Oak Bark Down

Bark texture from a fallen oak in an empty lot in Lake California. I enjoy using my dslr to capture in and out of focus areas so it's not an ordinary eye view. Canon 70D with Canon 40mm f2.8 stm lens, my fav walk around combo of late.

Osprey Parent Looking at Me!

Went out this evening for a while in Lake California and got a few decent photos of one of the osprey parents guarding the nest. This nest is on a new pole put up by PG&E this year to move the annual osprey nesting activity off the actual power pole.

Natural Lens Flare

The empty lots scattered around Lake California are great spots to practice photography or painting. This is a shot from last spring that caught the wildflowers and a nice lens flare.

Lake California Landscape

Looking west from the clubhouse parking lot where there's a bit of a rose garden.

Landscape Looking East

There were magnificent clouds this afternoon, but I was working and by the time I got out to shoot they were dissipating. Still I like this landscape shot looking east in Lake California; the haze contributes nicely to the aerial perspective. I used the Canon 100mm L 2.8 IS lens, which is a macro but shoots everything beautifully.

Fire Season Sunset 2013

Already fire season here in California. Shot with the Canon EF-s 17-55 f2.8 lens, near the office in Lake California.

Clouds over the Sacramento River

I shot this thru some trees while perched on a steep hillside overlooking the Sacramento river. Luckily I was wearing my hiking boots as it was a bit of a scramble to get back up the hill! Taken about 6 pm, 1/100 sec @ f/16 iso 100, 21mm with Canon EF-s 17-55.

Here's Lookin' at Moo, kid!

This little cow was quite interested in what I was doing. Or perhaps she was simply enjoying the lovely early morning golden light!

A DSLR camera is the best toy!

A view of Mt Shasta from the airpark in Lake California. Shot from a low angle, used the Tamron 70-300 and edited in Lightroom 4. It was very windy, but I figured that if my foreground was out of focus, the wind blur would not be too much of a problem.

Wildflowers

I have forgotten about blogging for months. "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." quoth Robert Louis Stevenson.
Working on learning my camera and Lightroom and having much fun!

 Some wildflowers across the street. I really like this low point of view with background trees and sky holes.

spring shooting is the best!

A view of Lassen from Cottonwood Creek via Lake California.

Taken with my Canon EF-s 17-55 f 2.8 lens, recently purchased from the used dept at Adorama Camera online.

Cattle Pond Smokey Atmosphere

Smokey day at the cattle pond in Lake California, soon after the Ponderosa fire roared to life. Another photo shot with the Tamron 70-300. I like to shoot landscapes in portrait orientation so I get a greater feeling of distance.

Cutie with the Tamron 70-300 mm f4-5.6 DI VC lens

From the backyard this a.m., I love the pose of this dragonfly! Might have benefited from a deeper dof but always choices to make.  The Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 DI VC lens is "good enough"  better than I expected and I will get a $100 rebate which makes it inexpensive, too. I am not a pro photog nor can I afford the pro quality gear for the most part. But I do like background blur and dslr image quality and the ability to shoot RAW cuz that gives me more creative freedom as an artist.

I decided to take my lightweight nikon L110 on my morning walk so I could exercise and take photos too. This camera is ez to use and has a long zoom, but it does not have manual settings so ya point, ya shoot and ya fiddle in photoshop. I was very surprised to see that the Canon zoombrowser ex software readily imported the jpgs from the sd card. Cool!

Lake California Fireworks

Out here in the country we have our own fireworks and celebration day on a weekend near the fourth of July. ;-) I had some trepidation about taking photos cuz it is a bit difficult to get those bright bursts recorded against the black sky; but, yay! I managed to get some reasonable shots for my first time.

Hay Bales and Trees Acrylic Landscape Painting

Hey look, I made a painting from one of my recent photographs taken near the Equestrian Center in Lake California. This is 8" x10" acrylic on multimedia artboard, which I used for the first time and quite like! Fast and fun work using Chroma Interactive Acrylics.

Cottonwood Seeds

Cotton on the tree. I have not taken the good lens off my camera yet; it takes such beautiful photos. There are some wide-angle shots I will go back to get later. Reading Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Book 4, he suggests higher sharpening of the raw files and I am trying it.



 Canon gear, t3i+100mm f2.8L macro.

Sundown in Lake California

Sweet! from across the street, handheld, the Canon 100mm f2.8 IS macro lens. How I love this lens; I wanna marry it, yep. It takes beautiful landscape photos.

Osprey Mom

I was focused on the nest; camera on tripod, when the mom did a flyby to check on the kids. She didn't land, just flew back towards the river, hunting I suppose. Shot near my home in Lake California.

Sunset in Lake California 05-09-12

 I shot this last night @ the entrance pond; thanks to Bob Grace's photo class, I am developing some confidence with image capture. This old dog CAN learn! Arf, arf!