Vasquez Rocks

February 16, 2011

This past weekend my friend Sarah, along with her husband and daughters, visited Vasquez Rocks. Vasquez Rocks Park is located in Agua Dulce off the 14 freeway in the middle of nowhere. The park is off a tiny two lane street and surrounded on all sides by ranches and horse property. We arrived just before the park opened at 8am which turned out to be the perfect time. When we first started out there was only one other car in the parking lot. The light at that time was still beautiful, although I would have preferred to get there during the Golden Hour (before the park opened). I decided to use a circular polarizing filter on my lens to really bring out the blues in the sky and add some contrast. While Sarah’s husband took the kids off to explore, Sarah and I set off on our own to take photos. The area where the rocks are is surprisingly small, you would think these rocks would be popping up everywhere but they were only limited to a tiny section of land. Despite it’s small size, the park has a lot to offer. Many people brought their horses and dogs to go out on the trails. You can also climb the famous rock that, according to the website, has been used in Start Trek, Blazing Saddles, Austin Powers and more. We ended up staying for a couple hours, by the time we decided to leave the park was getting really busy. Vasquez Rocks is a great place for photos and hiking, just make sure you get there early in the morning.

Sarah borrowed my camera and took this photo.

To see more photos from our trip to Vasquez Rocks check out our Zenfolio gallery HERE.

Filed Under General · Leave a Comment  

Maxx

February 12, 2010

I want to take a moment to formally introduce the newest member of our family, Maxx. We recently adopted Maxx from the same rescue we adopted Pearl from. Why did we decide to get another dog? Honestly I’m still not sure, I somehow got talked into it. The back story is that when we went to go see Pearl back in November at her foster house we had a multitude of dogs greet us at the door. One of them was Maxx, a three year old male Malamute/Shepherd. He ended up gravitating toward Bryan because he liked a good butt scratch. When it was time to decide if we wanted to get Pearl, Bryan turned to me and asked “What about Maxx?” to which I replied “I came here for Pearl.” Since getting a dog was supposed to be my Christmas present last year Bryan let me get Pearl and she has been a pleasure to have. About three weeks ago Bryan asked me if Maxx was still up for adoption, after checking Coastal German Shepherd Rescues website I told him that Maxx was still available. That’s when Bryan told me that he was still really interested in Maxx and would love to bring him into our home. Initially I tried to talk him out of it, I know people with multiple large dogs and I know it’s a challenge but Bryan made a very good case for getting Maxx and so later that week we brought him into our home.
 
Pearl instantly fell in love with him although he didn’t quite feel the same way about her. Mostly he ignores her while she tries to jump on top of him. But they nonetheless make a good looking pair, I have received many compliments while out for walks with both of them. You heard that right, little five foot tall me can handle both of them at the same time. I feel like a rock star. Although I can not say Maxx does not have his issues; he has chewed our blinds, he gets really excited when he sees other dogs and can’t be trusted off the leash at a dog park. I found out after adopting him that Malamutes are a very difficult breed to train and I pretty much experience that fact every day. I have never had much patience in my life and Maxx is teaching me how to have a lot of it. This goes to show that Cesar Millan is probably right when he says “You don’t always get the dog you want but you will get the dog you need.”

Filed Under General · Leave a Comment  

Picture of the Week 12-17-09

December 17, 2009

As I was walking my dog around the Tustin Sports Park I noticed a few of the trees which inspired this week’s photo. Although fall is almost over there were still a few trees that still retained their brilliant autumn colors. I chose to shoot in the late afternoon which provided me with very warm light. I also tried to do auto exposure bracketing on all my shots but it was actually very windy when I was photographing. The photo below is an HDR image and as you can see the trees in the background didn’t line up perfectly when I put the images through Photomatix. I still love how the oranges, yellows and reds blend together and it reminds me that my favorite season of the year is coming to a close.

For more non-HDR shots of the fall foliage check out the GALLERY.

fallleaves010
Photo Info: Shot with the 5D Mark II and made up of three images. Image 1– ISO 800 at F8 and 1/500 of a second. Image 2– ISO 800 at F8 and 1/1000 of a second. Image 3– ISO 800 at F8 and 1/250 of a second.

Filed Under General, Photography Techniques · Leave a Comment  

Pearl

December 4, 2009

I haven’t posted anything recently for a couple reasons, one is that we haven’t been taking many pictures lately and the other is a bit more unfortunate. About three weeks ago we lost our family dog. She had gone from seemingly perfect health to her death bed in a matter of a week. Mimi wasn’t even really our dog, but she had been living with us for about 4 months. Despite her short time with us her loss was very hard to take. Before Mimi, Bryan and I had never owned a dog, we were fish people. Mimi was a ray of sunshine in our life and after her passing we realized that we could never go back to being just fish people, we were dog people. As a way to distract myself from the constant pain of thinking about Mimi, I browsed around the internet for dogs. I came across a site that rescues German Shepherds and that’s where I found her. Pearl, that is, a white German Shepherd. We recently adopted this beautiful dog and she has been amazing. I didn’t bond with Pearl the way I bonded with Mimi at first, but then again Mimi set the bar pretty high. Pearl has got her own weird personality with all the random quirks that you grow to love. Nonetheless she is our own perfect gem.

IMG_9692fixed

IMG_9713

Filed Under General · 1 Comment  

Picture of the Week 10-26-2009

October 26, 2009

This week’s picture is yet another HDR image done in Photomatix. I shot this with a rented Canon 50D in Mission Hills during the Trail of Torment. While I was waiting at the finish line for the runners I noticed the beautiful foliage around me and the perfect golden lighting that the early morning sunrise was providing. I thought  it would make for a perfect HDR image. The great thing about the 50D is it’s ability to shoot in high speed continious mode. Because I almost never use a tripod my HDR shots usually don’t line up right when I put them into Photomatix because I always shoot hand held. With the 50D in high speed continious this was not a problem, the burst was so fast it was like the wind didn’t have any time to rustle through the leaves.

IMG_1272_0_1

Photo Info: This photo was made up of three images and shot with the Canon 50D. Image #1– ISO 400, F7.1 at 1/640 of a second. Image #2– ISO 400, F7.1 at 1/1250 of a second. Image #3– ISO 400, F7.1 at 1/320 of a second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under General, Photography Techniques · Leave a Comment  

Gallery Search Tips

October 6, 2009

If you are reading this it is because you want more tips on searching the gallery. The gallery is organized into albums and you can of course navigate to an album and browse through the images. Some albums however have hundreds of images and this become tiresome. You just want your photo so here is how you find it. Click “search” at the top. By default it will search the title, the description and the keywords. Also by default it will match only images which contain all the words you search on. This is great for most searches. However sometimes you need to change things up.

For instance let’s say your bib number is 2009. Well a keyword on all events from 2009 is (yes you guessed it) 2009. However the number is not in the title of the image so you can search on only the title to find your photo.

Occasionally you may also want to change the operator from “AND” to “OR” to be more inclusive and find images containing any of the words you type. I can’t think of an example at this moment but you might want to do it.

Lastly, experiment. If you can’t find what you are looking for just experiment. As a final resort you can email me at bryan@shezphoto.com and I will search the actual image archive for the photo you are looking for.

Good searching!

Filed Under General · 1 Comment  

« Previous Page — Next Page »