Category Archives: About the Photos

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Better Christmas Boats

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If at first you don’t succeed…

I was very disappointed with my photo of the Christmas Boats the other day. Let’s face it — I took the shot from the window of my hotel room. I set the camera on the window sill, which is very close to the ground, and I let the self-timer press the shutter so there wouldn’t be any shutter shake. The framing is awful and the exposure is only so-so. It really didn’t capture the mood here, where the boats really bring out the Christmas spirit — even in folks like me.

So tonight I took the camera with me for a walk around the north side of the harbor. There were benches along the way that I could set the camera down on. I took about 40 shots and threw away 20 of them. This was one of the best.

Christmas at Ventura Harbor

By the way, that bright point of light in the sky is Venus.

My CoolPix apparently has a night scenery setting. I gave it a try. It seems to play around with the light a bit; 100% magnification on the 10 megapixel images shows some weirdness around the parking lot lights in the distance. I’m wondering how my Nikon D80 would have handled it. Shot properly from a tripod with a cable release, of course.

Christmas Boats

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Boats at Ventura Harbor show Christmas spirit.

Just a quick post to berate myself for not bringing my “good camera” and tripod with me to Ventura, CA this week and give folks a glimpse of the shot I could have gotten….

I’m in Ventura on business and my clients have kindly put me up in the Holiday Inn Express on Ventura Harbor. My room is huge with a 15-foot ceiling and prow windows looking out over the harbor. There’s also a kitchen and living room area that’s nothing to complain about. The only thing I miss is the Jacuzzi tub that was in my room on my last stay; this time, my bathroom is handicap accessible and has a shower stall big enough to drive a wheelchair into but no tub. (Just another excuse to come do more work out here.)

Christmas BoatsAnyway, out my window is the harbor and quite a few of the boats are decorated for the holidays. Lots of strings of lights up on sailboat masts. Plenty of other boats lighted, too. In fact, there are probably more lights on the boats here than on houses in Wickenburg.

Really helps spread the holiday season to all.

And makes me want to live on a boat.

I took this photo using the self-timer while setting my little Nikon CoolPix on the outside of my window. It was my workaround for not having a cable release or tripod.

I didn’t bring my Nikon D80 or tripod on this trip because I didn’t want distractions. I’ve got a tough work schedule and need to work every night and first thing every morning. The only rest I get is at meals — and they keep taking me out to eat. No walks, no sightseeing.

But next time, to hell with it. I’ll bring the camera. Scenes like this are too good to miss — or at least they would be if I had the right equipment to get a good shot. I learned my lesson. Again.

Photos from Our Flight to San Diego

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The view from above.

In November, Mike and I took my helicopter to the San Diego area for business. The flights to and from San Diego were over some of the most interesting — and boring — desert terrain out there.

Our route to San Diego from Wickenburg (E25) took us southwest, skirting around the restricted area north of Yuma, where we landed for fuel. (Fuel there was $1.20/gallon cheaper than at my home base.) Then almost due west along I-8, over the Glamis Dunes and Imperial Valley, which lies below sea level. Finally, a climb over some mountains and a descent down to Gillespie Field (SEE).

On the return flight, we took a different route. We flew east along I-8, then northeast to the northern tip of the Salton Sea to Chiriaco Summit and then along I-10 to Blythe, where we refueled. (The fat guy is gone.) From there, we overflew Quartzsite before making a bee-line for Wickenburg.

You can see the approximate routes below; click the map for a larger view with readable labels.

Route of Flights

Mike’s got his private pilot certificate and 100 hours of flight time in helicopters, so he’s legal (per my insurance company) to fly passengers. So he did most of the flying. I had my door off for the Yuma to El Cajon part of the flight and took photos — mostly over the Glamis dunes. It was nice to be a passenger for a change — to be able to use my camera without left-handed contortions. I also had the POV.1 video going for part of the flight, although the sound crapped out part of the way.

Anyway, here are a few of the photos I took on the flight. You can find more of my aerial photos — as well as larger versions of these — in my photo gallery.

Glamis Sand DunesGlamis Sand Dunes

Formally known as the Algodones Dunes or the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, the Glamis Dunes is a huge series of sand dunes west of the Colorado River, northwest of Yuma, AZ in California. The dune field stretches 45 miles north to south and 6 miles east to West. This photo shows only a portion of the dunes, looking north from the I-8 area. The dunes are extremely popular for off-road vehicles; this photo was taken on a relatively quiet Friday morning.

Sand DunesSand Dunes

Here’s a closeup shot of the Algodones Dunes from the air. This shot was taken from about 500 feet above the ground, over I-8, just west of the Arizona-California border.

Desert FreewayDesert Freeway

The folks back east probably have no concept of the long distances of nothingness on a freeway that cuts through the desert. This shot of two tractor trailer trucks passing each other in the barren wasteland of the Imperial valley’s southern extremities might give them an idea.

Desert MountainsDesert Mountains

The mountains just seem to go on forever in this aerial shot of mountains in southwest Arizona, not far from Quartzsite. Lake afternoon light casts long shadows.

CAP CanalCAP Canal

The Central Arizona Project (CAP) snakes its way through the Arizona desert, bringing water from the Colorado River and its lakes to Phoenix and its suburbs. This shot was taken just north of Hope, AZ on our return flight to Wickenburg.

