Good Morning Sunshine

Here's to wishing for a good day...

Wild turns around

We turned the corner, and there in front of us was a cliff. We drove right over the edge. There was no time to stop, and now we're trying to turn around, never thinking that it's too late.

No one shopping

I went downtown to the main shopping/retail area. In a couple of hours I took well over a hundred shots of vacant businesses, and just walked around.

I know things are bad and getting worse, but it really is stunning to spend some time seeing it first hand.

This was on a Sunday, usually one of the busiest days of the week, with tourist and all, but as you can see the streets are nearly empty.

Interesting times we live in...

Gone after 50 years

It's just a shell now, an empty building left to decay and be torn down at some future date.

This grocery store served the community for half a century is now just a lonely reminder of a fading America.

A perfect reminder of the price of greed.

Not a step further

I'm always amazed at people's creative talents, and grateful they choose to share them...

Gave all that she was

I think we've taken everything from California that we could. We need to give back, to remake her into something better, or she'll perish.

She's out the window

I made it downtown.... parked the car and just walked down the main retail area shooting closed retail shops. There were plenty of them, sometimes two or three right next to each other.

It's a sad state of affairs that's just too hard to ignore.

Unmasked

With the economy folding in on itself, people are starting to see beneath the veneer. It's times like these, when the chips are down, when this happens.

It's becoming more and more apparent who has the right stuff and who doesn't. Most don't.

Tighten your seat belts, the bumpy ride continues.

I'm in knots

That's how I felt this afternoon. Tried to shoot in a new location and got all twisted around and lost (soft of) even with a GPS unit...

The land of dreams

Awake, awake my little Boy!
Thou wast thy Mother's only joy:
Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?
Awake! thy Father does thee keep.

'O, what land is the Land of Dreams?
What are its mountains, and what are its streams?
O Father, I saw my Mother there,
Among the lillies by waters fair.

Among the lambs clothed in white
She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.
I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn -
O when shall I return again?'

Dear child, I also by pleasant streams
Have wandered all night in the Land of Dreams;
But though calm and warm the waters wide,
I could not get to the other side.

'Father, O Father, what do we here,
In this land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the Morning Star.
- William Blake -

Now I've done it

Looking back, something's lost, nothing's there..

Legend Has It

California used to be a land of opportunity and prosperity. The people who live here need to take a long hard look in the mirror if they really want to understand what went wrong. Only then will they be able to begin to turn things around. Problem is, it may be too late to do anything.

This is no time for the timid, we must be bold and act swiftly or suffer the consequences of waiting around for someone else to make painful decisions. A leadership vacuum might not be so bad if we seize upon this as an opportunity to change.

This is the time to transform ourselves.

The invasion

You never know just what you'll find when you're out with a camera...

Constant Craving

Putting words on pages to explain what we've seen, we've lost our shape...

Headed for better times

Where the road ultimately takes us...

That's all folks

In my mind this beach has become tainted.... Try as I might, I won't be able to forget that someone was senselessly murdered here.

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." - Edmund Burke

When your luck runs out

I need to try and get out to shoot images. I've been bogged down lately, and not too inspired. I'm thinking random subjects would be a great cure for all of this... on the fly photos...

California Sunset

This is Arroyo Burro Beach, known as Hendry's Beach by the locals.

It's a great location to watch the sunset, walk your dog, or go surfing. I'm often down here taking photos and enjoying the sound of the ocean waves.

There's a little restaurant here too. This is just a nice place to get away from the worries of the world, even if that's just for a short while.

I was shocked to find out this morning that a man was stabbed to death here yesterday afternoon. A horrific scene which transpired in front of a couple hundred people. And the person who committed this heinous crime is still at large.

This is a disturbing trend that needs to stop.

Just like the stabbing/murder that occurred a couple during the Fourth of July fireworks in the midst of a heavy police presence...

This brazen disregard for life is an assault on the whole community.

A hand up

We all need one from time to time... by the same token, when you're on top, you've got a longer way to fall!

When the Ocean Calls

49 seconds may not seem like a long time, but it can make all the difference in the world... It was all the time it took for Ted to be swept out to sea, never to be seen again...

Running by the sea

No matter how you look at it, the ocean is big and mysterious. The final resting place of many a soul.

When your done gone

Traveling down the roads of imagination...

Idle Time

Time doesn't stand still, so no reason for us to either...

Off the grid

Something to aspire to... unplugged and turned off.

charades of youth

When you're young, being anything you want is never an issue...

Mist and Dunes

Photography is all about capturing light. Along the coast there are many opportunities to combine misty afternoons with the golden light of the early evening...

