Two

Two for you today! (I love that tongue.)

Self Portrait

We have an elephant mirror in our bedroom that we brought back from Thailand. I thought about doing a self portrait in it, and then I noticed the selective focus and decided to make a diptych out of it. I'm not in love with the light, and I probably could have shown a little more finesse in putting the two images together in Photoshop, but I kind of enjoy the concept. Maybe I'll try this again later with a more interesting photographic subject.

Pink

I am not a one-hit wonder. I swear I can take pictures that are not of flowers. I promise tomorrow will be something else.

Light

Light is so important for photographers. I shot this image and yesterday's image together. They are both of the same tree at the same time, but this photo shows the part of the tree in the sun, and yesterday's flower was in the shade.

I like the composition of yesterday's better, but the light in this one works for me more. So, life is full of trade offs. What else is new?

So, On My Way Home Today . . .

I saw some more flowers. And the inevitable frenzy of picture taking happened. I think this frame is my favorite of the bunch.

Closer

There is a tree near my house that sheds these orange-yellow things, I am not sure what to call them as they are not flowers. Anyway, I spied them on the windshield wipers of a blue truck and I appreciated the complimentary color pair, plus the cool texture of whatever-these-things-are.

I shot this at 50mm, f/2.8, although in hindsight I think I could have stopped down a bit more and that would have improved the picture.

Oh, and also I'm the Featured Blogger over at 2010 Virtual Photowalk - if you haven't seen the interview, go check it out!

Photoshop's 20th Anniversary

My week was a little more exciting than usual, in that on Thursday I had the chance to attend Photoshop's 20th Anniversary Celebration. It was a lot of fun! There were presentations from all the Photoshop Guys: Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, Dave Cross, Corey Barker, Terry White. Julianne Kost also did two kick-ass presentations, and the highlight of the evening (for me) was Russell Brown's amazing multimedia presentation (I don't even know how he did it). I mean, truly multimedia. Two of the media were mustard (or ketchup, not sure) and bread. It also involved some toy cars and gorilla hands. Awesome! Plus a quick but not too quick jab at Steve Jobs (the word 'megalomaniac' may or may not have flashed across the screen).

Plus, I learned a few new things about Photoshop, and had some free wine and crackers, and ended up with a t-shirt that I will probably never wear until I have to paint the house. I'm not really a branded t-shirt kind of girl.

As is to be expected, everyone was taking pictures. And I felt no compunctions in grabbing this shot, as the lady turned her camera around next and took several close-up pictures of me, with flash! To what purpose? I can only guess. I saw her LCD screen, I was literally the only one in the shot.
Cell phone cameras were also heavily utilized. (Sorry for the narrow depth of field on this one, it was pretty dark in there.)
In addition, Adobe handed out 40 flash drives with a Photoshop 1.0 app for the iPhone. I didn't get one, to my dismay. Adobe, if you're reading this, I'll still accept one, ok?

For more blog posts on Photoshop's 20th Anniversary Celebration, see:

Scott Kelby's Post over at Photoshop Insider

Jim Goldstein's thoughts at his blog

And finally, check out video of the entire event on the NAPP website, here.

Blades - And Some Thoughts on Criticism

In addition to my photo today, I just wanted to give thanks to all the people who come to the blog and leave comments. I try to respond as often as I can, but I'm sure you have no idea how much I value each and every comment that comes to this blog. Plus, I am pretty fortunate to have some insightful and critical commenters, who let me know when my photos are sub par.

Specific thanks go out to the 'mystery commenter'* known as Z who yesterday let me know that my photo wasn't quite sharp. Of course, Z was absolutely right, and I should have posted something else.

So thanks, guys, for keeping me honest. My favorite comments are the ones that make me stop, think, and re-evaluate. Don't be shy, tell me when I suck!

Back on topic: these grasses grow in Union Square (and other places, I'm sure), and I love their multicolored leaves.

*Mysterious to me, at least. As far as I know, Z and I are not yet acquainted. However, I enjoy having mystery comments. Gives a little spice to the blog.

Seagulls...

... are always congregating near the beach. Sometimes in interesting formations.

Gee, Another Blossom Shot

The trees by my work downtown are also flowering. This is my only excuse.

Family

Another photo from Valentine's Day. I just thought there was something so arresting about the three men in the family, off playing in the waves (plus of course the way they are arranged according to height) juxtaposed with Mom in the background, watching over them all, but not taking part.

Valentine's Day

(Yes, I know I'm a day late. Please ignore that fact for me.)

A little over three years ago, Evan and I went on our first date. And because we were both slightly dorky, and didn't have any brilliant ideas of what to do, we decided to go to the zoo.

The rest, as they say, was history. That zoo trip was the beginning of something that took us both to Thailand together, and then through many, many different countries, finally plopping us both back down here in San Francisco three years later.

