Photo 365 - Day 346 (Rocks and Trees)

Day 346 (June 14th, 2011)
Title: Rocks and Trees

I'm down to my last 3 days, I've got 20 photos to post, I've only got my "point and shoot" camera, and it's a 106 miles to Chicago. (Opps, sorry, channeled a little Blues Brothers there...)  I'm going to try my best!


Today: Rocks and Trees while walking around Colorado.

Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 339 (Green Walk)

Day 339 (June 7th, 2011)
Title: Green Walk

One of the nice things about Colorado, are its sidewalks - they are surrounded by green (trees, grass, and flowers).  Perhaps this is more of a Boulder thing, but so far I quite like it.  I wish more side walks were like this in San Francisco / Oakland. 

Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 337 (Green and Blue)

Day 337 (June 5th, 2011)
Title: Green and Blue

While walking around Colorado, I was certainly missing my Pacific Ocean and all of the water, but I do have to say, I love looking at all of the green hills and blue sky! (Yeah, I know San Francisco has blue sky too, but you can't always see it because of the fog!)

Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 332 (Tree Blur)

Day 332 (May 31th, 2011)
Title: Tree Blur

What they say is true, if you are always running you never get a chance to stop and "smell the roses".  But, if you are driving, you can at lease take pictures of blurry trees and look at them later.  Heck, if you are lucky you can even tell people you were trying to make them blurry for the "artistic value" of it and use it in a blog.

Still, I like them, blurry or not! 

Enjoy!

Artist of the Day - Day 16 - Bob Ross

Bob Ross; Happy little painter. 

Bob Ross was happy.  His trees were happy.  His mountains were happy.  His ponds were happy.  His squirrels were frickin’ ecstatic!  I loved watching Bob Ross, because there could have been a nuclear war going on and he would have said: “Now, you want your mushroom cloud to just flow from the brush.  Just push that radiation out those bristles.  Now you’ve got a happy cloud.  Next we are going to make some happy fallout.” 

In 30 minutes Bob could paint you a masterpiece, convince you that YOU could paint it too, and still have time to remind you how happy he and everything else in the entire universe was.  All kidding aside, he really was a great artist and person.  I say he was great, not so much for his work specifically, but because he motivated so many people to just get out there and try painting (or any other art).  He was also a great humanitarian, he did not charge the PBS network one cent for any of his shows (he made his zillions on the videotapes and art supplies) and he also donated each painting he did on TV to a PBS station so they could sell it and raise funds.  Even today, if I see Joy of Painting on the TV Guide, I’ll flip over to it to see some happy trees. 

And remember: “We don't have mistakes here, we just have happy accidents, sniffing paint thinner.”  (slightly modified quote from Bob Ross).

 

Wikipedia
Bob Ross.com

Photo 365 - Day 146 (Streets of San Francisco - Divisadero Street)

Day 146 (November 25th, 2010)
Title: Streets of San Francisco - Divisadero Street

During the holiday break, we visited the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  After being stunned by the Japanese woodblock prints, we decided that a crazy-expensive pizza was the best way to follow it up.  We decided to head to the Marina District and to get there, you've got to go, up, up, up!  At the top of the hill I quickly scrambled to get my camera and snap this shot of us about to plunge down Divisadero!  Okay, it was more of a "relaxing zoom" rather than a plunge, but either way it was fun!

Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 97 (City of Smoke and Fire)

Day 97 (October 8th, 2010)
Title: City of Smoke and Fire

We were driving around Santa Cruz along the beach enjoying the night air, when I decided to pull out the Canon and take a few shots.  I wasn't really trying to shoot anything particular or even get a good shot, but sometimes when you get home and look at the photos you shoot, you are surprised at what you get.  This shot is of West Cliff Drive, at around 10pm without any lights.  I was using my fixed 50mm lens at f/1.4 to try and get as much light as possible, but it was still taking 1/2 a second or more to fire.

I called this shot "City of Smoke and Fire" because the blurred lights from the houses look kind of like fire and the "smoke" is actually the trees.  Its ironic to me, because when I look at the photo I imagine a scene out of a "Blade Runner" type movie (or something very Cyberpunk), but in reality its all of these nice houses surrounded by trees right near the ocean. 


Whoever said "Photographs capture reality" clearly didn't play around with their camera enough. 


Enjoy!

 

(Click picture for larger view)

Photo 365 - Day 82 (Tall Tree)

Day 82 (September 24th, 2010)
Title: Tall Tree

I'm finally not sick anymore!  I know I was out of commission for awhile there, but I'm hoping to get back on track! 

This photo is from the Codornices Park in Berkeley CA (near the Berkeley Rose Garden).  I was a nice picnic day, and we decided to do a little walking.  These giant trees were kind enough to provide us some cool shade, so I promised them I'd get them on the Internet!  

F/10.0
1/200
27mm

Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 26 (De Plane!)

Day 26 (July 29th, 2010)
Title: De Plane

I saw this plane flying over the treetops in our "backyard" (not really a backyard, just a forest that's behind our house) and I thought it contrasted nicely with the tree branches.  More fun with forced Depth of Field (DoF)!  Notice some of the "front" branches and the plane are in focus and the "background" trees are out-of-focus.  No idea how I did that, but its neat!