Alex

Alex and I had planned to shoot some sunset shots on the beach. As luck would have it, the day was overcast and foggy, with very little visibility. So we decided to do something different...

Praying to the Sun God

Saw yesterday that this was "explore"d on Flickr. Not very high, but made #306.



It had been a while since I took any "real" photos of my car. Decided to go and get some sunset shots. Took the long way to the beach through some twisties (our term for twisty mountain roads). Timed it so that I was at the beach at sunset. Took a few shots, and this was one of them.

I also bought a gorilla-pod that day, and played a bit with that on the way back.


Other photos that have been explored:

Montara State Beach

Last week, I went to Montara State Beach on California Highway 1, north of Half Moon Bay. Didn't have a lot of time, so ended up taking just a couple of photographs... one of the scene and a self-portrait.

I think this one came out pretty nicely.


I then took a self-portrait. You can see the flash in the photo - no time to set up stands, etc. I could have photo-shopped it out, but chose not to spend the time. Kind of gives it a "real" feeling to me.

Santa Monica Beach

I was in LA last weekend, and among other activities, managed to spend a few hours at Santa Monica Beach on Saturday afternoon. While enjoying the atmosphere, I started shooting characters that caught my eye for one reason or another.

I did the same technique that I first tried on Gay Pride 2009... which is to meter the light in a couple of directions, and save those settings in the Custom dial positions, and just switch between them as need.

Unfortunately, I had to leave around 6pm or so, so no sunset shots :-(

Two of my favorite shots.



Some more...




This one seems to be the most popular based on the number of views. Not quite sure why :-)


You can check out the rest on Flickr.

Sunset at Ocean Beach, San Francisco

Friday, January 9th was a long day... work, then a friend's birthday. Saturday was long too. I had planned to spend Sunday at home watching football, and to just veg on the couch. Got up kind of late, and was finalizing my vegging techniques when I realized that the weather had warmed up... from 50s and cloudy to 68 and sunny. So much for vegging.

Decided to go out and do two of my favorite things - going to the city (San Francisco) and taking pics. I had planned to go to the Marin headlands and take some photos of the Golden Gate Bridge with the skyline in the background... but after picking up a friend and following his directions (he got kind of lost)... ended up on Ocean Beach around sunset. Took a few pics... later on had dinner and went home.

photo info:

• shot in RAW, Color Space Adobe RGB
• 13 sec, f/10, January 11, 2009 at 5:45pm
• Location: click on the picture and click "map" link (bottom right of page)
• Shot with camera on tripod, with remote release
  

post processing:
In Canon DPP

• white balance set to 4300K
  
• sharpness 10
• color saturation 3
• contrast 1
• picture style Landscape
• cropped to remove boring sky.

"Out of Camera" Picture