Friday, July 2, 2010
Pepper Tree Inn Virtual Tour

A beautiful spot on upper State Street in Santa Barbara, this is the Best Western Pepper Tree Inn. It was a great spot to do a tour. Be sure to look around closely for the arrows to move around and see the rest of the beautiful grounds.

Controls from left to right:
+ Zoom in;
- Zoom out;
change the way the view moves when you drag;
toggle full screen

Wednesday, January 13, 2010
UCSB Starry Night

Walking at sunset around the campus of UCSB during a holiday break I thought I might find everything too quiet to get the photos I was looking for. But like any small city, there is always something going on there. I was happy to see some lights in the windows and the beautiful landscape lighting still on. This image was the last of the evening and one of my favorites.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Church of the Wayfarer VR

We spent a couple days in Monterey and Carmel this week. Like the Mission here in Santa Barbara, I have my favorite spots in Carmel to tinker with new camera equipment. This is the Church of the Wayfarer in Carmel by the Sea. This beautiful little church and a bakery on Ocean street where you can get some of the biggest Coconut Macroons you can imagine are two of our regular stops as soon as we get to the Monterey area.

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.

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.

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.

Thursday, March 30, 2006
Backlit Stars

These beautiful little flowers are going wild around here right now. No wonder, it is one of the rainiest Marches EVER. They said on the news today that there has been record snow on the mountains in California, as much as 16 FEET!

As with so many of my nice nature shots, this one is credited to The Hound, during a nice hound walk.

Friday, January 7, 2005
Sunset Tree

We have been having some amazing weather in Southern California this season. (I know, we're not alone!) But it makes for some beautiful sunsets. This is another of my experimentations with my new fish eye lens from eBay!