iBlog: The Season Changes

You can always tell when Fall sweeps in. Leaves give their best to color the landscape, or in this case the sky, when I gazed overhead.

For me it was more than the season change. It was over four years ago since I had my diagnosis. And I'm now healthy, alive, and looking forward to the passing of more seasons.

.......Wei, from his iPhone

iBlog: Seeing the Flowers

When I went shopping in Walnut Creek this past weekend, all I could think of was the bustle of shopper scurring from store to store. Parking was atrocious, made even more stressful by what seemed to be a mad rush by everyone to beat the rush. They must have been practicing for the upcoming Black Saturday. I'm taking a pass on the day after Thanksgiving. We ended up at Whole Foods, another zoo. And lunch time just ended, with more people rushing about. 

Just before walking into the store I spied the solitude of some trumpet vine flowers, just hanging out. They reminded me to "smell" the flowers. As these had little smell, I opted to capture the beauty of one. Amid the hustling world, uninterested in quiet.

........Wei, from his iPhone

iBlog: Where Was This Taken?

Haven't posted much in the last few weeks. Just recharging my batteries, I guess. When I saw the cyclists pause for a break, it was a perfect moment to capture on such a beautiful day.

Everyone knows what view this is. But who can guess from which restaurant the picture was taken?

BTW, this cropped to mimick a mini-panorama. The iPhone just has so much "umph" before one must post-process.

                                                 .........Wei, from his iPhone

iBlog: A Simple View

Many times less is more. Like looking into a sunset from my garage. The reflection off ny car hood mirror the beauty of a vast western sky, about to go to sleep.

I've seen this view quite a few times, and this evening I paused to enjoy the site--and uplifting feeling I received from something simple.

.... From Wei's iPhone

iBlog: Abstract Designs

 
Sometimes the urge hits me to create abstract images from everyday things. In this case I was at Kaiser Walnut Creek, in the main Medical Building. Most don't give more than a gaze overhead. But I did this time and saw some powerful shapes lit by an afternoon sun.

Not much to tell you in the way of lighting. Just natural lighting difused by the white plastic panels. Those top panels appear a bit yellow from the afternoon rays of sun.

...... From Wei's iPhone

iBlog: Bothe Napa State Park

Bothe nestles just about a mile north of St. Helena. Although located just off of Highway 29 (128), you can easily miss this gem. You're trying to look for the sign that is sorta hidden in the bushes on the right side, as you go North. The sign above is looking from the South, so it looks so visible in the picture.


The park is a find. Nice, friendly & knowledgeable Park Rangers. They don't know whether the part will be open any further, due to the CA state budget (as of Aug 2009). But you might as well enjoy the park, as almost nobody walks it's peaceful paths. Try the Ritchey Trail, which runs along (big surprise) Ritchey Creek. When we were there, we could have had any campsite that was nice.



........from Wei's iPhone

iBlog: Japanese Market

After a dining on a delectable selection of hand-made Japanese goodies, we still had the audacity to visit a food store. Nijiya is a true Japanese grocer specializing in homeland food for one's palate.

They carried many types of fresh fish. What disappears quickly is fish specifically brought over from Japan, even though it may be fresh frozen. In this case the grocer presented his fish with such freshness that his customers were enticed to grab the tongs and put a few fish in their plastic bags for dinner that night.

I asked one Japanese lady if she intended to make sushi. No, she would prepare the fish with shoyu (soy sauce) and other family ingredients for the barbeque that evening. It took much of my willpower not to be so boorish as to invite myself over for dinner....

iBlog: Wonder in Sunlight

Most of the time direct sunlight is not the best prescription for a
good photo of flowers. In this case I muted the contrast & upped the
saturation of these purple gems. My feeling was joy in being right in
the beaming Napa sunlight.

I don't believe changing the scene with a translucent reflector would
have captured the warm & clean sunlight of an August summer day.

iBlog: Flowers Along a Sidewalk

We visited our recooperating niece today. She's much better, but she needs to take lots of time to recover. As she is young & relatively healthy, she really would like to get on with life. Maybe she should take it easy.

These flowers lining her walkway are a beautiful reminder to stop & enjoy some of nature's beauty. The end point can always wait.



.........from Wei's iPhone

iBlog: Hospital Memories

I visited a hospital again, this time for my niece. She fractured a
vertebra in what seemed to be a small bicycle accident.

While there I discovered a posted message about Cancer that I share
with you. It reminded me of the months I spent at the hospital,
recovering. It can beat!

iBlog: Bol Kai Temple

My uncle Dougie Chong & I visited this temple last year. It was being reconstructed, & the painters asked Dougie for some help with the Chinese characters.

Everything turned out nicely, as we returned on a chance visit back. Other views of the temple were through those iron gates that surround the premises. We went to Marysville on a lark and arrived after the temple closed.

iBlog: Beauty in Food

These are simple cremes & sauces. So what catches your eye is not the bland colors of what you're buying, but the fruit "flowers" at the front. They beg customers to at least take a look--to consider such a delectable treat.

