Mormon Rocks

Also known as the Latter Day Saints Rocks, it has been said that these rocks were the site of a trip and fall that slightly inconvenienced Jules Verne during a hiking expedition in Southern California, supposedly leading him to criticize the Mormon religion in a small part of his book Around the World in 80 Days.  These rocks are also where a group of Mormons passed through the mountains on their way to Los Angeles in the 1850’s, after fleeing Utah and a homicidal Mormon Militia.

OK, so I may or may not have made parts of that up.  These rocks really are called Mormon Rocks, apparently because some Mormons Manifested Destiny through the Cajon Pass, between the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains, where these rocks are located.

I don’t have much experience with black and white photography, but I think this one looks pretty good in black and white.  I converted it to look like Kodak Professional T-MAX 100 black and white film.  Generally I like color photographs more because of, well, all the pretty colors.  Like I said though, I think this looks pretty good in black and white, and I wanted to try something different.  I will probably eventually post the color version as well, because I like it a lot too.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:11:07 17:53
Exposure time	1/100 sec
Focal length	50mm
F-Stop	f/10
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Corporate Fountain

Here’s an old one that I had intended to re-shoot after I got my wide angle lens.  I never got around to reshooting it before they turned off the fountains for the winter, so I decided to just go with this one for now, because I like it.  It isn’t as wide as I’d like, and now that I have a new filter that will allow me to shoot long exposures during the daylight, I believe I can greatly improve this image with a reshoot, but that probably won’t happen for a while.  I know you’re all disappointed, but that’s very insulting since I gave you this perfectly good picture to hold you over.

Anyway, this is a 5 shot HDR I took at the same time as Quick Turnaround, located in this corporate office park in Overland Park, Kansas called Corporate Woods.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:05:23 19:59
Exposure time	1/500 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/22
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure	5 Photo HDR

Windansea and Rocks

I feel like the majority of my readers are probably in a cold place right now so I thought I’d share a little of the southern California warmth. I took a little drive down to San Diego not long ago to visit a friend and stopped at this beach before meeting up with him. I was looking for somewhere pretty that wouldn’t be crowded and based on descriptions on the internet, this beach looked good. It’s called Windansea Beach. I think that’s an appropriate name as there was wind and there was a sea, and then there was a beach. There were numerous rock formations on the beach and extending into the ocean, which on occasion made for some spectacular sights when large waves crashed into them.

Between the beach and the deeper water were some gnarly rocks but since the surf was up the local surfers were stoked and most certainly hanging ten while hitting the surf. I read online that the local surfers would act totally bogus towards anyone who wasn’t a local and tried to catch a wave without waiting their turn.

OK, that was ridiculous, but I believe everything I said was true. This beach was very pretty, as was the rest of San Diego. I’ve found that I really like these beaches with rocks around them for pictures, but I’d prefer a classic sand beach if I wanted to get in and go swimming. This photograph is a single exposure with some light editing in post.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:11:14 9:59
Exposure time	1/500 sec
Focal length	50mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	-1

Back in Kansas City

No, I’m not back in Kansas City, but I am starting to miss the place.  I took this the last full weekend I lived there.  I had actually gone to that area to take a specific picture I had in mind, but that didn’t turn out well because I didn’t like how it looked with the cloudy sky.  I did like this one though, and a few others from that day.  For those of you not from the area, that is downtown Kansas City’s skyline, with the back lawn of the Liberty Memorial in the foreground.

I’ve been steering away from the HDR photos recently, but I took this one at the beginning of my journey towards primarily single shot photos.  There is something about a cloudy sky though that makes an HDR work very well.  As long as it’s not overdone, I think it’s alright.  This is a 5 shot HDR.  I strengthened some of the more subtle colors in the sky during post-processing, and of course combined the 5 images for the original HDR.


I've got a number of pictures I really like lined up for you all, and many more just waiting for post-processing.  I'm also out and about in southern California pretty much every weekend shooting, so stay tuned for a lot of posts in 2010!

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:10:10 14:26
Exposure time	1/100 sec
F-Stop	10mm
Focal number	f/16
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure	5 Photo HDR