So the other day I was inspired to just grab the camera and go. No in particular reason. Just a an urge to shoot. No plan, no idea, nothing.. I saw a sign from the bus that said Historic Railroad District of Santa Rosa, Ca.,a cup of Coffee at A'Roma Roasters grabbed the walking map, and went to town. I was hoping to capture the essence of the area, but I was pretty much stumped when I got there. The Round Barn was really cool and inspiring, however; the shots that I got weren't anything I liked. I plan to go back there when there are some nice clouds in the sky, and change my angle a little bit. Then Sappington (our digital photography teacher) the following Monday states what I learned over the weekend: "you should be shooting a location more then once". Made perfect sense. I've always had that idea about "I'm going to go back and shoot that place again", but I never get around to it. This time I'm ready to return and see what I can come up with.

I ended up at Luther Burbank Garden across from Juliard Park in down town Santa Rosa shooting the fountain there. Here are the shots from there.

So this is the waterfall just before sunset. I felt the sun going down, then all of a sudden the stars seemed to align, and the lighting conditions were just perfect. Nice warm afternoon tones, a little breeze.. I think the weather really prompted me to notice the moment, and the way the light was coming of off everything. It was the first time that I was hit with this feeling and had my Camera. I actually felt that I was in the "zone" of an artistic burst.


People generally tell you to not listen to music but just sit and be a part of your environment, to take it all in, and observe what is going on with the light or the scene our trying to photograph. I didn't do any of that. I was just walking through the garden looking at flowers (or lack there of) when it happened.

This type of day helped re-enforce "time of day" shooting. Early mornings are going to look way different then late afternoons. Just the same as sunny days are going to be completely different from cloudy days.

So I guess the moral of the story is shoot shoot shoot no matter what time of day. If you get the urge to shoot. Then go Shoot!! Right now.. Go Shoot (or finish this installment first :D)!!

There is a common theme in my photographs lately, and I've noticed that I'm shooting into the sun a lot. Rule of thumb is to have the sun at your back whenever your out photographing. At least use it to the left of the right of your subject, but I'm drawn to shoot directly at it. Stopping down the lens to f/22 and going to town. Getting a nice lens flair, burst, and contrast between high lights and shadows.

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Alright so the story goes like the:


I intended to share my Vegas, Utah, Vegas, Oklahoma, and Reno trip with you guys the whole way, but it turns out my friends laptop didn't have any type of Photoshop or Light room to process images. I'm not saying I needed to process any images, but I didn't want to let you guys down with "snap shots" of the trip. So I fought and fought my urge to even post one of the images. My energy level was down at the end of each day (or night in Vegas), and going through 100+ pictures just before bed wasn't going to happen straight up.

There was tons of fun to be had, I took my camera everywhere, but really didn't shoot as much as I had anticipated. Over the course of 2 weeks I only came back with about 657 pictures on the memory card. I broke that down and that would have been 47 pictures a day. However; I didn't use my Nikon D80 everyday like I should have, but when you go to Vegas with 6 other people that don't shoot photography it can become a real hassle for them to wait around while you try and get the shot. I didn't wanna feel rushed when I was out shooting, so I wouldn't stop at all, and told my self that I would go back for the shot if the opportunity presented it's self.

I primarily shot some skateboarding photographs with my buddy Zach Lewis from Vertical Smile, some landscapes of the Hoover Dam, a few shots of Pine Mountain and Snow Valley (which doesn't actually get any snow at all by the way) Utah, and a few more skateboarding shots in Oklahoma.

I bet your wondering "where are the pictures?".. Well I've only been back for a total of 3.5 days now, and have been busy with getting back into the flow of school. Also there is a Fashion Show coming up for the SRJC which I'm trying to recruit other Photographers to join me at the sides of the stage for "Cat Walk" photography. Give the fashion show a glint and glamour feel with flashes going off from all angles (which is going to be bad ass).

As a constellation however I took this picture of the Church that was in that old school movie The Birds just before I left. You'll notice that I added a fake "lens flare" to give it a little more punch, some sharpening for the ground, and a bit up saturation to help the grass pop a little bit.

I'll get the pictures from the trip up over the next 2 weeks. I just need to get back into the swing of things.

Thanks for stopping by!!

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