Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

California

October 23, 2009

I was so excited to visit the Central Coast of California and Santa Barbara for the first time!  It was so fun and relaxing and I did not want to leave! It definitely to be a lot more laid-back from the hustle and bustle of the East Coast.

Fishing boats in Morro Bay. I’m so mesmerized by the amount of junk in this fishing boat. I wonder there’s even room for fish on the boat?

Fishing boats in Morro Bay

Morro Rock at sunset.  Don’t you just love sunsets?  Right when we were about to be seated at a restaurant, I took a look outside and saw the most gorgeous sunset, so I ran out of a restaurant and took a quick shot.  I thought I could take more sunset pictures the next day, but it turned really foggy.  Apparently foggy weather is not just in San Francisco!

Morro Rock

Our hotel in Santa Barbara had a lagoon with all kinds of wildlife, and I stumbled across this litle turtle sunbathing. I was hiding behind a big bush so I wouldn’t scare him away.

turtle
water lillies

Most palm trees grow straight, but these palm trees were really slanted!

slanted palm trees

We stopped on the side of the highway and watched the waves hit the rocks. I think I could have spent all day here!

California coastline

The seagulls were flying really low and really close to me!

bird

I wonder what this bird is thinking?

bird looking out at the ocean

palm trees in the background

The beaches in Santa Barbara are special because they face south instead of west, so you don’t actually see the sunset behind the water. I never knew that!

Santa Barbara beach

Photoshop actions

October 13, 2009

I recently won a set of actions from JHP Photoshop Actions.  For those who have never used Photoshop actions before, they are awesome!  They save you lots of time in post-processing.  You can even record your own actions in Photoshop, but I prefer to use actions available on the web (why spend all my time inventing something when someone already invented it?).  JHP has three available action sets, and I was lucky enough to try them all!  I had a lot of fun playing with them, and I wanted to show you what you can do with actions.  All the pictures on the left are straight out of the camera, and the ones on the right have had actions applied to them.

Here’s a photo of a goose I found walking in the middle of the road without a care in the world (taken near Fenway Park).  I applied the Majestic action from the Creative Lab set, and I love how it gave the photo some extra oomph.

Goose walking in the middle of the street

There are a lot of flowers in the picture and it’s a little busy, so I used Golden Harvest from the Creative Lab set to desaturate the colors and give it a nice yellow tint.

before and after flower pictures

I took this picture looking into someone’s yard, but the fence was in the way, so I just made it part of the picture! I used Instapopper from the Color Lab set. This is my favorite action because I love giving my photos that extra pop! If you want to go for a more subtle look, you can always tone it down by reducing the opacity of the effect in Photoshop.

Flowers behind the gate

There are also several black and white actions in the Creative Lab with varying amounts of contrast.  My fav is the B&W contrast, because it’s the perfect amount of contrast.  I love the diagonal branches of this tree, and something about it reminds me of an enchanted forest of a fairytale. And wouldn’t this be the perfect tree to climb on?

Tree at Arnold Arboretum

There is also a Retouch Lab set, which I didn’t play around as much, because I have so many pictures of friends blessed with beautiful skin and don’t need any retouching!  The retouching set also includes actions to lighten/darken areas and to reduce noise, which work really well.

Here are some coupons for my readers who are interested in purchasing the actions.

Complete Set – 20% Off
Color Lab – 10% Off
Creative Lab – 10% Off
Retouch Lab Offer – 10% Off

Hiking in New Hampshire

September 18, 2009

The weather was beautiful over Labor Day weekend, so we decided to take advantage of the good weather and go hiking up in New Hampshire, which was only about an hour away. Since I don’t know the area that well, I looked at Google Maps to find nearby parks around me and found Odiorne Point State Park. Wow, this park is a hidden gem and the pictures speak for themselves! This park is really unique because there are so many different landscapes over the stretch of just one mile. There are rocky beaches, sandy beaches, and pebbly beaches. If you decide to visit, bring some bug spray because there are tons of mosquitos!

Odiorne Point State Park
Odiorne Point State Park
Odiorne Point State Park
Odiorne Point State Park

I looked like an idiot chasing these dragonflies around because they wouldn’t stay in one place, but I finally got a picture of not one, but two!

Odiorne Point State Park
Odiorne Point State Park

This is Sandy Beach…it’s really small!

Odiorne Point State Park
Odiorne Point State Park
Odiorne Point State Park

Inaugural post!

September 8, 2009

I thought I’d welcome you all to my new blog with a picture of a cute bunny that I saw in my front yard this evening!   I wasn’t even sure I’d get this shot because I thought the odds are against me:  it’s dark outside, he’s far away, and he’s going to jump away once I move towards him.  I prayed that he might still be there while I ran back inside the house and immediately grabbed the camera, the flash, and my telephoto lens.  Sure enough, he didn’t move!  I figured I had one shot before I scared him with the flash, which proved to be harder than I thought because it was so dark I really had trouble getting my camera to autofocus.  My first shot was a little blurry because I accidentally focused on the grass instead of the bunny, but he was still there!  So I tried again, and this time I got him in focus!  I just gained a new appreciation for my 70-300 lens!

bunny