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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
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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
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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!
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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.
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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.
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Lotus & Lily Pads
Seems like a fitting image. As I upload this it is
raining like crazy.
I love the way the water
beads on the lily pads, and the ruffled edges
of the pads themselves.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Shoreline Access
One of the many beautiful images that are a result
of an early morning hound
walk during our last trip to Monterey. As I have said
before, that was not really my idea of a relaxing trip
but the hound sure can sniff out a good photo opportunity!
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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.
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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!
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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Curiosity
If you only see the Otter take a closer look.
In the water you can see the reflection of a small boy
that just loved the playful otters. This otter
seems to be taking a break from his antics to
show a little curiosity in the strange creatures
on the other side of the glass. The moment only
lasted a second, then it was back to play time!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Friday, December 8, 2006
Stone Fountain
I ran into this fountain while wandering
through a local nursery. I was chasing
hummingbirds at the time, but the fountain
had some nice shadows on it so it grabbed my
attention for a bit.
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Saturday, November 25, 2006
A Cloudy Day in Santa Barbara
Ok, not all the cloudy days are this pretty here.
But yesterday was!
I like these vertical panoramas.
I think they play especially well with the format
of the site.
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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
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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.
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Friday, September 29, 2006
Breakwater Sunset
This evening we took a nice sunset walk on the breakwater around the Santa Barbara
Harbor. The clouds were beautiful and the lights on the water made for some great photos.
It's finally getting to that time of year where we have enough moisture in the
air to make some interesting clouds.
'Course the huge wild fire doesn't hurt the
sunsets either. It's about 35 miles from us, but it still looked like it was snowing
here one day from all of the ash.
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Friday, June 9, 2006
Duck Taking Flight
I think these are the same ducks from our last trip to
the gardens! I think she said something to insult the Koi.
Because the Koi jumped out of the water near her and
made her take off like this. Of course I can't say I
blame her. The Koi was twice her size!
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Thursday, May 18, 2006
Nojoqui Falls
Sometimes I like to play with Photoshop a bit!
It has been really hazy this year, not very conducive to scenery
and architecture photos of Santa Barbara. (although I have been
thinking about some cool evening photos through the fog).
But the wet weather has it\'s benefits. Nojoqui Falls, just up
101 from Santa Barbara, is only a trickle
in the summer and on dry years. This is a
photo I took a few years ago, but all the greyness
in Santa Barbara has been making me think
about the need for a trip somewhere north of here.
Not that I really need much of an excuse to go
exploring with my camera! :-D
Oh, by the way, there is some debate as to how
you pronounce "Nojoqui". Some people insist
it is na-ho-KEY or no-ho-KEY, but most locals pronounce it
nah-WHO-wee and that is how I learned to say it.
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Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Happy Beach Hound
This guy was having a really good time!
'Course who wouldn't have a good time running
on the beach in Santa Barbara at sunset?
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