A Photo a Day by Bill Heller

Ocean Photos
     Page 1 of 3     Page 2 »
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)

 
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.

 
Friday, January 18, 2008

Shorline Sunset Panorama

 Click the main image for a larger view

As I have mentioned before, there are very few places you can see the sunset over the water in Santa Barbara. Our coast faces the south for the most part. But there are a few small sections that give you a glimpse of the setting sun.

This is a combination of thirteen shots covering more than 200°. My intention was to shoot an entire 360° image. In the end this particular set of images caught the best lighting to bring out the beautiful texture of the clouds. But it did not quite make the full circle.

If you like the panoramas, you should check back. My wife got me a couple of nice tripods, and one will be perfect for a panoramic head I have been drooling over... er, I mean carefully considering investing in. :-D

 
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.

 
Friday, October 19, 2007

Harbor Earth Shadow

 I really love this shot and all the others I took along with it. It was a great evening right after a Photography show walking with my dad at the Santa Barbara harbor.

Aside from the beauty of the scene and the great memories it brings back (as most of my photos do for me), I like the science in this shot. If you poke around the photo of the day it's not hard to notice other evidence of the left side of my brain creeping into my photography. In this case, the dark blue near the horizon that slopes upward to the left is what intrigues me. It is actually the shadow of the Earth. As the sun was slipping further below the horizon behind me on my right side, it still lit the atmosphere above me. It is easiest to see this effect looking out over the ocean so there are no hills or even buildings and trees to block it.

BTW, I finally got back to the photo of the day thanks to a really nice post the other day from Mary Ann. Always wonderful to know people are enjoying my creativity. One of the many things I was doing in my absence was working on a new gallery site of my Santa Barbara photos... www.ImagesOfSantaBarbara.com.

Thanks again Mary Ann!

 
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, August 18, 2007

Wispy Jelly

 I was in the mood for something a little different today when I was looking through some older images. I realized that none of my jelly photos from our last trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium made it to the Photo of the Day so it is time to fix that.

Of course, as with most photos, the lighting makes all the difference. Without it this guy would be virtually invisible. However unlike most of the photos on my site that are artificially lit I can't take credit for the lighting on this one. The Aquarium has a wonderful display that is designed to perfectly light the critters so you can appreciate their delicate beauty.

 
Thursday, June 21, 2007

Storke Sunset

 This is an older image, from the building I used to work in at UCSB. My office was on the first floor but in the winter I liked to watch the sunset from this spot.

 
Sunday, February 18, 2007

Mesa Sunset

 There are few places in Santa Barbara where you can watch the sun set over the ocean. Most of the beaches face south. But if you look around you can find a few spots with a nice view.

We have to enjoy the sunsets while they last, this is about the time of year the show is over for about nine months. During the spring and summer there's not usually enough clouds to make a spectacle like this.

 
Saturday, February 17, 2007

Egret in Flight

 This image was taken at the same time as the happy seals. The seals were just to the left of this guy. It was a fun day to be out with my camera!

 
Friday, January 26, 2007

On The Ocean Floor

 This is another shot from our recent visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was a fun trip, but it is quite a crowded place. If you don't like pushy people you should probably prepare yourself for a rough day. Personally, I think it is time to take my camera SCUBA diving and leave the crowds behind!

 
Monday, January 15, 2007

Quiet Spot

 This is a nice relaxing spot right along Highway 1 in Big Sur. I love the color of the water here. The beautiful blue-green makes me want to grab my Scuba gear. Of course, even though you can't really see it in this shot the waves this day would have made a dive more of an adventure than I'm lookin' for.

 
Monday, January 1, 2007

Egret in the Wind

 The last couple of days have had some amazing winds. Wild weather always makes for great photo opportunities. The backdrop of this image looks almost like a painting, but the gusty wind made these beautiful ripples on top of the bigger waves near the beach. The timing of the heavy gust was perfect too, just at the right time when this beautiful Egret looked up from foraging in the tidal pools.

 
Saturday, December 30, 2006

Happy Seals

 The guy in the center looks really happy! Nice whiskers too.

The swirls in the water at the left really make this photo interesting to me.

 
Sunday, October 8, 2006

Harbor Light

 Another sunset shot from the harbor. The evenings have been really beautiful lately. This is a good time of year to be a photographer. In fact, the only bad thing is I did so much photography work last week I did not get other things done. I hope to have many more weeks like that. :-D

 
Friday, October 6, 2006

Starlight Harbor

 It was a full moon tonight, a really full moon. My wife read online that the moon was going to look as much as 12% bigger than other times. (The reason for this is the fact that it is near the low point in it's slightly elliptical orbit.) So we thought it would be a good evening for some evening shots.

The sun was gone when I took this, just a faint glow behind me. The glow to the left of the photo is from the full moon. And the stars are clearly visible.

This is not a new type of shot for me. But it is just about a first with my digital camera. I can usually pull this off pretty well with film, but the digital was a little more temperamental. Actually, it is just what you get used to. Now that I know how it likes to be treated, I think I'll be using it a lot more this way.

 
Sunday, August 27, 2006

Butterfly Beach Sunset

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

 
Thursday, August 24, 2006

Sunset Exercise

 I went to the doctor and, big surprise, I have to eat healthier and get more exercise! (should have seen that comin') On the plus side, walking is his recommended way to do that. And I figure, if you're gonna walk, you might as well do it someplace nice!

This is Butterfly Beach in Santa Barbara. It is one of the less traveled beaches around here. It is not in an area that you would normally stumble on. And it is our favorite beach. So after making one good pedometer out of two broken ones, we had a nice sunset walk. Oh, I mean... we went out and got some exercise!

 
Saturday, July 1, 2006

Catamaran Beach

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

 
Friday, June 30, 2006

Stearns Sunset Panorama

 (click to see a bigger version)

More shots from yesterday's wharf walk. Actually, it's a combination of 9 shots. It was a beautiful evening.

     Page 1 of 3     Page 2 »
Feedback for ocean photos:

Name:
e-Mail†:
Subject:
Message:
NOTE: No automated emails are sent from this system and all submissions are securely reviewed offline prior to posting on the site.

† Your email address is optional. If you do provide it, it will not be displayed on the site and it will never be given out to anyone.

-Bill Heller

 
Calendar Last Week Last Month Last Year