Long exposure Photos
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Courtyard
This is a beautiful little church out in Montecito. It's one of my favorite places to wander in the evenings with my camera. The architecture is really something special and the people are really nice too! This was actually taken the same night as a previous photo of the day which is now part of my Santa Barbara Calendar.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Mission Sunset Fog
Click on the main image for a larger view.
Once again we are having a fire in the area. Fortunately for
us here in the city it's a little further away this time.
Of course that's not much consolation to the over-worked firefighters on the
front lines.
As always, the fire is making for some nice sunsets. And I had
a project specifically looking for a nice wide straight
shot of the mission. This looked like my opportunity, but
I thought the fog was going to roll in
too thick to get the photo. In the end the fog
swirled right behind the mission with the beautiful colors of the sunset
making for an amazing backdrop.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Grand Finale Over Santa Barbara
So there I was thinking "If only I had a flash powerful enough to light up the whole city," and then...
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Fourth of July Over Santa Barbara
We usually try to avoid the crowds when there is some sort
of celebration in town. (The exception being the
Solstice Parade.) This year however, I was looking for a nice Independence
Day Photograph for a project I'm working on. The thing is
I would not really have been interested in the normal
looking-up-from-the-crowd shot anyway. So earlier in the day
we spent some time scoping out a nice angle that would include
the Wharf and a more interesting Santa
Barbara view and this is the result. It always helps to scout
your locations ahead of time.
You can click on the main image for a larger view.
Happy Independence Day!! And thank you to all the brave people
in uniform who make this day possible.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunset Over the Rose Garden Bench
Usually when I'm in the Mission rose garden I'm focusing on the Mission, or even the roses. But this time was something special. I was there to get an image for an anniversary gift. You see, one of the rose garden benches is where he chose to propose to her. He came to me looking for just the right image and had just about selected one of my older panoramic Mission Photographs. But listening to his story, I thought I could create something a little more fitting. Of course, it's not all up to me. I had to hope for just the right backdrop. Wednesday evening I saw my chance!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Queen of the Missions Fountain Test VR
This is the rest of the image from my lens test at the Mission Santa Barbara the other day. Actually, most of the recent photos of the day have full 360° panorams to go with them that I will get online soon. Usually the panoramas start out based around one nice shot. Of course the challenge is to find a point of view on that nice shot that also looks good in all directions.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Sanctuary at the Mission Santa Barbara
Another image from the new lens I was trying out the other day. This is another one that is just a slice of a 360° image. I'll get the whole thing online when time permits, but I really liked the colors I was able to pick up especially in this part of the image. So I thought a tighter crop would be nice too.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Knapp's Arch Sunset
For the last couple of months I have been contributing a "Photo of the Week" to a local news site, Santa Barbara's Blog. Yesterday a request came through them for a shot of Knapp's Castle, the ruins of an old mansion that burned in the forties. It is just over the peak of the mountain north of Santa Barbara overlooking the Santa Ynez valley and Cachuma Lake. For the last year I had been trying to get up there to get some photos, so I was happy to get up there and take some test shots. The intention was to just check out the location and plan for equipment and timing. But, I'm pretty happy with the test shots. I'm still going to try to get up there again soon, but it's hard to beat a couple of nice shots on the first pass.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
El Paseo Courtyard
So after the Mission the other day I was pretty happy with the new lens I was considering. But I like to get my money's worth out of a rental. I had it for two evenings, and when I went out last night I was a little disappointed by the overcast sky. It looked like it was going to be a very grey evening with low fog. But I figured it was worth a try. Fortunatly, my art director (my wonderful wife) suggested going to the El Paseo restaurant. As the sky got a darker blue there were a few minutes where the sunset colors mixed with the blue sky and the reflected city lights on the low fog to creat a wonderful purple color.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Santa Barbara Historical Museum
I was looking through some old shots for some photos
that I remembered taking, but did not remember how they
turned out. (Sometimes I take more photos than I have time
to process.) This was one of the ones I was looking for.
It's always a nice surprise to wander back through
my photos and try to find cool things that fell through the cracks.
This was just after a particularly beautiful winter sunset.
The wispy clouds are still reflecting the glow of the sunset
and the lights of the city making the beautiful colors in the sky.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Queen of the Missions Fountain Test Shot
Last evening I rented a lens to try out
for some upcoming panorama work. I was pretty
sure I knew what I wanted, but it was worth
taking it for a spin first. When I'm trying out
new equipment I like to go somewhere familiar.
I couldn't think of anywhere better to start than
the Santa Barbara Mission. This is only one part of
the image. The final image is a full 360° panorama.
But my computer is a little overworked at the moment, so
I thought I would get this much online.
As for the lens, I was so happy with the results
that I was ready to buy it before the rental was up
but it turns out I'm not the only one who likes it, it's
on backorder everywhere I called. Oh well, there is always
the rental! And whenever I have rental equipment it
motivates me to go out and get my money's worth.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
After an unseasonably hot day my intention was to go down to
Stearns Wharf to both take some evening pictures and enjoy the cool sea breeze.
