I love prints. They are so expressive, and if you install an image on your wall, it becomes more than the print. It becomes a conversation with the with yourself, as your mood changes the image changes. One day it can talk with you about your pains, another day it will lift your spirits. Prints are a wonderful way to see an ever changing moment of life.
Frames can focus your mind on the print by eliminating the visual chatter that fils our world. Focus is a good thing.
I do know the world has moved to online images, almost exclusively, but I do not really care.
Photographer, Jeremy Cowart, was in New York for a gig. He is a great photographer. But Street Photography is not his normal type of photography. …
This evening he was trying Street Photography, and using Periscope. You can watch him as he learns how to approach people on the street. All the while he is teaching us about some other aspects of photography.
In the still times of the early mornings, before the sun rises, before the birds sing, there is a quiet time where we can contemplate our place in the world. What are our personal goals? What is the future of mankind in fifty years? A thousand years? Five thousand years? Longer than recorded history?
Everything that exists is its own complete universe. …
I stand by the sea, clicking away with my shutter release, grabbing the moments of a local sunset. Grabbing the fleeting moments as the sun hides behind the limb of the earth.
I stand with Gypsy, my dog who also enjoys the last few rays of this day. This day, when the sun, and the earth, and Gypsy, and I, all exists simultaneously.
This little moment, a few eye blinks between the Big Bang, and the final collapse of this universe, we share, almost entirely, the entirety of everything.
…
Everyone is the center of their own universe. … We are all equidistant from our centers, in all directions, at the speed of expansion, our individual observable universes, as they recede in an ever growing bubble of space time. Because we are all in different locations, and the speed of light is finite, all our observable universes are slightly out of sync.
Our universes overlap in every point except at the edges of the universe. Our edges are either, slightly closer or slightly farther away, from each of us, depending which edge we are closer to, by the distance that light takes to travle between us.
This is just a little piece of information about why I shoot multi image panoramas. …I could shoot this with a single image using a very wide angle lens, or I could use a longer lens and take multiple images, and then stitch them together.
The secret is in the detail. … I believe everyone who reads this is a great photographer, or is smart enough to know the little things I know already. …
Detail. … The source image is a stitched set of ten images, five images per horizontal row. I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark II, whose RAW image width is about 5,600 pixels. … This combined RAW image has a width of 20,000 pixels, and a height of about 9,000 pixels. … In little words, “This image is way big.” That is what the image call-out is showing at the bottom of the image. Detail. … A little detail of the center of the combined image. If I had used a single wide angle image, my source would be only 5,600 pixels wide, not near as much detail in 5,600 pixels as 20,000 pixels.
I like stitched multi-image panoramas because they can maintain the beauty of a great space, as seen from a distance, and simultaneously, you can get close and see all kinds of interesting stories in the same image. … 😉 Details.
Last week I went to Tijuana, Baja California, México, with the Pacific Photographic Society, a Meetup group that generates great photo trips, also having the benefit that it is also full of friends.It was the first time I had been south of the border in many years, only because I had no specific need, or an opportunity to visit with friends that also wanted to go. What a hoot! The organizer of the group is my friend, and a fellow photographer, Walter Koenig. Thanks Walter.
Now, onto the trip. Here in San Diego we are bombarded with so many negative stereotypes, and visions, of our neighbors just across the border that, when I mentioned to my nextdoor neighbor that I was heading south with a group, he said, “Don’t go.” We did not listen to the voices of preprogrammed fear. … We went, and we had a good time.
Louie Navaro, of George’s Camera, was our guide for the trip. Louie also has a gallery he shares with two other photographers in Tijuana.
We walked across the border, and then met up with the van on the other side. First, we drove over to the Playas de Tijuana, where we shot some photos of the border, where it enters the ocean, and along the beach, and boardwalk. I met a young fighter, Ramon Barboza, El Moncho! … It was a very cool day at the beach.
Later, I got separated from the group after we had wandered around for a little while in the downtown area of Tijuana, and Ave. Revolución. … I asked a few folks which way to San Diego, on foot, and they pointed me in the right direction. It was a pleasant walk, but damn! When I got to the border, the pedestrian line was over two hours long. Holy Mackerel, what a nightmare!
Luckily for me, the rest of my group came wandering by while I was in line. They pulled me out, and we all took an eleven passenger van up to the border, where we used the bus line border transit, and that only took an hour and a few minutes!
I just love the way this dancer stands, with her hair clinging to the perspiration on her beautiful neck. To me, this image is of a very powerful, and proud, woman who is working her body and loving her life.
