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I'm thankful for a lot of things, mostly for having made it this far into Project 365.

[305/365] :: My Corner.

[306/365] :: Let me give you a hand.

[307/365] :: 10-22.

[308/365] :: 400.

[309/365] :: The New Do.

[310/365] :: Good Morning.

[311/365] :: Lamenting.

[312/365] :: Snowman.

[313/365] :: Intuit Sunset.

[314/365] :: Waiting for food.

[315/365] :: Clean your beach.

[316/365] :: House Guests.

[317/365] :: Kristen P.

[318/365] :: Apples to Apples.

[319/365] :: Watching Grass Grow.

[320/365] :: Take Control.

[321/365] :: The Juke.

[322/365] :: Bro Nap.

[323/365] :: Slow Motion.

[324/365] :: Ball Pit.

[325/365] :: MDR-V6.

[326/365] :: R.A.T.7.

[327/365] :: Eneloop.

[328/365] :: Thanksgiving.

[329/365] :: Cozy.

[330/365] :: Toms.

[331/365] :: "The Murph."

[332/365] :: Easy Stare.

[333/365] :: Blue Steel.

[334/365] :: Peanut Butter & Jellousy.

:: Project 365 - November Slideshow ::

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Picture this.

[274/365] :: Hanging Loose.

[275/365] :: Bro. Brah.

[276/365] :: Goldie.

[277/365] :: Lantern.

[278/365] :: Slinky.

[279/365] :: STOP!

[280/365] :: Chopsticks.

[281/365] :: Gondola.

[282/365] :: Scripps Pier at night.

[283/365] :: Balboa Highway.

[284/365] :: Luna Light.

[285/365] :: Crispy Shrimp.

[286/365] :: Look at Me.

[287/365] :: ...Lost.

[288/365] :: Futbol.

[289/365] :: Mama Ester.

[290/365] :: Until Next Season.

[291/365] :: Sigma 30/1.4.

[292/365] :: Chicano Park.

[293/365] :: Heritage Pond.

[294/365] :: The Greenbrier.

[295/365] :: Doin' Nothin'.

[296/365] :: Pumpkin Patch.

[297/365] :: Stockpile.

[298/365] :: Water Dragons.

[299/365] :: Creaky Cranky.

[300/365] :: The Chef.

[301/365] :: NERDS!

[302/365] :: The Cowboy and The Fairy.

[303/365] :: Vintage.

[304/365] :: Jack.

:: Project 365 - October Slideshow ::

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Pictures are worth a thousand words, right? Well, from here on out, I have no more words.  Just pictures.

[213/365] :: Bubble Wand.

[214/365] :: Baywatch.

[215/365] :: Cafe.

[216/365] :: H.

[217/365] :: Taste the Light.

[218/365] :: Milo's Nap.

[219/365] :: A Moment.

[220/365] :: Shaka-Shaka.

[221/365] :: Bright Son.

[222/365] :: Mommy's Boy.

[223/365] :: Hot Rod.

[224/365] :: Pouty Nap.

[225/365] :: Waterpark.

[226/365] :: iGameboy.

[227/365] :: Waiting for Ice Cream.

[228/365] :: Sleeping in the Car.

[229/365] :: The Atari.

[230/365] :: Smooth Baby Skin.

[231/365] :: The Nap Cave.

[232/365] :: Concentrated Effort.

[233/365] :: He Loves His Sleep.

[234/365] :: Trike Night.

[235/365] :: The iPad Light.

[236/365] :: Caught One.

[237/365] :: Coiled.

[238/365] :: Spicy Dragon.

[239/365] :: Someone's Finally Awake.

[240/365] :: His Emo Pose.

[241/365] :: Pose With My Brother!

[242/365] :: Grain.

[243/365] :: Study Session.

:: Project 365 - August Slideshow ::

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Somehow, I forgot to send this out at the end of July...okay...I lied...I just finished this post now and am just posting it.  #ProcrastinationStation.

Another month in the books!  It's getting harder now to keep up with the blog since I've been so busy with...well...LIFE!  There has been so many changes in my life and I've been enjoying all of it.  Keeping up with the photos each day is easy, but I've been slow in getting the blog updated because it takes up a little bit of time to put a post together.  I like it though.  I like looking back through my pictures and reflecting on what each photo means to me and why I took that certain image.  Below are the remaining pictures for July.  Enjoy them and the short slideshow at the end!

[197/365] :: 24-105L. This is a lens I purchased to try out as an outdoor walkaround lens on my camera.  I like it a lot, but I really don't think it's a lens I'll be keeping.  Most of my shots with the lens are either at the wide end (24mm) or the long end (105mm).  I rarely use the zoom feature to shoot between those two focal lengths.  When I do shoot at a different focal length with the lens, I tend to zoom to 50mm or 85mm to help me with framing the photograph.  An interesting thing about this lens is the MACRO feature.  It's not a true macro, but it's good enough to get me curious about trading it in for a true macro lens from Canon.  I'm eyeing the 100/2.8L Macro for the next lens to add to my lineup.

[198/365] :: Auntie Jenny. Our good friends Jenny and Charles stopped by to visit Milo! Jenny's probably thinking of planning an arranged marriage to her future daughter in this picture.

[199/365] :: Grape Toes. It's been a super hot summer, and we're trying to enjoy it with some fun in the water.  We couldn't quite get to the beach today, so we pulled out Felix's kiddie pool and had him play in it in our back yard.  After spending some time in the water, his toes started getting a little wrinkled linke prunes (not grapes).  I guess a more appropriate name for this photo would be Prune Toes.

[200/365] :: Just the Tip. This is a photo of a vase and decorative reed in our home.  I used flash and very shallow depth of field to keep just the tip of the reed in focus as I shot the image from above.  It turned out pretty cool. 

[201/365] :: Comic-Con Bound. Taking my son on his first trip to the San Diego Comic Convention.  It's a a crazy atmosphere at the comic con every year and I had a little bit of anxiety about taking my 2-year-old son into the crazyness this year.  But I'm certainly glad I did it because both he and I had a blast this year!  He got to experience a lot of the cool things that go on at comic con.  We picked up these cool shades for him just before entering the convention center and I snapped a quick shot of him trying them on. 

[202/365] :: Thirst Quencher.  I was in an old hotel in downtown San Diego to see a small production of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.  I found this interesting looking drinking fountain as I was wandering around the hallways of the hotel.  The fountain looks like an antique and it kind of shows how old this hotel could be. 

