Oceanfront

A view of the houses that line Ocean Beach. Although I doubt the folks who live in these houses ever see a day without cold winds and thick fog, I still bet it's a pretty nice place to live. Plus, you have a front-seat view of the constant war between graffiti artists and the paint that tries to cover their work in vain. I've never seen the seawall devoid of graffiti, but it is constantly changing. There is something to that. Kind of like the sea itself.

Orchids

I don't have a green thumb. Some might even call it black. The longest living plant I've ever had was a basil plant in college, and I suspect it lasted so long because we . . . kept buying new ones. I only trust myself with cactus, now, and even then I wouldn't probably buy one for myself. I swear the only reason the cat survives is that she's a good meower, anything that can't scream at me for food and water doesn't have a prayer.

But Evan's grandmother has a greener thumb than mine, and a definite way with orchids, and she asked me to take a few photos of them while they were looking their best when we were over at dinner last week. Evan was kind enough to hold some white paper behind them as I took the photos, hence the white background (which I cleaned up a little in post). Considering that I took these by lamplight I'm actually pretty pleased with the way they turned out.

Oh, and in other news my blog is now on Alltop, a pretty good way to keep up with blogs. You sign up for a subscription (it's free) and then create your own homepage which you populate with your favorite blogs, then check from time to time to see whether there are any new interesting posts. Here's a link to my page, which has all the blogs I subscribe to on it. (I'm not finished choosing blogs to add, so if yours isn't there please don't be sad!) And, you know, I subscribe to my own blog just to see what's happening with me.

Concentration

There's something about the sport of bowling that is a great equalizer. Usually it's the shy, somewhat awkward types who end up being a whiz at the pins, and the charismatic, popular ones who throw a series of gutterballs. I can't bowl to save my life, but while this would bother me about another sport it's somehow not a problem under the fluorescent lights, amid the squeak of rubber on polished wood.

Still, nothing compares to that moment of concentration before the throw. I just loved seeing both these guys, intense, with their orange balls in hand. They both ended up winning their games, as if that's any surprise.

Garage Door

Another shot from day I took the shot of the paint peeling which I used for texture overlay here. There was, in  fact, a handle on that door and so I took this photo because I loved the extreme angle on the shadow.

On the Side of the Piano

The side of this piano was so shiny that it reflected almost perfectly. And then this delightful morsel toddled by and made the perfect picture!

Anatomy of an Image, Week 3

I thought this image of the moon might be an interesting choice for week three.

Mouse over to see the original. You may notice that I . . . ahem. . . . made the moon a bit larger. Well, there's only so far that a 55mm lens reaches, you know?

Let's take a look at the specs first, before we do anything else.
Focal Length: 55mm (shot with my trusty, almost never off-camera 17-55 f/2.8 Canon lens)
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 of a second
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 200
Time of day: Civil Twilight

A Little Bit of Explanation
Ok, so some of you might be scratching your heads right now. The moon comes out at night, right? And night photography in general calls for slow shutter speeds, and high ISOs. I totally agree, but if you're shooting the moon, you have to remember that the moon is a sunlit object, and to get any detail on the face of the moon you need to shoot it as such. In order to get the moon properly exposed I had to underexpose for the ambient light by probably about 4 stops. The sky was actually a light blue in color, and not this deep navy.

I knew I wanted the power lines to sort of frame the face of the moon, and that I didn't want much else getting in the way of the shot.

And With the Help of My Computer . . . 
I used Photoshop to copy only the moon onto another layer and then Edit: transform, scale, to make it a little larger. I held down the shift key as I changed the size of the moon so that the aspect ratio remained the same. I also increased the contrast on the moon itself and made the sky a bit deeper of a blue.

And that's pretty much it. Let me know what you think!