365.63: What Do You Get When an Elephant Sits on a Grape?

Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO Speed: 200

A little WINE!!! (Whine) Get it? LOL...one of the lame jokes I remember from my Elephant Joke book circa 1982. I wanted to try and get some cool grape shots at
the Temecula wineries...but a few things were keeping me back. 1. It was hotter than Hades (but not as hot as Phoenix) and B. I was rushing cuz I think I may have been trespassing. I was waiting for an old man to come running out of his house, waving his walking cane yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN!!" We went to a couple wineries- first, Wilson Creek wine. Super cute place. Huge lawns to picnic on. A little park for the kiddos. A huge tasting area. But I guess others thought it was super cute too cuz holy cow, was it busy. You couldn't turm without bumping into someone's fake boobs. Seriously- all there was there were girls getting drunk on wine. Anyway, the vineyard was kind of fenced off so we ditched the blondes with the plastic tatas, jumped in the car and headed for another vineyard. We stopped by a smaller, more hidden winery and as luck would have it, the long winding drive way up to the main house was flanked with grape vines. I told CMB to stop and park on the side so I could jump out of the car and take some shots. I may have stepped over a No Trespassing sign- I'm not sure. So I clicked as fast as I could before anyone could tell me to leave. I got about 10-12 shots but half of them were overexposed. I had my flash on and didn't realize it cuz I was shooting away before I got yelled at. Oh well...I'll have to go back before August is over to try and get some good shots. Too bad I can't taste wine.

365.62: Favorite #2...

Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture: f/29.0
ISO Speed: 640

My favorite time of day ... just before the sun goes down behind the ocean. This was taken at about 7:45 at Scripps Pier in La Jolla. The photo hasn't been edited- I was too excited to post it. Maybe tomorrow, I'll try to play around with it...but for now, its straight out of the camera...

365.61: Vintage Layer

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago but just recently found out that my tatay** has been holding out on me. I've been living here 3 weeks- going on 4- and I'm just recently discovering that he has Photoshop on his computer. Here's my very first attempt at Photoshop, following a Vintage tutorial.

Before:


After:


**tatay means "dad" or "daddy" in tagalog

365.60: Favorites #1...

Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO Speed: 800

Sabrina and I are going to attempt to shoot a few of our favorite things to help get us inspired and practiced up on some basic photography elements. Here's my first in the series- My Favorite Baby Body Part...the Toes! I love these little mini sausage looking digits. The way they curl when I run my finger down the underside of the foot. The way they stretch out when he tries to escape his baby bouncer. The way they feel clammy when you pop them out of their little booties!! I love these little suckers!! SUCK! That's another thing I want to do to these little digits...I may have a problem.

I used Flickr and Picnic to edit this photo from a colored shot to B&W. I also added a vignette around the edges. Lessons learned...I wanted to have the front toes more in focus and the back ones blurred. Next time I see these little things, I'll focus more on the front ones.

Click here for the original colored version!

365.59: I Wanna Hold Your Haaaaannnnddd....

Exposure: 0.077 sec (1/13)
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO Speed: 800

Baby Lukas is simply breath taking. It truly is "Love at First Sight." I can't wait to take more pictures of his little hands, his little toes, his little ears, his little mouth...well, you get the picture. :)

365.58: Happy Birthday, America!

Exposure: 15
Aperture: f/29.0
Focal Length: 41 mm
ISO Speed: 100

I love this time of year. Unfortunately, the last 5 years, we skipped out on the fireworks. Not this year! These are my first attempt at firework shots...taken from my folks front yard.