[203/365] :: Chun-Li. There are always some cool things to see at comic con.  This was a really cool statue of Chun-Li from the Street Fighter franchise.  The statue was a 3D representation of one of my favorite Chun-Li images.  They got pretty close to the original image.

[204/365] :: My Danny Santos Impersonation. Danny Santos II is one of my favorite street photographers.  I've been following his work ever since he started his 100Strangers Project.  I hope to take photographs as good as this guy someday.  He also does a lot of street photography capturing shadows and light on the faces of his subjects.  With the high amount of people in and around downtown San Diego for the comic con, I thought it would be a great opportunity to roam the streets and capture some Danny Santos styled shots.  There were a lot of shadows and interesting light falls on the faces of passers by.  I really like the composition of this image with the thoughtful look on both of the faces shown.  It may not be as shadowy as some of Danny's street photos, but it's a good start and I think I can get some good captures with more practice.

[205/365] :: Prime Conspiracy. Minty fresh out-of-the-box comic con spoils.  If you've been a serious fan of Transformers for any period of time, you'll know that Hot Rod inadvertantly got Optimus Prime killed in the original 1986 film, The Transformers: The Movie.  Some believe that he even fired the shot that killed Prime.  This shot reminds me of all the conspiracy theories and such that went on surrounding the film and it's heroes.  These were a couple of my favorite toys from this year's comic con and composing them together this way sets up their story from the movie very well.  I like how Optimus Prime's chest is open, revealing the Matrix of Leadership that will eventually be passed on to Hot Rod and transform him into Rodimus Prime to lead the Autobots out of their darkest hour. (I totally just geeked out on Transformers in this post...)

[206/365] :: Birthday Dessert. Changing gears from the previous post...Today was my sister's birthday!  Where else would we go eat as a family besides our local Chili's Grill & Bar Restaurant?!?  I don't know how this place became our family dinner spot.  I guess it's just convenient and easy to get to.  Plus it's not foreign to my foreign parents, haha!  Here she is about to enjoy her dessert.  Notice the other spoons layed out around the plate?  Best believe my family made sure that plate was clean before we left.

[207/365] :: Shades of Light. More comic con spoils!  My son and I were able to collect this set of shades from the vendors around the comic con.  I like them because they remind me of Ray Ban shades.  You might remember my son wearing the green ones on the first day of comic con in a photo above.  I hadn't shot with my ring flash in a while, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to break it out and get the bug-eye reflection off these shades.  The setup was really quick, but it took me longer to get the shot than I had anticipated.  I had to shoot a lot of different images to get the reflection perfectly centered in each of the shades and symetrical on both sides of each frame. I think a tripod would have helped me out a lot for a shot like this, but I had to take it hand held and hope I was perfectly aligned with each click of the shutter. I finally settled on one I could work with and chose the shot you see above. 

[208/365] :: Holding the Light.  Another cool little...thing...I came away with at this year's comic con was this tiny light bulb keychain.  I was watching my son play with it and decided to take this picture with him holding the bulb in his hands.  The room was very dark and I thought I would need more light for the shot, but I took the picture and saw that the light from the buld was all I needed to set the mood for the image.  I might have to revisit this bulb again to see what else I can come up with.

[209/365] :: Brotherly Love.  Two sons are better than one. My joys plotting mischief.  They already look like a pair of evil Sith lords hungry for more power.  Don't mind the lurker in the background trying to get in the shot.  I was too lazy to try and clone her out. 

[210/365] :: Well Fed.  A food coma at any age will take down even the greatest Jedi.  My little padawan loves getting his fill.

[211/365] :: Go Padres!  My wife and I took our eldest son out to a ball game for some quality time with just us and him.  We gotta spread the love and let him know he's just as important to us as any other member of the family.  I brought along the 24-105L to avoid having to switch prime lenses during the game.  I was able to capture some good action from the crowd everytime the team scored.  Unfortunately, the visiting team was able to rally back and take the win, but we left before my son could experience that loss.  To him, it was just a FUN day at the baseball game!  He would keep cheering "GO PADRES!" while waving the giveaway rally towels around the house for days.

[212/365] :: Bing's Birthday.  Remember that lurker?  She had a birthday today.  We celebrated it at Red Lobster.  They gave her ice cream for dessert.  It was good.

:: Project 365 - July Slideshow ::

See you next month!!!

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July.  I've been anxiously awaiting this month for a long time now.  There are a lot of different events this month that I plan to document with my photos and share with the world.  Here's a taste of what's happened so far.

[182/365] :: Project Handplane. This is a project I've recently picked up again after many months of sitting on a shelf.  It's a hand plane build that I'm making for myself to add some variety to my surf sessions.  It's basically a planing board I'll be holding onto as I body surf a wave.  I've got a long way to go before I can call this completed, but it's taking shape now and I'm excited for the fun I'll be having with this board.

[183/365] :: Digital Fire. Cooking smores over a fire on a warm summer night.  This is a detail shot of the fire pit we used to hold the fire.  It's an old washing machine bin that was purchased off Craigslist.  Simple, effective, and visually pleasing when lit up.

[184/365] :: Summer Break. Long summer days just relaxing in the sun.

[185/365] :: Fireworks. I hadn't really shot fireworks before today.  I read all about it and understood how to do it, but I was missing one important ingredient in the process - a tripod.  I'm actually surprised that I don't have a proper tripod amongst all my photography gear.  I had to improvise and stabilize my camera on a pile of jackets placed on a foldable chair.  It worked out pretty good, but I think I would have had more keepers had I brought the proper equipment with me.  I'll have to order that tripod soon.

[186/365] :: Lotus. A lotus flower sitting on the water.  This was taken at the nearby mall.  My son was being too emo to pose for pictures, so I diverted my attention to this flower.  I ended up capturing this great shot of the flower and the dark water.  I'm glad I didn't get any reflection on the water of the surrounding trees and plants.  I like that the surface is clean and silky.  It's a really good contrast to the sharp lines of the flower.

[187/365] :: Imperial Beach. This is a really cool evening shot of the entrance to the pier at Imperial Beach.  I shot this from across the street handheld with no flash.  What drew me initially to the photo was the colors that were used for the arches to the left of the entry way.  But when I looked at the picture on the computer, I saw that the image contained too much noise.  it really drew my attention away from the scene.  So, I decided to make it a black and white photo and increased the noise reduction in post processing to bring the scene forward.  The black and white worked for this image because it helps keep the viewer's attention to the bright areas of the photo where all the action is taking place.