Unfortunately, the day had been too much for the power grid
and there was a strange intermittent power outage down by the beach
including the wharf.
After cruising around for a while and enjoying the cool evening
we ended up at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Montecito.
There was just enough blue left in the sky to get
a few nice shots. And, in the end, it was an even nicer
place to spend the evening.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Quatrefoil and Clocktower
The Courthouse is one of the most photographed buildings in Santa Barbara.
Still, the building itself sits on two sides of a city block. If you take
a closer look the details could keep you busy for weeks with a camera. I can't imagine
the effort that went into creating them.
The small window beneath the clocktower on the Garden side
is one of those details that you might easily miss.
If you look around you can find these Quatrefoil or "four leafed"
windows all throughout the architecture of our city but I think
this is the most ornate and beautiful example you'll find.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Figueroa Arch
This was one of the last few shots I took at the end of a very long day of shooting at the Courthouse. It was almost completely dark on the Figureoa side, so this was an extremely long exposure. Actually it was three long exposures combined to pick up the bright archway, the wall lit by the passing car headlights, and the near darkness of the sky. Today was a great day of shooting!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish 360° view
Back to Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Montecito.
This was actually the first image I took with my
new panoramic tripod head. But as I mentioned in an
earlier post it took me a bit of time to finish all
of the shots and in the time it took the light had
changed quite a bit. I did not think I was going to be
able to stitch it together right. But now that I have had
a little practice I was able to get it to work.
Of course that brought up some new problems. The image
is so large I kept getting "Hard drive full" errors.
Strange seeing as how there was 500 gig of space.
In the end I realized that the format of the hard drive
only allows a maximum of four gigabyte files. Yeah,
it's a big picture... ten feet wide actually.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Moonlit Tree
This evening I went out to take some test shots for my current project. The moon was doing some beautiful things with the clouds so it got me a little sidetracked. But that is always lots of fun too.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
My intent was to get some nice sunset shots of this beautiful
church in Montecito. I was a little late, but it was still
a nice night.
If you tilt your head to the left and
use your imagination a little you can make out
half of the constellation Orion rising from behind the
church.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Mission Storm
Click on the main image for a bigger version
Another attempt to get to the Nativity Scene at the mission a
couple of weeks ago, and still no animals. Probably
a good thing for them, it was raining like crazy.
But I do so hate to come home empty handed!
And, I still have not had a chance to develop
the film from this evening. This was from my
digital camera, but four feet wide just might not be big enough. :-D
Saturday, December 15, 2007
CCSB in the Setting Sun
As I mentioned yesterday I was out taking some test shots for a new project. The intention was to check the lighting and get an idea what equipment I would need. But as the sky got prettier I decided to take a shot at getting some images to combine into a high dynamic range image. Normally, not a difficult task. But in this case I only had a monopod so that made keeping the camera perfectly still between shots a bit of a challenge. I might not use it for a poster size image but I'm pretty happy with the results.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Sunset at 1525 State
When the evening sun does beautiful things like this I find myself
wishing I could drop everything and take pictures.
Today I had a busy afternoon of meetings and appointments,
fortunately one of them was with a new client so I just
happened to have my camera handy. I think the wispy
pink clouds really add a lot! Not to mention the
cool bus tail lights that came through at just the right time.
This is a combination of five images in what is called a High Dynamic Range Image, mostly
used in this case to pick
out the details in the bright spots. One of the interesting things
about one of those bright spots is the color of the sign.
That lovely green is the way film (or in this case a digital sensor)
sees fluorescent lights. As they ummm... "encourage" us in California
to use the CFLs my evening shots are going to get a lot
greener, supposedly in more ways than one.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Tuesday Night Farmers' Market
It's been a busy couple of months but last night the fog was so beautiful I thought I would try to get some sunset fog shots at the Farmers' Market. (Then I could get a little Thanksgiving shopping done too! :) Unfortunately, the fog was much lighter tonight and I was a little late for the sunset (still have not adjusted to that time change!) but it was still a fun night with my camera.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Courthouse Glow
Sometimes its nice to take a closer look
at something beautiful. This is a gateway
into the Santa Barbara Courthouse. The
building as a whole is amazing, but as
I am so fond of pointing out I really like
the details. There is some incredible
craftsmanship there that I don't think
you would find very easily today. Perhaps
the only thing that will make me stop
sounding like my grandfather now (WHYYYY, IN MY DAY... !) is
to point out that it was probably pretty
rare to EVER find this kind of creativity!
(Unless of course, it was actually one of my perfectionist
German grandfathers doing it! :-D At least I come
by it honestly!)
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Church Lights
It's the little things I like about this photo. The church bell and the palm tree in silhouette and the green glow of the reader board all make the photo much more interesting.





