Second Quarter

Another three months have zipped by! For the second quarter of the year, I endured days and days and days of rain, a fan-tastic vacation on the east coast, celebrated my nephew's kindergarten graduation, moved into yet another new apartment & started taking a few infrared frames. All in all, not too bad...

First Quarter

Long time, no see.

I kind of can't believe that it has been so long since I have updated anything to my little blog. Time goes by fast sometimes, I guess. Here it is almost the end of March and I haven't posted anything in, wow, over a year? Don't worry. I didn't give up photography. I actually went on NPS 5 back in September 2012 (Volcanos National Park in Hawaii... lavish, right?) and NPS 6 is under discussion ;)

In other news, I have updated my gear a bit since my last post. What was I shooting with, a Nikon D200? At some point I traded in that 'ol D200 for a D300, then reluctantly traded in the D300 for a D5100 and as of last Friday, I am the proud owner of a Nikon D5200. Oh my!

I have started another big, take a picture every day project. I am posting them daily to Facebook, but thought it would be nice to post a few highlights here on the on the 'ol blog, too. The photos below are a few of my favorites from the first quarter of the year.

Happy first day of spring to you! Hope life is treating you well.

NPs 4: Day 7 (June 4)

The final day.

Today we were on the beach first thing in the morning, fueled by starbucks, and ready to capture haystack rock at sunrise. I am happy to finally have "my own" shot of this popular destination.

As the warm morning light disappeared, I switched to my Lensbaby for some abstract-style waves.

And here is one last image from the Oregon Coast!

Thank you so much for taking a look. One more NPS down, many more to go. Where will the next National Park vacation be?

NPS 4: Day 6 (June 3)

Is there anything more magnificent than Bandon at sunset? Yes... Bandon at Sunrise!!! We were there right as the sun welcomed the waves for the new day. The bummer part about sunrise shots in June is that sunrise is (yawn) early. I spent my foggy-brain efforts trying to get some interesting long-exposure, dreamy water movement...

As I progressed down the beach, I noticed a group of men digging in the sand... clam digging, I suppose? One guy was riding around between everyone on a bike; seemed like a nice way to start the day. I wish my regular morning routine involved riding in the wind of the sea.

While the man visited with the other guys, his bicycle perched perfectly for a reflective portrait in front of face rock.

We kept heading north along 101 and found made a stop at the Sea Lion Caves near Florence. At first, I considered it a touristy indulgence. I mean, any place that charges admission & sells popcorn should be considered a tourist trap, right? But, after seeing the 2,000 sea lions basking on the sunny rocks, I found myself clicking away with fury. I think I dropped over 200 frames in this place, and it was hard to narrow it down to just a few ...

Along the way we spotted the Heceda Lighthouse... isn't it so cool? We plan on heading back one day, making the lighthouse trail tops on our destination list!

Hmm, this one might be out of order... too many places in one day! We briefly drove through a sand dune park, and briefly took a few, brief pictures.

Ok, so, somewhere in our NPS 4 brains, this plan made sense: Leave Newport, Oregon, at sunset and drive to Cannon Beach, Oregon. Its only 2.5 hours away... we can be there before midnight! It will be dawn at 5pm, so we'll sleep in the car! No seriously, what were we thinking? Oh, well, these are the times that create the best memories.

The drive north was pretty much a straight shot, no stop, no nonsense kind of drive, with one exception. We could not pass up the very last bit of light dipping below the horizon and pulled over for few quick frames. I liked the shape of the rock; to me, it looks the silhouette of a wolf howling at the crescent moon.

Aww, sunset.

NPS 4: Day 5 (June 2)

Well hello there, blog. Long time no... post.

I guess it takes the threat of Snowmageddon to get me to actually wrap up my pictures from NPS 4 ;) There are still a few more days of the trip to post (hopefully today even??), but we were winding down at this point.

The day before we only made it from Crescent City to Brookings, and well, today was another one of those days. We made it from Brookings to... Bandon! We stopped along the way at the Hughes House in Port Orford, Oregon. This charming home seemed like the perfect Lensbaby subject!