So this year to celebrate and reminisce we decided to go to the zoo again. On Valentine's Day, which is close enough to our anniversary that we figured we could celebrate both at the same time. I was excited, I brought my camera with my long zoom and my 50mm prime.

But, such is life, we got to the zoo and the line was around the block, so we decided to reconsider. Evan, being the amazing boyfriend that he is, suggested that we drive down the coast and stop along the way so that I could take some pictures. What could be more perfect than that?

We had an amazing day.

Beach

Went to the beach today as part of our Valentines Day (more on that tomorrow), and I happened to just love this view of the wall that separates the beach from the street level. And this little girl (or boy - not sure) in the bottom corner of the shot just made it for me. Plus the silhouettes of all the people in the distance - love them!

For all of you suffering through snowy winters, I just want to make you feel a little better: yes, I have a beach, but I have to wear a sweater when I go. It's not a beach for swimming or tanning, exactly.

Blue Eyes

Actually, her other eye is brown, but I took a little poetic license.

Skyline

Another small piece of San Francisco, delivered straight to you!

Swap!

Inspired by Sandra Juto's lovely blog, I have decided to have a swap.

The way it works is pretty simple. I am pretty much addicted to hot beverages, can't go a day without them - most of my friends will agree that they hardly ever see me in the morning without a mug in my hand - and so, I propose a trade.

You send me the makings of a delicious hot beverage, be it tea, coffee, hot chocolate, something more exotic, whatever! and I will send you an 8x10 print of any photo of your choice from my blog.

At the moment I think I can only manage five swaps, but maybe in the future I'll do something a little more ambitious. You can sign up in the comments, and I will swap with the first five to comment. Please mention in the comments which photo you would like a print of.

I'm so excited to try this out!

Late Afternoon

I was searching for a decisive moment image here, I must have waited ten minutes or more at this vantage point for someone to walk across the street without too many cars in the intersection. In a perfect world, I would have liked to see no cars there, but it just wasn't happening and the light was changing too quickly, so I settled for this frame, which at least conveys a bit of what I was going for.

And Even More Blossoms

It's a sickness. But look - these are a different kind of blossoms!

More Blossoms

I just can't get enough of these blossoms. When I saw them backlit against a blue sky, I knew for sure I was a goner, and sure enough the camera appeared like magic in my hands. I am attempting to photograph other things, for instance the houses last night, but man! it's tough.

Send me some strength.

Evening

Walking around the city tonight I spied this set of different colored lights in doorways, and thought it would make a good shot.

Bird

As we were sitting having coffee in Union Square in the sun this afternoon, we were visited by this handsome little fellow. Fortunately for me, he seemed all too happy to pose for the camera!

Daisy

As I bent down to take this photo of a daisy in a bed in a public area of San Francisco today, I saw a police officer shake his head at me. Assuming the bed was off limits for some reason, I said "No?"

He said, "I wouldn't if I were you. That's pretty much the bathroom area for all the homeless in San Francisco."

I thought about it for a moment, and said "That's okay, I'm just taking a picture."

He replied, "Ok, I thought you were going to pick some flowers."

Anyway, Internet, I DID take the picture, but I was careful not to touch the flowers directly. Because he had a point. That grass looks awfully green, doesn't it?

Bikes Redux

Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/25
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 55mm

Well as long as I'm recycling content, I thought I'd post this second picture of the 'bicycles' near my house (for the first picture, click here), as I feel it's a great example of how focal length can really change the feeling of a picture. A lot of other things are different too: the first one I took in the morning, this one I took in the early evening, and the composition isn't exactly the same. But the perspective is almost identical, and yet they have really different feelings to them. This one isn't even taken with a particularly wide lens (55mm on a 1.6 crop factor body = about 88mm, which is short telephoto range), but it feels more dynamic, there's more sense of motion. For comparison's sake the earlier picture was taken with the same lens at 220mm (about 350mm).

I'm not sure which one I prefer, but I like the contrast between the two.

Sakura Redux

A different picture, but also another take on the processing side of things. I'm finding these photos hard to perfect. I don't want them flat looking, but neither do I want to lose any detail on the petals. Plus, I'm beginning to come up against the limitations of processing photos on my laptop screen.

Sakura

I'm not sure if these are really cherry blossoms, they may be plum blossoms. Anyone with any blossom knowledge is free to help me clarify this matter. All I know is that they're pretty gorgeous.

I tried a new edit on this photo below. What do you think?

Lamplight

Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 55mm

Saw this one the street at dusk. I intentionally underexposed the image in Lightroom a bit to give it some mood. However, I'm not in love with what's happening to the color of the light there, that's not really what the image looked like in Lightroom before I exported it, so I'm at a bit of a loss.

But even with that quibble, I do enjoy the image overall.