[188/365] :: Halo-Halo. These summer days have been hot!  Thankfully, we've got a Seafood City nearby where we can get some Halo-Halo drinks to cool us off.  Halo-Halo is a Filipino dessert made with shaved ice, ice cream, and a bunch of other sweet treats.  Halo-Halo literally means Mix-Mix.  And that's exactly how you're supposed to enjoy this dessert.  Everything in the cups is mixed together and eaten with a spoon.  So delicious.  My wife and I each had one to ourselves, but not before our son could pose for his picture.  He ended up having half of mine and half of my wife's dessert.

[189/365] :: Ben & Jerry's. Today was even hotter than the last, so I had to have some ice cream.  I just watched a documentary about Ben & Jerry's ice cream talking about how they started up and the challenges they faced to become the mega ice cream corporation they are today.  It was an interesting film and I learned a lot about the two men who's name is on the ice cream I'm about to enjoy.

[190/365] :: Blue Moon.  I really tried hard to make this photo look like it was an image of a blue moon.  I think I got pretty close, but the dirty marks on the ball didn't exactly resemble the markings you would see on the moon.  It looks more like a completely blue ocean planet.  Still cool though, IMO.

[191/365] :: Glassed. I've been making some progress on my hand plane project.  I was able to lay down some fiberglass and coat of UV resin to cover up the foam and get it ready for the water.  This was my first ever glassing job, and I think I was able to nail it on the first go.  It wasn't perfect, but there aren't any issues with the project that I couldn't fix.  I've gotten pretty far, but I still have a lot to do before I can call this complete.  It needs another hot coat, A LOT of sanding, and I need to find a suitable handle to hold on to while using it.  I'll get there soon enough.

[192/365] :: Maternal. My wife let me shoot a couple maternity shots of her at the park.  The baby is officially late at this point, so I was glad to get these shots before it was too late.  I really like this close up image because it really shows how pregnant she is.  All that green was a coincidence since we didn't decide that we were going to do any maternity shots until we were actually at the park.  It worked out for us as it shows a small connection with nature and the trees in the background.

[193/365] :: The Shifter. We were walking through the mall during the weekly farmer's market and ran across this tricked out police hot rod.  They were having a grand opening of the new police center at the mall where they were showing of some old memorabilia.  This hot rod was one of the main attractions.  I thought the shifter was really cool and must have been a gem to look at when it was brand new.  They kept it well maintained with the chrome on it still looking shiny and reflective.

[194/365] :: Skin-to-Skin. Milo Vader Pareja is finally born!  Yes - His name is pronounced 'MY-LOW'.  Yes - his middle name is VADER.  This was taken just minutes after he was born. The nurses brought him right up to his mommy to allow them to have skin-to-skin contact after birth.  Children are little miracles and experiencing Milo's birth was just as thrilling and amazing as our first son's.  I'm so blessed to have two healthy sons and an amazing wife to help raise them.  My wife is a superhero, by the way.  I don't know how any man could go through the emotional rollercoaster and physical pain that is child birth.  It's a beautiful thing, but definitely not for me.

[195/365] :: Hello Baby Brother!  Here is my eldest son welcoming he baby brother into the world.  My eldest kept saying how cute his baby brother was and would yell out, "Look! He's smiling at me!" whenever he got close to him.  I hope this brotherly love doesn't go away as they get older.  I've asked all my friends who have brothers and they've all gotten into fights with their while growing up.  I'm bracing for the inevitable, but I hope their bond together becomes strong enough to overcome anything that could come between them.

[196/365] :: Daydreaming.  We finally get to go home after a couple nights at the hospital.  We should have been home a day earlier, but the doctors took their time meeting with patients and we ended up delaying our discharge for an extra day.  Well, at least we're home now with a healthy baby and healthy mommy.  My eldest son is stoked that his baby brother gets to come home.  He's been a very chill baby so far.  Like most babies, he sleeps a lot and we have to wake him up to get him to eat on schedule.  He even falls asleep while eating, so he constantly have to try to keep him away.  At least both mom and dad are getting some rest.  Big brother is also being very cooperative and helpful around baby.  I'm BLESSED.  I didn't know how the family dynamic would change with a second child, but each day is looking better than the last and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

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June is done!  I've spent the past six months clicking my camera's shutter with a photo for each passing day.  It's interesting to see a little bit of evolution in style with each photograph.  When I first started Project 365, I really wasn't sure if I would even make it this far.  But now that I'm here, I'm even more motivated for the next six months to see the project through to completion!  Despite my long procrastination in getting my photos uploaded and this blog updated on the regular, I'm pleasantly surprised with what I have accomplished thus far.  For the most part, I've been very happy with the way my photos have turned out, but I know there is always room for improvement.  I will need to explore more ways to push myself and my photography to new heights going forward.  For now, check out the rest of the photos for the month of June and check out the slideshow at the end of the blog for a video recap of all the shots.  Enjoy the photos!

[167/365] :: South Swell.  I've never really been interested in landscape photography because I think that landscapes tend to be too static and too easy to compose and shoot.  That all changes when I take my time to find all the dynamic elements of my landscape and work to incorporate those elements into my composition.  It's hard to imagine getting more dynamic than a moving body of water.  Every wave you see in the ocean is going to be different.  Getting the compositioin and timing of this shot took some careful planning and patience.  I first observed the environment to determine where the best waves were breaking and where I should best position myself to make sure I could capture the wave in my photo.  Then I looked around to see what would make a good composition and took some sample shots to see what looked best.  Once I decided on the composition I wanted, it was just a matter of waiting for a good sized set wave to come in and take my photo as the wave peaked.  I was able to get everything I needed in this shot.  I edited it in post to give it a vintage look and feel reminiscent of old school surf photos I've seen before.

[168/365] :: Cakes in Cups.  These are the most decorative looking cupcakes I've ever seen.  My sister made them herself.  They were for a party the next day.  I was really tempted to start eating them to see if they tasted as great as they looked, but I exhibited some self-control and allowed myself only a few photographs before leaving them alone...until the party started.

[169/365] :: Tarty Pecans.  Remember that party I mentioned above?  Well, cupcakes weren't the only thing on the menu.  My other sister made a batch of pecan tarts for the party, too!  My sisters somehow got away with the baking gene because I certainly can't bake anything to save my life.  At least I can take photos and document their creations!

[170/365] :: Purple Fuzzies.  This was taken during one of our family walks to the park.  There are these bushes along the trails with these purple flowers sticking out of what looked like a spiked ball.  A closer look after taking the photo showed how delicate the whole thing was.  This could have passed for a nice macro shot with a little more sharpening and a closer crop on the main subject.  I'm starting to develop an interest in Macro photography, so I may have to look into getting a new lens to play with for that type of work.

