Yesterday a new camera, Canon EOS 2000D (T7), arrived to replace the one lost. I’m really happy with the results working with about twice the pixels of the 1300D (T6).
Pink Oleanders in the morning grey
The Oleander shots required some work to bring out the whites and soft tones. Surprising the noise at 400 ISO is subtle and hardly noticeable in the jpegs.
Light from darkness
First sunset with European Canon EOS 2000D
The cover photo was the first sunrise and this is the first sunset captured. Looking forward to many more.
Momma walking with her duckling
This was a cute moment momma walking behind her duckling to keep it safe.
Boots the eyes of an old soul
Finally had to get one of Boots. He’s a new friend. Can’t say as much for Harper quite yet. She more bothered than he is. Boots gives her a slow eye kiss and a rough crackling meow.
The other day I finally consolidated back-ups and found some files that I wanted to rework. Talk about satisfaction, and a little trip down memory lane. I’m still looking through the hundreds to see what can be turned from a blurry mess into something special.
A little love of the process in Photoshop brought this photo of the Phoenix Skyline together. The goal at the time was to create a frame from flowering creosote. The intense sunlight and natural contrast proved difficult. What I saw in this was a beautiful mirage in the distance with a flowering creosote bush right in the foreground.
The aptly named Fairy Duster. This wasn’t the best shot to begin with, but with Adobe Photoshop’s Shake Reduction it recovered fairy well. 😉
These lupine are beautiful and I was a lucky guy to find them. Or did they find me?
I had a couple ask me where to find all the wildflowers before taking these. The best way is to get out of your car and walk a trail. These photos make the flower appear larger than they actually are. So to see them you have to see a hint of purple, yellow, blues among the desert brush hiding them from the road.
My favorite Lost & Found is officially this image of the Milky Way Core. The color is like being inside a kaleidoscope in the middle of the high desert mountains.
February 23rd, 2020 I decided to explore Phoenix while working a bit. It was for a photo project and also to get some exercise. It was a Sunday and the streets still had people coming and going like it was Monday. It’s nice to see the first time tourists come in and give them rides around town.
Here are some pictures to look at while we virtually ride around town.
Feeling a little lost and hopeless? No worries look for an ambassador to help find your way. In the downtown district in particular life is growing upwards, which can obscure landmarks and navigational reference points. Here’s a helpful hint. Phoenix is divided East and West from Central Avenue. The area for the most part is a grid, but maps can be deceiving as the entire metro area is about 75 miles wide. I once picked a up a couple using a brochure trying to walk to a farmers market about 15-20 miles away. The map made it appear to be walking distance.
Abandoned Phoenix 1st Baptist Church
This has place has many stories.
The Phoenix 1st Baptist church had a fire and was preserved by Mayor at the time Terry Goddard as a historical building. I see it’s been used as a wedding venue for photoshoots also.
Monroe Street
Monroe and Central has some cool spots. Cornish Pasty was a small shop about the width of a hallway in Tempe back in the day. Now it has several locations including this beautiful store front.
Central Station
Janet Echelman’s – Her Secret Is Patience
A glimpse of the Westward Ho and the Civic Space Park where events are held on occasion with laser light shows with Electronic Dance Music EDM. I think the structures holding up the wire vector sculpture are just as interesting as the sculpture itself. You can also purchase bus passes and lightrail tickets Central Station. They are handy for getting up and down Central Ave to visit restaurants and other venues. People that have baseball game tickets can ride the lightrail for free from park and ride stations.
Roosevelt Row
Roosevelt Row has been an area revitalized with small business and metropolitan flare.
Roosevelt Row keeps changing from my observation. I visited First Fridays early on and participated in Tempe’s version as an artist. It’s great to see this nurtured over the years and wish everyone success.
Phoenix is set up for a work and play atmosphere. When Phoenix Comicon comes to town people walk around dressed up as their favorite comic culture icons. People walking with lanyards is a common sight around the the convention center. I know they appreciate a driver sometimes that doesn’t mind giving a little tour.
Reflecting on the Past
When I went out to take pictures it was for a project currently being evaluated. I got home and was pretty happy overall. There were some things I need to be aware of in the future. Especially the critics in my head.
Life sure has changed since then. Looking forward to the next time we can do this.
Digital photos are almost forever. That’s exactly what my thought was getting back into photography with digital equipment. Figured one day I might find myself in a position that I could use thousands of photos to go through.
Here I am now. Here we are now, if you are in the same boat. Pictures are perfect for looking back as a fond memory or just a reference in life. Pinch myself everyday wondering if this is reality.
Original
The Old I-8 Bypass Rest Stop was a recovered file edited in Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and Camera Raw. I was trying to give the sign some luminescence and things got nasty quick. I moved on from trying to fix it that day and published the original image.
I already had an advance knowledge for making textures and other magic in Photoshop. Then I had a bunch of spare time with free E-learning courses. Below are the results of getting up to speed 2020.
