A Stitch in Time – John Muir House
From the Attic of the John Muir House, is a Domestic sewing machine. It is pretty cool to see the simplicity of the old sewing machines compared to their modern counterparts. You can see some of the leaf and flower etchings in the metal. This shot was backlight substantially from the window. I used three exposures to balance it a bit more like what was actually seen, then did some color toning to drive home the antique feel.
Stored Memories – The John Muir House Attic
In the attic of the John Muir house, there is this cool, old baby carriage. This shot was challenging since it was really dark. As you can see there are some harsh shadows from the light bulbs off-frame. Again, this is a 3 exposure HDR image, with the longest being 30 seconds. In PP, I tried to create a very dusty, old feel that was the modern lighting attempted to steal from the scene.
A Refined State
Here’s a creative piece from my trip on the Suisun Bay. I’ll let this one tell its own story as it has had lots of work done to it.
USS Clamp, ARS-33
On our boating adventure in the Suisun Bay, we toured the mothballed fleet, aka the ghost fleet. There is a wide variety of ships and levels of decay. This particular ship is the USS Clamp, which is a Diver-class rescue and salvage ship from WWII. Her fate is to sit next to lots of other vessels indefinitely. This is a three-exposure HDR image taken while on another boat, which was moving while I was trying to be my own steady-cam.
Inside the John Muir House – Piano and Window
Today I was lucky enough to be invited on a photography field trip with the Peninsula Camera Club to go out shooting the mothballed navy ships in Suisun Bay as well as the John Muir house in Martinez, CA. This image is a shot of one of the rooms in the John Muir house looking out to the front. It has a piano and some chairs. Off to the left is a fireplace that my lens was just not wide enough to pick out. I was a bit limited with what I could include in the shots since I can’t get too wide. I will definitely have to visit her again when I get some better gear. Look forward to more shots from the John Muir house as well as some shots of the fleet, including the USS Iowa.
Construction
Back to the construction images. While not quite as nifty-cool as good-ol’ urbex type shooting, this was still pretty fun to do. How do you make something cool to look at with a very plain space. This image is what will become the lunch room / large meeting room. It will look nicer once the wood floors are in I’m sure. 
Dried Thistles
There were lots and lots of dry things on our walk. It is after all, California in the summer. Thistles in general are pretty interesting to look at regardless if they are green or brown. The sun was high overhead which made these pretty challenging to shoot and get the interesting detail out of. This is a three exposure HDR image to bring out some of the detail in the center of the front thistle.
Abandoned Shack II
Here is the other image of the inside of the shack from yesterday. While this one lacks the wonderful junk vs. beauty contrast, it certainly screams junk and abandoned in spades. The right-most window is the same one you saw in yesterday’s image. The early morning light really makes this work. Now that I am home, I would have preferred to see more off to the left of the image than is there. I’ll have to try again one day.
Cherries ‘n Berries
As promised, here are the delicious strawberries. The cherries are an heirloom variety known as Coral Cherries. They are the best cherries I’ve ever had. This was a shot done in my window again for the nice lighting. If anyone wants to, have a moment of silence for this fruit. It was promptly devoured by the kids after I was done shooting.
Airport Sunset II
One more sunset from Saturday’s short excursion. I made my attempt to capture this as I saw it, and it was gorgeous. I wanted a plane in the shot, but I am not sure what I would have done with one since I bet it would have been blurry with the long shutter speeds.
Reaching for the Sun
More from the walk to the farm. This time we have a happy little sunflower with some definite personality. This flower was just begging to be photographed. It was in a challenging location and it was tough to get an angle on it, let alone one where the camera would be still. I love the wide range of colors in this shot.
Crusty Fish
One more fish from the fountain in downtown San Jose. Not much else to say other than this one is rusty, crusty and warty. The composition of this one isn’t quite as strong as yesterday’s but I think it works. I should have time to get out today to get some shots as well as see the 6C competition this afternoon. Maybe one of my prior wins will place! We’ll see.
Closed
This is another image from my stroll around the Embarcadero in San Francisco yesterday. Inside the pier 27 building is a parking garage. Along the north wall is this great row of roller doors. The light coming in from the windows above the door gave everything a nice glow.
This is a three-exposure HDR which has been somewhat desaturated and warmed to setup the contrast between the nice light and old rusty look of the metal.
I have complete title block on this shot. Feel free to suggest something!
