Week 14 of the 52 Project: Jet Setting (or "And Now For Something Totally Different")

This past weekend, Sharon presented a poster at the ACP Conference in Beautiful, Sunny San Diego (I believe that's the whole official name of the city). I love San Diego. We honeymooned there and loved it; the climate is perfect, and the landscapes are gorgeous. I did have a quibble about the road traffic there (their discrimination against left turns defies all understanding- made it near impossible for out-of-towners to get around easily :-P), but it really is one of my favorite cities in all of the world.

Unlike the previous weekend traipsing around the Big Apple, I spent much more time with camera in hand, snapping pictures each day we were there. We had quite a full weekend- we caught one whole inning of the Padres-Dodgers game before it rained out; we rented a car and spent an afternoon at the facemeltingly idyllic La Jolla Cove; we drove up to Point Loma to get a vantage point of both the city on one side and the expansive Pacific Ocean on the other; and we got to see one of our favorite bands, the Dodos, in concert. It was a good break from all of the madness.

We sat near the marina, where a kid and his dad were flying a kite nearby.

Seaport Village by the marina had tons of these peculiar Birds-of-Paradise flowers planted.

A shot from the Convention Center.

UAB represent!

La Jolla Cove. That is all.

La Jolla Cove

Lots of birds, lots of V-formations.

Dodos show- lead singer Meric Long and drummer Logan Kroeber. These guys were fantastic.

Kroeber was a percussion maestro and somehow managed to sing, too. Incredible.

San Diego pitcher Clayton Richard warms up in the outfield before the game. We scored Left Field bleacher seats, so my 200mm lens was able to reach pretty handily.

:)

Week 13 of the 52 Project: A New Pad

A few pictures from our soon-to-be neighborhood: our own backyard (Central Park), the Empire Hotel by the esteemed Lincoln Center, and picturesque Columbia University. I stuck with the 35mm prime for pretty much the entire trip, and I really couldn't be happier with the results. Composition is still a challenge for me, but I think I'm at least getting a decent command of the other photo basics.

The Lake at Central Park. Central Park is but a block away from our front door. Just beautiful and amazing.

A pure-luck good self-portraits shot.

The Mall at Central Park

A look at our hotel. Thanks, Priceline!

I can't get over how gorgeous Columbia University is. I can't imagine even being an undergrad there.

For Sharon. :)

Week 10 of the 52 Project: Still Learning

This is a rather picture-heavy post, so I won't burden it too much more with so much exposition. I will say that I am trying to learn to better compose my photographs. It's still a work in progress. We went back to the Botanical Gardens yesterday to see what had bloomed since our last visit as well as to shoot away. I took a ton of shots while Sharon took fewer but carefully composed hers- many of her pictures were beautiful and quite superior to mine. She has an eye for this, methinks. Me, I need to prepare and think more before I press the shutter.

We stopped by "the lakehouse" (officially, the lake house by "Howard Lake"... who knew it had an actual name?) behind the Hoover Library and dallied before meeting a friend for dinner tonight. It was great to see some old, old stomping grounds that were also surprisingly fertile for picture opportunities:

Week 9 of the 52 Project: Small Sample

I didn't take too many pictures this past week, though I did bring my camera along with me to a birthday party for one of Sharon's med school buddies... at Chuck-E-Cheese :) It was fun! The place is much smaller than in my memories (obviously, I suppose). It was good practice to take some candid shots of people, though none of them turned out particularly well. I did keep one picture of when the birthday girl, Rachel, was smiling for someone else's camera  (a tip I picked up from one of the many photography blogs I've started following):

And I've decided it's just futile to resist posting pictures of our goofy cats. I don't really want to become the guy who just posts tons of pictures of his cats, but I guess I shouldn't fight it if that's who I am (is it who I am?). Plus, they just provide too much good material. I found Millie dozing on the bed one morning before leaving for work. The lighting was great, so I snapped a few shots- this was not the most well-focused of them all, but I like the composition of it better than any of the others I had taken:

I will get back to putting up non-photography posts at some point- I've had a few kicking around in my head, but it's the perpetual struggle to (a) remember them sufficiently to get them out and (b) ensure they survive the mental cutting room as well as (c) actually write them up. Those are some long odds. :-P

Week 8 of the 52 Project [belated]: Hello, Birmingham

*I hope, dear readers, that you realize that these pictures in my posts are thumbnails - 

click on them and the Interwebs will take you to a larger, clearer version of them! :)

