F-14

An F-14 on the flight deck of the USS Midway. Love me some planes!

Lines

In the bubble

My oldest aboard the USS Midway museum.

framed sunset

morning lily

Took this on my walk around the neighborhood this morning. Have a great Monday!

Motion of the Ocean

flock of pelicans

Taken at Will Rogers State Beach.

red barn

I grew up playing in this barn. So many great memories.

drop and palms

It pays to always have a camera with you. I took this in my car on the way home from work. A little rain drop fell on my windshield and sat so nicely between these palms.

burnt and bending

Dandy Monday

Whew, I'm back. This weekend kinda got away from me. I had a photo session on Saturday, for real money! I know, I know, don't let it go to my head. I had an awesome time with some very cool people and the pictures turned out great! Doesn't get much better than that. I'll be sharing a few shots from the day once I've delivered the final images to my client. For now, a spring time visitor that's popping up all over the neighborhood.

Men's Club

A men's club in San Francisco right down the street from the hotel where we stayed.

clouds over Mordor

Chinese Garden

The Chinese Garden at the Huntington Library.

new toy

Oil and Water

Howdy all! Brace yourself, I'm gonna post more than one pic today. Oh, and I'm gonna write a bit. I'll give you a second to compose yourself. K, here's the back story. I've seen some very cool macro images of oil in water and I wanted to give it a try. I've never seen a setup shot for these kinds of images, so I winged it. As far as the wet ingredients go, I used tap water and Pure Wesson Vegetable Oil. If you're worried about the amount of cholesterol in your images, this is the oil I recommend. On the hardware side, here's what I had going.

Use whatever you've got to make it happen. Except for the oatmeal bath, that's critical. ;) I forgot to point out the super expensive "pro" construction paper I used under the glass for a backdrop. I think it comes in a pack of 50.

I tried shooting with just the oil in water, but there wasn't enough contrast to make to oil drops stick out. Out came my secret weapon from my last water shoot. That's right, Crayola Bathtub Tints to the rescue! The red color, mixed with the green paper underneath produced a very cool color.

As with any setup like this, you gotta take a lot of shots. Things change very quickly, so just keep taking. Having a small aperture (bigger f-stop number) is important also to try and have as much in focus. At f8, I had the tops of the bubbles in focus, but not the bottom.

Here's my first shot after I dropped the Bathtub Tint in.


The color spread really quickly, so this is the only shot that had a transitional look with the color sweeping in. I changed the white balance on this one from Daylight to Tungsten to give it a more blue look. Why? Cuz I liked it.

Here's a couple of different looks I got by using my hi tech agitation device.



While I didn't get the exact shot I had in mind, it was a lot of fun experimenting and I can't wait to try again! If you've had an idea kicking around in your head for a while, make it happen!

beautiful girl

My sweet girl on a walk around the neighborhood.

El Capitan

This is the ticket booth for the El Capitan theater in Hollywood. I took this early one morning before Hollywood Blvd. got too crazy. And believe me, it gets crazy!

fields of mustard

It's such a beautiful time of year with all the wildflowers blooming. I tried to capture some of that in this short film. There's a lot to learn, making the transition from stills to video, but I'm having a blast!

skeletons in the studio

Having some fun with off camera flash. That's a Skelanimal that my baby girl is holding, by the way.

smooth pier

Santa Monica Pier

I'll have my bird over mustard

Took this out at the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area yesterday. The wildflowers are bustin' out all over around here! Love, love this time of year.

California Republic

I took this yesterday before my church's Easter service at the Hollywood Bowl. A quick tip about taking pictures of flags: take A LOT of images! They change from instant to instant so you just gotta keep firing away. I think I took around thirty images to get this one. Have a great Monday!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! And hey, this is my 500th post!

delicate leaves

Taken in San Diego's Balboa Park.

Radiant

Taken in Laguna Beach, CA. What a gorgeous day that was.

2 cups