Forepaugh RanchForepaugh Ranch

This ranch is nestled at the base of two hills in Forepaugh, AZ, out of sight from the main road (Route 60) only a mile or so away. It reminds me of an earlier day of ranching, when remote ranches were self-sufficient homes on the range.

Another View, No Fog

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A quick shot or two…or three.

The other day, I blogged about Thanksgiving and the fog we experienced the following morning. I even included a photo of the foggy morning.

Howard Mesa ViewHere’s almost the same view today. This is normal weather here — blue skies and almost unlimited visibility. Although this photo is a bit too small to see it, Mount Trumbull, which is about 80 miles away, is visible just left of center on the horizon. We can also see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (which is higher than the South Rim) about 40 miles away.

San Francisco PeaksMike shot this photo of Mount Kendricks (left) and the San Francisco Peaks (right) a little while ago. Both mountains got snow yesterday, although kendricks only got a dusting of it. If you’re not familiar with the San Francisco Peaks, Mount Humphreys, which is the tallest of the peaks, is the tallest mountain in Arizona. Don’t quote me, but I believe it’s somewhere around 12,000 feet. (No access to the ‘Net right now, so I can’t look it up).

SunsetAnd because I can’t resist, here’s a sunset photo taken on Friday evening. Clouds (or particulates in the air) are what makes for nice sunset photos. I rarely get an opportunity to take a decent sunset photo because there are rarely any clouds in the sky in Arizona. But there were clouds Friday and I snapped a few shots from right outside the camping shed. The mountains silhouetted on the horizon are about 50 miles away, near Seligman, AZ.

Faking Tilt-Shift Photography

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It works!

The other day, I got my first exposure (pun intended) to the world of tilt-shift photography. It was a link tweeted by one of my Twitter friends, @jebro, to a series of videos by Keith Loutit on Vimeo. These videos used time-lapse tilt-shift photography. The result were videos that looked as if they were created painstakingly with miniature models.

Take a minute right now and check out Keith’s video, “The North Wind Blew South.”

I’ve heard of time-lapse photography, of course. In fact, I used to play around with it using my Webcam software. You can see some examples here, here, and here.

But I’d never heard of tilt-shift photography. I did some research and found an excellent article on Wikipedia (of course) that included photos of camera equipment used to make the images. Per Wikipedia, the basic explanation is as follows:

Tilt-shift photography refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium format cameras. In many cases, it refers to tilting the lens relative to the image plane and using a large aperture to achieve a very shallow depth of field.

The end result is that only a small portion of the image is in focus. This became popular in portrait photography. But it also has become popular as a technique to make fake miniatures — in other words, photos of full-size, real-life objects or people made to look as if they are miniature models. Wikipedia has a separate page about tilt-shift miniature faking that includes sample images.

You can also find plenty of sample images and videos on Smashing Magazine’s article, “50 Beautiful Examples Of Tilt-Shift Photography.”

Photography is one of my hobbies and I was extremely interested in this technique. I think the photos look kind of silly and cool. But I wasn’t interested in buying special lenses just to give it a try. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. The Smashing Magazine article included a link to a tutorial on the Tilt-Shift Photography Web site titled “Tilt-Shift Photography Photoshop Tutorial.” It explains how you can use Photoshop to create a fake tilt-shift photograph.

I tried it today with a number of photos that happen to be with me on my laptop. The one shown below is my fifth try. It’s a photo of Juneau, AK (I think; forgive me if I got the wrong port city), taken from an upper deck on a cruise ship. In the original photo, the entire image is in focus; for this fake miniature, I focused on a boat and two buildings in the foreground. The color is saturated and the contrast is increased as recommended to give it that painted model feel. I think this photo is a pretty good example of the tilt-shift photography effect. What do you think?

Tilt-Shift Example

My first four tries simply didn’t look right. I think it was a combination of the image I chose and the lens blur mask I used. The photo here uses a radial gradient mask rather than the reflected gradient recommended by the tutorial. That makes it possible to pinpoint the in-focus area, which worked for this image. The example image in the tutorial had a horizontal strip of the photo in focus; that simply doesn’t work for all photos.

But I apparently did get the hang of it. Here’s my next try, with another Alaska port city:

Fake Tilt-Shift Example

San Francisco in MiniatureAnd here’s a shot from last January’s visit to San Francisco. That’s the dome of City Hall with Sutro Tower in the background. I took the photo from my hotel room at the Nikko. I think it comes across pretty well as a fake miniature.

And here’s a shot my husband Mike took on a helicopter trip up the Colorado River last year. It’s the Hoover Dam with the new bridge under construction:

Hover Dam Miniature

And one more…this is the power house downstream from Lake Chelan in Washington State. It’s another aerial photo — they certainly do make good subjects for this kind of exercise. The heavy equipment looks like Tonka trucks!

Lake Chelan Pumphouse Miniature

Anyway, now that I’ve tried this with a certain amount of success, I think I can get it out of my system. If anyone out there has experimented with this kind of photography — especially using a camera and lens rather than cheating with Photoshop — please use the Comments link or form for this post to link to examples of your work. And feel free to share any tips you might have for folks who are interested in giving this a try.