Some more eye candy from our trip to Colorado for fall colors. The San Juan mountains are such a wonderful place to see colors of fall. These are all taken by Barbara, my wife. She really does have a good eye and it makes it nice to have a travel companion on these trips. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful wife, friend and companion. We are looking forward to visiting here again, maybe next year.
Enjoy.
Last month I headed out to the L.A. Zoo. I carried with me my trusty Fuji X-Pro1 and the two zooms, while at the Zoo I have the 55-200mm a good workout. I stopped and spent some time looking and watching the chimps. They can produce some interesting expressions. A lot like humans although I am not sure we can apply that many human thoughts to them, it would be interesting to know what they are thinking. This chimp always seems to have a somewhat sad expression. It may be the just the way his lips meet. (click on the image to see a larger version)
Waiting
Here again is the same chimp although he has moved over to a small overhang. This looks to me like he has been given a “time-out” and told to sit and watch the others….
Time Out
And here is a shot of the family group, all seeming bored and facing yet another day of the summer doldrums. I guess that is life at the Zoo.
Summer Doldrums
Hope you enjoyed these images. Thanks for looking.
Well the end of the year is near and the world did not end on the 21st! So we are in the final stretch and it will be nice to start a new year. We are having some on and off light rain which we sure could use. This was taken in a local park. I ended up crawling around on my hands and knees to get this shot. The wet made things a bit chilly but once I got back in the car the heater took over and soon I was warm. Taken with the X-Pro 1 and the 60mm macro lens.
I really thought this worked well in black and white with the reflections and the trees. This is from a wildlife sanctuary right in the middle of the city of Irvine. It is only 2 blocks from the 405 freeway, it is surrounded by high rise offices and condominiums and apartments. Yet this site is a sanctuary for all kinds of bird life, waterfowl and even including bobcats. Nice to walk around and get away from society even though it is in the background. Enjoy.
Well just a few more weeks left of this year, and a fine year it has been. Here is a shot that I recently processed from my trip to Yellowstone and Montana. This group of aspens was quite nice but I was quite happy with this shot. Fuji X-Pro 1 camera. Hope you enjoy it too.
At the beginning of October I took a trip with my wife to Montana and Yellowstone National Park. We were a bit late for fall color but there were some areas that had some still hanging around. It was quite cold there and winter was rapidly approaching. Here are few of the fall color landscape shot from the trip. Enjoy.
Hard to believe how fast this year has gone by…seems like it was only summer a few days ago… Well we have been having some rain, but I did not let that stop me, on the way home from work I stopped at a park in Orange and got out and stretched my legs. Even though it was drizzling a little I decided to take my camera, the oaks were in the process of turning color and dropping leaves and strolled past all the dead leaves I noticed a single green leaf among them. I liked the contrasts. Fuji X-Pro 1 and Fuji 60mm f2.4 macro at f2.8.
Well at least I am getting closer to being on track, this weeks image is kind of different. I call it a “water color”. This is how it came out of the camera with only some contrast adjustments and a slight crop to get ride of some distracting leaves. The painterly look is completely natural! This is a reflection of a pond at Descanso Gardens, the water was being stirred up by some rapidly moving koi carp, the waves caused by them caused the reflections to blur if I lowered the shutter speed at bit, so a natural abstract. Take with the Fuji X-Pro 1 and 35mm lens. Enjoy.
Portraits of Earth is the new ebook from David DuChemin. David is a photographer who has been known for taking people portraits and showing the human side of events, so what is he doing writing a landscape photography book? Well, like David mentions in his ebook, landscapes are really just portraits of the Earth. They can inspire as well as inform the viewer, emotions can come into play and just the sheer beauty of nature is something to share. This ebook is not so much about gear, but about looking for the possibilities and crafting your shot with more care to complete your vision. He also gives some tips for gear, and how to use it to capture the light that you see when exploring new vistas. He talks about filters and how they can enhance an image and the best ways to use them. He also talks about some general gear, like tripods and other useful items. He also goes into details about how to handle specific types of scenery, like fog and snow. Also there are some nice tips for some processing techniques and can give you some ideas to try in your own images. The book is filled with pictures from his travels around the world, visiting places most of use are not going to see, I know I wish I could go to some of these places. So does that mean you have to travel to exotic locations? No it does not, but he does show you through examples of how to apply leading lines and to use light to tell your story and capture your vision as well as composition topics and some discussions on why and how he made the images as well as the exposure information. 
So why should you consider this ebook? Well for me I like the way David writes, his writing style is easy to read and understand and you feel that you are having a conversation with him, he explains his motivations and tries to not make it too technical. Photography is a an artform that requires some technical knowledge but it also requires the artist to “see”, so there are fuzzy concepts to go with the geek. You can purchase this ebook for a very low price of $5, however if you click on the link and use the code EARTH4 before Sept. 9, 2012 you can get it for $4, Click here for Portraits of Earth While you are on the Craft And Vision site you might want to check out their other ebooks. I have personally found the following titles to be very useful, The Power of Black and White, Light and Land, Exposure for Outdoor Photography, and Close to Home, all of the ebooks on the site are well written and informative, and if you want to get several ebooks use the code EARTH20 for a 20% discount on 5+ ebooks, this code also expires Sept. 9, 2012. So get some good, cheap, informative ebooks and inspire yourself to get out use what you learn. I know I have.
Went and saw the cheetah run at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, pretty fun to watch, although it was very hot and very humid. It was not great day for running so the cheetah only did one run, which was too bad. The course was 100 meters, this run was done in 5.92 seconds, not their fastest time, but certainly fast enough. Taken with a Canon 1DM4 and a 80-200mm f2.8L lens. The running shot is cropped from the original frame. The portrait shot was not. Enjoy.
