chillin’ at crissy…
Well, here’s another Golden Gate Bridge photo! This time, we are pulling back a bit from the bridge to capture the full bridge span, some of the Marin headlands, San Francisco Bay, and the beach flora at Crissy Field/Park. Wow! That’s a lot of stuff! I love how the beach flora unexpectedly takes center stage in a Bridge shot. :-) Why be ordinary? ;-) Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the rich beach colors and brilliant blue sky as much as I did in person!
Of course, taken with the Canon Powershot G12 with a wide-angle lens attached (it seriously was the only way to get that whole darn bridge in a picture!). Contrast touched-up in Photoshop CS5.
Stay tuned for more of California through my eyes and lens!
windmills of your mind…
…a great song by Sting. 
So, this photo. Modernized Holland? Nope! Presque Isle State Park on Lake Erie! Who would’ve thunk it? 
So, I was relaxing in the sand when I noticed the windmill (wind direction/speed monitoring thingie?) behind me. Naturally, I grabbed my camera. Thus began my mission to get a stinkin’ photo of the thing without the blades blurring! I can’t even begin to express how many photos of this darn windmill I took!!! Luckily, I was satisfied with the minimal blur in this one and fortunately, it also had what I felt to be the most pleasing angle for the windmill jutting into the photo.
Taken with the G7. Obviously. Contrast fixed in Photoshop.
Enjoy. I hope it…”blows”…you away.
“…Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning
Running rings around the moonLike a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it’s face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind…”
small sandy stonehenge…part 2
Ok, ok…I know: its about time I posted Part 2 of Small Sandy Stonehenge! So, here it is. Taken at Presque Isle State Park in Erie, PA. Gorgeous beach. Lovely daytrip with my mom. Enjoy the photo. Short & sweet.
Taken with the Canon G7. Contrast fixed in Photoshop CS3.
small sandy stonehenge…part 1
Its an itty-bitty Stonehenge! A small, sandy stonescape!
Over the summer, my mom and I took a girls’ Saturday day-trip up to Erie to chill out on the beach at Presque Isle. What a lovely day! Towards the end of the day, my overly-relaxed brain apparently regressed to that of a 3-year-old and I built a tiny Stonehenge in the sand. Then my brain snapped back to photog-mode and I realized that, heck, my small and sandy Stonehenge looked pretty neat up close! Thus, this picture was born.
Of course, it was taken with the Canon G7. Slight sepia tone and contrast fiddling were done in Adobe Photoshop CS5 (yes, you read that correctly…I now have the immense pleasure of using CS5!!).
Stayed tuned for the second part of this itty-bitty Stonehenge series!
P.S.A. Time (and, no, I don’t mean “prostate-specific antigen”): TIME TO GET YOUR FLU SHOT, PEOPLE! I GOT MINE TODAY…NOW GO GET YOURS!
footprints in the sand…
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?”The Lord replied,
“The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.”“Footprints in the Sand”, by Mary Stevenson
I took this picture up at Lake Erie during the Great Mom/Daughter Saturday Trip of 2010. We were walking along the water’s edge when I saw these 2 lone footprints in the sand. No prints leading up to them, no prints extending from them. It instantly reminded me of the poem above. The prints looked oh-so-human, but their isolation on the sand had a slightly divine quality. Besides, the setting sun had cast the loveliest light upon them, so I simply couldn’t resist snapping the shot. Obviously, taken with the Canon G7. Small contrast adjustments made with Photoshop CS3 to bring out the depth of the prints.
Enjoy…and stay tuned!
solo soccer…
Fourth photo in the people series! Este niño jugó fútbol en la arena del campo de juegos, acerca la playa del Puerto Morelos.
Okay, sometimes I just feel the urge to write descriptions of the photos I’ve taken in Mexico in Spanish. C’mon! Its fun!! Anyhoo, for those who think that previous sentence is all Greek to them: “This young boy was playing soccer in the sand of the playground near Puerto Morelos’ beach.”
