Kimberly Crest House

The Kimberly Crest House is a beautiful old french style chateau. The gardens were very lovely and I wish I would have spent some more time photographing the grounds. Here were two photos I played around with in Photoshop.
.
Original Photo

Old Canvas

Vintage Glow

Original Photo

Water Color

Fields of Sunflowers

There are so many sunflowers blooming right now on the hills behind our house. I found the perfect sunflower patch last week and had to get out there and snap some photos. Thanks Bethany for lending me your daughters. Amanda and Noami did a great job!



ISO 200 shot at 1/200 sec. @ f8 with a modified"Vindauga Vintage" action


ISO 200 shot at 1/200 sec. @ f8




ISO 200 1/160 sec. @ f6.3 with "Toy Camera" action




Same picture as above without the action


ISO 200 1/100 sec. @f5.3


ISO 200 1/200 sec. @f8


ISO 200 1/200 sec. @f10


ISO 200 1/200 sec. @f7


ISO 200 1/125 sec. f5.6

Iso 200 1/200 sec. f8

ISO 200 1/200 sec. @f8

ISO 200 1/200 sec. @f8

Wildflowers

I really love hiking somewhere with lots of wildflowers, here a couple of my flower pics from our hike up Lytle Creek. All these photos were shot in Auto Mode with my Nikon D-80.

.


.

.

These were my favorites, they looked like miniature daisies.

.

These were definitely the strangest....they were some sort of weird fuzz-ball thing. My friend Niccole said, "They look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book". She was right. (Our group of hikers are in the background.)

Photoshop Actions

I love playing with Photoshop Actions. Here are two of the sites I get free Actions.
.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?s=5&from=1&o=desc&cat=190&l=-1&event=productHome&exc=16
.
http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm
.
Today I downloaded some new Actions. Here is my original Photo.

.
Gavin's Soft Action

.
Hollywood Effect Action


Aly's Black & Color

Huntington Gardens

Yesterday I made it back to Huntington Botanical Gardens. I was very anxious to check out the new Chinese Garden. The noon day sun was brutal. Most of what I shot ended up with combinations of harsh shadows and blown out sun areas. Here are a couple of the shots that turned out o.k.

.

.

There we lots of beautiful white granite bridges (All hand carved). The "fish bridge" was my favorite.

I also spent time in the Japanese Garden (photo below). The weeping willow behind the wooden bridge is one my favorite trees on the entire grounds.

I had to do so much tweeking to the photos because of the bright spots and shadows that I'm not listing Metadata this time.

Its Getting Hot Outside

Yesterday I went to Disneyland with my son, Jared. He searched out every possible place there was to get wet. Watching him run through all the fountains reminded me of a book I made for a Digital Photography class I took.

The Book Cover

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Jenelle & Charley

During the Easter break I got a chance to take some "mommy/daughter" photos for my sister-in-law Jenelle. Shaunna (another sister-in-law) came along too. We had a great time trying to get Charley to smile.

ISO 400 1/200sec @ f9

Iso 400 1/200sec @f7 and Aly's Simply Vintage (Photoshop Action)

ISO 400 1/200sec @f8 and Aly's Black & Color (Photoshop Action)

ISO 400 1/200sec @f10

A Day at the Zoo

Yesterday I had the intention of spending an afternoon shooting at the Huntington Garden, unfortunately I ended up at the LA Zoo instead (it was a distant second choice, but due to the huge crowds at the gardens I wasn't able to get in).
.
ISO 400 1/320 sec @ f5.6

.
ISO 400 1/400 sec @ f5.6

Always Shoot in RAW!

During the Christmas break I bought Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. Here's an image I played around with the other day. Unfortunately I didn't shoot this image in RAW and the white balance isn't right. Does anyone know how to adjust the white balance for a JPEG image?

Image shot in Studio with Strobe Lights.

Playing with shutter speed at the Grotto

I love to play around with shutter speed and water. This waterfall drops into an enclosed cavern, it was so dark I had to use a very slow shutter speed and tripod, but I love the way a slow shutter speed makes the water seem so majestic.

ISO 400, 0.3/sec @ f4.8


ISO 400 0.3/sec @f3.5


My compare and contrast photo. This is a faster shutter speed with the flash. The flash lights the foreground, but it shows how dark the cavern really is.
ISO 400 1/60sec @ f3.5 w/flash

Huntington Peir Sunset

I love taking beach pictures. This is the Huntington Peir during a misty sunset.

New Photography Resolutions

So...I started a blog, but then stopped doing any photography. I'm starting a new photography resoultion...Take More Photos! Stayed tuned...

OK, OK....I'll make a blog.

Now that school is out I've had time to finally start a blog (I'm making baby steps toward a website - really small ones). This semester I took a Wedding Photography class and a Studio Lighting class. It was just what I needed to get me "out there" and start doing some real work. Thanks to everyone who consented to be my guinea pigs.

Here are some of my favorite images.