Sky Watch: Arizona Evening

I've pretty much finished going through and editing down my catalog, selecting and annotating images, to get it all organized and presentable for my rebuilt website.  It's finally up and running here at: www.AspectStudioPhotography.net.  The nice thing about it (and the main reason for the rebuild) is the integrated shopping cart and ordering system, which works really smoothly and easily on the front end (what visitors see) AND the back end, where I can manage and update everything so easily behind the scenes.
I looked around for quite a long time to find a hosting service that met my needs for professional quality design; easy to manage, self-fulfilled e-commerce (I do all my own printing); and slick, Flash-free presentation. PhotoShelter was the only one I found that has it all... short of a prohibitively expensive scratch-built site. I think it has a really clean, organized and interactive presentation that invites exploration and that's what I wanted.  Looking ahead, I will continue to add, subtract and reorganize, I'm sure... but I think it's pretty presentable from this point. Please check it out if you get a few minutes.
Since I've been spending so much time going through my archives and adjusting past work, this week's Sky Watch was actually done a couple of years back, at Monument Valley in NE Arizona. Only at sunrise and sunset do you get these beautiful deep desert colors of blue, purple and salmon. This is one of the iconic "Mitten" formations, seen in the setting sun's low angle light. Check out the Sky Watch page every weekend for interesting skies from all around the world.

SkyWatch: "Winter's Swell"

I guess I tend to have a one-track mind... I'm still working at sorting and editing my entire catalog and therefore just haven't had much energy for writing on the blog or visiting around. It's good though that I am reworking a lot of old stuff with a fresh eye and eliminating a bunch of images that never were quite right.  I haven't been out to shoot at all for several weeks, partly because of this and partly because we've been getting a lot of snow on the mountain and it's been a chore just to stay mobile.
This one was made last winter while we were still living at the coast.  I spent an afternoon pretty much just sitting on some rocks and shooting the huge waves of a winter swell. The light got really strange and interesting reflecting off the water towards the end of the day, producing this nicely abstract effect of the water and sky blending together. I've caught this blue and gold effect several times and I really like it. The power and dynamics of the ocean are fascinating to watch when it's this active, but hard to capture just at the right moment... really just have to shoot a lot and hope for the best:)
Visit the Sky Watch home page every week for great skies and nature images from all over the world.

Back to Work... (soon)

I know, I know, it's been quite a while since my last post. Moving is an all-consuming thing, but finally we are resettled and getting organized again.  Hopefully I can get back to doing some creative work in the next few weeks, although I still have lots of work to do around our new house.  Looking ahead, a big plus of living here, besides how beautiful it is, is going to be that I am now 2 hours closer to my favorite shooting locations in Arizona, Utah and the Sierras.  We're real close.. less that 1 hour.. from Joshua Tree N.P. too, which is going to be great.  Although I've been coming to the mountains where we now live for many years, I've had very little chance to get many good images locally, due to not being here all that much...  but now that we are full time I expect that I can get some interesting results.
My Skywatch scene for today is from last year's trip to Monument Valley in NE Arizona.   Another one of those that I almost passed up because I was dog tired and on my way back to the car to call it a day, but just had to set up one more time to get this gorgeous sky over the red-rock butte.  Never put your camera back in the bag until you're actually at home and it's pitch black dark outside:)
You can view more beautiful skies from all over the world each week here at the SkyWatch home page.  

At the root of creativity is an impulse to understand, to make sense of random and often unrelated details. For me, photography provides an intersection of time, space, light, and emotional stance. One needs to be still enough, observant enough, and aware enough to recognize the life of the materials, to be able to 'hear through the eyes. - Paul Caponigro

Look for Mercury in the Sky until April 10

This week until April 10th Mercury will be seen in the evening sky with Venus right after sunset. From the article:

Mercury, the solar system’s most elusive planet, will be easier to see for the next two weeks.Astronomers say that Mercury and Venus will appear unusually close together between now and April 10. Because Venus is one of the brightest objects in the night sky it can be used as a pointer to find the hard-to-see Mercury.Just look in the lower western sky about an hour after sunset. Find Venus and look down and to the right for Mercury.They will appear closest together on April 3 and 4, but Venus is really on the other side of the sun.Mercury is the solar system’s smallest planet and it looks pink. Miami Space Transit Planetarium director Jack Horkheimer calls Mercury the pinkie of the planets.
LINK.

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• See Venus and Mercury Shine in Celestial Dance (space.com)

The Photographer Contemplates...

