California
Thursday Morning in Old Sacramento The Background My latest video project started out as a way to take advantage of an opportunity. Over the past few months I’ve had to travel to downtown Sacramento, CA every two weeks. Not knowing the city very well, I started arriving early to explore a bit, and found myself spending a lot of time …
Stanley Lambchop was smashed flat in the night by a bulletin board that fell on him while he slept. But the newly-minted Flat Stanley takes advantage of his new shape, and goes on to have many adventures. That’s the premise of the book Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure!, and the basis of countless second grade class projects intended to help …
So there we were, slowly making our way up the switchbacks towards the ridge overlooking Silver Lake in the Sierra Nevada. All in a line: human, dog, dog, human. Tramp, tramp, tramp. Little puffs of dust with each step. Gee, I thought, the poor dogs are right there at foot-level, eating all the dust. I wonder what hiking is like …
My latest video project is a quick montage of video clips and photos I shot while on a camping trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains with my good buddy Dakota and dog Jasper. As is often the case in the Sierra Nevada in late summer, we were hammered by a series of thunderstorms that kept us reading in our tents and playing chess in the truck. While I only had one clear sunset over the course of a few days, there was usually some time during the day we could get out and about, and we tried to make the most of it.
While it’s easy to think about putting your camera away when a storm rolls in, that’s often the best time to capture dramatic light, and potentially make dramatic photos.
I had Raychel lean against the open barn door, with beautiful late afternoon light streaming in from the left. Snap, snap, snap. Then showed her the back of the camera. “Oooo . . . I like your camera.” “Yeah. It’s not the camera, honey – it’s you.” Raychel is one of those really sweet, really bubbly, really fun people …
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve probably already seen the video project I posted on Vimeo: Mokelumne Escape. I wanted to post a little behind-the-scenes info about how and why I created the video. If you’ve seen the video, read on or re-watch it; if you haven’t, check it out! In reality, this project began as an …
As 2011 wraps up, I wanted to share a few of my favorite nature and landscape photos of the year, all from California. Half Moon Bay During a trip to Half Moon Bay, the clouds defeated me for sunrise, so I walked out to Pillar Point to create a more moody image, taking advantage of the kelp that had washed …
My cousin Wei-Lin has never had professional photos taken with her family. (Even at her wedding: their photographer didn’t show up, and they had to make do with friends’ and family’s snapshots. Yikes.) So when she asked if I would take some family pictures of her with her husband Justin and son Jaydon, I jumped at the chance. Wei-Lin likes …
During the holidays, people everywhere put up lights and decorations. Yet there are still regional differences that can make the displays unique. Take the habit of Arizonans dressing up their cacti. The folks in Half Moon Bay, California, don’t have any cacti, but they do having fishing boats. And down at Pillar Point Harbor, there’s a tradition of stringing lights …
October has arrived, and the fall leaves are starting to turn color here in California. (Yes, we have fall color in California.) I found the first sign of fall recently while walking through the redwoods in Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, near Half Moon Bay, CA. It was just a single leaf of a bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) lying …
This month’s photo gallery features pictures from the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. The Sierra Nevada stretches over 400 miles, and is covered by a continuous line of national forests and parks, making it an outdoor recreation paradise. Not too bad for photos, either. Can’t see the slideshow because Flash isn’t supported? View the original gallery here »
There’s a photographer’s adage that you should always have a camera with you, because you never know what unexpected excitement you might stumble into when you’re out and about. This is even easier to do if the unexpected excitement is next door. The brush fire in my neighbor’s yard, for example. It started when part of a power line shorted …
This month’s gallery features photos of the Northern California coast, north of the Bay Area.
Spring is finally here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada here in California; the birds singing, the hills are green, and the wildflowers are blooming. The foothills have three basic ecological zones: chaparral, oak woodlands, and pine/oak forest. These wildflowers are from the oak woodland area.
I’ve added a new batch of photos to my galleries, featuring pictures of dogs, Half Moon Bay (CA), and some miscellaneous images. Dogs I had the chance to photograph our dogs in a variety of locations, including the Sierra Nevada, the beach near Half Moon Bay, and in our backyard during a surprise snow storm this winter. The beach and …
I’ve added a bunch of new photos to the website, including a pictures from trip to the tattoo shop, nature & landscape images, and, of course, pictures of dogs. A trip to the tattoo shop A big shout out to Justin Shaw of Faith Tattoo in Santa Rosa, CA, who let me photograph him at work creating a tattoo. My …
The wild mushroom season here in Northern California is picking up, so I thought mushrooms would be a good theme for this month’s photo gallery.
Wine grape leaf in the fall, Sonoma County, California Autumn is coming, and often overlooked locations for great fall color are vineyards, especially in the California wine country. This photo of an autumn wine vineyard is from Sonoma County, California. (Please note that vineyards are private property. If you don’t have permission from the vineyard owner to be on their …