Uno Mas From The Huntington

I showed you the outside of one of the pagoda's at the Huntington Gardens on Tuesday so today I’m showing you the inside.  This is looking straight up towards the ceiling of the Pagoda.  There isn’t a whole lot else to say about this photo.  There was a small old Chinese lady looking at me funny when I took this picture though.  I wondered at the time if she thought I was disrespecting her in some way.

I like the patterns in this picture.  You don’t see extravagance in ceilings enough these days.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2010:01:17 11:05
Exposure time	1/6 sec
Focal length	10mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-400
Exposure Bias	0

Life Saver

Saving lives is serious business.  This life saving flotation device is but a small tool utilized by the Seal Beach Life Guards in Orange County.  These guys have a lot of saving to do since Seal Beach has the second longest wooden pier in California (just ignore the fact that pier length is not necessarily indicative of overall beach size or the number of people at the beach on a given day who may or may not need saving).

Seal Beach is pretty cool.  Aside from the sweet pier, there’s this restaurant a couple blocks from the beach called Walt’s Wharf, and they serve some excellent seafood.  If you’re ever within 20 miles or so, I’d suggest going there for lunch, or maybe dinner but you might want to make a reservation if it’s a weekend.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2010:01:17 11:01
Exposure time	1/200 sec
Focal length	22mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

*This post was sponsored by the City of Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce.*

Huntington's Pagoda

My Dad and Stepmom came to visit me in LA last month and among other things, we visited the Huntington Botanical Gardens near Pasadena.  It is a pretty cool place and interesting because of the broad range of gardens.  It has twelve different types of gardens; everything from a Japanese garden to a Chinese garden!  Seriously, it ranges from desert gardens to jungle gardens, and all sorts of gardens in between.

This picture is from the Chinese garden, which is one of the largest classical Chinese gardens outside of China.  This traditionally styled Chinese Pagoda is the Pavilion of the Three Friends, which refers to the ‘three friends of winter’ in Chinese culture.  These three friends are bamboo, pine, and plum blossoms.

It was cloudy that day, so the fact that some blue came through in the clouds is pretty cool.  There are a few things I like about this picture (hence me taking it), but I’ll let you all decide what your favorite parts are on your own.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2010:01:17 11:01
Exposure time	1/200 sec
Focal length	22mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Put Him In!

Today’s bonus post is a crossover, not unlike popular TV series such as Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order, which have also done crossovers.  Last summer I went out shooting in Wichita with my Cousin and as I was taking this picture, unbeknownst to me, he was taking my picture.  As a cross-promotional endeavor, we decided to post each of our perspectives of the same scene.  I wanted to get a different angle on this statue that is in front of Wichita State’s Eck Stadium where they play baseball.  It isn’t always easy to set up for certain angles, and as you can see on Matthew’s page, this was one of those times.  As you’ll see, I’m pretty sprawled out on the concrete to get this angle.

Check out my Cousin Matthew’s take on the scene at http://matthewwellsphotography.blogspot.com/.  While you’re at it, check out his other work too.

Edit: Damn!  He outdid me in the humor department.. this time!

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:09:05 14:19
Exposure time	1/200 sec
Focal length	10mm
F-Stop	f/10
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Little Corona's Rocks

Well I caught some flak from my aunt this weekend for not posting enough photos from California, so, by popular demand, here is another photograph from California!  I got a 10-stop neutral density filter for Christmas and this is exactly what I wanted it for.  This type of filter is very dark and reduces the amount of light that gets through the lens to the camera’s sensor, allowing for long exposures during the day.  The results, as seen below, are pretty cool when photographing moving water.  I took this at Little Corona Beach, which is part of the larger Corona Del Mar Beach in Orange County.  Corona Del Mar is quickly becoming my favorite; I actually went there again this weekend and did some shooting (this photo is about a month old).  There are lots of pretty rocks and tide pools, so there are plenty of subjects for photos.  I took this one near sunset, so I got a lot of warm sunsetty colors.

As you can see from the EXIF info below, this was a 30 second exposure.  I did some editing in Photoshop to get the colors and a few other things exactly how I wanted them.  This was really my first attempt at shooting with this filter and I’m pretty happy with the results.