[171/365] :: Another Day at the Office.  Dawn patrol surf sessions have been part of my normal routine for the past few years now.  It's the best way to start off my day, and I know that I'm going to have a better day because of it.  I often see the usual group of guys out in the water at these sessions.  After the session, the parking lot is usually filled with talk about who got the best wave and what time guys plan to be back in the water later that day.  One topic that rarely comes up is work.  It's where most of us head to directly after the session.  We spend our days sitting at our desk.  Keeping track of the swell development.  And setting up a plan on where the best place to surf would be that afternoon.  That's probably what the subject in this photo is going to do as soon as he gets to work.

[172/365] :: Spirals.  This is a shot of a cupcake holder we used to display the cupcakes at the party a few days ago.  It was a very hit or miss shot.  I used live view on my camera and lifted it as high as I could above my head to take a top-down photo.  I had to reshoot it a few times before settling on a composition that I liked.  Then I manually focused the lens to make sure that my focus was in the right place when I took the photo.  I was able to get the effect I wanted with the top spiral in focus and each spiral step on the display blurring away slightly as it gets further away from the top.  It made for an interesting photo.

[173/365] :: UFO.  I took this shot of a light chandelier at a local indoor mall.  The mall was brightly lit, but I used a fast shutter speed, large aperture, and exposed for the light to keep the background dark and have the light pop out.  The texture and geometric design of the light was what drew me to it and I'm glad that I was able to capture that in the photo.  I edited it with a little sepia tone to make the texture stand out a little more.  The photo makes me think of a UFO hovering in the night sky.

[174/365] :: Port Hole.  I used a long focal length to capture this shot of my son at the park.  I caught him looking at me through the port hole in the playground and snapped this shot before his attention left me.  This is a good example of getting the shot that is not necessarily the best shot.  If I had a moment to compose it better, I would have used a shorter focal length to shape out the port hole and show off some of the surrounding environment.   But I didn't have that moment.  I would have missed this look from my son with just one second of hesitation.  So I got the shot. 

[175/365] :: Glisten.  It's Christmas in June!  This is actually a detail of one of our Christmas decorations in the garage.  I noticed the little light reflections on it while I was working on a project in my garage and thought I could get a good detail shot of the decoration.  I was pleased that the shot contained a good balance between sharpness and out of focus bokeh elements.  I was able to capture exactly what I saw when it first caught my attention.   

[176/365] :: Hot Wax.  I like to clean the wax off my surfboards every few weeks and reapply new wax before taking them out for the next session.  I had black wax on this board because it was the only thing I had at the time.  I hate using this wax because the black gets on everything that touches the board and even stains clothing.  I had to get it off and change it out.  I let it sit out in the sun for a few minutes so the wax would get soft enough for me to scrape it off and buff out.  When I came back to check on the board, I found the wax liquified and oozing off the board.  I guess it got a lot hotter than usual because of the dark color.  Instead of scraping the wax off the board like I usually do, I simply had to take an old rag from the garage and wiped the wax off the board.

[177/365] :: Peacock.  I scored some tickets to the world famous San Diego Zoo from a coworker and took this opportunity to spend the day there with the family.  The zoo is always a great place to go to for photographers.  I made sure to bring my 135L lens with me on this trip for some wildlife photography.  I thought about bringing the 400L lens, but that might have been a too long for some of my needs.  It turns out that I made the right decision and it shows with this shot.  This female peacock perched up on a tree and seemed to pose for me as I was taking its photo.  I would have completely missed this shot with the 400L, but nailed it with the 135L.  The colors in the shot just popped instantly and the background behind the tree blurred away in the distance. 

[178/365] :: Poker Face. It's the final pose for the Poker Face song in Dance Central for the XBox Kinect.  Don't you see it?!?

[179/365] :: Zero Gravity.  We took a family trip to the San Diego County Fair with my sister and her fiance.  I've been looking forward to going to the fair for all kinds of glutonous foods and to take a few photos of some attractions that I had in mind.  This was a photo on my list.  I wanted to capture some attractions showing movement.  I knew that a slow exposure shot was the way to go to capture this particular attraction.  I wanted to make sure I got the movement of the light trails to show how fast the ride was spinning.  Unfortunately, I did not bring a tripod with me, so I had to improvise while shooting it handheld.  One thing I had going for me was Image Stablization on the 24-105L lens I was using.  I turned down the shutter speed to 1/6sec and set the aperture the f/8.0.  I shot this shot in a series to ensure that at least one of those frames didn't contain any camera movement that could have been caused by handholding the shot.  This was the best frame in the series and I was able to capture the movement just as I had intended. 

[180/365] :: Fight the Power Nap.  This is what I've been coming home to from the past few days.  He must be going through a growth spurt because he's been taking longer naps.  I remember tossing a turning a lot in my sleep when I was a little boy.  I never woke up in the same position that I started with.  My son is the same way.  He's always moving around in his sleep and sometimes gets himself into funny positions.  The other night, I caught him asleep kneeling next to his bed with his head on the mattress.  I caught him in this shot with his fist raised.  His eyes are just slightly open in this shot as he was going through some RPM.  He must have have been dreaming.  He woke up shortly after taking this shot.

[181/365] :: Back That App Up.  For the past six months this little silver drive has contained all the photographs I've taken for Project 365.  It's a 1TB Western Digital drive that I got on a SlickDeal and it's been working perfectly from day one.  I've got back up solutions in place, but I'd like to get another one just so I have a 1-to-1 redundant copy of the data on this drive.  Hopefully, another SlickDeal pops up so I can get even more peace of mind.

:: Project 365 - June Slideshow ::

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Getting to the middle.  It's June and I'm still shooting daily to get my shots for Project 365.  I haven't been very good at uploading the photos because I like to do a lot of my processing all at once and get everything done in one sitting.  I finally have a chance to catch up and I'll be posting a couple blog updates for my photos this month.  Here's a quick entry to show off some photos that were taken at the beginning of the month.

[152/365] :: Kicks.  My son really likes wearing shoes.  It's a huge contrast from my wife and me since we'd both rather be toes free in flip-flops.   When I first uploaded and viewed this shot on the computer, I really didn't think much of it.  I thought it was a little boring.  But I began to mess around with it a little in Adobe Lightroom and decided to try it out as a black and white.  I thought it helped the photo tremendously and instantly had more appeal to me.  With the color removed, all other aspects of the photo began to come out.  The perspective used was more meaningful and the position of my son's stance gave him a more mature, grown-up presence that I didn't see when it was a color photo.  The dirt and grittiness on his shoes told me that this was a kid that loved to have fun and didn't mind getting a little messy.  So, instead of taking away from the image, the addition of black and white actually added a whole lot more to it.

