Rainbow and Stop Sign

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Oaks in the Mist

Shot this with Mike Byrne on our return from Bakersfield. Caught a bit of a storm.

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Desaturated Panorama

I think this is probably the last one out of the bunch.

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Mobius in Copper

Once again, I can't resist the urge to monkey with an image. I've always liked this particular OptikVerve filter, but it doesn't work on most images. Here it seems to.

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Desaturated Peaks

Here is Lone Pine Peak on the left and Mt. Whitney in the distance on the right.

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Rip the Sky

Lone Pine Peak.

I ran up to the Alabama Hills this morning with Steve and Roger.

Cold morning. Ground was frozen. Temperature was 25F or so... with the wind chill it was more like 15F.

This was shot with Steve's 18-200mm VR. He insisted that I give it a whirl. One more thing to add to the "want" list. Great lens.

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Indian Wells Canyon

Steve and I ran up through Indian Wells Canyon today. Not much to shoot, but we got some ideas for later trips.

This image was shot with a Tokina 12-24mm f/4. Typical levels/curves adjustments and then desaturated.

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Wisdom

My mother doesn't like this image, but I liked it the moment I saw it on the LCD. She doesn't consider it flattering, but I think it's beautiful.

I just got a SB-600 Speedlight the day before I shot this. This flash rocks.

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Cherry Pie

Food porn.

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My Eyes

Progressive lenses... it's a love/hate relationship.

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Canon 62

Went back and retooled an old pic. Adjusted the levels and curves and desaturated.

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Joshua Tree at Sunset

While waiting for the sun to set, it ducked beneath the clouds and I got some direct sunlight. Not much to look at for silhouettes or cloud color, but the side lighting was almost magical. I tweaked it a little bit using the tonemapping tool on PhotoMatix and then finished it with the typical PhotoShop levels/curves adjustments.

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Triumph

Engine on a 1974 Triumph TR6. Playing around with Photomatix tonemapping and pushing it past anything resembling reality.

I kinda like the way it makes things look oily

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Joshua (Side Light) BW

While waiting for the sun to set, it ducked beneath the clouds and I got some direct sunlight. Not much to look at for silhouettes or cloud color, but the side lighting was almost magical.

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Steve

Here's a portrait of Steve. Shot with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens and flashed.

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Weathered

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Crossing Variations

Tonight, it occurred to me that I had more than just a couple of variations on this image so I combined them all.

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The Devil's Cornfield

Couldn't resist stopping to get a picture here.

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Road and Sky

Wide angle rocks!

This is HDR from a single RAW image.

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New York New York Casino

The New York New York casino shot from across the intersection.

New lens for me. A Tokina 12-24 f/4. I love this thing. :)

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Copper

Just a collection of images that have worked well with the OptikVerve copper filter. It's one of my favorite palettes, but most images simply don't work with it. From the look of these four, it would seem that the light of sunset or sunrise works best.

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Rising Sun on Red Rock

Steve asked me to join him Saturday morning for a sunrise shoot at Red Rock Canyon.

I spent the thirty minutes prior to sunrise maneuvering around the desert looking for "the shot" and I finally settled on this spot. Its not exactly what I had hoped for, but it turned out okay, I think.

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Lake Isabella (Lomo Fake)

What can I say... whenever I get an image that has good green or red color, I can't resist faking a lomo shot.

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Pete

I got a new lens today, a 50mm f/1.8. I wanted to take a step back and approach photography the way I used to when I was a teenager. A zoom lens is nice, but a prime lens forces you to get up and move around. I am hoping the prime will improve my creative vision. (My gawd, I can't believe I just typed this.)

Anyway... fairly low light, so the DoF is shallower than I'd like. At the time, it didn't occur to me to increase the ISO.

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Storm Cell at Sunset

The storm came in from the south. With lightning flashes and thunder rolling, we decided it would be a good idea to get off this hill top.