Notice the flowers are slightly off-center and not aligned. They are
placed if naturally falling on the creme. Are you buying the flowers?
I think not. Most will only what they came for--the creme. But the
customer will remember how good it looked with the flower.

Just like I took the picture of what I will always remember. The
flowers, even though the creme consttutes most of the frame.

iBlog: Fresh Produce

At Mi Pueblo vegetables & fruits are arranged in impecable rows & columns, within easy reach. Everything looks fresh. So much so that it's a treat when you find out prices can be darn right low.

Look at the displays below. Don't you just feel like putting something
in your cart?

iBlog: What Makes a Wonderful Grocer?

Well, the frontage is clean & nice. It exudes what this market is all about: upscale Mexican groceries.

The smoke on the left side is from the BBQ chickens, whose aroma makes one want to BUY some.

More to come. Aren't you starting to get hungry?

IBlog: Self-Portrait in Arnold

In this beautiful forest just outside Arnold, I framed myself with a DIY tripod for my iPhone. Sometimes it is cooler to use an iPhone rather than a better quality DLSR. I didn't have to position my larger tripod, which wouldn't fit on the table anyways.

This pix has been enhanced w/PhotoGene to account for white balance, exposure, & levels (contrast). I did take panos w/ dlsr, & obviously the quality was well beyond a camera phone. But I had fun w/the iPhone.

IBlog: Afternoon Spider Lilies

How petite these flowers are, surviving in near-drought conditions. We manage our water carefully to give most of our plants a chance to live.

The spider lilies do well because they gather water from the ground, as well as the air (w/their long "arms.")

......from Wei's iPhone

iBlog - Garden Flowers 2009-01

It's wonderful being in a garden before anyone else is up.

With my iPhone I can snap & send, for you to enjoy.

BTW, I finally figured out how to directly load this iBlog from my iPhone, w/o going through my desktop computer.

......from Wei's iPhone

iBlog: Delicious!

Here's the picture I promised in my iBlog, taken with my 3G iPhone.

......from Wei's iPhone

iPhone iBlog

I will start something new for WeiPhotoArts--an iBlog. You'll know it's fr my iPhone because of the word iBlog. These blogs will only have words, because iGoogle & Blogger have not yet figured out how to easily send pix to a blog that is done from both the iPhone & a Windows computer.

For the meantime, I'll send an iBlog with words, only, to be later followed by an iPhone picture. I'll be taking informal pix w/ my iPhone, so most of the quality will not be as good as my D200. But for the small pix on the blog, it may not matter. Let me know your thoughts after you view the images.

......from Wei's iPhone

Photographing a Wedding - Walk Down the Aisle from the Groom's Viewpoint

During this past week I traveled with my family to celebrate the wedding of my nephew in Honolulu. In this blog, I want to detail what I look for in a wedding as an Uncle photographing the couple, the families, and the event.

First, I try not to repeat what the pro photographers are taking. No pre-wedding bride/groom images, no altar returns, and finally, what most people don't do, no bride coming down the aisle. Now pro photographers need to focus on the bride. The wedding is all about her, and many times she or her family are paying for the tab. Bad news if the pro(s) didn't center on her--and the print/image sales would be decimated.

However, what do I concentrate on, as a family member? How about the groom, you know the "other" person who needs to wait while all the attention of the entire congregation, photographers and minister(s) focuses on the bride. There is a lot of emotion and feelings on the other end, but almost nobody notices. Except me. I've done this for quite a few weddings, and the grooms usually do not notice, until they see the pictures--and can then express what they were feeling at that time. Many grooms have complimented me that I did not ignore them.

The most important aspect for shooting the groom is the angle from which you take the shot. Trust me, nobody's going to squeeze you out of these angles. Just pick and choose. And wait. My angle was the first row of the Church on right-hand side.



In this typical wedding, the groom and his troupe came out at the beginning of the service and waited just outside the sanctuary.


This is when the full weight of the decision to marry becomes evident to him. That's when I start shooting. Oh yes, nobody's looking at him, not even the video camera & pro telephotos notice him. All the P&S cameras focus on the bride and her radiant, beaming face. So I missed her coming down the aisle--there would be 10,000 pictures of her coming down the aisle, so I figure what would be one more from me?

But for the groom, nobody took much of a picture of Steve.

As he explained right after the service, he struggled to get hold of his emotions, with his eyes swelling up, "trying not to lose it." He wiped his moist eyes multiple times, so I made sure I got at least one photo of his hand on his eyes (no hankie for him).



What do you see in the rest of the pictures, with his eyes?




Do you see the changes in his eyes as his bride reaches the santuary,



and he hurries to greet her and hold her and express his love to her by holding her hand to lead her to the altar.



Perhaps these weren't the most resplendent pictures of the wedding, but for at least Steve, he wasn't forgotten on his bride's long walk down the aisle. All in about 40 seconds.

