My Favorite Models

I entered one of my photos in the bimonthly NikonNet Photo contest. It wasn't selected. I am a little bummed about that. This is only the 2nd time I've submitted a photo in a contest. The last time, I entered "On The Edge" and 4 others to the Photography Exhibit at the Los Angeles County Fair about 7 years ago. "On The Edge" won an honorable mention but the other 4 were sent packing. Sometimes all you get is praise for your photos and you start to think you are all that and a bag of chips and then you try something like this and it brings you down to earth. There's a qoute from Ansel Adams that I have to remind myself of often. "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop." So I'll keep trying. I think I might submit this one next:

I like the color and the framing and the way the light hits Maddie's face.

These next two I took this past weekend. I didn't take a whole lot of photos and these two I liked but there are some if only's in them. I wish Maddie's had a more uniform/darker background to make her face pop out more. I wish Morgan's sweater hadn't left fuzzies on her shirt. But I like the fact that both of them are side-ish views and I caught them while they were pensive. I think they were both wondering if they had been good enough this year for Santa to visit!

Wedding Photos

No, not my wedding. Photos from the wedding I took in October. I shot the wedding in color but they also wanted b&w versions. These I toned in Sepia. I think it works with the setting. Weddings are fun to shoot but intense. I like capturing the candid moments but it's stressful because you have to make sure you catch all the important moments too.

Birds of a Feather

These aren't the greatest pics of birds. They are a little too dark and I wish the eagle was looking at me. But I still like them. They are also from the Living Desert - usual suspects D200 & 28-105. I would also have liked to use a flash, especially on the owl but that would have been rude. Both of the birds are unrealeasable. The eagle was found and hand raised and doesn't know how to hunt so it can't be released. I can't remember why the owl can't be. A lot of the birds that are there have been rescued.

This is a Golden Eagle:


And I think this is a Screech Owl???

Butterflies Alive

I went to the Living Desert on Saturday with my friend, Jackie, from work. Her brother and his wife went also. It was my first time there and it was good to have Jackie (who is a member) there to be our cruise director. There is an exhibit there called Butterflies Alive where you can get up close and personal with them while they flit about you. I loved it. I've never taken a picture of a butterfly before. Oh sure, I've chased bees around but never a butterfly. Anyway, I had a blast and it was quite challenging because, you know, they don't stay still long. I only wish I'd had my 70-180 macro. All of these are with my D200 and nikkor 28-105 lens.

This one is my favorite. Some kind of sulphur butterfly.


This one is a Giant Swallowtail


This one is a Julia


This one is a Zebra Longwing


Another Julia


Another Sulphur

A few of my favorite things

You know what's cool. I remember exactly where I was and the exact moment I pushed the button of every picture I've taken. Every photo for me is a memory keepsake of a new place, a beautiful sight, someone I love, or just plain fun. These are a few of my favorite photos and memories.

This one was taken at Joshua Tree with my 4x5 view camera. The kind with bellows and you have to use a black cloth over it and your head and you have to load the film one by one in the cartridge in a black bag. It was cool, late afternoon, silent. No one else was around for miles except the coyotes, birds, snakes, lizards. I remember hauling that camera and all my gear in my backpack over rocks and thru the desert. I almost fell backwards one time because my backpack was so heavy. I only took a few shots with the 4x5 but it was definitely worth all the effort.

This one was taken at Bryce Canyon on a long weekend I took to celebrate my birthday. I took it with my Sigma 35mm camera (which I don't have anymore) and it was freezing cold that morning, literally. I remember driving in the dark to get to the park before sunrise. There were a couple of other photographers there waiting for the sun to come up just like me. We were all blowing on our fingers to keep them warm. I took my camera out of my bag and put it on the tripod and got only a few shots before my batteries died from the cold! The waiting was the hard part. Waiting for just the right light.

This one is of Zion and I took it on that same trip. I used my Yashica 124G box camera, an old camera where you have to look down thru the viewfinder and there's a crank to wind the film. Love that camera. It shoots 6x6 squares. It was warm and there seemed to be tons of people in Zion that day. I remember waiting for people to finish crossing the bridge so I could take it.

This one is also from Bryce and I took it with the Sigma. I remember walking up to the rim and seeing this tree standing there and being so amazed I almost forgot I had my camera. Then I bracketed the shot to make sure I got it just right. This one and the one of Joshua Tree at the top are, I think, my two best landscape shots.

Leaf Musings

I picked up a few leaves on the ride home from work a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were colorful and interesting. This one I shot on top of my light tablet. It's what gives it the white background and it's what gives it that glow. I was afraid it might come out cheesy but I like the floatiness of it. Oh yeah, that's a technical photography term. No cropping.