This fellow photographer ended up in a bunch of my compositions one particular evening.. he seemed so enthralled with the beautiful sunset sky that he wasn't too busy shooting. Don't know if he was thinking about his foreground setup at all either, being out there on the edge, but to each his own:)... and very nice of him to stand so still for the 8 seconds duration of this exposure.  It didn't bother me much, because I knew I could easily remove him from the scene later if necessary and I just went on undisturbed.  If there's a whole bunch of gawkers standing in the scene, that CAN get to be a problem.  I left him in here this time because I think the figure adds a bit of story to the shot. You might question my choice to render such a colorful scene in monochrome, but I have so many color versions of this already and I like it this way.. your mind's eye fills in the colors and the textures of the rocks, sea and cloud are so awesome all by themselves.  
My posts (and comments, sorry) will probably continue to be irregular for the near future.. the practicalities of life sometimes intrude on creative endeavors and that is my story for now.  In short, we are preparing to leave the city life and move full time to our house in a small village high in the southern California mountains, so life is going to change drastically, but first there is a lot to deal with here as you can imagine. More info on this as it occurs, I suppose.  In the meantime I don't have much opportunity to travel or work on new stuff, but it should all be better in the end.
You can view more beautiful skies from all over the world each week here at the SkyWatch home page.  

A Roiling Sea

Southern California is being pummeled this week with wind, huge waves, torrential rain... and snow in the mountains. As it starts to clear for the weekend I will of course hope to find some great photographic opportunities:) It's almost always interesting during that transitional, post-storm period and I've been wanting for some time to get at some fresh snow for a change of subject, so a trip up to the mountains is probably in order for the weekend (if I can get there). 15-20 ft. waves at the shore will be around for a few more days, too... can't go wrong with that. Some of the local piers are closed for safety because the waves are actually breaking over them.

Meantime, another in my recent glut of winter-season seascapes for today's SkyWatch. Check out other beautiful skies from around the world or post your own at the SkyWatch home page.

Fire in the Sky

A photographer's dream day.. what else can I say?

It's such an advantage to be really familiar with a place before you try to photograph it. Whenever I travel, I have to rely largely on luck and instinct to be there when the conditions are right... it can be a frustrating experience as many of you know well, especially if a lot of time and expense were involved in getting somewhere. Here at home, however, I can watch the weather and the sky every day and just know when it's going to be happening. Occasionally it's a bust, other times like this, it's way better than expected.

Virtually no processing on this (yet)... just a slight exposure tweak and a bit of levels in the sky.

Be sure to visit the SkyWatch home page for other awesome skies from around the world.

The Sun Sets on Another Year

Good Bye, '09... and thank you to all the various fellow artists, photographers and general outdoor lovers who stopped by to look in or leave comments in the past year. I have discovered many interesting people from all over the world and seen a lot of great work that I would otherwise never have experienced, if not for starting up this blog just over one year ago.

Sometimes when I sense a nice sunset and I have nothing else pressing to do, I drive over to the beach that is a few minutes from where we live, just to see what might happen. I usually don't bother to take my camera because I see this all the time (especially in the winter months) and there's no real "subject" per se, just the ocean and the sky in their simplicity. I did happen to have a camera a few days ago when I shot this exceptionally nice one, just for fun. It seemed like an appropriate fade out for my last post of the year. Here's hoping for good things to come in 2010.

Check out the fantastic scenes from SkyWatchers all over the world here, and see you all next year!

Bare Bones, II

Continuing with my "iPhone Chronicles".. a straightforward scenic for today. (I wouldn't contend that you should expect any very technically challenging work to succeed with such limited equipment, but knowing your limitations and working within them is always necessary no matter what you're doing, isn't it?) ... and it can still work out pretty well.

It's not unusual in this area for the coastal cloud/fog to recede off-shore during the day and slowly work its way back in the late afternoon or early evening. The sinking sun, peeking through an occasional thin spot in the cloud cover, creates a wonderful shimmering light on the waves and beach against the almost black overcast off in the distance. I kind of wish I had been prepared with my "real" gear to shoot this, but like I said, this kind of situation is not so uncommon here, and I'm very lucky to live only a few minutes away.

Squares

For some reason things look more rectangular in the early

 evening when the sun is setting and the light is falling on the

 sides of buildings. What a lot of small windows there are.

Toy cars from above.

On 24th Street they go white, yellow, red, black.

Quite a lot of stripes.

This could almost be a castle. The bit on the top has a Norman look.

The building in the middle is almost finished.