Remastered
This is two images auto-blended similar to an HDR photo with some final Camera RAW touch ups. The original plan was to use two different focal points to make up for a wide open aperture and blurry vegetation.
One of the biggest challenges of taking photos in the desert is wind and brush. The needle like leaves on the trees and brush make for some tough issues with chromatic aberration against the skyline. It’s like a green or purple digital divide between contrasting objects. In the final photo the rubber stamp tool came in handy for fixing anomalies.
Rockpile in focus
Foreground in focus
I think a little blur, a little imperfection is ok. I’m happy with it as it is now looking more natural. Not everything has to be perfect.
Man I had awful feeling taking pictures the morning of March 13th. I tend to stay aware of what is going on globally in a general sense, because there are things that have a butterfly effect with an infinite amount of variables.
Taking photos this morning was to help rid my anxiety of what was about to happen and should have happened sooner. I understand the economics in scale. Obviously my work as a photographer and driver are greatly impacted.
The next morning I quit hauling people after a couple rough nights. I was giving people rides that had no business being in public and rated them accordingly. One of my last rides I saved the day by doing nothing as a wrong way driver passed slowly by us in the next lane.
It’s been two weeks since I had to sell my camera to pay rent. It was apart of the short plan if worse came to worse. Who would have imagined the enormity of that statement back in October? Me. It’s just how business works and I had more than one set back with this being a pretty hard blow. Still rocking hardware for photo and video editing (my son) and looking into online contracts along with driving for a living.
We are all dealing with a lot right now. This was my productivity for today so far and fingers crossed for paying work. Think I’ll just listen to some Pearl Jam for now though.
Went out for a quick hike and captured a great series of photos with Bees and Lavender the other day. I was feeling relaxed, calm, cool and calculated in a light swarm of bees feasting on brittlebrush, creosote, and of course lavender. Some of these might make a nice coffee table book if found in the annals of stock photography on Dreamstime.
I got a nice confidence boost from my local bee lovers in the AZ Photography group and feel these are sweet enough to attract more than a few people. Which makes me think of how specific animals have a niche market. Bees, Ladybugs, birds, fish, etc. It means I need to add a better telephoto lens that meets 2020 image standards.
Still figuring out the keywording for most stock websites as I help catalog plant species in the Sonoran Desert. It’s such a specific market most of what I am taking is just waiting for a few people rather than many. Time will tell if this was a personal epiphany. In the meantime feel free to use the cover photo for non-commercial use. If you have an idea for profit let me in on it.
I started this journey a couple years ago and find myself now saying I need to find my niche. I think it’s obvious what I am passionate about though. Needed to exercise and release some stress first and foremost.
This has been a great year for sunsets in Arizona. This one in particular is just on the edge of a storm blowing dust northward. Not the most epic one but enough to create a soft glow.
Southern View with Eastern Valley Cities
Western view – The Phoenix skyline almost looks like another mountain.
Updated the cover with a subtly adjusted image to reflect a journey to undo the negative thought process in my head. Where the stark contrast of right and wrong is extreme at times. Not everything is evil. Or wrong. We all are trying to figure this out in the shortest amount of time as possible to be successful in life. Maybe one day catch a wave in Hunnington Beach, CA with some friends.
I was out driving around as usual and saw the sliver of the moon setting right behind another beautiful sunset. The colors are enhanced, but they are there. We normally can’t see them, like Donald Trump’s spray on tan. It takes a minor adjustment to a 30 MegaPixel photo to expose fine gradients and subtle tones. Then It takes some painting and advance photo editing skills to make the comet.
The idea behind this I believe is through Bill Hicks. A little before my time, but Keenan Maynard and the Tool band honed in on it and wrote Ænema. If you listen to the lyrics I honestly feel that way being an adult that still has that little candle of naive innocence only to be crushed by shitty people.
I went to this thought as I tend to think about the big picture. So looking at that sunset I think about what was creating it. The refraction of light angled against our dirty atmosphere. Really dirty.
There are plenty of solutions. Some people think the solution is destruction and rebirth. Sure sounds good to me. So does changing the culture we’ve created.
Poetically philosophically the title is,
“The End was Beautiful. Arizona Bay had the Best View.”
This image is adjusted to show the polluted sky from the top of the tallest palm tree down. Taken downwind from Los Angeles to Phoenix.
A Theoretical Comet hurdles towards California creating Arizona Bay similar to the Gulf of Mexico. Inspired by Tool and personal feelings about the bullshit in this world.
Recently installed the Dreamstime Stock Image WordPress Plug-in for sharing photos with a link to buy them if interested. The featured image of the Jumping Cholla Fruit and the Saguaro below were downloaded straight to the WordPress Media Library.
*Little technical note on my side it showed an error after downloading, but that is a small comment error in WordPress. Check the media library and filter the photos by the current month to find them. Happens with regular uploads also.
