california
This one is very very dear to my heart. When I made the choice to move up to the Pacific Northwest a few months ago, I knew that I had to pay homage to the Santa Monica Mountains - the mountains that made me ‘me.’
So I figured during my final weeks living in the Santa Monica Mountains, I’d take along a 360˚ VR video camera on the remainder of my hikes and excursions and cut together my gift back to the mountains…
Read MoreSo that was a super fun evening! The one, the only Trey Ratcliff from www.StuckInCustoms.com and TheArcanum.com fame made his Los Angeles stop of his TreyUSA photowalk tour across the U.S. last weekend. There were at least 300 photographers crawling the Santa Monica beach and pier area, all of us learning, laughing, and snapping away.
Read MoreI know I'm still not completely caught up on the Sri Lanka adventure posts, but I've spent the past week in Yosemite National Park and wanted to throw a lil' bit of that paradise your way. Here's an image from Wednesday afternoon in Yosemite Valley, just as the sun began it's descent.
Read MoreSo a few months ago, I got the incredible opportunity to photograph legendary tattoo artist Jun Cha’s new studio in Downtown Los Angeles. It was for his new website so I haven’t been able to share them yet until the site went live. Well, as of this week, it’s now live at MonarcStudios.com. This guy is the real deal. I mean, people fly him out to crazy places like Thailand and Hong Kong to get inked by his gifted hands. If you read this blog, you might remember my post on minimizing reflections in interior photography, and I posted an image to demonstrate the effect. That was from his studio and from this shoot. The studio’s delicate decor is as elegant as the art that Jun permanently adorns his subjects with. Everything from
Read MoreThis is it. This is the one. I’ve found the one! Actually, the one found me! The Samsung NX1. If you’ve been holding out on investing in the mirrorless market because of your trepidations as far as performance as compared to traditional DSLRs, now’s the time to let go. It’s been exactly a year since Samsung invited me into their Imagelogger program, and in that short year, everything changed. I mean everything.
Read MoreAs another year comes to a close and we prepare to spend quality time with the family and friends, I wanted to take a quick short and sweet few seconds to thank every one of you for the support, the warmth, the encouragement, the inspiration, and the all around positive energy you’ve brought into my life over the past 365 days. It’s been truly humbling and everything that has kept me going, encouraging me to get out and make another picture, write another post, keep doing the thing. I can only hope that I’m able to reciprocate even a small part of that. Happy holidays all you beautiful people. Click "read more" to find a couple of my favorites from the past 12 months. They’re high-enough-resolution versions for your desktops and mobile thingies and whatnots.
Read MoreMy first cover came from my 1st first! Huh? So I wrote a bit about my image Pole Position taking 1st in this year’s challenge category in the National Park Service ‘Spirit of the Mountains’ photo contest. Well, apparently they’ve decided to use that image for the cover of the new Winter edition of “Outdoors” magazine, the National Park Service’s quarterly publication covering events and hikes and news for Southern California’s Santa Monica Mountains.
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"Everything You Can Imagine Is Real." -Pablo Picasso * Mmmhmm - This Week's Motivational Kick In The Yahoo! * Design!
I woke up this morning a bit ragged. Today it was much harder to open the eyes, due in no small part to the fact that I was planning on making the drive back from Big Sur to Los Angeles. As I was unzipping my tent and cursing under my breath that I couldn't at least indulge in a cup of coffee on my final morning here due to the fire ban, there comes my aunt, as if on cue, straight out of the bushes at the other end of the campground, holding bright sunny fresh to-go cups of coffee! Boom!
She had made her way into town to come back and make our day! I took it as a sign.
There was no way I was leaving today.
Read Morehe next few days in Big Sur were nothing short of magical. We woke up the following morning, our first in Big Sur, and figured the most logical thing to do would be to hit the beach. And, well, who are we to argue logic? The universe led us down the 3/4 or so mile hiking path from the campsite, through a covered canopy of trees that straddles the Big Sur River, all the way down to the quaint cove that makes up Andrew Molera State Beach. We spent several hours here sunning, swimming, playing, fighting off the seagulls that boldly flew off with half our food, and watching the surfers slowly but surely converge at Molera Point as they anticipated the swells from Hurricane Marie, the category 4 that had hit Baja California earlier that day, to come ashore any moment. And boy did they!
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“A Smooth Sea Never Made A Skillful Sailor.” -English Proverb ** There it is - This Week's Motivational Kick In The Yahoo! ** Ahoy!
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” -Chinese Proverb ** There it is - This Week's Motivational Kick In The Yahoo! ** Move!
“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it, we go nowhere.” -Carl Sagan ** There it is - This Week's Motivational Kick In The Yahoo! ** Dream!
So after the kayak melee in Morro Bay, it was time for Stephen Chiang, the photographer I was assisting, and I to drive up north to San Francisco for the job the next morning. Put two photographers in a car, give them the choice between A. a straight and direct, but boring route, and B. a windy, curvy, 2-hours-longer scenic route through Big Sur, and, well, you can guess which one they’re going to choose 11 times out of 10. So up the curvy Pacific Coast Highway we went, absolutely one of the most beautiful and scenic drives in the country.
Read MoreIt began as a work trip. Well, sort of. I’m finding more and more and more these days I’ll fish for any excuse to leave Los Angeles...just the thought alone gets me excited. So when Stephen Chiang, a photographer friend that I occasionally assist mentioned he needed an assistant for a gig in San Francisco, I jumped at it. When he mentioned it would begin with a night of camping in Morro Bay State Park, and end with 4 nights of camping in Big Sur, that wasn’t just the icing on the cake, that WAS the cake.
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"Learn to be still. When in doubt, do nothing." -White Eagle ** There It Is - This Week’s Monday Kick In The Yahoo! ** Marinate!
As I was standing in Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows a few weeks ago, awaiting the sunset, I was on a sandbar off to the north side of the Tuolumne River east of bridge leading towards Soda Springs. As I stood there framing the shot, I got the elements I liked, and the light was just about to be perfect. The focus of this one was the light dancing upon the top of Cathedral Peak and Unicorn Peak and the trees on the ridgline below it. As the light started to bounce off those treetops and the peaks, I began to snap a few frames. I was delighted.
Read MoreDay 3 of this unplanned impromptu journey into the Eastern Sierras thing was a tough choice. While I was happy with what I got in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows yesterday, now that I knew the lay of the land a bit better, it couldn’t hurt to head back again, which I would have been absolutely HAPPY to do. However, I was also dangerously close to Mono Lake, California, another one on the bucket list, so I had to decide whether to turn this into 2 days of Tuolumne or 1 day of each, Tuolumne and Mono Lake, both of which, in my opinion, would have been WIN! I know, I know, tough decisions…
Read MoreThis is just one of those places. You hear about it, you see pictures of it, you read about it, and if you’re a nature-lover or photographer, or better yet, both, you’d be hot damned if you that’s the one you didn’t get to cross off your bucket-list.
Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.
The mystique around this place runs high. It’s been called a ‘photographers paradise,’ as well as one of ‘the most difficult places to photograph.’ The thing about it is, it’s closed off most of the year.
Read MoreHere are a couple more images from the Summer Solstice sunset in the Santa Monica Mountains last weekend. Perfect for your mobile phone, tablets, and desktop computer wallpaper. Figured I'd throw 'em your way! Just right-click on the image, and choose 'Save Link As' for the 2400px version.
Happy Summer 2014 everyone!
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