No, I wasn’t being creepy and watching this kid playing soccer and taking photos. In fact, my sister and I were enjoying the seesaw that was more or less right behind where I was standing to take the picture. Has anyone tried, as an adult, to get on a seesaw? We couldn’t do it! We’d try to keep the thing at a height so we could both get on, but, wow! A lot harder when you’re 3 feet and an undisclosed number of pounds larger than when you first learned to mount that contraption. Anyways, I was taking photos of the brightly painted playground and the kid got in my way. Then I figured, heck, he might be the superstar of the FIFA World Cup in a decade or so, so I’ll take his picture now! Actually, I wish that was what I was thinking. The fact of the matter is, the kid got in my way when I was taking pictures and when I finally looked at them on the computer, they looked nice with a live human in them. Thus, Niño Boy was not cropped into oblivion. Kind of creepy that you can just make people disappear *poof* with the modern photography. Gotta love it, especially when you’re taking a great group shot of your friends at a restaurant and there is inevitably the jerk that has to crash the photo behind the group. Be gone, Photo Dude. *Poof* You’re no longer in existence.
The photo was taken with my Canon Powershot G7. Processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3 to fix the contrast that so easily gets out of whack in bright Mexican sun and to mute the colors a little for the feeling that I seem to apparently be trying to evoke with this photo series. What is that feeling? Emotion. Nostalgia. Innocence. Slight surreality. Take your pick.
playing on the “playa”…
Second in my series of people photography!! Now, I know I said that the Mexico series was done with, but, surprise! More Puerto Morelos pics! Were these strategically saved for this series or did I just forget to put them with the other series? You’ll never know. Anyhoo, its fun to photograph kids doing their kid-ly things. They always seem so completely absorbed in what they are doing and bring such a fun, carefree-because-they-don’t-have-bills-to-pay feeling to the photo. I find that looking at pictures like this always makes me remember how much I liked to do (blank) when I was (blank) years old, long before medical school sort of owned my soul.
So, this boy and girl were playing in the sand on the shore by the Puerto Morelos pier in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. They are in front of the original lighthouse that was transformed into the Leaning Lighthouse of Puerto by Hurricane Wilma. Since it’s more or less non-functional now, there is a new lighthouse a bit further back from the shore. It is much taller and, personally, if I were a sailor, I’d be glad Wilma killed the old short lighthouse so that I could guide myself home with the more modern upgraded model.
The photo was taken with the Canon Powershot G7. I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to adjust the contrast a bit and to bring out the slightly sepia tones in the picture to help create a more nostalgic feel and to highlight the angle of the sun.
hasta luego, mexico…
Well, I do believe that this is the last photo I’ll be posting from Mexico…time to move on (until it is the dark, cold, middle of winter and I find it imperative to post something warm and sunny). This photo is a shot of Playa Norte’s crystal clear water at sunset (hence the yummy pink cast on the sand!). Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres, Mexico is such a gorgeous place–truly what comes to my mind when I picture a tropical paradise. I hope you have enjoyed traveling to Mexico with me through my photos. Stay tuned!
Why, of course it was taken with the Canon Powershot G7. Contrast was fixed using Adobe Photoshop CS3.
radiance…
Alright. I’m not going to say much about this photo, except that it is one of my favorite shots from my trip to Mexico this summer. It was sunrise at our hotel (Ocean Coral and Turquesa) and the sheer serenity of the world in front of me was breathtaking. Luckily, the (amazing) Canon G7 has a fun little feature that lets you select only one color in your photo to show through the black and white. Well, I found the perfect shade of sunrise and photographed away!!! This shot is pretty much straight from the camera!!! Only needed a smidge of contrast fixing. I recommend using this picture for a 5 minute mental vacation…it definitely works for me!! Enjoy and bon voyage!!
tequila sunrise…
This seaside sunrise panoramic was the fruit of my efforts to arise before sunrise after a week of fun in the sun in Mexico (no small feat, especially when bedtime was 2am!!! Darn DeGrassi reruns in Mexico that hooked my entire family!!). I can’t truly convey with words how tranquil and silent the sunrise was…no vacationers on the beach yet, no playing in the pool…just the sun, sea, and the lapping waves. Simply stunning.
