Royal Poinciana
A picture of a Royal Poinciana tree in San Clemente from our day trip back in February of this year. Thanks to google I was able to do a search with the image to figure out the name of the tree and from there I was able to look up what I wanted to find out about it. It originally came from (more…)
Side Garage
While walking around La Jolla on a sunday afternoon, this house with the side garage caught my attention; if this is the front yard I wonder how large the real house is?! 🙂 Considering it being La Jolla and this was quite close to the ocean this property must’ve been built quite sometime ago, so I decided to give it more of vintage look!
Mobile Living
This is an image of a mobile home (RV) that we found in Julian, CA. There are different kinds of RVs and this one looks like the type that detaches from the vehicle since I can’t see any wheels under it. Judging but its shape and that wooden structure with the satellite on it, it must’ve been there for a while. Enjoy your Friday everyone 🙂
Caddy in Cali
Prior to my relocation to Southern California I had some preset “images” of what life in California would be. The above had to be one of them: a convertible 60s/70s Cadillac with palm trees in the background! I took this image in Bird Rock one day after lunch, it was just past noon so the lighting was really harsh and I decided to give it this vintage look. Bird Rock is small area in La Jolla that is very “California” so it was very fitting to find this Cadillac parked on its streets, it was just missing the surf board hanging out the back 🙂
House in Julian
A house or a store I’m not really sure, Julian is that kind of town 🙂 Taken in Julian, CA… a town famous for their delicious apple pies which I can attest to.
A Day at the beach
Spent this Saturday at Laguna Beach, shooting my friend’s new born baby girl. While doing that we were also watching a CBVA tournament. I’ve been to previous AVP events and I really struggled with keeping the players in focus, I thought I’d try a few shots while the tournament was going on. I told one of the players that I’d share the pictures here, so here they are:
Starting out the series with the shot that made us approach the player, we thought she would at least like to have this one:
This was earlier in the day, she immediately stood out with her vertical and power.
Anticipating the serve
This was a new game that was much closer to where we were sitting.
I set the AF to AI Servo, I focused the center point on her shoulder blade and kept her in focus throughout the serve! I find that when AF is set to AI Focus the motor tends to go crazy trying to focus on the subject if they stand static for a period (which happens a lot in sports). I was actually impressed that I never lost focus of her through all that wire:
And while all of this was going on, the dolphins came by 🙂
If the players want a copy of the image without the watermark, contact me and I’ll email you a copy
La Jolla Cove Sunset
One of favorite images of all time, its also one of my most popular on flickr. Just thought I’d add it to my blog.
Java Depot
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L @ 35 mm, f/5.6, 1/160 sec, ISO 100
A nice little coffee shop in Solana Beach.
Parisian Lamp
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L @ 28mm, f/9.0, ISO 200
This is another picture from that Gardens in La Jolla. While I was taking this shot, I noticed the lamp and I thought it was made out of marble or something of that sort so it would be a great HDR opportunity with all that extra texture. After taking my initial set of brackets I got closer to the lamp & composed for it with a slightly low point of view, to give it that standing huge feel, specially with a wide angle lens! To my disappointment it wasn’t made out of marble but some cheap plastic, can you tell?
The name? for some reason those lamps reminded me of Paris and all the Art Nouveau lamps on its streets like this one. Not quite the same in California now is it? 🙂
Sunset between the Americas
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L @ 16 mm, f/8.0 , ISO 160
I don’t know why but the shape of the clouds looks like the American continents me! The sun is setting right where Mexico is 🙂
The way things used to be
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L @ 29mm, f/5.6, ISO 200
This is another one of those La Jolla jewels… not sure how old this house is but must be at least 40 years old. Its a lot bigger than shown here as the wide angle lens effect does its thing 🙂 I went with 70s look with this HDR just to keep the theme as “old”, just trying something a little different. The original image is actually quite clean and I chose to add noise to it to help with the aging effect.
Technical:
– 3 RAW Images [-2,0,+2 EV] merged into Photomatix
– LOTS & LOTS & LOTS of adjustments in Lightroom!
Hidden Gardens
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L @ 18 mm, f/9.0, ISO 200
La Jolla is quite an interesting place, I suppose its really known for its scenery and beaches but seldom do people showcase where people actually live in this town. This is a nice little neighborhood that has their own “Gardens” ala China style, it reminded me a lot of the Gardens in Suzhou, China (which I visited for business 3 times in 2008). Its a nice quite place for families to take their children, some of the parents were checking out what I was taking pictures of which I totally respect and I support specially that I’m an uncle now. I have a couple more pictures from this area that I shall share in a different post.
Coming to an end
Diptych: Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L II @ (L: 35 mm, f/2.8, 1/ sec, ISO 200) (R: 24mm, f/11, ISO 200)
I believe the winter (if there is such a thing) in San Diego is over. Pretty soon this tree will be full of green & life.
This diptych is also a good example of when to use HDR & when not to use it. The image on the left didn’t really have such a wide dynamic range (the variance from brightest to darkest spot wasn’t drastic) so a single exposure did it for me. Compare that to the image on the right where the camera sensor couldn’t capture the full dynamic range with one exposure, I took 3 brackets [-2, 0, +2 EV] and produced an image that looks much closer to what our eye would’ve seen. Here is the single 0 EV exposure, look at all the details in the shadows that was lost but the HDR process was able to bring back, the trick is obviously not to overdo it to the point that it looks like a painting that has no highlights and shadows.
0 EV Exposure
Special Education
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L II @ 16 mm , f/16, ISO 200
Continuing with my series of shots from UCSD, this will probably be the best image I produce out of that photowalk. I still can’t believe that this what UCSD students have to deal with, its true that the scenery is gorgeous but lets be honest, I don’t think I could’ve passed anything if I had the ocean this close to me! Since I’m using a wide angle lens here the far looks a lot further than it really is, the beach was literally a 3 minute walk down. Needless to say its a great campus to just walk around on a beautiful day.
On more a technical side, I went with a really small aperture to emphasize the sunburst effect and keep most of my scene in focus.
Technical:
– 6 RAW Images [-3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2 EV] merged into Photomatix 4
– Lightroom adjustments
– Topaz Adjust on the whole image and set opacity to 50%
– More Lightroom adjustments
No way out
Canon EOS 5D MkII, EF 16-35 f/2.8L II @ 16 mm, f/16, ISO 200
Believe it or not this is a dormitory for UCSD students in San Diego!! Yes they have a tough life over here, specially if you compare them to the dormitories in Toronto where I went to school. Lets just say there is no comparison!
I thought the tilt would add to the effect of being trapped, as if you are falling into a sinkhole… all lines seem to naturally lead your eye to the locked gate.
Technical:
– 6 RAW Images [-3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2 EV] merged into Photomatix 4
– Adjustments in Lightroom
– Topaz Adjust on the whole image, brought down opacity to 50%
– More adjustments in Lightroom
2 Rivers Photos 