The jury is out on this golden tower.

Evening and Morning

It was overcast and rainy yesterday, and then suddenly,

just after seven in the evening, the sun appeared very briefly
and bathed the buildings in a pink light.

In the morning the sun paints bright patches on the floor.

Sunset and Blogging

Looking out of the window provides hours of harmless entertainment.

On Sunday evening we had an unusually spectacular sunset.

My new camera picks up bright colors, unlike the last one where I had to crank up the colors every time. 

Tangobaby has a nice sunset today.

Willow of Willow Manor mentioned Tangobaby.

You see how we run in circles and cross-pollinate.

This is looking west down 23rd Street. The two alien spaceships, lower left, are the (one) light over the dining table.

This picture was taken between the other two looking slightly northwest, and the sinking sun is reflected in the windows of the buildings.

Treasure Box Wednesday: Days Shiny and Brite

Any good treasure hunter knows, it's never too early or late in a season to pick up seasonal items-- particularly when they have a little age and interest to them. And this last week was a shiny taste of Christmas.

A visit to the Salvation Army Superstore rewarded me with a bag of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments-- those gleaming, uniquely shaped decorations of the 50s. I have a few that came from my parents' house. My dad recalls them from when he was a young'n...


In fact, the bell above is very similar to ones handed down to me. Of course, with the years also comes some unpleasant ornament casualties, and so I'm happy to find ones similar to the originals to supplement my collection. With a bag at just a little over $1, it's easy to splurge...


I love how some of them are shaped like whimsical toys, while others have shimmering starbursts at their heart, like these bulbs...


To further bring on the shiny, I discovered these two luster candlesticks. I'm not sure the age on these, but their style is very much like the pressed glass from the Depression era. I think I need to do a bit of research...

They certainly do work well, though, with all my Carnival glass!

Another find-- while not necessarily shiny-- did have a very sparkly price. At $0.79, I couldn't pass up these two pink sherbet dishes in my Hazel Atlas Moderntone Platonite pattern...


And before we close the lid on today's Treasure Box, I thought I'd show you shiny of a more natural sort. I'm definitely seeing the value of bringing my camera just everywhere with me. Because one breathtaking morning commute, the sky exploded in color...


It was so vibrant, so awestriking to me, I actually deviated from my route to work, went around the block, and parked, just so I could get a few of these shots out my car window...


It's hard not to believe you'll have a decent day at work when your world is filled with brilliant colors like these...


Wishing you beautiful, colorful days ahead. The kind that warm the heart, and bring a bit of optimism into your view.

• For those who missed Sunday's post, "Fit to Be Tied: Funny Knitting and Crochet", click here.

See you again soon!

Treasure Box Wednesday: Days Shiny and Brite

Any good treasure hunter knows, it's never too early or late in a season to pick up seasonal items-- particularly when they have a little age and interest to them. And this last week was a shiny taste of Christmas.

A visit to the Salvation Army Superstore rewarded me with a bag of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments-- those gleaming, uniquely shaped decorations of the 50s. I have a few that came from my parents' house. My dad recalls them from when he was a young'n...


In fact, the bell above is very similar to ones handed down to me. Of course, with the years also comes some unpleasant ornament casualties, and so I'm happy to find ones similar to the originals to supplement my collection. With a bag at just a little over $1, it's easy to splurge...


I love how some of them are shaped like whimsical toys, while others have shimmering starbursts at their heart, like these bulbs...


To further bring on the shiny, I discovered these two luster candlesticks. I'm not sure the age on these, but their style is very much like the pressed glass from the Depression era. I think I need to do a bit of research...

They certainly do work well, though, with all my Carnival glass!

Another find-- while not necessarily shiny-- did have a very sparkly price. At $0.79, I couldn't pass up these two pink sherbet dishes in my Hazel Atlas Moderntone Platonite pattern...


And before we close the lid on today's Treasure Box, I thought I'd show you shiny of a more natural sort. I'm definitely seeing the value of bringing my camera just everywhere with me. Because one breathtaking morning commute, the sky exploded in color...


It was so vibrant, so awestriking to me, I actually deviated from my route to work, went around the block, and parked, just so I could get a few of these shots out my car window...


It's hard not to believe you'll have a decent day at work when your world is filled with brilliant colors like these...


Wishing you beautiful, colorful days ahead. The kind that warm the heart, and bring a bit of optimism into your view.

• For those who missed Sunday's post, "Fit to Be Tied: Funny Knitting and Crochet", click here.

See you again soon!