Dragonfly

This picture was taken on the same day as this picture of a drop of water, and this other picture of a drop of water. I was in the Imperial Palace gardens shooting for a good part of the morning on an extended business trip to Tokyo in October 2007. This dragonfly was just hanging out on this hedge and didn't seem to mind that I was following, watching, and shooting him. It was really cool. He was really big!

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Yet another water drop

You might think that I'm obsessed with water droplets, what with that other two shots of water drops that I've uploaded to the photo blog. Yes, you're right. But I couldn't help myself with my macro lens. It really does make it so easy to get up close to clearly see things like a drop of water. Anyway, the depth of field and the focus is the hardest part, of course. If you don't have a steady hand...which I don't...then it could make taking shots really hard.

Anyway, this time this photo was taken in Tokyo. It wasn't in a very peaceful place at all. It was along the side of the road on my way to the Imperial Palace...where I took this shot. It had rained the night before and despite the throng of pedestrians and the rumbling of traffic behind me, I was able to snap this shot. I promise this will be my last water droplet shot for a while...until the next time, right? This shot happens to be my background on my work laptop.

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Swirling water

Our family was in Evansville, Indiana visiting family for the holidays. While we were there we happened upon their really cool children's museum. They had a whirlpool where you could throw in these plastic blue balls and watch them swirl around and around.

This shot was taken without a tripod trying to catch a bit of motion. So it's not incredibly sharp, but it will have to do.

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Sunset at the Beach

This is a pretty simple shot taken at Ocean Park, between Santa Monica and Venice beaches. Nothing really more to add to the shot other than I think it was one of the more peaceful and serene sunsets I had seen in a while. The shadowed, black palm trees offer a nice contrast with the multi-colored sky in the background. This view just screams Southern California to me.

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Another drop of water

So, I love taking macro shots, but this one frustrates me. I like what I'm TRYING to do, but I think my execution is still lacking. I can't get the focusing quite right and so I'll shoot 100 shots and each shot can't quite get the droplet of water in perfect focus. So I have to do some digital manipulation, which is what I did here. It's fine.

But to say something positive about this shot, it's amazing to me that water has as much form as it does. I'm so used to seeing it go anywhere and everywhere, but it's cool to see it nestled on a leaf.

This shot was taken at The Getty Museum. This place is seriously one of my favorite spots in LA. Not only is it the site of my first date with Shelley, but it just has all you could ask for in a museum - great art, cool architecture, beautiful views of the city, and nice landscaped gardens.

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The Santa Monica Ferris Wheel

This is a shot that I've wanted to take for a long, long time. The last time I tried to take it, I brought my camera and my big tripod - only to find that I forgot the flash memory for my camera. Stupid! This time I made sure not to miss out.

The shot is rather easy to take - point and shoot and keep the lens open long enough to capture a long rotation of the ferris wheel. In this shot I left it open for about 10 seconds.

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Green apple

When I come to Japan on business, I get to stay at The Peninsula Hotel, an upscale hotel that just opened up in Tokyo in September. One of the great aspects about the service at this hotel is that the staff brings to your room two servings of a really great fruit each and every day. If you don't eat it, they bring in new fruit. I've had huge grapes, kiwi fruit, clementines, Japanese pears, etc. Over the weekend they brought me a couple of green apples, which became the subject of this picture.

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A drop of water

I actually took this shot today. I'm on an extended business trip to Japan and had the entire day free on Saturday. I lugged all of my photographic equipment all the way to Japan for just such an occassion.

It has rained the night before I took this shot and that meant plenty of opportunities to take pictures of leaves with little beads of water on them. I've never successfully shot one, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one. maybe it's the closest one I've taken to being remotely shaprly in-focus. This was taken inside the public gardens of the Imperial Palace. I took a lot of time looking for shots - nearly two hours. I had my iPod on and I tuned out the world while taking pictures. A very good day.

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Indian Bricks

This is just a shot of a pile of bricks at a roadside stop in India between New Delhi and Agra. I had just arrived in India the night before with my business school class and we had a day of leisure before we started our company visits. Talk about overstimulation! We couldn't keep our eyes off of the road...and I guess it's ironic that of all the pictures I took on the road to the Taj Mahal, the one that interests me most isn't shots of camels walking on the road or snake charmers...but a plain old pile of bricks.

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Shibuya at Night

I was in Japan a few weeks ago and I spent some time after work one night in the Shibuya area of Tokyo. Shibuya is known for being the hang out for the young. This shot is taking from Hachiko Square, near the main exit to the train and subway lines and the main entry point into the shops, restaurants and other nightlife of Shibuya.

The picture taken below is a panorama compiled from four individual shots I took with my Nikon. I then stitched the photos together using a really nice piece of free software called, Autostitch. All you need to do is take a number of pictures in succession with some overlapping scenes and then drop them into the program and after a while a panorama will appear.

Over the next few months, I will be spending a lot more time in Japan for work. I am taking my camera each time so that I can take more panoramas of places like the Imperial Palace and the Ginza area, etc.

A shot like this really needs to be seen in a much larger size. Download the full photograph by clicking on the image below.

A Butterfly, Up Close and Personal

So, another macro shot while we're on the subject. Shelley and I spent a long weekend in Utah. We were visiting with her grandparents and we spent the morning up at Payson Lakes in the mountains in southern Utah County. Tons of wild flowers, bees, butterflies and other insects. This little guy didn't seem to mind having a macro lens focusing in his face. He was more interested in the flower itself. I'm amazed at the level of detail. You think you have a good view of what a butterfly looks like until you see its nose and weird eyes and the long tongue.

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Translucent Red Leaf

I recently purchased a new macro lens, which allows me to get really close to my subject and take pictures. This is used for things like bugs, flowers, that sort of thing. Last weekend, I was able to use it for the first time while visiting Santa Rosa, California. My entire family was there to celebrate my Grandmother's 90th birthday. After the celebration, we took the kids to a park and I found a tree with dark leaves that glowed red in the sunlight. This is where I snapped this shot.

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Panic! in Seattle

This is the first shot I've taken this year that I thought I would throw up on the photo blog. It's quickly growing on me. At the time when I took it I didn't like it. But I'm in this colorizing phase where I'll take turn my color photos into black an white and then selectively add color to various sections of the photo...such as the red lettering above Pike's Market in Seattle.

The colored letters spell "panic" not for any other reason than I could do it easily with the available letters. That, and I really like the song Panic, by The Smiths. In case you're interested, Pete Yorn does a great cover of the song on his "Live at the Roxy" album. But I digress.

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