Sky Photos
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Sunset Clouds to the North
The clouds were amazing this evening.
If they were not so thin and wispy I would have been looking
for a tornado shelter. Many interesting waves and swirls, even
a few small wispy cones. They started to break up even more
as we tried to find a good place to take my new camera for a spin.
My 20D took it's 40,000th shot last evening. It is far from
done with it's useful life, but it is time to send it for a
professional cleaning.
This shot is facing the mountains, North from Goleta beach.
The sun was doing some interesting mottled things through
the fading clouds at the horizon. This was in some ways
a better show than the actual sunset in the west.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Santa Barbara Harbor Sunset
Well, Monterey was amazing, but it is always good to be home. This is one of my favorite places for an evening walk in Santa Barbara. Walking out the breakwater is one of the best places to enjoy the sunset. And if you turn around from where I took this photo you can see Stearns Wharf across the opening of the harbor, and watch the sailboats come and go. Of course if you have Flash installed you can see for yourself here. Just use the "up arrow" to zoom in.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Mission Rose Garden Sunset
Click the main image for a larger view
I really love the fountain by the
Santa Barbara Mission. But most people don't realize there is
another fountain across the street in the rose garden.
It is really worth the little walk, especially at sunset.
If you have been around the site for a while
you know that I really like the clouds in the winter
around Santa Barbara. Mainly because we don't normally get
much weather in the summer other than some very thick low fog
in the mornings. Well, this summer has been a little different.
Not much fog, I assume because it has not been very cool at night,
but lots of humidity. On the plus side we have had some
really nice winter-like sunsets. Of course there is one drawback.
The night before last was so warm and humid I almost could not breathe.
Fortunately it looks like we are starting to get a break from the heat.
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!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Alice Keck Panorama
Click the main image for a larger view.
A couple days ago I was working on a particularly
difficult statistics problem. (mmm math what a concept.)
In the midst of my preparations to fling my computer out the window
my wife suggested a nice walk at Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens.
Or as we like to call it... Alice Keck Park Park.
The clouds were beautiful and it was a wonderful evening.
I wish I could say I came home and solved the problem right away,
but at least I got a lot of really beautiful shots out of
it. And I was much happier continuing on my statistics project.
Oh yeah, I've also been tinkering with some other images that are not my own. I have not been able to figure out how to get my own camera there yet so I had to work with what was available.
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.
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)
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Santa Barbara Courthouse Clocktower View
This was the same day as the recent Mission shot. It was also the day of the grand reopening of the Granada theatre on state street. That is what the giant tent is for in the gardens in this image. Aparently the reception was at the Courthouse. I actually thought of taking a shot of the Granada, but apparently it was not a priority to get ALL of the boards off the windows before opening night. Of course, those were the office windows and they were probably not very noticable after dark. At any rate, it was a fun day of shooting!
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!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Queen of the missions in HDR VR
Ok, still taking a while to get these images together this way. But
after taking all the time to build the VR interface I could hardly
wait to use it again.
I got the opportunity today when the clouds started to get interesting.
We dropped everything to try to get some nice images.
Turned out to be a busy afternoon and an amazing sunset.
This is the first of several nice images that will come out of the
adventure around town today.
The clouds look a little ominous, but they were fast moving and quite beautiful.
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.
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, 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!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Courthouse Light
We are getting some unseasonable moisture from the
hurricane that went through the Gulf of Mexico
last week. The days have been really humid, but the
clouds have been a nice change. Seemed like a good
time for some evening shots of the courthouse.
This is actually a combination of about ten exposures
in a technique called a High Dynamic Range Image.
Takes a little work, but a normal long exposure
would have blown out the image around the lantern
and you would still not have been able to see
the clouds and stars.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Ackermanii in the Morning Sun
My wife pointed this blossom out to me this morning. It's a good thing too. The sun was so harsh this afternoon that the top of it got burned! This is on our biggest Orchid Cactus. It has been blooming non-stop for about a month which is pretty impressive since even in the shade each blossom only lasts for a few days.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Mandevilla Sky
This is one of the plants that recently scored a new pot and trellis. We originally got this vine and one other to feed the butterflies in the back yard. The butterflies (and resulting caterpillars) almost got the best of them. But they have come back strong. A couple of weekends ago I spent about two hours unraveling the two vines from each other and putting them on their new trellises. It was like an elaborate living puzzle.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Santa Barbara Sunset Clouds
Click for a bigger image
What a wild evening. The clouds are absolutely amazing around here
sometimes.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Pismo Beach Sunset
Click for a bigger image
It's not really the most popular time of year to go to the beach around
here. But, then most people are not crazy photographers. (thank heavens!)
Ya don't get sunsets like this in the summer around here.
The flowers in the center are Japanese Irises, on the right is
a bird of Paradise.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Fourth of July Rose
We went trolling for tomato plants at all the local nurseries today. Guess it was a little too early for that. One of our favorite places (the place I shot this rose) was still using half of their outside plant area for a parking lot. Well, maybe next weekend!
Monday, February 19, 2007
Winter Sunset
A couple of days ago The Hound decided it was time for me to take a break from my computer right around sunset. I think she can sniff out a good photo opportunity.