This photo was taken at the beach of the Ocean Coral and Turquesa Resort in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. I merged two sequential photos into one panoramic image using Adobe Photoshop CS3. The panel was originally 7 photos long, but that caused a large curvature in the image…plus one of the images contained a gentleman strolling the beach in a Speedo, with all his glory bathed in morning rays. Yup. The panorama was reduced to the two panels that I thought came the closest to doing the sunrise justice. Obviously, taken with the Canon Powershot G7. Contrast and color saturation enhanced in Photoshop to make the photos look as much like the original sunrise as possible!! Enjoy!!
on a distant sandy shore…
Ahhh…yes. You can almost hear the gentle waves lapping on the sand. The beach in front of our resort (Ocean Coral and Turquesa) was simply gorgeous. The only bad thing about the beach was that the red flag was flying everyday…i.e. swim at your own risk. I came, I swam, I learned why the flag was red. There was…stuff…in the water. The bits of seaweed? Nah, I could look past those. The biting, stinging things in the seaweed? OUCH. Lets just say that I don’t particularly enjoy the simultaneous feelings of fire and tiny knives in my legs. Naturally, this was a very unfortunate situation for this self-proclaimed beach bum/water baby. This was precisely the reason for repeat treks to the idyllic waters of Isla Mujeres. No problems there, other than it being so gorgeous that I never wanted to leave.
Water complaints aside, the beach was still beautiful. The palapas provided ample shade and the chaise lounges were oh-so-comfy. It pays to upgrade to VIP status at this place. Did I mention that this stretch of beach was completely reserved for VIP guests only? Oh, I didn’t? It was heaven. The beach was the perfect setting for water-gazing, people watching, and sunrise photography. So, stay tuned for more photos of my trip to Mexico!
Almost forgot! Taken with the handy-dandy Canon Powershot G7. But you already guessed that, didn’t you? I used the awesome color-select setting on the camera to capture a bit of the sand color to add some interest to the black and white. Contrast fixed and enhanced using a touch of pseudo-HDR in the Dynamic-Photo HDR program.
colorful cemetery…
Death never looked so…colorful! People are just dying to get into this place! Ok, ok, I rest my case. This cemetery was undoubtedly one seriously full house and had a lot of…character. And there’s nothing quite like a massive set of transformers to top off a cemetery skyline!
Just posting this picture since I was describing this place so much in the previous post. The picture isn’t particularly pretty, but the place sure is unique, so I figured I’d share…until you’re able to visit it yourself!
Taken with the G7. Duh.
On distant shores…
This photograph was taken during a lovely trip to Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania last May. The slight glow of early sunset was truly gorgeous as it cast a rosy hue across the island…and I just had to capture it! I used an Olympus Stylus 820 digital camera and color balanced the photo in Adobe Photoshop CS3. Additionally, the image is an HDR (high dynamic range) image. If you have a free summer day, get thee to Erie!!
It seems a little ERIE…
This picture was taken at Presque Isle State Park on Lake Erie. The sunsets viewed from Lake Erie’s shore are rather well-known for being nothing short of stunning. The photograph was taken using an Olympus Stylus 820 digital camera.
Beauty and the Beach
This shot was taken on a beach of Lake Erie in Presque Isle State Park, Erie, Pennsylvania. Can you find the sailboat (hint: look at the horizon and zoom in)? It was taken using an Olympus Stylus 820 digital camera. The digital image was then processed in Photoshop to adjust color and contrast levels, apply a slight “glow” to the edges, and finally processed with Dynamic HDR software into an HDR image. Isn’t Erie simply gorgeous?
Tulum, HDR style!
This is the HDR version of a previously posted picture (yay alliteration!). For more information regarding HDR, please read the immediately previous post. For the original image of the Tulum cliff-scape, just scroll down the page. It is important to note that this is pseudo-HDR, produced from the original 8-bit image. This is what causes the slight graininess that is most noticeable in the sky. However, it is an excellent example of how HDRi enhances colors and detail while suppressing shadows. Enjoy!
Photographer’s note: I will be visiting Mexico once more this summer, so stay tuned for more great Tulum and Playa del Carmen shots in mid-July!
Tulum, Mexico
This image was taken while “misbehaving” in Tulum, Mexico. There is a rope near the edge of the cliff so that happy-go-lucky tourists don’t accidentally walk off the edge, because dead tourists don’t bring in much revenue. Crawling under the rope and dangling a leg over the edge of the cliff so as to support myself (think tripod) on a rock below, I took this shot with a plain ol’ 35mm camera and 400ISO film. The negative was then digitally scanned and the colors balanced using Adobe Photoshop.
*Photographer’s note: Tulum is an absolutely amazingly beautiful place! I highly recommend that anyone visiting Mexico venture out to the site to view the ruins and breathtaking vistas.
Under the Boardwalk, Myrtle Beach, SC
