 9, 2005

Harbor Moonrise

 You can see the moon coming up on the right side of the photo, through the fog. This was an amazing night to take pictures.

 
Sunday, August 28, 2005

Stearns Sunset

 Ahhh, the end of summer. I don't have to go to school tomorrow, but I can't believe it's over already.
 
Monday, August 8, 2005

La Jolla Evening

 We were just marveling at an unseasonably beautiful sunset here in Santa Barbara tonight. Usually this time of year the air is too dry to make an interesting show. But, even with the beautiful show, we still didn't get anything quite like La Jolla in the winter. Partially because we have a south facing beach here and the sun sets over the mountains rather than the water.

 
Sunday, May 22, 2005

Butterfly Beach Sunset

 The weather around here in June is known as "June Gloom." The fog comes in over the water before dawn and we usually don't see the sun until about 4:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes the beach is totally covered all day. There can be a wall of fog right by the beach that looks thick enough to touch.

The fog in this image is not quite that crazy. It was an amazing evening. I had to wade pretty far out in the water to get the angle of the sun behind the trees. And, I was not really dressed for swimming at the time.

 
Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Day at the Beach

 This is actually from last summer, but it felt so much like summer around here yesterday I was feeling in the mood. That water is looking better and better at 90 degrees with no A/C!

 
Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Sunsite Kite

 Since Monterey lies on the North East side of the Monterey Peninsula you have to go around to the Carmel side to see the sunset over the ocean.

Of course, I did get some nice sunrises from the Monterey side :-)

 
Tuesday, May 3, 2005

Leadbetter Catamarans

 Leadbetter beach is a popular tourist beach in Santa Barbara. Usually these catamarans are just lined up on the beach waiting for someone to come along and rent them. You can see their masts in this photo taken very near that same spot.

 
Saturday, April 30, 2005

Sunset Run

 This was taken from above, on Stearns Wharf, which gave it the interesting perspective.

 
Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Beach House

 If you look near the bottom of this image you will see a house tucked away at the bottom of the hill. There is a long winding road leading down to the house that starts just to the left of where I was standing. It curves around to the right far out of the image, before reaching the house. What a driveway.

 
Monday, April 18, 2005

Pacific Coast Sunset

 One day while we were in Monterey we took a drive down Highway 1. It was a hazy day, but that made for a nice sunset. As we got higher on the side of the mountain it looked like we were above a layer of clouds that was hugging the water. With a little luck I will have some photos of that... as soon as I get the other 23 rolls of film developed. :-D

The bright spot at the left of the photo that initially looks like the sun is actually a lens flare. The sun is out of the frame. Because of the haze, including the sun in the shot made a large fuzzy bright area rather than a nice sunset shot.

 
Monday, April 4, 2005

Laguna Beach Sunset

 I was enjoying the sunset with a good friend, talking about cameras and snapping pictures. It was a really good day!

 
Monday, March 14, 2005

Stearns Wharf

 This is another of my favorite local spots, Stearns Wharf. The Wharf actually has a section that branches off and points back to shore. That is why it looks like this is not connected to the shore. This was taken near sunset which gave it a nice evening feel that I really like. This print has been in several shows.

 
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