San Francisco part 1

I have been to many places, but none quite like San Francisco. I have been here since Friday and have been enjoying it quite a bit. The city is amazingly diverse and even though its been cooler than I am use to in Florida it has been refreshing.

Carolyn and I have done some of the touristy things such as a bus tour and seeing the pier, but we have also visited an amazing local Chinese restaurant where they served homemade pot stickers that we went back for a second time.

We have a few more days here then we are off to Anaheim, but I already can’t wait to come back and visit.

Below are a few pictures from our bus tour. some of you may recognize one of the locations.

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A magical trip part 2

in

In a continuance of taking a look at some of my old photos with a new eye, we travel to Venice. Not Venice Florida but Venice Italy. This city was incredible. It was built on the water and even thought its sinking a bit today it still stands. The streets were narrow, the squares were crowded and the seagulls were rampant.

I know that doesn’t sound fun, however The architecture is amazing and the food was great. It was also interesting to see how many older aspects of the city persist such as the gondolas.

That’s it for today. Till tomorrow keep having fun.

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Halloween and Happy mistakes

in

When going to Halloween parties its important to remember to have fun and sometimes even dress up. My Friend Burch and my wife Carolyn Dress up every time they go, they have gone an the Sanderson Sisters before, as Tinkerbell and Zurina and probably a few I am forgetting. This year was Tinker-Thor and Zur-Loki. Crosses between Marvel and Disney.

We this particular night it was HOT, really really hot and Emily didn’t want to wear her wings or armor into the park. This led to her throwing on her sweatshirt and carrying her Target bag (used for Candy and wing storage) into the park. There was a moment of realization that she was now Basic Tink. If you don’t know what Basic is I will leave it as an exercise for you to look up.

Since we were in Magic Kingdom there were two more things that were needed to complete the Basic Look Starbucks and a picture in front of the Purple Wall.

Of course she was not going to remain Basic Tink all night but it was fun that with just two changes Emily had a whole new costume to use.

I now present Basic Tink as well as Tinker-thor and Zur-Loki.

Its a lot of fun to take photos at events like this. You see lots of fun costumes and just remember its always polite to ask before you take photos and its a nice gesture to offer the photos to those you capture.

Till next time keep having fun.

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Two Trees

in

When I was a Kid I loved being out in the woods, I loved carving sticks into swords and spending hours pretending I was a power ranger in my back yard. Then I grew up and moved away and now I live in a place that has some trees, but no good place to play. The grass in manicured what feels like daily and the trees I see don’t really shed sticks like the ones I remember.

When I go out looking for something to take an image of I try to remember to be open to different things, things I don’t normally see. So much of this world is photographed to oblivion, it can get discouraging, and we walk by the same things everyday we sometimes forget to take a moment to really look.

That’s what today’s images are about. It is something I walk by everyday and never pay much attention to.

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Wide angles and Creative Ruts

in

Earlier this year I started posting a photo a day on Facebook and on this site. some days they were good photos and some days they were bad photos, but somewhere along the way I started to feel that it was a lot of the same. I felt like I wasn’t being creative, I was in a rut. Many people fall into ruts you don’t need to be creative to know that, but somehow I felt like me not posting would give me time to reflect and pull myself out of my rut.

I went and worked on other things and slowly I started to forget about posting photos. I started to go back to my old ways of hoarding photos in my computer for no one to see. This was until a few days go when I started to edit a pile of photos I had been collecting and realized that I really liked some of them and others may as well. Immediately I remembered my challenge earlier in the year and I longed to start posting again. I decided that today would be the day that I start posting a photo a day again.

What to post though? I have a small stock of photos that I enjoy, but I wanted to post a something that felt a bit differently.

I have been talking with a friend on and off for a few weeks about different lenses and he agreed to lend me a few of his to try out a zoom lens and 14mm wide angle. Pair that with Carolyn asking me to take photos of Priscilla Prickle Pants her hedgehog and I had my photos.

Without Further ado I present Priscilla Prickle Pants.

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HDR fun

in

Hello Everyone its been a while. During my absence I have been working on many cool projects. I finished the Lego bank and that post will be up later this week. I have also started CS50 at https://www.edx.org/. I have also started to dive back into HDR or High Dynamic Range photography. 

HDR is an awesome technique that many people overused in the past. This lead to a decline in the amount of HDR photographers. The idea of HDR is that your camera can collect more color and detail than your eye can see. By taking a number of photos and laying them on top of each other then pulling detail from each of those you can create a visually stunning photo.

My wife Carolyn and I went to Lake Luisa State Park yesterday and had fun shooting in a quiet part of park near the lake.  As you can see below the photo can look amazing. 

 

I use the mac program Aurora HDR from macphun found here. and my Sony A7ii. 

I will post more about HDR and more HDR photos in the future, until then have fun shooting and let me know what you think.