[153/365] :: Ultra Magnus.  I think I'm going to have to do one Transformers toy photo each month.  This shot was taken with my DIY Ring Flash with the toy against one of my favorite backgrounds - a suede dining room chair.  I really do have to get creative with my backgrounds since I don't own a soft box and I don't shoot in a proper studio for my portraits.  I always have to work with what I've got and I feel that this type of shooting can help me in future situations where I may not have everything I need to get a particular shot.  Working with what's given to me has worked out so far.  I just need to make sure I keep my mind open and stay creative when trying to find that shot. 

[154/365] :: Corvette Diner.  I'd been craving me some peanut butter/bacon burger for some time, so my wife and I decided to have a late night dinner date for some Rory Burgers at Corvette Diner.  We each had a burger and shared a milk shake.  I really like all the different lights and decorations in the restaurant to ensure that customers were treated to a great blast-from-the-past Rock n' Roll experience.  I definitely had to take a few shots of the ambiance during this visit.  These guys are serious about setting the mood.  The neon lights, vintage signs, gumball machines, and the Corvette in the middle of the restaurant really made you feel like you were transported back in time.  And the food was good, too!

[155/365] :: With Tita Chelle.  This is a simple snapshot of my sister and my son.  We were at a birthday party for my little nephew and the place where the party was held had this mini theater where kids could dress up and be on camera to act out scenes.  My son wasn't interested in getting dressed up, but he was very curious about seeing himself on the TV screen just above where I'm standing to take this picture.  They are waving at themselves on the monitor in this shot.  I used a bare flash on camera to light them in the middle of the frame and tried to keep the shadows at a minimum behind them. 

[156/365] :: Ethan-Bot.  Shot with my magic lens; the 135L.  I love shooting with this lens.  I don't take it out of the bag often, but when I do, all sorts of magic starts to happen.  Backgrounds just disappear and images appear on my camera perfectly exposed.  I don't ever have to do any type of post process on any of the pictures taken with this lens.  It just works and it captures everything I want without any trouble.  This little robot was the lucky subject of the photo for the day.  We were at a birthday party outdoors in a park.  It was the perfect place to bring out the lens and snap some pictures. 

[157/365] :: The All Seeing Eye.  I wanted to do another DIY Ring Flash shot today and decided to try shooting a lens using a different perspective than what people are used to seeing in lens pictures.  The lens in this photo is my 400L.  It's got a nice big 77mm front element that I wanted to showcase in this picture.  With the camera and ring flash positioned just above the subject, I snapped the shot and came out with this.  It came out pretty close to what I expected.  I was trying to get a reflection of the ring flash to come out on the glass element of the lens.  What I didn't expect to get was the different colors that made up the reflection of the flash.  The greens, oranges, and yellows really make this picture pop and keep the photo from being a boring image.

[158/365] :: It's a Llama.  Our family tries to visit this farmer's market every week.  They usually have these llamas around for the kids to take rides on.  This guy must have been sitting down for a rest between rides.  It was really hard to get him isolated and exposed properly with the backlighting.  I fixed some of the exposure in post processing and added a vignette to hide some of the distracting background in the photo.

[159/365] :: Hmm.  I wonder what kind of thought process he goes through whenever he stops to think about things.  This little boy is amazing.  He's growing up so fast and absorbing all kinds of knowledge like a sponge!  He looks to be in deep thought here, but I think he's trying to decide whether he wants frozen yogurt or a milk shake. 

[160/365] :: Mami Kanemitsu - We Are Heroes.  My good friend scored us a couple of tickets to E3 2011 this year, so we took advantage of it and spent the day at the expo.  I borrowed a 17-55/2.8 IS to take pictures during the event.  I actually didn't shoot too many pictures, but I still came away with some pretty good shots from the event.  This was shot during a performance of the We Are Heroes dance crew.  They are winners of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew Season 4.  I actually have never heard of them, but my friend was quite the expert (fanatic).  He thought this dancer looked best out of the whole crew, so I focused my shots on her.  Lucky for me, I ended up in the right spot and at the right time for this shot.  She was isolated in the routine and I was front row center for the performance.  I quickly shot a series of shots during her isolation performance and picked this one to showcase.  I love how it turned out and the post edit I did worked really well on the photo.  It has quickly become one of my favorite shots to date.

[161/365] :: His Sensitive Side.  My son attempting to show off his sensitive side while posing for me in a mini photo shoot.  This kid is gonna break some hearts in the future. 

[162/365] :: Let Me In.  We were at a house party this evening and my son noticed this cat looking in through the glass door.  I'm not sure if it was a stray or a pet.  The cat just sat there and held my son's attention for a few minutes before disappearing into the night.  I thought he had some cool looking eyes with the striking yellow irises around the dark pupils.  He looked like he could almost hypnotize you into sliding the door open and letting him in.

[163/365] :: Finding Nemo.  This was a shot taken at the Birch Aquarium.  I hope to start up a reef aquarium of my own soon, but visiting this aquarium and viewing their reef tanks will have to suffice for now.  These little guys were in a small tank containing just a few corals, this anemone host, and the two mated clownfish.  They shied away from me whenever I came near them with the camera.  I finally got this shot of them using the long end of my 24-105L to capture the shot.  Aquariums are difficult environments to shoot because I have a lot of factors to take into account.  The glass is a very hard element to shoot through and it's got to be very clean to get a good capture.  Usually lighting around aquariums is very dim and my exposure is constantly changing with the different environments.  Also, fish and other tank inhabitants can move very quickly, so the timing of the shot is crucial if I want to avoid any kind of motion blur.  I was able to put everything together for this shot and ended up with something I could use.

[164/365] :: The Point.  This is PB point viewed off of Tourmaline Beach Park.  It breaks out there on occasion with some fun sized surf.  Just out of frame to the right of the photo would be the current MTV's Real World San Diego (2011) house overlooking the beach.   This shot is just really peaceful and inviting.  It makes me want to drive out there right now to check for some waves. 

[165/365] :: Light Petals.  This was taken outdoors just before the sun was about to set.  The petals on the flowers make me think of a light shining through the darkness below it.  I was surprised this shot came out well because there was a very strong wind blowing the flower and leaves side to side while I was trying to get this shot.  I waited for it to die down a little bit, but it was still blowing when I snapped the shutter.  I guess my shutter speed at 1/125 was fast enough to stop the movement to get this image.

