Day 87 - Fountain + Light + Wind = Awesome!

On the way home from work, I decided to take some shots of the fountain in Camino Real Marketplace. It's lit up at night and that, in conjunction with the ridiculous wind we're having, made for a pretty fun shot.

Amusing side story: While I was taking the pictures, this little kid ran up to me and said something that I couldn't quite hear because I had my headphones in. I assumed he wanted to know what I was doing, so I took my headphones out and said hi and asked what he'd said. He gave me The Most Terrified Look Ever, which I thought was a little uncalled for, but whatever. But then his mom called out to him and he ran toward her and she said, "Oh, poor [kid's name]! You thought that was mommy! We are dressed the same!" And I looked and we pretty much were dressed the same and of a similar height/build. Kid didn't realize I wasn't his mother until I turned around and started trying to talk to him.

Day 86 - Lagoooooon!

Brian and I went to UCSB tonight to practice night photography, but that proved surprisingly tough because both the architecture and lighting are pretty meh. We eventually ended up at the lagoon and decided to take shots of the buildings reflected in the water. As an added bonus, a bird decided to make himself part of the photo. (Which was in itself problematic, since the exposure was like 15 seconds. Imagine a bird sitting perfectly still for 15 seconds. What's that? You can't? That's because they don't!) Unfortunately, in fiddling with Photoshop to make the shot a little better, I think I overdid it a little. But I wrote over the original image, so I'm stuck with it now.

Day 85 - Pretty Sunrise

Today I woke up at 5am for some reason, so I decided to do some of the housework I neglected to do over the weekend. I noticed the sunrise while retrieving some towels from the dryer, so I quickly dashed into the house to get my camera. Only then did I discover that I’d left my “real” camera in Brian’s camera bag, so I had to use my point-and-shoot. It’s a bit grainy, but I freaking love the colors (which I didn’t change or oversaturate at all—it really looked that awesome). I also freaking love having my picture for the day taken care of before I even take a shower.

Day 84 - Beach Walk

Brian and I rode the tandem out to the bluffs and then walked along the beach for a bit. In a rare deviation from the norm, I happened to notice something that Brian hadn’t: the awesome reflection in the wet sand. Unfortunately, I am apparently functionally retarded, because for the life of me I couldn’t hold the camera correctly to compensate for the slant of the beach. But Brian says it’s artistic. So there.

Day 83 - Paragliding

I spent the day with Brian and Nell while they did a paragliding class. A nice symbiotic relationship: I got my photo for the day and a good shoulder tan and they got pictures of them being awesome. They were both really good. I took hundreds of photos, and I doubt these are the absolute best, but in the interest of not falling behind on the blog (*cough*Brian!*cough*), I just selected two decent ones to post.

Day 82 - Suncatcher

Before heading out into the Black Friday madness, I roamed around my parents’ backyard taking photos. They have some pretty flowers and some interesting moss growing between flagstones, but their suncatcher turned out to produce the best photos. The copper glows yellow when the sun hits it, which looks awesome when contrasted with the very deep blue of the sky. Contrary to how it may look, I didn’t oversaturate the colors at all.

Day 81 - Turkey, Turkey... Cat!

(Get it? Like duck, duck… goose!) Went up to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, so of course I had to take before and after shots of the turkey. I really like all the steam in the first picture. I also finally got a chance to take a picture of Jinx—in this case, slung behind my dad’s neck (a favorite for both of them I think). Not pictured: the ridiculous food coma I fell into after eating so much delicious food. Seriously, who dozes from 7:30pm to 12:30am and then goes to bed and sleeps until 6am? Sheesh.

Day 80 - Lamp

Today was another busy day. Although technically I could have left work early, I took a long lunch with Nell, Brian, and Nell’s coworker, so I didn’t leave work until almost the normal time. Then it was home to cook the beets and pots de crème for Thanksgiving, and then over to Nell and Brian’s. I took a lot of random shots (mostly Nell working on my bag and Brian fiddling with a film camera), but I like this one of their lamp the best. The light and shadow are fun.

Day 79 - By Request: Feet

When I’ve asked what I should take pictures of, several people have responded with “your feet!” So here you go. As I discovered yesterday while taking pictures with Brian, my feet (and probably everyone’s feet) are really unattractive from the angle I have to take the picture at. Moral of the story: have someone else take pictures of your feet.

