I didn’t take a lot of pictures on vacation last week. All the running around for gigs and meals and stuff was pretty hectic, and half the time I didn’t even bring my camera. I did, however, spend good quality beach time in the early mornings. The beach was right across the street, and I was out there around 8am each morning running, taking photos, drinking iced tea, and mellowing out. So this is what the beach in Cayucos, CA looks like…foggy in the mornings:

Good waves pretty much all of the time. I was up before the surfers. Cool to see dolphins in the water fairly frequently.

Here’s a shot of the beach looking back towards town:

This rock had all kinds of things living on it, including a pair of colorful starfish. No starfish pics, though…out of batteries!

Really large barnacles:

A 3-inch crab:

These anemone things were everywhere:

Finally, one last look at the big rock by the 8th street public access:

I’m at home in CT for the holiday this weekend. Just having some fun taking closeups of insects and spiders in the yard.  I used the built-in flash on these shots in order to hand hold at very small apertures.  Up this close, the depth of field becomes very shallow, so the small aperture compensates.  I really need a set of extension tubes.  I’ve got +1, +2, and +4 close-up filters stacked on my Pentax FA 77/1.9 lens for most of these shots…a bit optically unsound, but I think the images came out all right.

Yellow Crab Spider Eating Fly

This spider was on the same lily the next day even though all but one of the petals had fallen off overnight:

Yellow Crab Spider Waiting For Next Meal

Tiny Spider On Daylily

Tiny Bee On Day Flower

Bumble Bee On Lysimachia clethroides

This dragonfly was hard to get close to, but kept on returning to its favorite spot on the deck:

Dragonfly On Deck

Usually, dragonflies are difficult to approach.  I think this one was sleeping. I spent a good fifteen minutes photographing it within three inches before it started to buzz its wings. Then it wiped its face and took off before I could get another shot:

Dragonfly On Yew

Look at the water droplet on its fly in the previous picture. This detail shows the droplet magnifying the eye lenses:

By the way, this was a very large dragonfly. Perhaps the largest I’ve seen around here. Very dragonly.

Dragonfly Wing

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of photographing saxophonist Kris Jensen for an upcoming project. Kris has been a friend and mentor since my days at Hartt; super talented, generous, and always a source of musical inspiration.

Please check out his music at:
http://www.myspace.com/krisjenseneklektik

Hey, guess what?  There are black swans!  According to the Wikipedia article, Cygnus atratus are from Australia.  I took these pictures of one in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.

I poked around Wikipedia for something interesting.  Black Swan Pas de Deux is from the third scene of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake.  "In ballet, a pas de deux (French, step/dance for two) is a duet in which ballet steps are performed together."  Well, I thought that was relevant because these two swans were mirroring each other’s actions for a while.  You can see in two of the pictures below, but they were synchronized preening for several minutes.  Who knew it was a pas de deux?

The black one was hanging out at the boat ramp as Jen and I walked around the lake.  We were told its mate had been eaten by a coyote.  How sad!

Kind of shy, but seemed to appreciate the company.  The white one swam over while I was taking pictures.

Of course, I couldn’t resist making LOL SWANS!  Haha…

I made my first pinhole lens! Very crudely, I might add. All I did was tape aluminum foil over the lens mount on my digital SLR and poked a tiny, tiny hole in the center with the tip of a pin.

Pinhole lenses usually require long exposure times because they let so little light into the camera. Since it was night time and there wasn’t much ambient light to play with, I ended up taking pictures directly into the interior of compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). There was enough light to take hand-held photos an inch or less away from the bulb.

Here’s a little collage (blue tint added for fun):

We were Blue Men last night for Halloween. What a messy procedure. They are lucky they are just born that way.

Strike a pose.

Freaky on the subway, even for Halloween

We went to a Halloween party at the Magnet Theater. Some of our friends were there, including…

Britney Spears!

Baker Smurf, a long lost relative.

Painter’s tape + Photoshop = endless party

I finally got around to developing three rolls of film that were up to a year and a half old. I picked them up today and this was the photo I liked best:

Jen in Fort Tryon Park
Ilford HP5, 24mm

I also tried having the lab scan to CD for the first time. It cost me $15 per roll for processing and CD output. The CD was full of 6 megapixel (2992 x 2000) 24-bit JPEG files just under a megabyte in size per image. It was hard to judge the quality of the scans given that my film had gotten old and quite grainy. I’ll try it again sometime on fresh color film and see how that looks. These are no substitute for high quality scans to print from, but for reference and web use, they’re all right. They also came with a small square index print for each roll, which was a convenient reference.

Anyway, this photo illustrates the technique of using a wide angle lens from a low perspective to accentuate legginess, not that she needs it!

I took this picture on Saturday in Fort Tryon Park overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades Cliffs. While I usually don’t get caught up in the cliché of cloud pictures and sunset shots, I thought this streaky contrail with the sun in its python’s belly was rather stunning. With the sky so overcast, there really was no other indication that the sun was out at all. You can never capture these scenes quite right in a photograph. This exposure offers a satisfactory hint.

Pentax*ist DS2, 50mm, F8.0, 1/180

Here are a couple photos I found while rummaging through my hard drive. I have so many photos to sort through it’s ridiculous. However, trees make me happy so I thought I’d share these.

Pentax*ist DS2, 50mm, F2.0, 1/250

Pentax*ist DS2, 24mm, F2.4, 1/60

It’s not often that you get past a security checkpoint with a Kermit the Frog invitation, but that’s exactly how Jen and I got to her retired co-worker’s Macy’s parade balloon inflation party. He lives right on the corner of 81st Street and Central Park West, one of the streets where they fill the balloons with ludicrous amounts of helium the night before the parade. Naturally, I took some pictures…

I don’t know if there’s an acceptable way to describe this.

I heart Super Grover.

Kermit the Frog has apparently been retired in favor of this commercial monstrosity!

Sponge Bob from the window(Natural History Museum in background.)

Moving on to Thursday… Our fine Thanksgiving dinner was preceded by a lovely Scrabble game between myself, my mom, and Jen. The game was noteworthy because we played tiles diagonally for the full length of the board! I’ve never seen that before.

It says, “Aoaoalhmcfjrwbw!”

I won even though Jen cheated…

No, she didn’t. It was just a funny picture. Anyway, dinner was gooooood! Then for dessert we had our traditional pumpkin and mincemeat pies. My mom carved a “turkey” in the center of the mincemeat pie. I thought it looked more like Archaeopteryx. That’s how much of a nerd I am. I had to resort to the Internet to explain. What do you think?

Pie Turkey vs. Archaeopteryx

Then we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I finally finished reading. I can’t believe the next movie isn’t out til July and they’re already showing the freakin’ trailer for it! I hate that.Now it’s late and we’re watching The Great Race with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk. Well, I’m blogging and Jen’s fast asleep on the couch under a woven blankety thing.