BTW, all available light, as the Church rules specified no flashes.

Rest Week from Filoli

After visiting Filoli for the past three weeks, it was nice to take a break. The Tulips there need another couple/few weeks to push through the soil, find the sun and show themselves.





So we had some time to visit our own garden, which, being in Contra Costa County, has more sun. Our daffs are just about gone, but our tulips went beyond themselves, announcing the Spring. The red tulips were gargantuan, beyond our high expectations. What fascinated me about them, however, was not the size, but the details of the buds. The reds flashed in the morning and afternoon sun. I tried light modifiers, but the splendor of the colors screamed for plain sunlight! Sometimes photography just doesn't get better than this.

I practiced my handholding techniques and found that if I just better concentrated--and didn't force any shots, my steadiness came back. By force I mean handholding a macro-lens 2 inches from a patient bug. I still shake for thing like that. But that's what a tripod is for. Other shots, when I was able to pin myself against the boards of the planter box, came out just fine. Hope to visit Filoli in the coming weeks, to show a parade of tulip colors.





Next Blog: TBD

Filoli - Two Weeks Later

Today Filoli didn't change much. The Daffs were fuller, just about their peak.





Potted pink tulips were past their prime. The real prospect were the full-bodied Tulips in the planter beds. You know they will blossom fully in a few weeks. Then the full color of Filoli will jump into everyone's mind. Crowds will be there, but hey, that's okay. Everyone will have a good time, and be polite to everyone else, taking pictures or chasing kids and infants bent upon pulling the flowers to see and smell them. Stay tuned for some wonderful colors.





Next BLOG: Rest Week from Filoli

Filoli - A Week Later

What a difference a week makes!

We visited Filoli again this past weekend. The color just tripled, especially with the Daffs. Filoli advertisements drew in crowds. I found the gardens a happy place, with kids squealing and running all over the place, playful in anticipation of an early Spring. Groups of flower-lovers huddled around knowledable docents. Everyone seemed to enjoy the quiet and beauty of the place. I took a break from photographing the yellows, the whites and the pinks, just to enjoy myself.



The guards gently rounded us late-comers to observed the 3:30pm closing. All of us found the day too short.

I can't wait until they bring out the tulips. This Spring should bring out the full Splendor of colors and shapes, as Lurline Roth (the founder of Filoli) wished.



Next Blog: Filoli Two Weeks Later

Filoli in February

Sometimes the weather just cooperates. Today was such a day at FILOLI, Lurline Roth's garden estate in Woodside, California. The coolness of a late February afternoon, with the sun behind the clouds, made taking images fairly easy. No flash or modifiers were needed. I purposefully did not bring my tripod; I wanted to practice my technique with my 80-200mm zoom. I placed the D200 mode on Shutter priority, so that I would take pictures at speeds I could hand-hold. Why do that with flowers, leaves and landscapes? I wanted to see if I could consistently hand-hold my camera rig for practice before an upcoming wedding ceremony in Hawaii next month.

Yes, I found out that if I kept the speed 1/125 and faster, placed my elbows into my body, and slowly exhaled as I shot, my pictures were sharp. Depth of field had to be controlled, of course. But I accomplished what I set out to do. More images can be found here.

We have been to FILOLI to take stock pictures for a year now. So it is nice to see how the grounds start off--as barren grounds, just before the plantings begin in March. Will be back there for the manicured patchwork of color that will sure to brighten my spirit.



Next Post: Filoli - A Week Later

Nikon USA Has Been Good To Me

I hardly ever use Nikon, because my equipment has worked in heat and rain and snow. I've grown accustomed to not worrying much about how much abuse the equipment can take, even though I sorta baby everything.

When I bot a Nikon D200, I also purchased a 2 year (additional) Warranty from Nikon. I don't know why I did it, because in general, Warranty plans don't plan out economically. But it was my first digital camera, so I plunged.

A few years later, I found dust on my camera, and the metering system tended to underexpose by about a stop. I sent the D200 back to Nikon under the Warranty. I didn't send it at the optimal time, being just before Christmas. Well, it came back 3 weeks/2 days later on January 5th. Now remember, the repair facility went through 2 major holidays, and I'm not a Nikon PRO. So given the holiday period, I was expecting the camera to be sent back in mid-late January.

Nikon exceeded my expectations.

Here's what I wanted: Dust Cleaned of my Sensor & Meter adjusted to Nikon specs.

Here's what they did for me:
Replaced Mode SW
Replaced Rewind Side rubber
Replace CF Cardholder rubber
Adjusted auto focu operation
Checked Meter Accuracy
Firmware upgraded
Replaced rubber grip
Checked image test
Checked meter operation
Adjusted exposure

The D200 was returned with all that I sent them, in much, much better shape.

Sometime is pays to pay more for exemplary service. Thanks, Nikon.

Next Post: FILOLI in February