Day 78 - Perdita and Brian Sitting in a Tree…

So Perdita is basically in love with Brian, as this picture clearly demonstrates. We were supposed to be taking pictures of my feet, but this turned out to be by far the cutest picture of the night. After Brian left, she even made that adorable worried meow she normally makes when she can’t find Elim (Elim was very confused by this, since he was right there).

Day 77 - Big Sur, Day 2

We survived the rain! Unfortunately, the weather stayed gray and intermittently drenchy the entire day, so I ended up using my point-and-shoot more than my fancy camera. We drove a little bit north from our campsite to check out the Bixby Bridge (first two photos) and then started to make our way south, taking pictures and checking out art galleries along the way.

At one point we stopped at a spot that had two diverging paths each leading down to a little cove. Since they weren’t really labeled except for signage advising people not to do anything stupid, we decided to name them Warning Cove and Danger Cove (next two photos, the second of which I desaturated completely to heighten the dramatic wave action). One nice thing about rain is that it leads to rainbows, and we saw quite a few. The one in the last picture was Right. Freaking. There. It seemed like you could actually reach out and touch it.

Day 76 - Big Sur, Day 1

After spending the night at Ragged Point, we backtracked south a bit to see the elephant seals near San Simeon. At this time of year, it’s just adolescents, who apparently have to spend a fair amount of time on land so that their skeletons form correctly. Weird. The beach was full of seals, but according to Nell and Brian it was comparatively empty. I’m a little bugged that the colors in my seal photos didn’t come out well. The first picture is of my favorite seal—he just looked so fat and happy. And, as the second picture demonstrates, sometimes they actually move around a little.

Then we drove through most of Big Sur on our way to Andrew Molera State Park, where we camped. On the way we took lots of photos of random pretty vistas (third picture). We stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to see McWay Falls (fourth picture) and did short hike to a much smaller waterfall in the woods. The light was on the obnoxiously bright side at McWay Falls, so that picture didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.

After setting up the tent and grabbing dinner, we attempted to get a nice roaring fire going, but the wood was too damp to burn well, so it was mostly just a smoky failure. I really like the picture of Brian by the fire, though. A few minutes after we gave up on the fire and crawled into the tent, it started to rain.

Day 75 - Loud Kitty is Loud

I knew I’d have almost zero time to take a picture before heading up to Big Sur with Nell and Brian, but luckily I saw Loud Kitty on the way home. Loud kitty is fluffy and orange and... well, really freaking loud. She lives on the other block of Davenport. Now there’s only one cat in my life left to photograph, and that’s Jinx, which will happen when I go up to my parents’ for Thanksgiving.

Day 74 - Ugh, More Flowers

Yeah, I know. But I knew today was going to be a busy day, so I wanted to get the photo out of the way quickly at work. I tried using the closeup filters again, but am still having issues getting the image really sharp. I like the light and the composition though. Tomorrow it's off to Big Sur, so hopefully I'll get some awesome pictures out of that.

Day 73 - Kitties and Yarn

Brian and I were supposed to come up with something good, but neither one of us were feeling particularly inspired and I was a bit distracted by my freelance work. Brian figured that since cats like yarn, it might be fun to put some yarn on the cats and take pictures of the cuteness/hilarity that ensued. But apparently Perdita just doesn't give a shit, because this is all she did. And Elim got freaked out and hid in the closet.

Day 72 - Wood Grain Revisted

Well, editing is in the 11th hour, so the only time I had to take photos (because I was an idiot and forgot to bring my camera to work) was while I was hard boiling my eggs. I decided to try taking pictures of the wood grain of my fruit bowl again (sans cat). This time, though, I got to play around a bit with my new closeup filters. I still haven't mastered using them and so the picture is still a bit blurry, but I like it. And really, I don't have the time or energy to take another one.

Day 71 - Flower (aka, I Have No Time)

I knew I wasn't going to have much time today (my boss is in town, wine and cheese tasting, and massive amounts of editing), so I took a few quick shots of these purple flowers at my work. Not much to say about this one. I think Brian's flower fetish is rubbing off on me though.

Day 70 - Pretty Sunset

Another full, fun day. Brian and I intended to take daylight pictures, but we ended up going to a movie instead, and by the time it was out the sun was setting. So we headed over to the slough. My pictures didn't come out that well (I realized after the fact that I had my aperture set way too low because I was trying to make the most of the fading light, but that created too shallow a depth of field), but the colors are really nice, and I like the clouds reflected in the water in the first picture.

