California at Night

I'm done milking the California trip now. Promise. Anyways, click for larger versions if you're interested.

Around California

One more set of California trip photos left after this one. These are just random photos fromhere and there. Anyways, click for larger versions if you're interested.

(I'm partial to #4 and #5 - the wine bottles and the water fountain outside the winery)

California Coast

Just a few photos from the California coast that I thought turned out reasonably well. Though I learned yesterday that I have a lot to learn about color correction. I should do something about that. Anyways, click for larger versions if you're interested.

California Flowers

Some more photos from California - flowers, mostly from wineries. As always, click for larger versions if you're interested.

Golden Gate Bridge at Sunset

Today, sharing a few more photos from our trip to San Francisco. Here are three sunset shots of the Golden Gate Bridge (click for larger versions). It was cold and the wind was whipping my hair in every direction but it was worth the frozen fingers to see the sun tuck away for the evening on the horizon. Hope you enjoy.

San Francisco - Street Shots

As promised, I'll start posting a few of my photos from San Francisco. As I go along, I'll be adding them to this album as I feature the newest photos individually in the blog. You can click each thumbnail for an enlarged version of the photo.

This first shot was a man making jewelry to sell on the side of the street. He was near Ghiardelli Square at the cable car turnaround.


The next photo is an extended exposure of the carousel on Pier 39.


And finally, a view of Chinatown. Everything felt very "in your face" there, from the bright lanterns to the interesting people. Even their streetlights (towards the right of the photo) were unique.


Plenty more to come!

Some "Hot" Photos

It's been a bit since I've posted here. We made a specific stop at a cemetery as part of our anniversary getaway this past weekend just so I could snap some photos there. Unfortunately the weather was so miserable that I wasn't particularly inspired.

Lesson Learned: Taking photos from the back seat of the car is lazy and results in unimaginative images. Put forth a little more effort next time instead of wasting the opportunity.

I wasn't going to post any of these but since @dpringle asked so nicely I'm posting what I would consider to be the top three because at least I a) climbed out of the car for them and b) spent 2 seconds thinking about the shot.







The weather is killing me. I really want to go wander with the camera but it's just still too miserable. Go away, summer!

First Photos

Just a couple of photos from my first trip out with the new g10. The first three are the same image, manipulated a bit in Photoshop. And the last one is a random tree I liked. Everything was taken in auto-mode because I haven't had a chance to even begin figuring out the intricacies of the camera yet but it still performed pretty well.

Learning Curve

We've just booked an awesome trip to San Francisco, featuring Napa and Lake Tahoe.

I love to travel, when I can keep my anxiety in check. And one of my favorite things to do is capture the places we've been so we can "visit" them over and over.

To aid in this, I've been feverishly working to learn the manual controls on my camera, a Canon g5. It's several years old but takes decent photos. However, I've been considering buying an entry level digital SLR so I can really take advantage of manual focus and lenses.

In the end, I chose the Canon g10 (much newer version of my g5) over the T1i d-slr. The cost of lenses really overwhelmed me. And the g10 offers great flexibility for macro, automatic controls, manual controls, etc.

In the meantime, as I await the arrival of my new toy (as well as a new sd card and backup battery), I've been shooting a lot of shots with the g5. I figure they're similar so it can't hurt.

The first two sets are all basically the same subjects (shoes and turtles) but using different manual settings. I share these so you can see how much I'm failing. The third set is from a garden we drove out to yesterday - some of these are actually not too bad.

I'm hoping one day I can look back at these starter sets and laugh about how far I've come. Or at how much I still have no idea what I'm doing.

A Study in Shoes	Turtles in a Half Shell	Sunday in the Garden