[166/365] :: Pattern.  I was just playing around with depth of field and angles in this simple pattern shot.  It was a pattern used for decoration at a party we were planning.  I shot this wide open at f/4.0 with the 24-105L.  I was surprised that I was able to get this sort of DOF blur from the lens being so close to the subject.  I think I was about 18 inches away.  Focus is spot on with this lens and the blurred bokeh is very pleasing to the eye. 

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Here's an update coming at you for the second half of May!  Five months in on Project 365 and I feel like I'm rolling through this at a good pace.  Taking photos every day is easy.  I just shoot what I see and try to learn something about photography along the way.  Enjoy the rest of the photos this month and peep the end of this post to view the May photo slide show.  PLEASE - let me know what you think about the photos and shoot me some constructive criticism.  Thanks for looking!

[136/365] :: Really Right Stuff.  I haven’t really been buying any camera gear lately, so I decided to splurge a little and buy this RRS L-Bracket for my camera body.  It’s used to clamp a tripod head onto the camera and during shoots and allows me to quickly change the camera position from landscape to portrait mode.  It also provides a little bit of protection when attached to the camera.  I’ll have to purchase a new tripod and ball head to match this bracket.  That’s what I’ll be saving my money for in the coming months.

[137/365] :: Ring Lit Eyes.  DIYPhotography.com recently released a VERY affordable ring light to use with my current flash unit.  I’ve always been interested in ring lights and the cool catch lights they produce in the eyes of portrait subjects.  I quickly put the unit together after receiving it and asked my son to pose for some quick portraits for me.  I got exactly what I was looking for in this first shot with the ring light – soft, even light without any of the harsh shadows I would normally get using a bare flash.  I was also able to capture the ring-shaped catch lights in his eyes.  This was a good first shot and I will be experimenting more with this light in the immediate future.

[138/365] :: Digital Slim.  With my first ring light portrait session completed, I decided to try the light out in product photography.  I recently bought this new Dyson Digital Slim hand held vacuum for my wife (she loves it).  I like the unique look that Dyson products have and decided to try and capture that in this image.  Once again, the ring light performed like a champ and I was able to get the look I wanted.   This ring light was well worth the small price I paid to get this type of quality from my photos.

[139/365] :: Smashing.  My wife and I have had a little bit of a burger craving lately.  We decided to visit Smashburger to try and fulfill that craving.  I’m a big fan of simple, strong, bold fonts that grab your attention.  I liked the fonts that were used in the windows around the restaurant.  I thought this was a cool shot of my son sort of smashing himself into the window and the word “smash”.  My favorite part of the image is actually opposite of my son where the tree is located.  The soft bokeh affect I got from the tree leaves is a lot like the effects I get from distant light sources at night.

[140/365] :: Dusk.  Summer nights are basically here and now in San Diego.  This shot was taken at almost 8:30pm just as the last light was going down in the horizon.  I love it when the sun sets late in the day and I get to spend more time outside in this city.  I think I might have used a higher ISO than I needed for this shot.  I had to darken the silhouette on the city in the bottom of the image to take some of the focus away from it.  I left the lights from the cars cutting through the silhouette because I thought it added to the composition.

[141/365] :: Smile Mommy.  We took a family trip to Balboa Park on this beautiful San Diego day to take our son to the train museum.  I took this opportunity to get some impromptu maternity shots of my wife.  Balboa Park is a very popular venue to shoot at and there are always more than a handful of photographers there on any given day.  This was taken in a shaded area near the parking lot where we parked our car.  I had to use fill flash to light her up and made her pop a little bit from the background in post processing.  Some photographers would remove the light spots from her belly, but I chose to leave them there since it brought the viewer’s attention to what’s most important in the image.

[142/365] :: Last day being 1 year old.  I brought out the right light once again to take some portraits of my son.  He’s been really easy to shoot and really gets playful with the camera in front of him.  We had these shades lying around the house that fit only his head.  He decided to try them on and cheese it up while I took some shots.  I centered him perfectly in frame to get the ring light effect to reflect off those shades.  I got this really cool shot out of it and was able to capture his playfulness in the image even though most of his face is covered up by the shades.  Like the title says, this was also his last day being 1 year old, so I like how I was able to capture a more grown up image of him in this shot.  I already miss the little baby he once was…

[143/365] :: Today is my birthday and that is my cake.  He’s two years old!  TWO!!!  I can’t believe how fast he’s grown.  I’ve been blessed with such a wonderful son.  He’s so even keel and is so very mature for his age already.  I’ve loved every second of every minute that he’s been in my life.  I love this guy like a fat kid loves cake!  Speaking of cake, this was the first of many birthday cakes for him during his birthday week.  They were all very delicious and fabulously decorated with all kinds of things he’s currently in to. 

[144/365] :: The Cherry on Top.  Continuing his birthday week celebrations, we took our son out to dinner with my parents and my sisters.  He got a special ice cream sundae treat from our waitress.  After blowing the candle out on his treat, he quickly set to work on cleaning all the whipped cream off the cherry.  I think this was the first time he’d ever had a treat like this before.  I remember thinking about all the first experiences he’d have after bringing him home from the hospital for the first time.  He’s always so happy to be able to experience something new to him.  I’m glad I was there to capture this moment for him to look back on later.

[145/365] :: Thanks for serving our country Grandpa.  My dad served 20 years in the Navy to provide for our family and protect our country.  He sacrificed a lot of family time to do this job.  I hadn’t always been appreciative of it until I got older and started thinking about having a family of my own.  On this day, our neighborhood Chick-fil-A decided to have a military appreciation day for all the people that served our country and their families.  We got free meals and just had a good time hanging out together.  It was an opportunity for all of us to say thank you for everyone’s sacrifice and to let everyone know that we’re in this together – always – as a family.

[146/365] :: Daddy, stop. No pictures please.  We were in a parking lot waiting for his mom to get out of a store when a picture idea came to me.  It’s a good thing I always have my camera close by.  I wanted to try to capture my son in a paparazzi-type shot.  I rolled down his window and stood a few feet away from the vehicle to snap some pictures of him in the back seat.  He played the part perfectly and held his hand up to tell me to stop taking his picture.  All that’s missing in this picture is a Hollywood socialite sitting in the seat next to him.

