A little catch up

It's been awhile since I've updated in here.  I've had several photo opportunities recently and just got around to processing and uploading yesterday.

I've shot fireworks for The 4th, more at 1st Wednesday, a baseball game, a small concert, and a church ice cream social.

Here's a teaser from a couple of my new sets.....

Garin Regional Park

Weekly photo outing to Garin Regional Park in Union City, CA.

this park has a lot of old, rusty farm equipment.  Not so fun for playing, but awesome for photography.  There's also a barn that's open on the weekends that I hope to visit some day.  And rolling hills and trees.  Lots of photographic variety.

Vacation Photos - 7

More vacation photos.

This bunch is from our favorite winery.  I love the view from here.  It's so pretty.  Awesome waves crashing on the cliffs.  The whole area is so photogenic.  From sheep that wander around to wine barrels, it's just a fantastic place to take pictures.  It's even better in the winter when it's stormy and the waves are crashing high up on the cliff.

Wish I thought to turn the glass around for this, so you could see the winery name.

You can totally see the reflection of people in the glass.  :)

California Poppy

Was totally captured by this rusty spade without a handle.  I like old, rustic, rusty tools.

Randomness

Some random photos I took this weekend.  OK ... not really random per se, as they were of our weekend project, but random in that they don't really have a theme or fit a photo technique category or anything.

Is it level?

Cousins: Alex (16) and Annie (9 months)

Sunday Afternoon Photo Shoot - Cemetery

Taking a short break from vacation photos (yes, I still have more to blog).

I needed to get out of the house and go shoot some photos.  Many months ago, a friend suggested going to a cemetery.  There was one close by that was easy to get to, and since I was short on time, it was the perfect destination.

This cemetery is small.  I would guess roughly 200 people buried here.  It is, however, historic.  It's located next to the city's historic church and museums.  Many of the city's founders are buried here.  I recognized a lto of names as I walked by the headstones.  

I'm not one to venture into cemeteries.  In fact, with the exception of my grandfather's graveside service (and I use that term loosely since it wasn't really a service, just us watching them lower the casket), I've only been in 1 cemetery one time, and it was because my boyfriend's mom thought it would be fun to drive through.  I didn't (and still don't) understand the attraction to spending one's leisure time looking at graves of strangers.  However I had a different mission today.  To look at things through a photographer's eye and capture some unique and eye-catching images.

However, being interested in history, I found myself being as curious about the stories of the people there as I was about getting artsy photos.

While it's not super artsy, I was captured by the dates.  Their birthdays were 1 day apart.  And he died 6 months after her. The romantic in me says he died of a broken heart. But being 78 probably didn't help things any.

I was captured by this spider web and the way it glistened in the sun.  Trying to respect the grave sites, I was unable to get a great angle, but I thought this was pretty good.

Poor little girl.  She was born 4 days before my sister.  And only 19 months when she passed away.  I don't even want to entertain thoughts as to why she died so young.

These were pretty.

This was a large pillar marking the family's site.  One of the 2 middle schools in the city is named for him.

Another big name in the city.  One of the major roads is named after this family.

I was captured by this bench, crumbing and falling over.  The tree behind it.
It was a lot more enthralling than I could capture.

From an artistic perspective, this was difficult to capture because of the drastic lighting differences.  I'm still not sure how to properly meter for shade and sun on the same subject.  But my heart was broken by the size of the grave markers.  This was one family, and the two smallest sites were young children, 4 and 7 I believe.  

Initially I was caught off-guard with the name. It's the same last name as one of Andrew's friends - I wonder if there's any relation.  It's a beautiful headstone.  I love the softness of the bushes around the stone.

"Double" Exposure

Digital cameras are fun.  And the extent to which one can play and edit the photos on the computer is endless.  Which sometimes makes simple things from the days of film cameras boring.  Or even more fun and cool.


A double (or triple or ....) exposure on a film camera takes a lot of deliberate work.  It takes a special button. It's tedious to ensure that the subject is centered and fills the frame fully.  With a digital camera you know you can edit afterwards and crop properly or adjust lighting if necessary.


I had a vision for a double exposure - a flag blowing in the wind with a firework going off.  I grabbed my first photo, the flag.  Although the wind wasn't blowing, so I settled for dangling from the flag pole.  Then to get my next photo.  To get a full dramatic effect, I desperately wanted to get a firework at is exploded into a million pieces in the sky, as opposed to shooting straight up from the ground.  Well, those that shoot into the sky go so fast and I could never tell what kind of firework my neighbors were lighting, so I had to guess.  I missed them every single time.  Finally, with my camera on video mode, I managed to get a couple seconds of one going up into the sky and falling to the ground.  Then in Picasa I was able to snag a snapshot from it and superimpose it over my photo of the flag.  The following is the result:

I'm quite pleased with this as a first attempt at both fireworks and multiple exposure.  I'm anxious to improve my fireworks photography next summer.

Relay for Life ---- in Manual Mode!

This past weekend I was asked to photograph my husband's band, "Northern Static," play as entertainment at a local Relay for Life event.  My two daughters were in attendance, and some friends came by to watch also.

I was very excited to get to take some fun pictures and try to really capture the moment.  Sometimes photographing a band can be difficult, because it all looks the same, so every picture is the same as the last.  At least to a later viewer.  One challenge was to get new shots that were exciting and different from the last.  Another challenge was the lighting. The band was on a stage under a canopy.  It was "dark" to the camera, relative to the surrounding light.  Metering the light on the stage from various angles was challenging as well.

It was fun to also capture the excitement of the event.  The children playing.  The walkers walking.  The tents. The workers.  While not all of these photos were "artsy" and super duper fantastic photos with lots of wow-factor (enough adjectives?), they were important in capturing the day and what the event meant to people who were walking.

My daughter (middle) and her two friends from church.  I love how they looked so captivated by the music.

This "behind the scenes" look was the only one that I really had a chance to get.  It was challenging with the light peaking through from the other side of the stage.  

I didn't realize it when I snapped this photo, but the backlighting provided a great "glow" to her already gorgeous red hair. Because she was back-lit, I kept the exposure the same for her as I did for all the shots on stage.

The walking, rounding the bend.  I was going for a "story-telling" image with this, but only had my telephoto lens with me when I went up the bleachers to capture these shots.  I think it still captures the feeling from being there, though.

Another "story-telling" image.  This one of the center of the field with the stage.  You can  see how dark the stage is  with the shade, relative to the outside.  This provided a great deal of metering challenges.

Probably my favorite photo of the bunch.  I was attempting a leading lines effect.  I like the out-of-focus people in the background. I'm not sure what story this image tells, but I know it's telling something.

Another "behind the scenes" shot of one of the musicians taping his set list to the floor.

The awesome drummer going to town. I love the slight blur on the drum stick , implying the motion that he's moving super fast.  This is a technique I'd really like to work on, and in fact have tried a few times already, but can't find the right shutter speed.

Again, you can see the drastic lighting differences.  I opted to overexpose the light areas and properly expose faces and instruments. I love the images of the musicians really jamming and rocking out and enjoying what they're doing.

 I'm not sure any of these photos jump out as real zingers, but for my first "photo shoot" in manual mode, I am very pleased with the results.  I snagged quite a few fun shots of the kids at play.  

Pumpkin Patch Artsy-Fartsy photos

Just some artsy photos from our day at the pumpkin patch last weekend.