Inspired by Now

Published: Mon, Nov 05, 2018

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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Double Glass, Landscape, Lensbaby, Photo Events, Photography, Single Glass, Sol 45, Sweet 50 or 35, USA, Velvet 56

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.

Published: Wed, Oct 31, 2018

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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Double Glass, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Photo Technique, Photography, Pinhole, Single Glass, Sol 45, Sweet 50 or 35, Velvet 56

I have once again added a few more pieces to my Lensbaby lens collection; this time I found a set of three optics that fit into my Composer Pro base. I also found a beautiful pink Dahlia plant at the local nursery where I learn about gardening tips and tricks on most Saturdays.

I was wondering how differently I could capture the same flower with all my Lensbaby lenses and optics. So I emerged in a photo session with the Dahlia for a good two hours. I used two additional accessories for all images: a +10 macro filter or a +10 macro filter combined with a 36mm macro tube.

Published: Sun, Oct 28, 2018

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Categories: Blog, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Photo Technique, Photography, Photoshop, Velvet 56

Flowers make me very happy. Their sight and their fragrance make me feel in a way that not a lot of other living or not living things do. I admire their ability to attract my attention as well as of insects, I love how colorful they can be, and how my mood changes positively when I am surrounded with flowers.

A few weeks back I purchased some annuals for my backyard, including a Denver Daisy. Everything on this flower is very photogenic. It doesn’t matter from which direction I approach this beauty, it almost always gives me wonderful photographic results. In fact, I truly enjoyed their beauty after they passed their prime. It was a different kind of beauty, but I loved it nevertheless.

In order to portray the difference of the live floral beauty and the dead one, I used a slightly different post-processing technique. I created painterly images from all, but I used two kinds of color schemes; a warm palette for the earlier flowers and a much colder and dramatic one for the second set. One image I digitally hand painted. This is a technique that I am currently studying, and this was one of my practice pictures.

Published: Sat, Oct 20, 2018

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Categories: Blog, Burnside 35, Flower Photography, Lensbaby, Photography, Sol 45, Sweet 50 or 35, Velvet 56

Dragon Fruit or Pitaya is a vining cactus. I received cuttings from my neighbor a few years ago, and last year it actually brought a fruit. Here is an image that shows last year’s flower and ripened fruit.

Published: Mon, Oct 15, 2018

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Categories: Recommendations

I’ve just finished listening to Joe Navarro’s book/lecture: The Power of Body Language. It was a very interesting read, and it has information in it that anyone could utilize in their personal or professional life.

Joe Navarro discusses the meaning of body positions and movements from bottom to top. He starts with the legs and slowly moves up to what most people are familiar with: the face. There were many interesting AHA moments for me in the book. Just to mention one, I didn’t know how important the feet were in the non-verbal communication. Are you having a conversation with someone who has one or both feet turned away from you? It is a clear sign that the person does not want to have the conversation with you.

I’d known about some body language that was culturally rooted, but I learned an important one from the book: people in and from India shake their head sideways as an affirmative, opposite of many cultures where this movement means no. Now I understand why so many of my Indian acquaintances were shaking their heads when I was talking to them.

You can find this audio book at Audible.com.