Muir Woods National Monument

Friday, I took a day off from work, and went to the Muir Woods park near Muir Beach, CA.

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:

Passing Time in the Driveway

Last weekend in LA, I was waiting for other folks to get ready. Instead of watching TV, I decided to just see what I could photograph in the driveway.

Here's a few of the "good" shots. I like the first one quite a lot; the other ones I'm not too sure about.

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.

Photographing Laser Light

My attempt at a technique taught by Dean Collins for photographing beams of light.

Light itself is invisible. Think of your car headlights. You don't see the light coming out of the headlights, but rather the areas where it hits.

To photograph it, you make the light beam visible by making it "hit" something in all the areas you want it to show up in your photograph. Pretty simple concept and pretty simple to do.

Photographing Fireworks

Every year around the 4th of July and New Year's Day, there are several people asking for advice on how to photograph the upcoming fireworks. It seems that the questions are almost always the same, just new people asking them.

I'll share my technique and offer some tips. If you're a seasoned photographer, then most, if not all, will be redundant. Other people should hopefully find this useful.

In some ways, this article is late by a couple of days; being written on July 5th. Or you can see the glass as half-full, and realize that you now have many months to get ready :-)

Quick Guide

Preparation

• Set your camera to ISO: 100, Aperture: f/11, Shutter Speed: Bulb
• Turn off Long Exposure NR (on my camera, it doubles the time for an exposure - essentially forcing a break between photographs)
  
• Put the camera on a tripod, with remote release cable attached
  
• Set the zoom on your lens to cover the desired area
• Set your lens to manual focus, and focus on infinity
  

The Photographs
The Fireworks
As the fireworks go off, anticipate the bursts and shoot away. Take as many photographs as you can. You may end up throwing away a bunch of them.

You can usually see the rocket go up before it explodes. Press the shutter as it's going up and keep it pressed till the sparks fall off.

The longer you keep the shutter pressed, the more fireworks you'll capture in that photograph.

Beyond that it's practice. Anticipating the bursts, capturing cool shapes, keeping the photos from being too busy, etc. comes from experience. The more you shoot, the better you'll get.