This past Thursday evening, Alexander Salazar Fine Art brought Walter Redondo, and his art to the Zanzibar Cafe. The art remains on the walls. … Pop on down for a cup-o’-Joe and a bite to eat, while you check out Walter’s art. You will have a good evening in the San Diego Gaslamp district.
The evening was filled with snacks, a little wine, and many interesting people. Walter brought his family. They were wonderfully happy, taking it all in.
A couple nights ago Michael Carini presented his large set of pieces in the Alxender Salazar Whitebox Gallery for one night only. This is images from that night.
This is a quote from the notification of the evenings event.
“”Regenaissance (Polyversikube)” is a nine canvas polyptych conceptually inspired by the principle elements of fractals, the Golden Ratio, and a Rubik’s Cube. The name “Regenaissance” is an abstract composite derived from the words Renaissance (meaning “rebirth”) and Genesis (meaning “the beginning”). Presented in a 3 x 3 structural format, each of the nine components can be moved, rotated, and rearranged so that any side of any element can connect to any side of any of the other eight pieces. The result of the calculated configurations is a broad and almost limitless spectrum of orientations and variations with which to play; 95,126,814,720 to be exact.”
The pieces are being moved to a single location in San Diego. I will provide an exact address, as soon as I am 100% positibe of the location.
I received a very fine complement on one of my flower macros. Actually, the complement used one macro image to refer to the quality of almost all my flower images. Thank you Vern. … Vern’s Link.
Back to today. 😉
After thinking about my response to his complement where I said something like, “Flowers are all over the place. You do not have to drive anywhere, and waste gas, nor are there other hidden costs for keeping your photo practice up-to-date.” … Or something like that.
I thought I might illustrate that statement. So I did. … That little image, of the tiny moss heads, was shot a couple hours ago. … The moss is from a potted plant in the back yard. The little instructional image following, also includes some extra information. … 🙂 Ok, not much extra information, but it does show how I got the background.
An early morning walk through the neighborhood, brought this blooming to my eyes.
Later, in the life cycle of this flower, it would be very different, the reds would be gone, replaced by something more muted. The purples would have lost the richness, and become very blue. And the single white, would be joined by a whole flock of white siblings.
From a walk on Fiesta Island.
This is what the plant looks when it is a little older. You will need to click on the image to see a larger version. 🙂
This is the cross on Mount Soledad, just after sunset.
The cross has been talked about, outlawed, saved by lawyers, re-outlawed, and now it is in limbo, saved by lawyers, and still in threat of removal.
The fight between those that want the cross removed, and those that wish to keep the cross, has caused the cross to become more than it was some years ago. Now, it has become a memorial. Below the circular brick steps, encircling the cross along the black wall at the bottom of the image, are numbers of plaques honoring the dead of the U.S. military.
I remember when I was released from the Marine Corps, although the cross was there, the location was mostly a big dirt parking lot. We used to go up there, look at the city, and make out. … I suppose some of that still goes on there, but in my many visits, I no longer see any making out. … The world has changed.
I just want to remind everyone that the Fourth of July is coming up in the United States.
For my American friends, that means, Hot Dogs, Friends, Beer, and Fireworks. I am planing on having a great location for this fourth, and I am just reminding my friends that that is coming up.
One other thing, all these image can be purchased, if you wish. They can be used for advertisements, on giant billboards, if we negotiate a deal. … 🙂
The flicker gallery is all in reverse order, so you see tha last image first. … It might be kind of cool if you go to this first image , …
And, then step through the images with your left arrow key. That way you can see the Big Bay Boom Bust, just as it happened last July the Fourth!
Dreaming of leaving the earth starts with dreaming about the moon. I do not dream because I dislike where I am; I dream because I want mankind to travel to the stars. I want mankind to live between worlds.
Is that such a weird dream?
Whenever I raise my eyes to the moon, I see beyond the moon, into the future of humanity. We must travel those dark places between the stars as a complete package of this earth. We need to travel in seedships that encompass the entirety of earth. … At least, that is what I think.
The desert is an amazing place when it is still. When it is still, you can peer through the mists of time.
This is a very specific example of time travel. Here, at these very rocks, for millennia congregated Native Americans. In ancient times, it was the place to be. People sat here, and talked, smoked, exchanged goods, maybe they even made political alinements, weddings. … We can never be really sure what happened here generally.
But, we can be one hundred percent positive that man gathered here, and they wrote on the rocks.
Our archeologists, and scientists, have analyzed the symbols, and decided that they stand for many things. … But, what those symbols really stood for in the minds of the people who spent their time at the rocks, etching the symbols that have stood in this desert for a very long time, That we have no way of knowing.
One other thing we can know. … We can know the majesty of a sunset at these rocks, especially when you share that time with friends.
