Category: Outdoor

Clear Skies Hosted on Zooomr

After a few days of rain and some early morning fog, the sky cleared and today was beautiful. I drove out to Dillon Beach and took this along the way.  There were clouds just inland, but right along the coast was clear. I used a graduated filter for this shot, which really made the sky look blue. The rock formation is probably pretty familiar to anyone who has driven out to Dillon Beach; it’s very distinctive and a popular spot to stop and view Point Reyes. I like curving paths in the field and the deep green grass. I did minor contrast adjustments in Picasa.

I had taken a few shots of some clouds over a sheep ranch on the way to the beach using the same filter, but a barking dog and cars distracted me. I forgot to orient the filter for portrait, so the gradient went right to left instead of top to bottom, which was quite noticeable. I’ll put that shot on my picasa web site tomorrow and update this post.

There is a higher resolution photo and geotag on zooomr. In the satellite view on Google Maps, you can see the rocks in the photo quite clearly.

White Rounder Hosted on Zooomr

A horizontal shot, finally. I actually took this a couple of days ago, but as I said last time, I’m playing a bit of catch up. I drove out to Tomales at lunch (which seems to be my favorite photo destination so far) to find something new to shoot. I found a barn that I’ve driven by a hundred times. I’ve noticed it before, but it never really attracted my attention. today the light coming through the fog was just right, or at least better than I recalled from the hundreds of other trips I’ve made past this barn. This is one of a few cool, old barns on this farm, which appears to be abandoned. I didn’t climb any fences on this day, but I would like to walk around the farm to get more shots. I like old farms, they alway seem like good subjects to shoot. I’d actually like to do a series of photos of old barns. There are many wonderful, old farm buildings in the area.
On this day the sun was at the right angle to illuminate the front of the barn, and give nice contrast. The broken fog in the sky was nice also. I did a little contrast adjustments in Picasa. I also published a few other shots I took this day to my Picasa web album. For this shot I used my polarizing filter, but in the web album there is a similar shot that didn’t have any filters. You can see the difference. The filter really helps.
My bandwidth on Zooomr seems to have reset, so I can upload there again. This shot is geotagged so you can see the location.

I also have to mention my photographic blunder. Today the Queen Mary 2 was coming into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge. My wife took the camera, which I said was set to auto. Well, I hadn’t set it to auto, so it was on manual and she trusted what I said. I wish I had a shot she took to post, but due to my misdirection, none of her shots turned out. Sorry honey.

So, it’s hardly been a photo a day this week. I did go out a couple of days at lunch and take some pictures, but haven’t had time to get them online.

This one was taken near Bloomfield, CA. I haven’t uploaded to Zooomr because my bandwidth is running out. I’m not sure how much Zooomr gives over what period of time, but I didn’t want to run out. Maybe I’ll create my own geotag map so
I don’t have to worry about it.  I may start uploading more of the photos I take and linking to them from this blog.  I have some space with Picasa’s web albums that I might as well use. The main image will remain on the blog.
Anyway, I used a polarizing filter on this and did some contrast adjustment in Picasa. The weather has been nice, but hazy and this day was foggy, thus the white sky. I again tried some horizontal shots, but like the vertical ones better. With the good weather, I should be out more taking pictures.

I’ve been listening to the photography.ca podcast. It’s pretty cool, and they have samples of stuff they talk about on their blog so you can see the photos. It’s seems to be ‘fine art’ oriented, which is very different from what I do, so it’s a nice contrast for me. Some of the pictures are pretty cool. Check it out.

I have more photos from this week to post, so maybe I’ll catch up this weekend.

Footings Hosted on Zooomr

I took this a couple of days ago, but haven’t had time to post it yet. An potential opportunity came up that I needed to prep for, so I had to push the blog to the back burner. Also had some school meetings in the evenings, and so on.

Anyway, this is near Tomales, CA. You can see the exact location on Zooomr. If you zoom in and view the satillite images you can see the footings. I think these are footings from an old railroad bridge, but am not certain. I used a polarizing filter, which really helped bring out the colors. It was kinda hazy the day I took this and I didn’t think the sky would actually come out blue. I took about a dozen shots, some landscape, some portrait. I seem to be favoring portait orientation in this blog, so maybe I’ll have to force myself to take a lot of landscaped oriented photos.
It’s getting harder to find stuff to take pictures of, so I guess I’m going to have to be a little more creative. I’ve scoped out a couple of locations and structures I want to shoot, but haven’t had time. If the rain breaks a little, maybe I’ll go shoot some today.

Circles Hosted on Zooomr

I spent a night at Indian Springs in Calistoga. I figured I’d take a lot of pictures, but didn’t. Spent most of my time lounging by the pool. The weather was great, pool was hot. January in California. Enough said.

This was in an empty lot between the resort and town, which is about a three minute walk, two if you go through the empty lot. It was early morning, so the sun was casting shadows from the rocks. The curves looked cool. It’s not really circles, but a maze. Zen garden? I don’t know the exact term, but it looks cool. I converted it to b/w in Picasa and adjusted the brightness and contrast a little.

See zooomr for the exact location. Google’s satellite images aren’t up-to-date, I expect this rock maze is temporary and won’t show up ever, but you can see the pool at Indian Springs. Calistoga is cool little town. Very scenic, lots of old buildings. Maybe someday I’ll go back and take more shots.

Oaks Hosted on Zooomr

This is another shot in Helen Putnam Regional Park. Our entire family went for a nice walk through the park. There are a lot of old oak trees in the park. I need to research outdoor photography to see if I can improve my shots of these beautiful trees. See a larger version on zooomr.
I took this yesterday, but didn’t have time to post it, and won’t have time to post a shot for today. I should be able to make it up tomorrow. I expect to take a lot of pictures today and tomorrow.

25 Sky

This was taken near Dillon Beach, CA. Something about the way the sign looked against the sky caught my eye. I tried to bring out the clouds in Photoshop, but I must admit I’m pretty much a novice at photo editing. I know enough to be dangerous, but don’t understand a lot of the image adjustments. This came out alright.

See it on zooomr.

Edited 2/10/2015 to change image to Flickr