---

So, yeah, I got myself one of the prime lenses I had been eying. We went out last weekend to Vulcan Park to take some pictures with my new lens/toy. Somehow, in my twenty-plus years of living in Birmingham, I had never once made it out to see the big, pants-less fella. Here are my favorite pictures:

Mini-me

Sharon

Vulcan

Upskirt Vulcan

I also wanted to get a picture of the "You Are Beautiful" sign that had been painted onto the retaining wall on Richard Arrington Blvd. going down the hill to Five Points South. We made the short walk down from Vulcan Park... only to find the sign defaced. Still, here is my new desktop wallpaper for a while. Pardon the French:

 And one last gratuitous cat picture:

Week 7 of the 52 Project [belated]: In Which I Finally Get Out Some

A bit late on Week 7, but at least I finally took the camera outside for some shots. Most of these pictures were taken with the kit lens (18-55mm) with the exception of the bird shots, which were taken with the zoom lens I got with the camera (55-200mm). My buddy Victor was giving me DSLR selection advice before I picked up the camera, and he was trashing the quality of the kit lenses, however, I've been pretty satisfied with the quality of pictures I've gotten from it. I am scheming to pick up a faster prime lens or two before we do some major traveling in the next few months.

Money shot of Fuzz. I think we were baiting her with her fishy-toy. I was experimenting with the on-camera flash that evening and was pleased with the results and with figuring it out. I was able to scale down the flash to 1/32 for this shot.

Took these shots of a house finch on our bird feeder, zoomed all the way at 200mm. We have a bunch of house finches living in a tree just outside our patio.

Sharon and I walked around the Summit one evening on a mini "photowalk".

We also went to the Botanical Gardens one afternoon and took some shots. Actually, I will put up a post of all my favorite/best takes from the Gardens sometime soon. This is the gate to the Japanese gardens section.

Week 6 of the 52 Project: I Need to Get Out More

I'm beginning to learn and become more acquainted with the new toy/equipment, and I hope to have better pictures to show for it soon. So far, I've confined myself to shooting around the house to get familiar with the controls; as previously mentioned, I'm fortunate to have some unwittingavailable subjects plus a wife/muse on whom to practice. Sooner or later, I'll get out into the world and shoot.*

I do feel like a kid with a new BB gun with this camera- a lot of the time, I'm just itching to go shoot something.

Curious Fuzz

Fuzz's closeup

Screwing around

I'll confess I turned to the B&W and sepia filters because I screwed up something in the lighting/exposure or color, and the B&W/sepia effects help me play cover-up. But I like these.

*[Sharon says: "Well I suggested we get out and take pictures somewhere this weekend and you didn't want to." Well yes. It was cold, and I was lazy.]

Week 5 of the 52 Project: Upping the ante

There is no update for Week 4 of the 52 Project, because I'm a slacker, and I took no pictures that week. Whoops. [Actually, I had something in mind for that entry: a sort of retroactive picture of the week/analysis, one that I may end up posting if I get around to it.]

Some news: With Sharon's encouragement (or, if you prefer, approval ;-P), I made the plunge and picked up a DSLR. Being the cheapskate I am frugal, I opted to buy a kit off of Craigslist rather than pay an extra hundred or two for a new one from the store. I got a Nikon D40, 18-55mm kit lens, a 55-200mm zoom lens, filters for both lenses, an SD card, and a camera bag for a pretty darned good deal. So this hobby is now officially for serious, y'all.

It's a good thing I have such a beautiful lady nearby since I have such a nice camera now. And two sleepy cats:

This one is a little noisy thanks to forgetting to change the ISO setting; I used Picasa to "warmify" the picture (still don't have a good grasp of what you're supposed to do in post processing). Have I mentioned that Sharon is lovely?
[ISO 3200 - f/5.6 - 0.333s]

Millie kicked me out of my chair, so I figured I'd get some pictures out of it.

[ISO 1600 - f/4.5 - 0.125s]

 "Geez, take the picture already and let me sleep..."
[ISO 1600 - f/4.5 - 0.125s]

Fuzz confiscated the other chair- not an uncommon occurrence around here. Not sure about the overexposed stuff above her head. Another week of practicing awaits!

[ISO 1600 - f/4 - 0.25s]