Day 69 - Om Nom Nom

I realized I hadn't taken a cat picture for awhile, so I decided to give Perdita and Elim some turkey in hopes of getting a good shot. This photo isn't good from a technical standpoint (since she was moving and I was trying to balance the camera on my knee) but it cracks me up to no end.

Day 68 - This is Where Baby Bags Come From...

(And you thought the stork brought them!) Tonight I went over to Nell and Brian's for dinner (mmmm gnocchi, breadsticks, and alcohol-laced hot chocolate) and to help Nell work on the bag she's making for me. Well, actually all I did was fuse some stuff with the iron—otherwise I was pretty useless. Let's just call it supervising.

Day 67 - And This, My Friends, is Why I Keep Taking the Soft Option

I want to spend more time each day taking my photo, I really do, but there's just no time to be had. In addition to all the necessities and little fun happenings of the day-to-day, the freelance editing I'm doing is kicking into high gear. And my pictures are going to suffer until it's over on the 16th. I intended to take some shots of the roses in my backyard, but there were only a few ratty looking ones and anyway after a few pictures I accidentally destroyed the one semi-decent one. I came back inside to check my email, only to discover this wall of work waiting for me. But at least I got a (pretty lame) picture out of it. Now, back to work....

Day 66 - Walking Home at Sunset

I brought my camera to work today but, like a dope, I totally forgot to take it out with me on my walks. Luckily, as I was walking home I noticed some palm trees backlit by the beautiful sunset. The trees came out a little fuzzier than I'd thought they would, but the colors are nice.

Day 65 - Smoke

For our photo today, I suggested to Brian that we try taking pictures of the smoke from a stick of incense. He thought it was a great idea (see? I add value!!!), so we gave it a shot. It actually turned out to be easier than exepcted, and the results were quite good. We used a blue pen light to light up the smoke, hence the color.

Day 64 - Berries

I decided to take my camera to work today, and while walking around I found some mysterious (possibly poisonous) bright red berries.

Day 63 - In Which There is Gorgeous Lighting

Because we didn't get good shots of the butterflies yesterday, Brian suggested going to his work, where he claimed the butterflies were hanging out more at eye level (just like he claimed there would be no mosquitoes when we went to go take pictures of the oil rig a few weeks ago). Needless to say, the butterflies were not hanging out at eye level. But all was not lost; we walked around his work and took pictures of plants and roses. Even though these shots could have come out a little sharper, the lighting was absolutely beautiful. Also, the roses smelled amazing (I didn't sniff the leaf, sorry).

Day 62 - Andrew and Liz's Wedding

Today was a busy day. Went to check out the monarchs with Nell and Brian, but we couldn't get close enough to get good shots. Luckily, I had Andrew and Liz's wedding to go to later in the afternoon (after lunch at Fresco—mmmmm Fresco). Since Irene couldn't make it at the almost-last second, Brian was nice enough to go with me. It was at the Ty Warner Sea Center on the wharf, which is an awesome place to have a wedding because we got to walk through the aquarium and pet various sea life. I took some pictures in there, but most of them didn't turn out well because of the glass and because I wasn't taking my time. I do like this one of the underside of a ray, though. The actual wedding was outside, and although it was very beautiful it was freaking cold and windy as hell. The food was quite good (yay! not buffet!) and there was copious amounts of free alcohol. So, all in all, a great day!

Day 61 - Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

(This is so not true!) Today was super busy and stressful, and I didn't sit down to take my photo until almost 11:00. This was inspired partly by a suggestion Brian made yesterday and partly by my own exhaustion. I kind of like the "dirty" color of the photo—seems to fit the theme.

Day 60 - Shadow Play

Brian had the great idea to take pictures of our shadows doing wacky things. This proved a bit difficult for me, though, because my wide-angle lens was too wide and my close-up lens was too... close-up. My camera also had a lot of trouble focusing. So, unfortunately, I didn't get a very sharp shadow (and I had to crop out some light sockets), but I still think it makes for a fun photo.

Day 59 - Duckies!

It finally happened! I saw the duckies while I had my camera! I took tons of photos, but a lot of them didn't come out very clearly because they were waddling around. These are my two favorites.

Day 58 - Short Trip to NYC!

I wish. Actually, I completely forgot about my photo until I was about to start heading for bed. So tired me had to scout around quickly for something to take a picture of, and I chose a drawing done by a street artists I got in New York City a few years ago. I've always loved the moodiness of the shading (hence why I bought it) and I like the picture-of-a-picture idea.