And I took a few pictures of some wild irises growing near the home.... here is the unedited version of the purple iris:

And, ta-daaaa, here is the edited version. (btw, I owe some creative credit to DMA for his editing assistance for this one.)

And here is the white one, ala lens baby.

And finally, we reached our final destination... Bandon. It was my first visit there, and all I can say is ... Wow. Seastacks and sunset, could there be a more magnificent combination?

This wraps up Day 5 for me! Thanks for taking a look!

NPS 4: Day 4 (June 1)

Today was a long, but absolutely beautiful day. I think that this was the end of our 8-hour maximum, no stress, super chill days of exploration. We spent the morning in the Jedediah Smith State Park just outside of Redwood National Park. Have you ever been there? It is stunning. Simply amazing.

I am such a nut. Even while I am surrounded by gorgeous, ancient, ginourmous trees, I am captivated by a cluster of leaves. But look at them.. so still, so green, so full of detail!


And here is my feeble attempt to capture the beauty of the redwoods.

We stopped a little tiny unmarked beach at the very northern tip of the California coast & I was again mesmerized by the flora.

Little did we know that our last stop of the day would be less than 30 miles from Crescent City. That's right... we went from Crescent City, California, to Brookings, Oregon. If you want to get all technical, then we drove more than 30 miles with the trip through Jedediah, but (what is that expression... 30 miles "as the crow flies") the point of my long winded story is that we didn't go very far! :)

Harris Beach State Park is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. We arrived there in the early afternoon and fell in love with the place. We only left to run into town for dinner, and since it was perfect picnic weather, brought it back to the park. This beach was a photographer's play land. Any time I can use my neutral density filters, I confidently call it a good day.

Ugh. I am throwing this pic in (the one below) to remind myself to check my aperture setting. I usually am taking macros or portraits & tend to stay in the lower aperture settings. I ended up with crummy detail & horrible halos on the entire set of long exposures that I took in this spot. A pricey mistake, eh?

Just as we were walking back, I noticed this odd little bird. I do not know what it is... do you? His body style & super long beak look so prehistoric. I called him little dinosaur bird. I wish I had more light (or a fixed 2.8 lens!) because the sun had long since set and I was already in the high ISO range. Oh well, at least I took a few pics & have moderately ok detail.

And that is a wrap for now! I'll get cracking on Day 5 pics... more beautiful scenes from the Oregon Coast!

Thank you so much for taking a look & hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

NPS 4: Day 3

Rain. So much rain. I was very, very glad that this NPS trip involved minimal car camping. Not that I am not a fan of the simplicity, but it was so rainy. And while rain makes corn & corn makes whiskey, rain also makes MUD and mud makes a messy car!! Oh well, it was still spectacular.

Our first stop of the day was the tiny little town of Trinidad. We stopped there yesterday, too, but this time we explored the beach! The, uh, gray, rainy beach. It tried my best to keep my spirits up & capture the beauty, but I have to admit, it was challenging to photograph. If only I could capture what my eyes see.

Then we continued north & stopped along a lovely beach. There was a huge sur (or whatever its called... a jutted cliff!) but I was more interested in the smaller scenes.

ooo, and we managed to explore some dark, mossy areas, too. spooky, yes?
And more sorrels!!! yay! For this round, I edited to black & white.
And then, at the base of a gigantic, decomposing trunk I found sorrels with a few lovely little blooms. I set up my tripod & concentrated on just the right exposure to make the blooms pop. While editing, I fell in love with this group in black & white.

And we ended the day back in Crescent City. Was it for the fish & chips? maybe. maybe not. Was if for the beautiful scenery? probably. I mean, really, isn't this place gorgeous?

The funny thing about the last two pictures is that they were taken from a lookout that is wildly popular with photogs. Thankfully, I was zoomed out quite a bit, because if it was a wide angle shot you would see about six to ten other folks. I felt like I was back at the Moulton Barn at sunrise. sheesh.

Well, that is all I have so far! I will begin Day 4 very soon, so stay tuned for pics from the last leg of the Redwoods & the gorgeous Oregon coast! Thanks!!!