[147/365] :: Grab Bags.  My wife planned our son’s 2^nd birthday party from start to finish.  We decided to have a Yo Gabba Gabba! Theme for the party since we are all big fans of the show.  Party supplies with YGG characters were hard to find at first, so we decided to make everything YGG related for the party ourselves.  These are the grab bags we had for the kids.  I printed out all the character faces and my wife took over and did the rest.  She cut out each character and glued them to the lunch bags.  She then filled the bags with all the goodies inside for the guests to enjoy.  She had just gotten them done the day before the party and set up this display by the front door.  They turned out awesome and we got a lot of compliments about all the handcrafted décor we had at the party.

[148/365] :: Boom Box Piñata.  This is another handcrafted creation from my wife.  She’s got amazing crafting skills that far exceeded my expectations.  I was skeptical at first when she said she would be making the piñata for the party.  I thought it would just be a simple box with cutouts glued to it.  It turned out to be much more than that.  She went to work on it and ended up with this masterpiece.  It was filled to the brim with candy and held up to the kids’ beatings pretty well.  It was ultimately destroyed to allow the kids to get access to the candy inside.  I’m just glad I was able to get a good picture of it before the beatings. 

[149/365] :: Resting.  With the kid’s second birthday bash behind us, we were finally able to take a quick breather before enjoying the rest of the holiday weekend with family from out of town.  I brought out the ring flash once again and took some shots of my son while he was resting on the couch.  He did some quick poses for the camera and ended up with this gem.  It reminds me of the host shots you see on Saturday Night Live when they return from commercial.  He’s a star.

[150/365] :: DJ Brobee Rock.  More ring light fun with my son’s toys.  The shades were an extra pair of the ones we included in the children’s grab bags.  I threw them on Brobee and set him on a chair to take some product shots with the ring light.  My last product shot with the ring light was a darker picture to show off my wife’s new vacuum.  I wanted this to be a brighter shot to show off more detail and showcase the toy as the main subject.  I got a little bit of glare on the toy’s lips and on the glasses frame I set on him, but I really like the final result I got.  My favorite part of the shot is the shadow of the three horns above his head.  They’re clearly defined, but they are still very soft and subdued so they don’t distract from the image at all.  I also like that the background around the chair was pitch black.  I thought about cropping the image at first to remove the sides, but I think keeping them in the picture really helps to frame the toy in the chair.

[151/365] :: White Hot.  This was an image that I did not expect to shoot at the end of the day.  I had another shot all set up and ready to upload, but I saw these flowers sitting on the table and thought about shooting them with my ring light.  I don’t normally like to shoot completely white subjects because I tend to blow out the highlights and loose some detail.  I was happy to see that the highlights on this image were perfectly exposed and the white flower was properly lit in the photo.  The soft shadows behind each petal add depth to the flower and make it look full and substantial.  The flash did a great job in lighting up the subject and keeping the rest of the background in darkness to help the flowers stand out from anything going on behind it.

:: Project 365 - May Slideshow ::

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I'm getting way behind on updating for this blog, but at least I've kept up to date on my daily photos.  Here's an update for the first half of May!

[121/365] :: Rosy.  I used to keep salt water reef tanks, so I love gazing at tanks whenever I come across one.  My son screams "Oh, FISH! Nemo!" whenever he sees this picture.  That little clownfish is using this rose anemone as a host for both shelter and protection.  The clownfish also has a mate hiding somewhere behind the anemone.  They help protect the anemone from any dangers they can handle.  The anemone also benefits from this relationship by feeding on any food that the clownfish happen to drop nearby.  It's pretty cool seeing this symbiotic relationship. 

[122/365] :: JollyBoy.  This is just a snap shot of the happy little boy waiting for his Chicken Joy at JollyBee.  I love how comfortable he is in front of the camera. As I right this, it is his second birthday today and I can't wait to get home to hang out with the little guy.

[123/365] :: Golden Hour.  The weather was getting warm so I've been spending some time at the beach.  The waves were tiny ankle biters that day, so I brought out the camera and took some pictures of the sunset and the beach scenery.  I like how this silhouette shot turned out with the setting sun sharing its warmth with everything in the scene.  Seeing this picture makes me want to go to the beach right now!

[124/365] :: He went to Jared!  My sister's engaged!  I'm really happy for her and her new fiancé.  They're just getting started on planning their lives together and I can't wait to party with them on their wedding day! 

[125/365] :: Ups and Downs.  This is the Ferris Wheel at the Irvine Spectrum.  I dragged the family up here to get my sister's camera cleaned at the Canon Factory Service Center.  It was a cool trip as we got to hang out at the Irvine Spectrum before heading home.  I was playing with angles in this shot using the Canon 10-22mm wide angle lens.  This is the one I liked the most after viewing all the shots I took of the subject.  I might have to try shooting the Ferris Wheel again from a distance.

[126/365] :: Imperial Beach Pier.  The pier at sunset is pretty awesome.  Sunsets bring out the best colors in the sky.  It makes a mostly cloudy gray day into something warm and bright and vibrant.  This is a great place to shoot.  There were quite a few other photographers there with their clients using the sunset as the backdrop to the photos.  I was content with having the sunset as my main subject.

[127/365] :: The Sleeping Dragon. Today was a fun day.  I had volunteered to enter a dragon boat competition with some friends and friends of friends.  We formed a team of 16 people to compete in a paddle boat race.  It was my first time ever doing such an event, so I didn't expect much out of it.  Especially competing with a bunch of people I just met and not having any practice at all.  So we started off our day and we won our first race...then the next race...and then the next race...and we kept on winning!  We made it all the way to the finals of the event and eventually lost to the fastest team of the day.  It was a thrilling experience and I can't wait to give it another shot next year!  This dragon danced in the opening ceremony for the event.  The performers took a little break after the dance to catch their breath and that's when I snapped this shot.

[128/365] :: Happy Grandparents.  My mom, my dad, and my son.  All love.

[129/365] :: Mama Mary.  I came home from work one day and found this pretty lady on display in our living room.  My in-laws had brought her over for a few days of prayer.  I cleaned her up a bit to remove some flaws and scratches on the statue's face and neck.  She was displayed across some windows that let in a good amount of natural light.  I took some face shots in a portraiture style to try to give her some life in the photo.  If you stare at it long enough, you may start to think that she's peering right into your soul.

[130/365] :: Me, Grimlock! Me, King!  I'd been meaning to do another Transformers shoot for weeks.  This Masterpiece Grimlock has been displayed in my office since I first purchased the figure.  I finally brought it home from work to join my other toys and on display and took this opportunity to shoot the figure.  I decided to shoot it in a top-down perspective with shallow DOF.  It's a pretty fun toy to mess around with and transform to a dinosaur and back.  You can't not like dinosaurs and robots.  And this toy represents them both!

