Last Sunday my friend and I discovered a nice park in Orange County, where in addition to a great hike we were also treated to wonderful sceneries and also some wildflowers. Let me share our experience with you in a few photos.
Landscape
In mid-December I was able to make another visit to the Los Angeles County Arboretum. Since my daughter started high school, visiting places that are somewhat far from us has become quite difficult due to her very strange drop off and pick up schedule. But this day provided an opportunity to spend some time farther away from home, and I chose the Arboretum for my destination.
I have been using my Lensbaby lenses a lot more than my auto lenses. One exception was a fundraising project at my daughter’s school theater program, where I documented their creation of a play throughout two weeks of rehearsals, and made the images available to purchase for the parents, which resulted in some extra funds for the Theater program. When it comes to people photography, catching moments on stage – especially with youth actors – is what I really enjoy to do.
Now back to my Arboretum visit. I first walked though the Aloe Trail, and towards the end of it I found this gorgeous succulent in the shade. (Velvet 56)
In October of 2017 I did something I had not done before: I spent 6 days away from my family on a trip to Portland, Oregon. I chose this destination because I really miss seeing the Fall colors at our current Southern California location.
This trip was super fun! I did everything I love doing: walked in the city and hiked in the forests, listened to audiobooks on the buses and during walks, visited three museums, and of course, took over a thousand pictures. But, as soon as I got home, I had to jump back into the everyday life and somehow I didn’t spend time on culling and post-processing my images. This past week I was tidying up my portfolio, and I realized that in addition to my Hungary, Colorado and California pictures I also have images from Oregon that I could share with the world. This blog post is features a few of those images, but head over to the Oregon gallery to see the rest. You never know… you might even consider ordering a print to decorate your house or give it as a gift.
On Saturday, November 3rd, 2018, Laguna Art Museum hosted an event on the Main Beach of Laguna Beach, CA. Entitled the “Shoreline Project” was a community project based upon Elizabeth Turk’s art work. Hundreds of volunteers held led-lit umbrellas that featured Seashell Mandalas by Elizabeth Turk and moved around with them.
My friend and I arrived more than an hour prior to the start of the event and set up our cameras in a good vantage point. We were able to see the whole beach from the cliff; unfortunately the volunteer dancers did not move much away from their original location. I only took my Lensbaby lenses with me, and just one 85mm prime lens.
While we were waiting for the event, I captured the late afternoon beach with various LB lenses. On some of the following images you can see the group of volunteers dressed in black on the left side of the pictures.
The Lensbaby Burnside lens arrived yesterday. This morning it was low-tide, so I took the Burnside and the Velvet 56 to Little Corona del Mar (Newport Beach, CA), to one of my favorite low-tide places in Southern California.
I tested both lenses facing the same subject at all settings; with the burnside it meant using apertures F16 to F2.8, and with each aperture I used all 4 vignette settings. On the Velvet it was just the various apertures I tried.
My observations: my frame contained some cloudy skies, and with F16, F11, F8 and F5.6 the maximum vignette added too much darkness with the Burnside. I liked the maximum vignette with wider apertures, because what was darkened was also blurry (last two images).
I tested both lenses facing the same subject at all settings; with the burnside it meant using apertures F16 to F2.8, and with each aperture I used all 4 vignette settings. On the Velvet it was just the various apertures I tried.
My observations: my frame contained some cloudy skies, and with F16, F11, F8 and F5.6 the maximum vignette added too much darkness with the Burnside. I liked the maximum vignette with wider apertures, because what was darkened was also blurry (last two images).