Exif Information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2010:01:22 15:33
Exposure time	30 sec
Focal length	10mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Beach Dune

I think it’s time to go back to the beach.  It’s warming up out here (it never really got cold to be honest, although one evening a woman in a fur coat angrily asked me if I was cold because I was wearing a t-shirt.  It was probably around 55 degrees, and I was not, in fact, cold.) and there are great photo opportunities at the west coast beaches; especially the Orange County beaches.  This picture was not taken out here though; I took this one a couple years ago in Florida.  I described the beautiful Gulf Coast beaches in earlier posts here and here, so I’ll spare you another long winded description, but I really love this place.  Did I mention three generations of Jewell’s vacation at Long Boat Key?

Eventually I’d like to be able to look back at this blog and see an evolution of my photography.  You can already do this somewhat, but when I go around posting 2 year old photos here and there, it can be somewhat difficult.  I can see a slight evolution in my post processing style, so that is nice, although some of my earlier work isn’t too far off from my current stuff.  I actually like this though, because my earlier work wasn’t usually edited too strongly.  How much evolution can there be though; this site isn’t even a year old yet.  I can definitely see an evolution when I look at some of my older unpublished photographs, and I can happily say, I’m getting better.  I can also say though that I’m still trying new things and not getting complacent in a style I’m familiar with.  At least I think so anyway.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2008:05:29 15:24
Exposure time	1/2500 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/3.5
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	0

Fishy Silverwood Lake

I took this picture at Silverwood Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains.  I went exploring one day, with one of the area’s mountain lakes in mind as my eventual destination and found myself at this dam (seen on the left).  It was a pretty area, and there were great wispy clouds in the sky that day (not so much seen in this particular picture), which are my favorite kind of cloud to photograph.  There were also a lot of annoying people with stereos fishing at the other end of the dam, taking up some good photographic real estate.

This photograph is a panorama comprised of three shots stitched together.  Each picture is a single exposure.  After stitching them together, I did some editing in Photoshop to get the exact look I wanted.  I titled this Fishy Silverwood Lake for a couple reasons.  First of all, it’s a lake and there are most certainly fish living within (see above for indirect evidence of this), and second, the angle of view is greater than my 10mm lens could achieve.  Whether or not it is 180 degrees from left to right as would be the case with a fisheye lens, I don’t know, but I do know it’s very wide.  There’s also no crazy fisheye distortion.  I felt fishy was a fair description.  Enjoy.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:11:21 14:29
Exposure time	1/400 sec
Focal length	10mm
F-Stop	f/9
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure Bias	-1

Downtown from 169

I think this will be my last downtown Kansas City picture for a while; I have processed all the ones I have taken that I like.  I feel this is a pretty unique angle of downtown.  It was taken from north of the city on Highway 169 as I was walking home from the Downtown Kansas City Airport Air Show.  I lived north of downtown, so this is similar to the view I got from my apartment. This is also pretty much the reverse view of my Highway 169 photograph.

I’m not sure what the name of the apartment complex is, but if you notice on the left side of this picture, there is a large parking garage somewhat visible.  It doesn’t look bad in this picture, but in real life, that parking garage and the associated apartment buildings look terrible.  Pretty much all of the other buildings in the River Market area of downtown are old brick buildings.  Many have been renovated and are very nice on the inside, but the historic exterior remains unchanged.  Anyway, these new apartment buildings are architecturally completely different from the rest of the River Market.  They’re poorly constructed, much like many of the suburban apartments in Overland Park (all wood construction, cheap materials, build quickly), and look generally like a suburban apartment complex.  Because these apartments were built surrounding my old gym, I got to see construction progress every day, so I feel that I’m pretty much an expert on the subject.  What I’m really trying to say here is that these apartments are ruining the River Market, and I’m glad I moved away when I did.  I always hoped during construction that the building would ‘accidentally’ burn down and the project would be scrapped.  If you ever get the opportunity, please stop by their office, and tell them to go to hell for me.

Getting back on point, this was taken during my HDR period, so it’s a 5 shot handheld HDR.  Check out the EXIF info below for a little more information.

Exif information
Model	Canon EOS 20D
Original date	2009:08:23 12:34
Exposure time	1/1000 sec
Focal length	18mm
F-Stop	f/8
ISO speed	ISO-100
Exposure	5 Photo HDR