Star Photos
Monday, May 20, 2013
Santa Barbara Mission Cross at Night
One evening when we were at the Santa Barbara Mission we noticed someone playing ball with their dog in the field by the mission rose garden. The really interesting thing for my camera is they were playing with a ball that had a light in it. It was a lot of fun watching the ball move back and forth, it was too dark to really see the dog, but it was obvious where he was. In the end, there were too many cars to get an interesting shot of the ball, although it is in there bouncing under the big tree at the left. The fun thing is the shot came out beautifully anyway.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Santa Ynez Night Sky
This was a beautiful evening in the Santa Ynez Valley. The exposures were so long that I couldn't really tell how much the wispy clouds were affecting the shot. At one point it seemed like the clouds were too heavy to get anything interesting, but I kept at it. I was glad I did. The clouds only made things more beautiful. They gave a glow to the stars and Jupiter, and helped increase the glow of the lights in the distance. The light at the top (generally in the west) is the last glow of the setting sun. The light down the road is the glow of houses and cars moving around on the other side of the hill (the cars moving, not the houses.)
Friday, February 15, 2013
Jupiter over Santa Ynez
Last evening I found myself in Santa Ynez Valley. My plan was to look for some interesting wildlife to try out a borrowed lens to get comfortable with it before a shoot this week. But having arrived a little late in the day to find a good spot I decided to go after a different shot. As things got dark I found a perch on a back road overlooking several vinyards. The stars were really something to see this far away from the city lights. The amazingly bright one is actually not a star at all, it's Jupiter. The two large trails of light are planes, but in the upper right hand corner there is the small trail of a shooting star.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Jennifer Lawrence Walking the Red Carpet
Jennifer Lawrence, star of The Hunger Games walking the red carpet at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Jennifer Lawrence Smiling
Jennifer Lawrence at The Arlington Theatre before receiving The Outstanding Performer of the Year award.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Jennifer Lawrence Close Up
Jennifer Lawrence star of The Hunger Games at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Christmastime in Santa Barbara
Ahh Christmastime in Santa Barbara, when everyone decorates their... umm.. rigging? Which of course makes the beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor even more enjoyable than usual.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Heavens Above
This view of the Milky Way Galaxy over the Santa Barbara Greek Orthodox Church is a long exposure taken in almost total darkness. The light inside the greek orthodox church is the smallest flicker of light from a very small bulb. The lighting of the thin clouds and shadows on the wall were cast by the glow from the horizon of the just past full Moon, which had not risen yet. Although long by normal photo standards, at 30 seconds the stars are still points of light rather than trails. This much detail in the stars would have been nearly impossible just a few years ago without a motorized tripod head to track the movement of the stars which, of course would make the objects on the ground blur.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Santa Barbara Mission Millstone
I'm always wandering around the Santa Barbara Mission looking for a new angle or a veiw that I have not noticed before. This was at the end of a long day of shooting, as the last glow of the sunset was slipping behind the mission. These pepper trees are a beautiful part of the look of the mission and they are prominent in many of my photos. The interesting details I love about this shot are the old millstone and the stone bench under the pepper tree.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Milky Way From Painted Cave Drive
This is the latest in my experimentation capturing the night sky from the mountains above Santa Barbara. The night of the new moon was dark enough to catch an image of the Milky Way. It was an amazing evening, and I will definitely be doing more of this type of work.
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!
Popular images
Santa Barbara, CA
Stearns Wharf
360° VR images
More Virtual Tours
Sun Star Flower Care
Photo of the Day Stats
1154 Images
1846 Keywords
131955 Unique Visitors