Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Butterfly Beach Stone Wall Sunset Landscape

We're having a wonderful run of beautiful sunsets right now. But this is actually from a beautiful evening walk along Butterfly Beach back in October. I had a request to use the image, but they needed a horizontal layout. Fortunately I usually shoot both horizontal and vertical if I can frame a nice composition both ways for just this reason.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Shipwrecked After Dark on Butterfly Beach

The clouds were beautiful the other evening at Butterfly beach. Just after sunset they looked almost like an aurora. This was an extremely long exposure, the last of a particularly beautiful day.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunset over Santa Barbara from Butterfly Beach

If you've looked around my sites much you probably already know that Butterfly Beach is my favorite beach in Santa Barbara. It's a beautiful place to wander and relax. Sunset is my favorite time, it's always beautiful, but Sunday (the day this was taken) was something truly special!

Thursday, August 13, 2009
Butterfly Beach Sunset VR

Like I mentioned on yesterday's Photo of the Day, the sky was beautiful in every direction. Which of course is a perfect opportunity to take a 360° VR photo. The only problem is I did not have any kind of tripod or my normal tools. But the sky was too good to pass up so I gave it a try hand-held and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Butterfly Beach Sunset Contrails

This is another shot from Butterfly Beach taken on the same evening as the Butterfly Beach Golden Hour photo of the day with a MUCH wider lens. The sky was amazing in every direction, even long before the sunset.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Butterfly Beach Golden Hour

I love sunset at Butterfly Beach. It's one of the best places in Santa Barbara to spend the end of the day. This day a couple of weeks ago was particularly beautiful. I was not the only one to notice the beautiful golden light. You can see a couple of other photographers in the photo. Of course, they were there to use the golden light for portrait lighting.

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Secluded Cove

Today we took a drive down Highway 1 to look for a place called Jade cove. It is always a beautiful drive and we usually stop at various parks in Big Sur but this time we found everything on the east side of Highway 1 closed. They had some massive fires last year and they still have not reopened the parks.

Luckily all the vista points on the beach side were still open. This is just south of Big Sur at a vista point looking south along the coast.

Probably good we did not stop that often anyway, Jade cove was a lot further than we expected, almost twenty miles further. And if you have ever been on Highway 1, twenty miles can be a long way especially this time of year when they are just barely keeping parts of it passable.

Sunday, December 28, 2008
Pacific Grove Sunset

This is from a couple of nights ago. It was a beautiful evening. Of course right at this very spot the wind was almost strong enough to knock me over at one point. But it was still very beautiful. I'm posing it a bit late (it's not actually the 28th anymore I know!) but I do have a bunch of trip shots to get online. Unfortunately the trip was too short with too many cool things to do. With a couple of projects going now that we are back in town, I'm keeping my system busy processing photos. But I'll get new things online as fast as possible.

Saturday, December 27, 2008
Monterey Wave

Yesterday was a fun day. We ate good food and cruised around Monterey. There was just enough wind to make the waves interesting. But not enough to make you feel like you were going to have your skin removed if you stood outside for more than a minute. That's the way it's been in the past when we have been there. A couple of years ago they even lost some trees and had other serious trouble.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Sunset at the Yacht Club

This was taken just a couple minutes after yesterday's photo of the day. The Santa Barbara Yacht Club has a great spot on the beach and a beautiful building. I have walked past it often and pondered a sunset shot. But I never had the timing just right until now.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Tentacles in the Sand

This is one of the first shots with my underwater housing for my camera. I've had it for a while and have not had a chance to use it. The extremely low tides this week were a good opportunity to go wading through the tidal pools taking pictures. 'Course, the water was so shallow they were all extreme close ups, but that's just fine with me.

These guys are really beautiful, they are related to jelly fish, but they stay on the bottom, usually anchored to a rock under the sand. The pretty colors come from a symbiotic algae living in their translucent tissues.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Streams in the Sand

Been trying to get more exercise. The best place to do that is the beach of course. (I feel like we are wasting the beautiful place we live when we don't spend enough time on the beach.) This week has been particularly fun because the low tides have been extremely low and at a good time in the afternoon to get there after the heat and for the good evening light.