This one was lit by room light and flash. It's of the underside of a leaf. I thought it was more suited to black and white. I also applied a slight antique tint to it. Again, no cropping.

This one I cropped to 8x10 (as opposed to the normal scale of 8x21) and it is also lit by flash and again from the back. I liked the curl of the leaf on this one and the almost leathery texture. As you can see, it's also the underside of the leaf. I often shoot flowers and leaves from their backsides. I also chose a black background for this to isolate it.

Last, but not least...an extreme closeup. God, I love my macro lens. It's as sharp as a pin. This one is also lit from behind by the light tablet. I wanted to fill the frame with the leaf. It's almost like a view from a plane of some exotic other world with roads and fields and rivers. No cropping on this one either.

What A Triathlete Looks Like

So what does a triathlete look like? You never know. It could be the man next to you in line at the grocery store. It could be that mom picking up her kids from school. Heck, it might even be one of those school kids. The other day I ordered pizza and I answered the door wearing my volunteer shirt from the BOD (Bonelli Olympic Distance tri). The delivery guy said "oh, I raced there that day". Small world, eh? Sports photography is a new thing for me. I'd never tried that til this year. When injuries prevented me from doing the Danskin, I thought I would go and take pictures of it. And what do you know? I love it. These are some of the photos I've taken at recent tris.

My Grandma

My grandmother's birthday was Monday. She would have been 82. I miss her. You know, it's because of her that I consider myself a photographer. She bought me my first real camera - a Canon AE-1P. She claimed she bought it so she could have really good photos of the family. But then she asked me to learn how to use it and then I was assigned to taking the pictures from then on. Funny how she worked that, don't you think? I'd always had fun taking pictures before with my little Kodak camera that I had and used to try and catch people with. But it wasn't til that camera that I paid attention to what I was doing with it. I wish she were alive today to see all the photos I've taken of Morgan, Madison, & Max. I think they definitely would have made her laugh.

Some of my favorite memories of her:
*Waking up on cold dark mornings and sitting at the kitchen table while she fed us tortillas w/butter hot off the grill.
*Shopping trips that always ended up at Thrifty's for an ice cream.
*Watching her and my grandfather dance every chance they got.
*How every telenova was going to be her last one and then when it was over, she'd start watching the next one.
*Driving my sister & I around town in the boat (a 59 Chevy Impala - mint).
*Going to all the kids movies with her even when I was in my 20's, okay 30's too.
*Watching her talk to & take care of the birds that she'd rescued.

You know what the best part was? The fact that I knew she loved me totally and unconditionally. Me, the stubborn, moody, sometimes bratty one who wasn't always easy to love. I loved her for that and I hope to God that she knew it. I hope she knew how much she gave me. And I hope I gave a little back to her as well.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

There was an airshow in Goodyear while I was in Arizona. Both my sister and my dad live in the flight path for Luke AFB so we're used to see jets all the time. But the Blue Angels were at the air show and that was a great surprise. None of us had seen them before. We had fun watching them zip across the sky and fly straight up into the heavens and then dive bomb back down to earth. Sometimes, they flew over us so low it seemed you could reach up and touch them. I took pictures, of course. I wish I'd had a longer lens!





I've been to one other airshow before and tried taking pictures there too. It's not that easy to take pictures of planes while they are flying. They don't stand still.

So yeah, a longer lens would definitely help. Taking pictures at an airshow is definitely a challenge. But at least it's fun to watch while you are trying!

This picture is of the Metro train. I took it a few years ago when I took a photography class. The instructor was an a$$. Basically he told us that painters were true artists and photographers only took photos because they couldn't paint. Here's where I rant a little. A lot of his projects had us taking pictures while not looking thru the lens or distorting what we saw. Now, to me, the whole idea of photography is to share my view with the rest of the world. To record how I see. How am I supposed to do that if I'm not looking! Anyway, I do have to say that some of the assignments made me step out of the box and that was a good thing. This is an out of the box picture for me. It was for an assignment on motion.

This was a little easier to compose and shoot but I only really had one chance to get it so I was lucky it came out.

Hmmm...so no pictures of cars yet. I was thinking of going to one of the local old car club events they have every Saturday down the street from me. There are some very cool cars there. Or maybe the races. Hmmm...

