My fiance has been telling me about Garden of the Gods for nearly as long as I've known her. Well, on my Christmas trip out to Colorado this year, we finally made it over there for a hike. It wasn't the best time of day light-wise, but it was still everything she said it would be.
My fiance and her nephew ride a horse at sunset in Colorado.
Some of Julie's dad's cows come to see if I have any range cubes to give them. It looks like this one is picking his nose with his tongue.
OK, lots of work done on this one.
PHOTOMATIX: 6 RAW files combined to one HDR file. Then, tone mapped and saved as a TIFF.
PHOTOSHOP: Lens correction to straighten columns. Duped layer, then applied a high pass filter. Layer set to overlay and a mask used to fine tune layer. Selective color adjustment layer used to lighten trees and structure and darken water and sky. Levels adjustment layer used to darken shadows a bit. Black and white adjustment layer used to darken water and sky and eliminate color. A texture layer was added and the blending properties tweeked allow the light structure to bleed through. A sepia color layer set to Soft Light blending mode and reduced to 21% finalizes the look.
I processed this photo because my fiance said that even though she liked the other version of the Walton Lighthouse, the tilted horizon bothered her. So this one is for her.
Train trestle next to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk at sunset. This is three photos combined in Photomatix and then toned in lightroom, then converted to black and white in Photoshop.
This is three shots digitally combined in Photoshop of the Walton Lighthouse in Santa Cruz.
This was my vacation. I've taken the week off from work and I journeyed up to San Francisco by myself to sit around and shoot the Palace of Fine Arts. It's a place I always wanted to shoot, but never got around to it. I waited all day for the sun to set and the lights to come on. I did have a slight problem though. It was so cold that moisture was building on (and I think inside) my lens. A lot of the later shots have this odd glow about them. Guess I have to keep the lens warm. Live and learn.
The best man at my wedding and his daughter enjoying an afternoon at the harbor in Santa Cruz.
The Icer Air event was a lot of fun to shoot, but ended up being a bit painful. As I was shooting a skateboarder on the half pipe, he fell and his board struck me right in the hip. I thought I was in pain until about 30 minutes later, I watched as a BMX biker dislocated his knee and land on his back on the concrete. Now THAT's pain.
This was great practice for me as far as shooting sports goes. I know my lens isn't very good, but I know enough about photography now to make adjustments. The photos aren't bad, they're supposed to be that way (you believe me, right?). Anyway, for more Icer Air 2007 photos, click HERE or point your browser to http://www.flickr.com/photos/solisphotography/sets/72157602924645627/
I'm wearing the same costume I did last year, but I wanted to post a better picture than I did 12 months ago.
Happy Halloween everyone.
Sentinel photographer Shmuel Thaler in action during the Sentinel Triathlon. I'm pretty envious of that lens.
I decided to take some "arty" shots at the Santa Cruz vs. Aptos football game. I did this mainly because my long lens is pretty bad, so I just used my 50mm 1.4 and did what I could.
I know I haven't posted any photos in a while, but more will be coming soon. Next week I will be allowed to post my Peter Mel shots for Santa Cruz Magazine. I'm also going to Icer Air at AT&T Park in San Francisco next weekend and I want to take some shots down in Moss Landing soon (Shelby, wanna come?).
A triathlon racer runs to the bike transition area after completing a 1-mile swim around the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf during the 25th annual Sentinel Triathlon.
So, tomorrow is the annual Night Lights for Peace here in Santa Cruz where an artist has decided to light up the coast with spotlights from the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse to the Walton Lighthouse. Last year I shot some pretty cool photos and I've been looking forward to shooting it again this year for a few months now. However, since we've had layoffs at the newspaper, we are so short staffed that there is no such thing as a regular schedule anymore. I found out today that tomorrow I'm supposed to work a night shift.
Ugh.
So after work today, I grabbed my camera and headed out to Twin Lakes Beach on the East side of the harbor to shoot the two lighthouses that will be lit tomorrow. Most of the shots were pretty flat as the sun was darting in and out of clouds, but I managed to grab a few that were at least salvageable.
This shot was exposed the best I could while shooting into the sun. My overall contrast was down and I had very little information in the midtone area. A lot of that had to do with the amount of moisture in the air (it's supposed to rain tomorrow night so at least I won't get wet).
I'm feeling a little better now, but I'm still going to miss shooting the Night Lights (sorry Kirby, I really wanted to be out there). Maybe I'll drag my equipment to the roof of the building and see what I get from there. Next month we'll be leaving our cushy downtown building anyway, so this may be my last chance to shoot from up there.
Do me a favor and get off the net and go buy a newspaper, I've got a wedding to pay for.
The Sky Glider at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. This is a photo from June, 2006 that I found while organizing my photos in Adobe Lightroom. I know I haven't posted many pictures lately, but I'm doing a little house cleaning in my photo library, so some more older photos may pop up.
Also, I talked to the editor of Santa Cruz Magazine and she would rather I not post my photos of Peter Mel until after they are published, which is in November.
The lovely Julie agreed to marry me over the weekend, so we are no longer the market. Sorry ladies ... and gentlemen.
This shot was taken the day after I asked her to marry me, which was our 5-year anniversary. She seems happy.
My friend Elyse called me up the other day and told me that Fluid Magazine was doing a story on her and they needed a nice portrait to go along with her action shots (she's a pro skier). So today we dropped down to the beach and took some shots. I think this is a little more "done up" than they want, but I like it.
This shot was actually a slight mistake. I was changing settings on my camera and went a little too far, overexposing the photo. It turned out OK though. I'll post more after I get back from my weekend in Tahoe ... and I'll have more photos to post then as well.
I'm a proud member of the 49er Faithful, so I was very happy that my girlfriend suggested going to the pre-season opener Monday night. Of course, they played the Broncos and she's from Colorado and a die-hard fan (they don't have a clever nickname like 49er Faithful).
Well, the Broncos won, but I'm telling myself, "It's only pre-season, it doesn't matter." Anyway, our seats were fantastic, third row in the corner of the endzone. The only problem ... I was surrounded by Broncos fans.
Ugh.
Like I said, I didn't get to see Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run Monday night (he did that on Tuesday), but I got to watch Tim Lincecum pitch and that's pretty special. Kid's got some heat. I hope the Giants don't do anything to ruin what they've got.
Well, like 43,052 other people in the Bay Area, I went to the Giants game Monday night against the Nationals to watch Barry Bonds hit 756. Needless to say I didn't get to see it, but I saw a fantastic game where the Giants actually won in extra innings (thank you Randy Winn).
So my lovely girlfriend Julie decided to get herself a cat last week. People who know me know that I'm more of a dog guy myself, but one look into those eyes and I was hooked.
Since he is part Russian Blue, she named him Stoli, which means he will grow up to be a drunk. Sorry cat. He's in his Insane-O-Kitten phase right now. He chases toys, laser pointers and toes. He's wearing me out so much I may want to drink.
Yes, I'm now one of the awful people who take pictures of cats, but at least I'm trying to further my lighting skills at the same time.
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