Huntington Beach Pier at the Golden Hour

Canon 7D, Raw, f/14.0, 1/40, ISO 100, EF-S 17-55mm, 33mm

I have been working on senior portraits for a very fantastic young lady from Edison High School here in Huntington Beach. We finished up the other day down at the pier. We met about 4:30 and this is probably around 5:30. I will share some with you when I am finished with them. My goal was to take a photo of the pier to replace the one at the top of this weblog. I am tired of seeing that man in the red trunks. He doesn’t even look good! This one did not work for that. Willie and I will be going again soon. I didn’t have to do much to this photo. I took it into Camera Raw and upped the exposure just a little. Then in Photoshop, I increased the contrast. That’s about it. Since I used a low ISO (100), there was no grain so no need to deal with that. I used a small aperture (f/14.0) so I wouldn’t have to worry about the range of focus – meaning I wanted the whole image in focus and not just one point.  I try to take care of things in the camera. If it is not in focus, you cannot make it focus on the computer. You can do a lot of other things, but you need to get your focus right. Until the next image…

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Santa Monica, CA Pier

Canon 7D, Raw, EF-S17-55mm, 55mm, f/14.0, 1/125, ISO 125, Nik

Well, here it is August 1. I have been neglectful of my blog and Willie is angry with me. I am going to try to redeem myself. To my followers, I apologize. Anyway, I participated in the 3rd Annual Scott Kelby PhotoWalk last Saturday. We were in Santa Monica for a couple of hours and I took a lot of photos. Here is the famous Santa Monica Pier as seen in many movies and TV shows.  I used my Nik Silver Efex software to convert to black and white and then I added a slight vignette. It is a very colorful photo, but I liked the black and white better. It was a gorgeous day there so I will add a few more so you can see the colors of the pier, the sky and the water. Here are the other photos if you want to see them all. Until tomorrow…

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A Cure for June Gloom

It was definitely a gloomy day today here in Huntington Beach! I decided to go through the photos from our most recent drive up the coast and came across this one from near Santa Barbara. Isn’t is gorgeous? Seeing all of the bright and vibrant colors made me feel better. I hope you like it and it makes you feel good where ever you are! As you can tell, it was taken at low tide and I love how clear the water is.

Algae must make those rocks look orange under the water…

Since we got a little rain today, I didn’t take either dog anywhere. I did speak with a trainer on the phone today and told her about my frustration with Donnan. She was very nice and helpful. We did agree that a group class might be good for him to be around other dogs. I told her we would probably be kicked out! She said no, that would not happen. She gave me some ideas and a few things to try out. I think we need to be more diligent and consistent than we have been. But I think I really already knew that!

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