L.A. on a Sunday night
The theme for this year's fair is "County Days & City Nights". The girls and I plan to enter photos in the fair again this year. They do not require them to be in the theme, but there are additional awards for entries that are in the theme. The "country days" half I have plenty of pictures of... but "city nights" are pretty sleepy around here. It is a joke around here that downtown shuts down at 9pm, but it is 99% true. So, while in Los Angeles recently, I took the opportunity to borrow my dad's tripod and do some long-exposure night images.
I knew I wanted a picture of downtown. I also wanted an iconic piece of architecture. The best place to do both of those at the same time is Griffith Observatory. We got there, found a great view, got the tripod and camera ll ready, and were told by a security guard that we cannot have a tripod. We can use it as a monopod. Hmm... ok... it is not exactly stable that way so I leaned it against a low wall and crossed my fingers.
I was so amazed it actually came out clear with this 25 second exposure. We moved away from the main observatory and were able to use the tripod again.
On the way home, we stopped to try getting a shot of one of the freeways. The trick was working around the chain-link fence on every freeway overpass. I managed to get the camera close enough you can't see the fence but I was not able to get rid of the light artifacts.
I really need to get a tripod... I had too much fun taking these pictures.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
SLO Creek
One of my favorite places to take pictures is the creek in downtown SLO. It just makes for incredible backgrounds. 
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Pt. Buchon Trail
One of my favorite local places is Montana De Oro State Park. It seems like we've been there so many times yet we've only scratched the surface of everything there is to see. Most of these places I do not even know exist. There was one trail that we were aware of and have always wanted to explore. It has been closed since before I moved to the area. It is finally open again and we were excited to spend a beautiful Sunday taking a walk.
After passing the guard station (the land is controlled by PG&E and is right next to a nuclear power plant), the first view is amazing.
Next we came to a great cove beach complete with cool sea caves.
The most amazing thing was the wildflowers.
Notice those funny white poles in the ground. They hold up the electric fence... yikes!! There are so many more flowers here than along the bluff trail just north in the state park. I wonder if the electric fence keeps animals (especially two-legged ones) from trampling them. Whatever the reason, I was in flower-photography heaven.
The only downside to the walk was the length. The whole loop is 5 miles and after 3 the girls were ready to stop, by 4 miles we were nearly dragging them back. Ah well, it was worth it.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Last day as three
Back in late March I took some pictures of a friend of mine and her husband and son (and a couple with a friend's daughter). They were some last chance pictures of them before their new baby was to arrive. I had been meaning to come over and take pictures for a couple of weeks. She went in to labor the next day so I am glad I was able to make it that day. I was pretty happy with how it came out.
