Great Sand Dunes

Here's one of my favorite photos. It was taken at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument back in 2002.

Sky on Fire

No photography this weekend. I spend the whole weekend packing boxes and cleaning up to get ready to move to Colorado. As I was sitting down to rest on Saturday evening, I saw this beautiful sunset happening outside. This shot is taken from the balcony.

Sunset at Folsom Lake

I went hiking around Folsom lake this evening. I think fall is on the way as it was quite chilly. I'm going to freeze this winter back in Colorado :p

As I was walking, a couple of dogs chased a flock of geese into the air. I quickly snapped my camera up, and hoping that they would cross between me and the sunset, I got ready to capture them.

Long necks

Today, while walking along the American River near where I live, a came across a bunch of birds with weird looking necks and heads all strung out on a cable going across the river. I couldn't get a good shot of them, but perhaps this will allow someone to identify them for me.

Off Balance

Here's fun shot of the American River Bridge. I've taken a lot of shots of this bridge (I really like the repeating arches). I like this shot, but I suspect that a square format photo would work better (not a crop - I don't want to lose the left edge).

Sunrise at the Lake

One morning, while driving over the Old Folsom Bridge, I noticed how cool the American River Bridge looked as the morning sun reflected off of the bridge onto the flat surface of Lake Natoma. So, I got up early this morning to catch the first rays of the sun.

I cropped this shot, and added some diffuse glow to try and capture the mood. I don't know if I did - what do you think?

Edit for emphasis

Here's a picture I took of Golden Gate Bridge. It's a bit of an abstact shot. I really like the texture of, and the quality of the light falling on the post in the foreground. I didn't include it in the original SmugMug gallery because it I didn't feel that it worked. In the original shot, the background was too bright - way too much of a distraction. So, I played around with various techniques to darken the background.

By the way, as with all the current pictures, if you click on the picture, it'll bring up the real picture in SmugMug.

Muir Woods

I visited Muir Woods yesterday for a bit of sight seeing and hiking.  I wore my flip-flops while driving there and planned to change into hiking shoes.  However, I forgot my socks!  I did the hiking anyway.  I wouldn't recommend it - my feet were not happy after a day of hiking.

The Muir Woods are a very challenging place to shoot pictures at.  The contrast is very high, the ground is cluttered, its a very chaotic environment.  I found that the best shots used silhouettes.  Here's one example.  It's not purely silhouette-y, but close.  I think it gives a good sense of how dense this grove of young redwoods is.