Substitue Mom For A Week

According to my niece, Morgan, I am their substitute mom this week. Yep, I'm in Arizona getting my munchkin fix. Of course, they are the cutest kids EVER. Not that I'm prejudiced or anything. Ok, I am. Of course, I am. Anyway, so far, so good. All kids are accounted for and doing fine. Nothing broken on a kid or in the house. The only casualty is the missing Hooters frisbee which we hope to look for again this morning. Some quick thoughts:

Max is a heartbreaker. Everytime he smiles at me or reaches for me to hold him, he steals another piece of my heart. But as soon as he sees his mommy, it's Tia who? He's getting better at letting me take his pictures and even smiles for me. Woo. He's babbling still, no talking. Runs like the wind is a bright and curious little boy.



Madison is the stubbornest little girl you'll ever meet. Hoo is that kid stubborn. Probably because she's a Taurus like her Tia. I'm not too stubborn. Much. But she's quick to smile and hilarious. Sometimes, it's so hard to be "stern Tia" when she says something funny but I'm not supposed to laugh. Right now she is quite an accomplished Pole Slider Downer (just like a fireman) and not afraid of it at all (of which she is quite proud of and rightly so).


Morgan is whip smart, still loves horses, and still wants to be a vet. She's good with money and great about saving for the things she wants. She just bought her gecko a new tank and re-decorated her room in a surfer girl motif. She's not even 9 yet. She asks a lot of questions and always takes it to the next step. Sometimes, I forget that she's still a kid who plays Barbies and gets scared. She has a little bit of the drama queen in her which always made for great photo ops for me. But...sniffle, sniffle, she's starting to get self-conscious about having her picture taken. Sigh.

Flower Power

Flowers are yet another one of my favorite things to photograph. Probably because there is an inifite variety of them in all shapes, sizes, colors. It's kind of like taking portraits of people. Only, it's easier to photograph flowers.

For flowers, it's all about the light. Actually, photography is always all about the light but more so with flowers I think. I love to see flowers lit like this. Almost like a spotlight from above saying "hey look at the beauty that surrounds you and ignore the bad stuff going on in the world."

Sometimes it boggles my mind to think of how many beautiful and unique things there are in this world. It makes me believe there is a hand guiding things along.

Yet, I also find myself taking lots of black and white pictures of flowers. Is a flower still beautiful without all the color?



Both of these shots were handheld in late afternoon light. The sunflower definitely could have used more depth of field but I had to keep a workable shutter speed on it. Should have used my tripod. Sigh. The daisy I ended up putting in this little vase because my cat started eating them and he bit this one off! The shape almost seemed human - head, body, hand on hip. Like it was daring me to take the picture anyway.

Falling Leaves

We don't really have a fall season in our little part of Southern California. But still, there are trees with multi-colored leaves right now. Last night on the way home, I was distracted by them - yellow, orange, red. Just lying in the road. I kept looking at them to see if there were any interesting ones to photograph. Which is pretty hard to do while you are riding a bike. There is a whole section of my commute that I don't remember because I was distracted.

I like to photgraph a leaf because...I'm not sure why. Sometimes I just like the shape of them. Sometimes it's the color. Sometimes it's because they look like mini stained glass windows with the light shining thru them. Sometimes it's their shadow. This one was all about the shadow. It's a copy of slide. I used to shoot b&w slide film a lot.

Crystal Cove

Crystal Cove State Park is another one of my favorite places to photograph. It doesn't get too crowded there and you have the option of views from the bluff or down in the surf. These are some of the photos I've taken there over the years. All of them were experiments. They are also all copies of slides with my D200.

The bottom one was a long exposure at sunset. The shot was bracketed and I liked this one best. It's a little dramatic and the clouds really picked up the colors of the sunset.

The top one is also close to sunset and it's looking into the sun across the rocky shore.

The middle shot is looking straight down into the shallows. Because of all the rocks and tide pools there, this area just has gently lapping waves and I thought the patterns in the sand and the sun reflecting thru the water was cool.

Globe Trekker

One of my favorite shows is Globe Trekker. I guess you can see it on the Travel Channel but since I don't have cable, I watch it on PBS on Saturdays and Sundays. Love this show. I love that they go to not typical places and really get to know the people and the advertous side of that spot on the globe.

Now, I haven't done nearly enough Globe Trekking. My sister moved to North Carolina 12 years ago. It'll be 4 years in January that she's been living in Arizona. Still, that means that for the past 12 years, all my vacations have been to visit her & the family. Or vacations here at home when they come to visit. Not that I didn't love being with them, but it meant that I didn't get to see much of the world.

I think that is about to change. Well, not right away. But next summer I am going to take an Adventure vacation. I mean it. A vacation where I get to learn to kayak and climb rocks and ride a mountain bike. Now that I get 3 weeks of vacation a year and my debt is manageable, I think it's doable. I think I need to do it.