Culver City Car Show

The annual car show in Culver City is always fun. These people are very serious about their cars. They always have a huge turnout and people come from near and far to show off their custom work. I wasn’t overly impressed with the shots I got here last year. This time I tried to make a point of getting different angles and also looking for detail shots. As great as some of these cars are, it’s no  good to just document them. I think there may be a fish eye in my future and I can’t wait to use it here next year.

 

Long Beach Aquarium

I was surprised by the challenge with focus in this place. It was fairly dim so I cranked up the ISO and opened up the 50mm all the way. Plus, everything is moving all the time, so if something happens to be in focus, it’s not in focus for long. Had to throw away a lot of images, but I did come away with a few that I’m happy with. This first one is probably my favorite. As far as processing goes, I used a few filters from onOne Photo Tools and also NIK Color Efex Pro. I gotta say, that’s one very cooperative seal!

There is no end of things to learn about photography.  I happened to come across a video of the great Sam Abell talking about some of his favorite images and the lessons his father taught him about photography. One of the things that stuck with me was, “Compose… and wait”. I’m not the most patient person, but I’ve been trying to keep that in mind. In this one, I framed up these two aquarium visitors and waited for something to happen. Sure enough, a very cooperative otter appeared on the scene.

Anchovies anyone?

This guy almost ended up on the cutting room floor because I wasn’t happy with the focus. I played around with it and decided to give it a reprieve.

I don’t crop much into a square format, but I thought it worked well on this one. Oh, another lesson. Shoot LOTS of frames. Especially in a dimly lit environment.

 

 

L.A. City Hall

I was on my way to the Griffith Observatory this morning just to scout a new location and I hit massive traffic. 6:30 am… and I hit massive traffic. So, I careened off the freeway and headed to downtown instead. I’d been meaning to look around the DWP building there and so I thought I’d give that a go. It was a little late in the morning and I didn’t expect to get much. I dragged my camera along anyway, just in case. On my stroll I came across this sculpture which perfectly frames L.A. City Hall.

Time Out

Another shot from Easter weekend with the Nikon 70-300mm. This is Kim taking a break during volleyball. I spent about an hour just sitting on the porch and snapping away and I got a few decent shots. I really like the pose and the look on her face in this one. As far as processing goes, I got the vintage look using Color Match with a heavy vignette in Photoshop and then adding Topaz’s Color Exposure Stretch filter. The filter created a lot more contrast and drama in the image.

Sunset in Suburbia

Had a little Easter get-together with our neighbors yesterday and I took my 70-300mm for some people shots. As the sun was going down it was casting a nice glow on these trees next door, so I went up on the second floor balcony to see what I could see. I really like the bokeh created by this lens. It created some nice diffuse abstract shapes in the background. I didn’t do a lot to the image but I used just a touch of several filters… from Topaz, onOne Photo Tools and even a touch of Glamor Glow from NIK’s Color Efex Pro. I tried to remember those art lessons from long ago… “Less is More” and “Keep it Simple, Stupid”. It wasn’t easy to resist my tendency to go off the deep end.