Public Beach Access

When it comes to geotagging and mapping, there's nothing better than having the data embedded right in the EXIF data. It sure is making things a lot easier for me! :-)

Different Points of View

I've been having issues with my ISP and getting a proper internet connection. Naturally they think the issue is with the user (me) and I think the opposite.

Paris in 3D

Sorry about the Black and White Image, I'm posting from work and they don't believe in investing in technology, so I've got to make due with what I've got. I was looking something up, and noticed that Street View is now in 3D... At least in Paris. Another funny thing is that in this particular image you can actually see the camera used to make these street views in the window reflection. Cool stuff!

Why not take all of me?

Long ago and far away is really where I'd rather be....

Connection problems

Trying to sort things out... Reset and reset again.


-- Post From My iPhone

Reflections in the valley

The Santa Ynez Valley is lush and green this time of year. It's a great place to go for a drive, and though there aren't always places to stop and shoot some photos, the traffic is light enough to allow for a quick stop to roll down the window and snap an image or two.

So we remember

Of course that's one of the reasons we take photographs...

Public Access

Geotagging images is important to me. I know where they were taken, but it's an issue of public access to the where and when.

We're not at the point of having all cameras equipped with built in GPS. It's just a matter of time before this happens. In the meantime, if you want to geotag an image, you either find a GPS unit that works with your specific camera, or you do it manually.

What I've noticed is that doing it manually is a lot of trouble (I know it's time consuming for me), so a lot of people will just indicate what city, or state, or maybe just the country they were in at the time a particular photo was taken, or the indicate nothing at all and leave you guessing.

For me, this just doesn't work. In fact, even though I manually tag all of my photos on a map after they've been uploaded to flickr, and carry around a GPS unit on trips to areas I'm not completely familiar with, I want a better and more accurate way of geotagging images.

The problem is that I've got several digital cameras, going the route of getting a GPS unit for each camera doesn't work. Not all the cameras will support this.

What to do? Well, I did some research and found a device called i-gotU which will support any camera, provided the images are shot in jpg format.

It's a little stand alone GPS device, very simple and in fact the only button it has is to turn it on, and it's about the size of a matchbox.

I tried it yesterday, and was very impressed with it. I made sure that my camera's clock was set the same as that of the i-gotU (which is how this thing works) and then went out and took some pictures.

After returning home, I downloaded the images I took, and plugged in the I-gotU GPS device and had it map my images. It was spot on. It even saved the info to the EXIF data.

I'm going to love this thing. I wish it worked with camera RAW files, but for the time being it doesn't and it's not too much trouble for me to work around this limitation.

Still, I can't wait for the day when this doesn't have to be done and cameras come equipped with built in GPS.

Surf Time

I was trying something, an experiment of sorts, and wanted to see how flickr was with video. The answer, very limited.

They limit video to 90 seconds, and 500mb or less.

This video is under 90 seconds, but when rendered as an HD mepg, went over the 500mb.

My solution was to render this as a low res wmv file.

flickr isn't the venue for video.

California in Spring

Just a quick video showing what a great spring we've been having.

Apple's iPad

Tomorrow's the big day! The iPad arrives and everyone is chiming in...

Is it really that big of a deal?

I think so. It's going to be a game changer in the way that people consume their media. This device is all about consumption. All the pieces have been coming together for ages, and we've still got a long way to go. In a decade this thing will look like a stone tablet. In the meantime, we're about to see a media revolution.

It could go the way of television and cater to the lowest common denominator.... I don't see that happening. The media consumer is going to be in total charge of what they consume (provided the government stays out of the way).

The demand is going to drive the supply.

For people that provide content of any kind the world is going to change tomorrow. Oh, the possibilities...

Everything is alright

George is lost in a good moment...

This was my first trip out to Cottonwood Canyon... If I stay in California, you can bet I'll be back here again...

Amazon's Kindle

I know the Kindle's been around for awhile.... I've got the Kindle app on my phone, and like it... even with the small screen. The main reason that, up until now, I haven't rushed out and bought an ereading device is that I do most of my reading from a computer, and the books that I do read are mostly photography books... which, for me, means I want to see the images in color.

Saturday, April 3, 2010, the iPad is being launched. No, I'm not going to rush out and get one. What this means is that color is coming to ereading devices, and it's just a matter time until they are all in color. That's when I'll jump in the pool and get an ereader. For now I'll continue to read books on my computer and/or phone.

Having recently moved and taking along with me an entire library, collected over the years (this doesn't even count the books I had to find homes for), these devices are of even more value to me. The same goes for my old vinyl, it needs to be digitized, which is another subject and post.

The future is here.... embrace it.

Crossing Yellow

I still can't get over the abundance of wildflowers this year. The hills and valleys are exploding in color. My goal was to get out and capture some more images yesterday, but instead I waited all day for a repairman who never showed up.