I was shooting a multi location event for Alexander Salazar Fine Art gallery in San Diego. This woman was working at one of the locations. 😉 No names, and no exact locations given to protect the innocent.
Let us speak of sunsets and the time just after the sun has gone. Here is one of those images. …
Usually, I like clouds to grab the light from the sun as it slips over the horizon and out of my view, but it lights the remaining, high altitude, clouds very nicely. … On this evening, there were no clouds. I was a little disappointed for the nonce, because I always think about what I am planning to shoot before I head out to shoot. … The weather chose to ignore my planing, and the sky remained cloudless. …
Still, I looked at the sky, and what was there, and I thought it beautiful.
I love animals. And they love me. Here is a single image of some Boston Terriers that I talked into sitting on my little furniture. My niece gave me the furniture as props to shoot pets with. If you wander through the larger gallery, you will see some very cool shots.
All these gallery shots were taken a while ago, and I have become much better at my work through the passing of time. I think it would be great good fun to shoot another thousand pet photos.
Jaz Cook, and her partner, hired me to shoot some images for their real estate business. She really wanted some images for their online presence. … We shot those, and they were very happy with them. We actually shot several times for several different looks. … But this image?
For this image, I had the lighting units there to shoot some portraits, and I love colors. … 😉 … So, in the moments between the real work, we played a little.
With the La Jolla sun banging against the empty La Jolla home, and streaming through the windows of a room with an ocean view and filled with mirrors, I gelled the units with a single color, and banged back.
Three Mustache Club Friends, and a new friend whose name I do not recall in front of the gallery. Terence, Harley, our new friend, and Charlene. 😉
Last June, when Charlene was working as an apprentice at the Alexander Salazar Fineart Gallery, she started a closed Facebook group for a small set of friends. For the most part, the group consists of friends that like to don a mustachioed persona upon occasions for fun. … She invited me to join, even though I have a built in mustache.
Charlene still works once-in-awhile at the gallery, but she loves art, and comes to most openings. This opening, I cornered this small group of friends outside before they left. This is the result of that moment. 😉
This is The Valencia Hotel in La Jolla. Since it is in a town that I have known for most of my life, it has never seemed very special. Boy was I wrong. I have come to realize that this is one destination hotel that many people know about. Mostly people with a generous income. 😉
It is a beautiful Hotel. Inside and out. This is just the street side. It has a wonderful garden courtyard, pool area that seems like it is in a tropical land. 😉
This little flower lives by a surface street on the way towards Tecolote Canyon, a location where I walk my dog quite often.
Someone said that this flower is called a monkey’s paw. I do not know. …. What I do know is the location. … And that location is here. -> On Google Maps.
If you go there, give me a call and I will show you some other arts of Tecolote Canyon. It is a nice walk.
I have been thoroughly blown away with the abilities of my little iPhone 4S.
The image to the right links to my iPhone 4s Gallery on Google+. You can go check out several pretty darned good images. The sensor is an eight megapixel sensor, and it has one of the best len’s systems in a phone camera around.
There are a couple cool things about the iPhone 4S camera. The first is that it can be set to shoot HDR as a default. That setting gives you two slightly differently exposed images to play with. … The second cool feature, and I think it is an amazing ability, is that your headphone volume control works as a cable release. … That is cool.
But that is just stuff out of the box. The iPhone also runs other software. I have over 40 applications for enhancing the photos shot on my iPhone.
Sometimes, very few sometimes but still some times, I will only carry my iPhone as a camera.
These two images were taken exactly seven minutes apart, on the same day, December 10, 2011, in Ocean Beach California.
It was my intent to wait until the moon got as low as it could, so that I could capture the Moon, the Pier, and the Surf, with maybe a little sand. Alas, it did not come to pass. We are all limited by external forces. 😉
I got there early, and used my compass and “The Photographers Ephemeris” on my iPhone to plot where the moon would actually set. The Moon would eventually set just right of center in these two images, if it could be seen.
That was the problem. I had forgotten to consider that the eclipsed moon is very dark, in contrast to the dawning sky. … So, as the sky lightened, the moon faded away. It faded away long before it even got to the fog bank that you can easily see in the second image.
I find it very interesting to open both these images in two separate tabs of my web browser then use my arrow keys to jump quickly from one image to the other to compare the height of the moon, and the lightness of the sky.
This image takes place in an art gallery. The gallery is the Alexander Salazar Fine Art gallery, located on the corner of 7th Avenue and Broadway in San Diego.
Although the name is specific, the name is redundant. While looking at this image it is obviously the image of a beautiful woman in her element as she swims in the sea of averted gazes. The people of polite society look deep into her eyes as they speak with her, but everyone sees her. She is beautiful, the lady in red.