Bee Cluster
I didn’t go out shooting today with any intent to photograph more bees. However, this, I could not pass up. While walking through an old orchard, I noticed a large something hanging from a tree. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be hundreds of bees. Perhaps a thousand or more? I probably got about 10 or 15 feet away to take this shot (and a few others). I was a bit nervous to get much closer. At first I thought this was a hive, but when I returned later in the day to get more shots, all of the bees were gone. In reading on this, it looks like the hive had split and this group was looking for a new home.
The close-up detail (while not super-sharp) gives a good perspective on just how crazy the cluster was.
This shot is a single-shot HDR to bring out the details in the cluster. This was taken around noon so the lighting was horrible.
Inside an Old Barn
Barns are wonderful subjects for photography. I was curious if it was true on the inside as well. While it is cool to be inside an old barn, without a wide-angle lens, it is much more difficult to get good shots. This barn had a leaky roof and it had recently been raining so everything was wet inside. I have had these shots for some time and never posted them. I think it’s about time.
This last shot is processed to simulate the moonlight. I wasn’t a huge fan of it in color. The blue tones give this an eerie feeling that I really like.
First Church of Christ, Scientist
The Historical Landmark Commission of San Jose is holding the first “Historical San Jose” photography contest to celebrate Historic Preservation month in May. I’ve been taking photos of various buildings in the downtown area which I will be posting soon. I am not sure if these will be judged from an artistic or documentary perspective so I’ll try several varieties and submit the three shots I like most.
This shot is of the Fist Church of Christ, Scientist which was built around 1904 or 1905 (depending on where you look). It is in poor shape and fenced off. It has a great dome at the top that looked wonderful in the evening light. This particular shot is a hand-held HDR shot to bring out the weathered detail.
Morning at Sanborn Park in Santa Cruz Mountains
Today I took the kids out into Sanborn Park in the Santa Cruz mountains. The redwood forest is always a spectacular place to visit. This was my first time in this particular area. Below is small collection of photos from the morning, starting with the log cabin type hostel.
I love the look of this building. The fact that moss grows absolutely everywhere out here adds tons of character to everything. It was a challenge to capture things with just the right amount of light since the most mossy structures were also in the shade. This collection is comprised of both single-shot and HDR images to bring out the looks I was going for. With most of my HDR images, I prefer the more natural look.
Towering Redwood Trees
Creek outlet under path
Mossy Stairs
Creek in Sanborn Park
Creek in Sanborn Park
The first image I used for the Daily Shoot assignment: #ds103 – Novelty can help goose creativity. Go somewhere today you’ve never been, even just a different street, and make a photo.
Silicon Valley Medical Center – Daily Shoot 76
#ds76 “Get up close and personal with a building today. Make a photo of an architectural detail.”
The detail here didn’t look great too close, but with the glass and reflections, I thought the architecture really worked here.
Rusted Bolt in Old Mossy Fence
This HDR image is composed of 3 exposures. My goal here was to keep it very natural looking. There are slight bumps in saturation to bring out the grass, which is actually very green on-site. I’m very pleased with the results. The amount of detail in the wood and the growth on the fence is very sharp. This was taken at the same location as my previous photo, Old Barn, off of Casa Loma Rd. near Morgan Hill. Click through to see the detail on SmugMug.
Sun Behind Pigeon Point Lighthouse
From the same photo-walk as Sunrise Captured by Fog and Tree we stopped off at Pigeon Point Lighthouse since that is someplace every photographer must visit once. This is an HDR image composed of three shots (+2, 0, -2). I did some split-tone tweaking on this one to give it a bit of an aged look.
I like the detail in the glass at the top of the tower. The photographer in the bottom right of this shot is my friend Jonathon Jenkins.
Sunrise Captured by Fog and Tree
In Woodside, CA on a photo-walk with some friends, we caught a great sunrise that was enhanced by some trees and fog. I wanted to try my hand at a few different HDR shots and this one seemed to fit nicely. I have been working on-and-off with this image for awhile , trying to find the right balance the 6 images used and the Lightroom recipe to get it how I liked it. Tricky areas on this shot were in the tree branches and the grass.
I really like the color range in this shot which is pretty natural. Other than a slight bump in saturation and a tiny nudge in temperature, there isn’t anything fancy going on here. There is quite a bit of detail on this image and it is worth looking at larger.
Since HDR is still quite new to me, (not to mention trying to be more serious about Photography in general) I’d love to hear how this shot could be improved further.
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