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Desert Dusk in black and white

It's better in black and white, I think.

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Old Tanker

One more image from Mike's 5 Fingers Ranch. HDR from a single RAW image.

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Desert Sky

HDR, but just enough to push the dynamic range closer to the human eye.

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Nailed

This is an old bench I found at Mike's "5 Fingers Ranch." My D50 doesn't have a depth of field preview and it was my intention to keep the DoF pretty shallow. The change from focus to blurred seems rather abrupt. It seems fake, but I can assure you that I didn't blur this with Photoshop.

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Old Car

Mike P. was kind enough to let me photograph his collection.

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Night Splash

Okay... here's the story... my wife decided to have a party last night. As it was dying down, my next-door neighbor and I we're just kicking back and talking about photography. He knows very little about cameras, so all too often, he'll point out a picture to me and ask me how it was accomplished. While looking at the fountain in the middle of our pool, he wanted to know if I could stop the water in a picture. I said, "It's easy. Just use a flash." He found that hard to believe, so I had to trot out the camera and prove it.

I got a couple of images up high with the drops suspended in air, but they weren't as interesting as the riot down at the surface.

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Willow Springs (Lomo)

Rather than use the online tool, picnik, I think I've figured out how to make Lomo-type images using PhotoShop. Here's my first attempt.

Fairly simple really... create a vignette... jack around with the contrast of the red and green channels, and then push the saturation a bit.

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A Distant Fire

A smoke filled sunset.

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Union Pacific 6187

So... I'm driving along the Garlock road. I see a train in the distance as I pass Goler Road. Do a quick u-turn and get to the crossing. Grab the camera. Aarrrgh... it's set for bracketing. Into the menu, turn off the bracketing and rush towards the tracks. I get one picture with the white balance set to clouds and program is in P-mode. P-mode? I NEVER shoot P-mode. Crap!

Given a bit more time, I think I would have went for a shallower DoF.

Decided to blog this because it made it to "explore" today.

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Ruth Wails

"Paid in Full" played Friday night at Nickoletti's. Mike, Roger, Steve, and I we're all there playing photography dorks to the best of our ability.

I shot this with another of Steve's lenses, not the big 70-200, but something else. IIRC it was a zoom and had VR (I think).

A fair amount of post-processing on a sub-standard capture.

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Lomo Roscoe (with bug)

Older image... last one I think with the Lomo toy on picnik. I took this one while placing the Monache SFKR View geocache.

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cozumel street (Lomo-ish)

I discovered picnik today. It's an online photo editor.

Even has some filters that are available for free as long as the web app is in beta.

This is an older image taken last February while we we're in Cozumel, Mexico. This is right outside the Token for Ixchel geocache.

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Desert Train (Heat, Grease, and Dirt)

Trying to make the train seem even hotter, dirtier and greasier than it looked. Something along the lines of the color palette used in the movie, "Duel."

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Goler Road R/R Crossing

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Desert Sunset Panorama

Nine images shot at 18mm and stitched together.

I did some searching, but I don't have clue how to eliminate the distortion.

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Monsoon Sky II

This didn't turn out half bad, I think.

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In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows Lie

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Nerd reference.. I know. But look at it. Doesn't it make you think of Mordor?

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Copper Spires

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Piller (Copper)

I don't have many pictures that work with this particular treatment. This one seems okay.

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BNSF 4476 - Selective Color

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Tehachapi Loop

From the (GCX2B7) Train Depot geocache.

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BNSF 7794 II

I spent the day geocaching around the Tehachapi Loop. Got a few shots of the trains as they made the climb towards the loop.

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All Along the Watchtower

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

- Bob Dylan

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Blogged

I use Google Alerts to send me a message whenever it finds, "link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotdoubledot/" online. Today, I got an alert for Majikthise.

The image above is Mourning Dove.

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Paint the sky

Shot this last night with Mike Byrne.

HDR and some other photoshop trickery.

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