Landmarks Landmarks

Scenes from Boston

I've been wanting to visit Boston since I did my sixth grade state project on Massachusetts. Yes, that was a while ago.

I love travel and I love history - and, of course, photography too. All of those things came together in a great way for our week-long visit to Boston. Historically, it's at the top for most important places in the birth of our country. The Freedom Trail makes it easy to find the very spots where critical moments in the forming of the U.S. took place.

We saw Paul Revere's House, the graves of many founding fathers, the site of the Boston Massacre, and the tavern where ideas for the American Revolution were hatched. We also visited Harvard, MIT, Salem, and the JFK Presidential Museum. And for good measure, we took in a Sox game. Boston is a very impressive place and made for a fun week. Enjoy the photos.

Everything was shot with my Sony RX100.

[pp_gallery id="4502" style-id="25f4114b-afe4-404e-ab39-388becd8a964"]

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Marshall's Beach, San Francisco

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith my mom living in Daly City, I usually make several trips a year to the Bay Area. When I do, I always intend to bring my camera and try to make at least one cool picture I can be proud of. When Donna comes along, my mom and her are usually pretty good sports as they sit in the car and read while I work on my art. I've wanted to make a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge at Marshall's Beach for a while and figured this last trip would be my chance.Of the four days we were there, there was only one day where the fog didn't roll in during the evening. Luckily, we timed it right. What I didn't know, was how long a hike it is from the parking lot to the beach. It's probably just a mile or two, but it's pretty steep and rugged. Coming back in the dark was a little tricky.But in the end, I got the shot I was hoping for. Good enough to not have to try it again anyway.

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Autumn in Yosemite

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast year I made a fall trip to Yosemite to start a series of photo pages for The Fresno Bee on capturing images through the iPhone Instagram app. This year I came up to do a fall feature on Yosemite again, but this time I decided to bring out the big cameras - My Canon 5D Mark II's. In fact, it really didn't start out as a Fresno Bee assignment at all. I even went on my day off and spent all day up there - something I never get to do when I'm on deadline. My buddy - fellow pro photographer Gary Kazanjian - and I have been entertaining the idea of doing a workshop for photo students in Yosemite. So we thought it would be good to go up and scout out locations and build up a library of images that potential students can look at and decide if they want to try to learn some of our techniques.

In the end I did make a few photos for a Bee photo page on fall color, but one of my favorite photos of the day was more of a Yosemite icon moment. We got to a spot on the Merced River and waited just as the sun was dipping below the cliffs when it lit up El Capitan with a golden glow. I had planted my tripod in the very shallow water of the river and Gary had suggested I try an HDR image. I had never done it before and wasn't keen on what I had seen from others doing it. But I gave it a try anyway. I exposed several images - a few over exposed and a few under exposed at different shutter speeds. I imported those frames into Photoshop and ran it through the HDR process. What came up was way too extreme. It was what I was used to seeing from other photographers. So I tweaked it a little bit - brought back some hard shadows and let some of the highlights go brighter. Then I was pretty happy with what I ended up with and glad I gave HDR a shot.

This iconic Yosemite in Autumn image is one that I am selling as a print or canvas. So if you are interested in purchasing, please contact me through my contact page. Thanks!

Autumn in Yosemite fall scene

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Cityscapes: Downtown Los Angeles

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] had never been to Dodger Stadium and as a Giants fan, I thought it would be a great to finally check it out in the middle of the pennant race between the two rivals. I dropped in to visit my son, Randy, who is attending school in LA so it worked out as a good father-son get-together too. I was very impressed with Dodger Stadium - it is really quite amazing, especially since it's older than me. But then again, it's no AT&T Park either. I was equally impressed with the view of the downtown Los Angeles city skyline from the parking lot. I was glad I brought along my camera so that I could make a couple of long exposure night shots after the game.The game didn't end quite as well as I had hoped. The Giants couldn't muster much in the way of hitting from the middle of their lineup and that Zack Greinke was just too much for us. I did still enjoy seeing the game and visiting my son but it was also cool to take a little souvenir back too - that evening shot of LA.We were parked right next to the edge of the cliff where we had a great view of the city so while everyone else was stuck in a unmoving line of traffic, I set up my Canon 5D, tripod and cable release. In between 2 minute exposures, I was asked to take photos of folks walking by with their cell phones. Apparently I wasn't the only one caught with the impressive view.

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ClovisFest

After 15 years as a resident of Clovis, I thought it was finally time to see the balloon launch for ClovisFest in 2014.I can't  believe I've missed doing this for so long. I've been to the kick-off event (for The Bee) which is done with mostly media and only one balloon a day before the real ClovisFest celebration, but that's nothing compared to this. Seeing eight balloons take off with hundreds (thousands?) of people watching was really pretty cool. I guess it was the 6am alarm on a Saturday that kept me from ever doing it. And my kids were never into checking it out either.So since I my schedule had me free in the morning, I thought I would take a run out to the Clovis Rodeo Grounds and finally check it out. It was about as cool as you can imagine. The air was cool and very comfortable in the predawn moments just a day away from fall. As the sun began to peak over the mountains, the balloons began to inflate and catch the warm colored rays of light.  In minutes, the balloons were a flight and hovering above clovis. There were photographers galore out there so it was tough to stay out of people's shots, but it really was a cool event for families.Glad I went.

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Golden Gate Bridge

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] grew up in the Bay Area so I have a particular fondness of many things there, but a big one has to the the Golden Gate Bridge.I love looking at it from lots of different angles - nighttime or daytime. I've even walked across it a few times - once was during the 50th anniversary of the bridge in 1987.So recently I decided to finally take a few nighttime photos of the bridge from the Marin Headlands overlook. I set up my tripod and waited for the sun to set and the lights in the city to take effect while my family waited in the car (we were on a vacation visit - thanks family!). Finally the sky was dark enough to take a few long exposures. I had to hurry because the state park rangers were closing access to that road just after sunset. My favorite image shows a streak of light from a jet about to land at SFO.I managed to hit a couple of other spots along the road. It was tough though because I wasn't the only one with that idea. Dozens of photographers were dotted along the vista parking areas on the road. Someday, I'll have to hit it again because there was one more spot I would love to get.If you are interested in prints from this shoot, go to my contact page and fill out the form. Just select "other" in the drop-down menu and I will get back to you with options and costs. 

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