I'm starting to experiment with an underwater housing for my camera and I'll get some of the shots from that online in the next couple of days. But there was something interesting going on that did not require any special equipment. The tide was so low, that ground water or just extra sea water was flowing from the sand for about four feet up from the water line. That slow flow lined most of the beach with these beautiful patterns.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Creatures from the deep

Actually, I guess they are "creatures from the shallow". Or even creatures from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. But you get the point.

This is from our last trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. On my way to their Online Field Guide to identify these critters I found out that their Jelly fish exhibit is going to end on Sunday. If you find yourself anywhere near Monterey this week you should stop in and see it. They are really beautiful. I am sure going to try to get there. I think they will still have jellies after Sunday, it's just the bigger collection of rare ones that is over... "Jellies: Living Art"

I did find the details on these guys too: Tube Anemone an interesting adaptation of an Anemone that can retreat into that long tube. And the crazy thing on the left is a Sea Pen, but he is not at a good angle to appreciate why he got his name. When they are standing up they look like a big fancy feather quill. I'll try to get a better picture when we go to see the jellies.

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

Thursday, March 13, 2008
Stearns Sunset

I have learned to make the most of the clouds when they come out around here. during the summer we just have haziness and fog. Most of the rest of the year it's clear and blue. But as I have said so often on the photo of the day, the clear blue skies don't make for much of a sunset. But the evening I took this shot was just amazing! We almost did not go since we were getting out a little too late for the sunset. Turned out to be a better image with the stars in it anyway!

So now that I have the VR functionality down I thought I would take the time to fine tune the process. I created this image and recreated it from the 120+ individual shots that make it. This is my fourth complete revision, after trying out about ten different programs for different parts of the process. I can now confidently say there is no substitution for hard work. (I'm hearing my 7th grade english teacher in the back of my head asking me if the computer I did my homework on did the work for me when I pushed a single button) Maybe some day, but we're still not there yet. Quite to the contrary, with each new advance in computing power you just get more room to find a new level of creativity.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed making it!

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
Leadbetter 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 Leadbetter 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.

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.

Friday, February 23, 2007
I Can FLY!

I took several shots of this dog, but the thing I like about this one in particular is the fact that none of his feet are touching the ground. He was running far ahead of his friend, the guy to the left. Then he would run all the way back. Apparently the pace of the walk was not quite as fast as he would like.

In my case, it could be me making multiple trips back and forth waiting for The Hound. Not because she is lazy, but because when she really gets into her walk she likes to inspect every inch along the way. I experience our walks with my eyes and camera. She is all about her nose. I don't think she even pays attention to her eyes unless something out of the ordinary happens. As evidenced by the orange traffic cone that snuck up on her tonight and made her jump straight up in the air when she realized it was there.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Shoreline Access

One of the many beautiful images that are a result of an early morning hound walk during our last trip to Monterey. As I have said before, that was not really my idea of a relaxing trip but the hound sure can sniff out a good photo opportunity!

Friday, October 20, 2006
Attitude Gull

I liked this photo when I took it. But I had no idea what I could possibly do with it. Then, when I was getting ready for a show one evening I started playing in Photoshop. I decided that the space above the bird was perfect for a little creativity. The way he was walking made him seem very determined, but there was just a little something missing. The reflection in the glasses is the palm trees from another one of my cards.

I was actually able to convince many of the kids at various art shows that I had to bribe the seagull with fish to get him to wear the glasses. :-D

Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Foggy Gull

This is actually an older shot. I was surprised when I looked and found that I had never used it on the photo of the day. The poles in the background are masts of small catamarans that are on the beach for rent. They were not far from where I was standing to take the picture, that gives you an idea how fast and heavy the evening fog was rolling in.

Monday, August 28, 2006
Great Bounding Beach Bassets!

Bassets are quite possibly the cutest creatures on the planet IMO. This guy was just having a good old time following his nose cruising along, falling behind. Then his owner (food-slave in proper Basset terms) called him. He looked so happy bounding along to catch up. There's nothin' quite like a sixty pound dog running on 4" legs.

Sunday, August 27, 2006
Butterfly Beach Sunset

It was a nice sunset this evening. No clouds, but still a nice glow in the sky.