Softbox Practice

Since it was such a wet rainy day outside for our Martin Luther King Jr holiday, I decided to do a little more practicing with my softbox, and fortunately my kids were willing to model for me! These two are a couple of my favorites:

Monterey Jellies

Without a significant amount of time and fuss I captured these shots in the Jellyfish exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. With camera set at 3200 ISO and a little bit of Photoshopping here's what I got:

I love how this one looks like smoke.

Yosemite

On Friday Eric had a (furlough) day off of work and he offered to take care of kid responsibilities, so I took advantage of the opportunity to head up to Yosemite by myself with my camera gear. Unfortunately I was not thinking clearly enough to bring an umbrella along. I'm afraid I missed a few chances for some great photos because I wasn't willing to let my camera get wet! But between the downpours I did manage to get some that I really like. Yosemite is incredibly gorgeous when everything is soaked and saturated, and Oh so peaceful during the cold months.

A Few Recent Portrait Favorites

Beautiful Frost!

This morning was, by a long way, the coldest this season. On my way back from dropping off kids at school at 8 o'clock I noticed the beauty of the frost all over the flowers and leaves in our neighborhood and decided that I had to bundle up, grab the camera, and brave the cold for a little while. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

The lesson I learned this time, (well, more like remembered): there's a reason that nature photographers use a tripod. And it's not because it's too cold out to hold a camera. Although these photos may look OK on the web, they just don't have the super crisp focus or sharpness that they should. Next time...