Thursday, September 22, 2011
Listada de Gandia Reflection

A beautiful Heirloom Eggplant from the Santa Barbara Farmers Market. This beauty was purchased for my upcoming food photography art show, part of First Thursdays in Santa Barbara. The show will be displayed at the office of Casa Magazine in downtown Santa Barbara and the reception will be First Thursday (of course) the sixth of October at 5 to 8pm and is open to the public. Casa will also be having a Flan contest judging at the same time.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Cachuma Lake Sunset Reflections

The last time I was at Knapp's Castle I took a little time to focus on the reason the castle was built in the first place. This is the view from what I can only assume would have been the main living area of the castle. It was particularly good timing since the sunset was amazing. But this video starts as the sun is slipping below the horizon. The faint light pillar and all of the bright spots you see that look like the sun are actually reflections in the flat ice crystals of the clouds. In calm air they can float horizontally and act almost like a mirror, putting on a spectacular show. Even after the sun dips below the horizon. If ever there was a good reason for an encore performance, this was it!

Monday, July 20, 2009
Stearns Wharf Sunset

Click the main image for a larger view.

Last Friday was a beautiful day to sit and watch the clouds. They really catch my attention this time of year since we usually don't have many of them. I took the opportunity to wander out on the wharf where I could get a wide open view of the evening sky. It was a perfect start for a relxing weekend!

Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

This is a beautiful little shopping center in Carmel, called The Barnyard. After dinner at our favorite restaurant in Carmel we spent the evening wandering around and checking out Christmas lights. On the right is a great place called Succulent Gardens. If you can't tell from the Epi photos on the site, a place like that is a real magnet for me. In fact a few of our Epis even came from there. On the left is a great little candy shop. (Try the grasshopper bark and the caramel cashew turtles if you stop there!)

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Friday, September 5, 2008
Curvy Pepper

So we are trying to eat a little better. We stopped at the Farmers' market today to see if they had any good fruit. (The grocery stores have been a little weak lately.) We found some good peaches and strawberries then we found the cool peppers. My wife and I were looking for really interesting ones which caught the eye of one of the guys behind the counter. He started telling us that people even used to take these really nice black and white photos of these kinds of peppers. Like he was reading my mind. Well, except for the black and white part. But maybe tomorrow!

Saturday, August 30, 2008
More Garden Goodies

I just couldn't decide which veggie photo I liked the best. So I put all my fovorites online and you can choose your favorite.

Maybe this weekend I'll get out and get some more panoramic photos. It sure is too hot to sit in front of the computer, maybe a nice beach breeze would help.

Thursday, August 28, 2008
Treats from the Garden

The tomato on the right is the same on from the other day. It's a variety called a Garden Peach The yellow one on the far left with the green stripes is a "Banana Legs".

The ones that did not make the cut for the modeling job made a delicious Chili. It's been a good season for the garden, even though the tomato plants have generally not been very happy this year.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Garden Peach

We're finally trying to get back to a normal life here. We recently had a wild fire in the hills near Santa Barbara, "the Gap Fire". We were not warned to evacuate where we live, but we did anyway when the sky turned brown and it looked like the middle of the night at 6pm. I'll get some photos online from some of those crazy days, but right now I just have to say thank you to all the amazing fire fighters and the families who worry about them when they are on the job. Thanks to them not one house was lost.

Still, through all the craziness, I have been taking the time to tinker with my camera. This is a beautiful translucent striped tomato variety called a Garden Peach. This is one of the last ones my wife coaxed off the plant and it is beautiful. It is actually fuzzy like a peach. And this one is still sitting here waiting to be the subject of more photos. But the others from the plant have been quite delicious.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Theresa Ann

Another shot from our recent wanderings at the Santa Barbara harbor. It's a nice peaceful scene, but just to my left was a popular restaurant on a balcony overlooking the harbor. There were lots of people around waiting to get in and having a good time. Next time I'll get an image that includes the restaurants.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
Santa Barbara Sunset Harbor

We spent a couple of evenings walking around the Harbor watching the sun set this week. I think I could take a walk at the Harbor and the Wharf every night with my camera and never get bored. Every evening when I get home each photo that I love gives me the ideas for three more next time.

This one was partially inspired by another vertical panorama I took at the harbor almost two years ago. It was later in the evening when I took that one, and you can see the stars. But at the time I wondered what it would look like from the other direction with the sunset sky. Now I have my answer!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Hot Espresso

Ahhh more food! (or more specifically drink) It was all I could do to finish this before I go get some coffee myself! (Another of the wonderful things my wife introduced me to.)

Well, these were two of the first experimentations with this style for a series of ads and a website. Generally, I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice to be the designer as well as the photographer. It helps get the exact image you're looking for.

Monday, October 22, 2007
Garlic Reflections

In addition to my local Santa Barbara images site I am in the process of doing some self promotion work for my commercial food & restaurant photography. I've always loved photography and I REALLY love food, so I guess it was only a matter of time 'til I made the connection!

Ohhh I just LOVE Garlic!!

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!

Saturday, September 15, 2007
Habanero Reflection

I noticed this pepper as I was sitting at the dining room table this morning with my wife and bird. (His cage is in the corner of the dining room. He likes to be right in the middle of the action.)

We have a huge pile of peppers and tomatoes on the table from our plants in the back yard. My wife has been pointing out the cool ones to me for a couple of weeks, and I finally couldn't wait any longer it was time for a photo shoot!

About three hours later this was one of my favorite shots. But I can't take all the credit, I have a great Art Director & food stylist! The cool black tray was my wife's idea.

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.

Friday, February 17, 2006
Santa Barbara Mission Twilight

This was a long exposure. The exposure time made the reflection much more interesting. it gave the effect of the sharpness near the bottom of the image getting blurry near the top where the water was falling from the top of the fountain.

Monday, July 11, 2005
Nighttime Mission

The cool thing about this long exposure is that fact that it made the surface of the water look like glass. If you look closely you can see that there are blurry areas near the center of the fountain where the water was running down. But most of the waves that moved slowly across the surface disappeared. I thought the motion of the ripples across the water would blur a larger part of the reflection but sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.

Sunday, April 17, 2005
Nighttime at the Mission

I almost lost this image. It was on a roll of film in a camera that I had not used in a few weeks. Assuming it was empty I opened the back of the camera. Luckily the best shots seemed to be early on the roll and deep enough in the camera to not be affected.

This was a long exposure from the edge of the fountain. the blurry area in the water is the affect of the water on the surface over the length of the exposure.

Thursday, April 7, 2005
Sunset Reflection

This was taken from East Beach in Santa Barbara. The strings of lights are Christmas decorations on Stearns Wharf.