[131/365] :: "Even though I'm on the steal-o, she wild sweet yo!"  Mos Def couldn't have rhymed it better.  He's always trying to act all cool and subdued whenever he first sees his friends, but it's instant play time after about a minute.  The Canon 10-22mm lens is a fun piece of glass to shoot kids with.  That slight distortion I get from the lens brings a playful quality to the image when kids are the subject.  It's an amazing lens and I'm going to be sad to have to give it back whenever my friends asks for it again.  At least I'll still have my primes!

[132/365] :: Waiting for Baby.  We're getting close to welcoming a new little brother for our son!  We are all getting excited and anxious to meet the little guy.  My wife's belly is going to get a little bit bigger before she gives birth, so I'll have to shoot more of her as the time gets close.  There was a lot of light and color that distracted from the main subject in this image, so I decided to make it a black and white to refocus on the most important part of the shot. 

[133/365] :: Hotpot.  I get so hungry when I see this image.  We had ourselves a Korean hotpot this evening and thoroughly enjoyed it!  The food looked so savory and colorful.  I had to take a picture of it when it came to the table.  It didn't hurt that it was also very delicious when I finally got around to eating it after taking the photos.

[134/365] :: Pick me! Pick me!  Summer is getting close and it's almost time for some fishing.  For now, browsing for fish at the local market will have to do.  Most of the day's catch looked really fresh and I was glad to have brought my camera along with me to take some pictures.  This lineup caught my attention with the one fish in the middle looking the like the freshest catch out of the group waiting to be picked.  I was able to isolate the fish with a very shallow DOF to slightly blur out it's surrounding neighbors.  I didn't buy anything at the market that day and instead had dessert at the cafeteria nearby.

[135/365] :: Megatron.  Here is another Transformers figure that I'm sure many fans of the genre would recognize.  It's Megatron.  Leader of the Decepticons.  I played around with posing him a little bit and I tried to give him a really imposing stance.  I was photographing him on the floor at first, but I found that the tiles and the colored wall in the background were really distracting and taking away from the main subject.  I don't own a light box, so I had to improvise by using a bathtub to photograph him in.  I grabbed my flash and fired it behind the figure to it's right with the light facing the back wall and bouncing back towards the figure.  This gave me a white out background with no distractions and kept the main focus on my subject.  I was lucky to have daylight bulbs in my bathroom to use as the main front light for the figure so he wouldn't be cast in shadow from the backlight.  I'm very happy with how this shot came out and now I know I can use my bathtub as a light box replacement when I need it.

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I had a mad rush the other night to catch up on editing the last 2 weeks of images for Project 365 to finish off the month of April.  The delay was due to some computer problems and the usual procrastination on my part.  I got through those few obstacles and finally have the pictures completed and ready to share on the blog.  Let me know what you think of the images and scroll down to the end of the post to view the April slideshow.

[109/365] :: Dying Breath.  I think these were tulips.  They were lively, vibrant and colorful before we left for our trip to Hawaii.  Ten days later, these flowers were at the end of their life cycle.  They were still very vibrant and colorful, but the life in them was nearly distinguished.  This shot was taken in my dining room.  I kept the background dark and unlit so it would remain blacked out in the photo.  This helped the flowers stand out and remain the center of attention.

[110/365] :: Minty Fresh.  I've got a large mint bush in front of my house.  It started blooming these pretty flowers that I needed to document before they wilted away like the flowers in the previous photo.  I know I wanted to isolate the small flowers against the mint leaves, but I still wanted to keep the shape of the leaves recognizable for any herbalists out there.  I took a couple shots using different apertures and found the depth of field I was looking for at f/4.0. 

[111/365] :: Tulips.  These aren't tulip replacements for my house from the previous day.  They were actually tulips from a bouquet at my mom's house.  I wanted to try to recreate the background technique from the previous tulip photo in a different environment.  This was taken in my mom's kitchen with fluorescent lighting.  It turned out a little warm, so I fixed the white balance in the photo to adjust for the color temperature.  The background stayed black and the flowers popped! 

[112/365] :: Love Bokeh.  I've been doing a lot of experimenting with lighting and different techniques lately.  This is just one of results of those experiments.  I bought a lens filter and created bokeh tiles with shapes cut out of cardboard to photograph shaped bokeh.  Here's an example of the contraption I'm talking about.  The result is the background lighting taking on the shape of whatever is cut out from the cardboard tiles.  This photo is a trial run of my first bokeh tile.  There's a lot of cool potential in this and I will have more examples in the coming days.

[113/365] :: Eyes on the Prize.  Easter was just around the corner and it was time for our annual friends and family Easter Egg Hunt for the kids.  My son was ready to go.  He was focused and ready to collect some eggs when we got there, but he froze up a little during the actual hunting portion of the event.  He was one of the youngest kids at the party, so he had first run at the egg hunt.  Since this is only his second Easter Egg Hunt, he was a little confused about what he needed to do.  He eventually came around and it dawned on him that he needed to collect the eggs.  I'm sure he'll be good to go next Easter!

[114/365] :: I Got Your Back.  Brobee's watching his back.  The little guy put his backpack on and worked his way into my toy room to play with "daddy's toys".  I caught him in there and snapped this shot before he knew he was caught.  I'm usually in there with him playing with Transformers and whatever toys I happen to have in there.  I must have left the door open and he must have taken the opportunity to let himself in.  Kid knows where the good toys are already.

[115/365] :: Star Bokeh.  This is my second experiment using my DIY bokeh tiles.  This go around turned out a lot better than the first experiment.  I couldn't believe how well the image came out.  I used a lit display board to light my son's face.  The lights in the background are from streetlights and car lights in the distance.  I had to use a wide-open aperture at f/1.4 and keep my son at minimum focusing distance to get a sharp image and the star bokeh that I was looking for.  There is stillroom for improvement.  I need to make more tile shapes and refine the design a bit more.

[116/365] :: Independence.  My little boy is growing up!  He's getting really comfortable walking off and exploring on his own.  I love how adventurous he's getting.  I'm dreading the day that he becomes completely independent.  Hopefully that's years and years away from now.  I like this shot a lot even though I didn't get anything in focus.  You can clearly see my son walking away from the camera heading towards some new life experience.  I guess we won't know where he's going until he gets there.

[117/365] :: Something's Fishy.  I was at the fish market with the family showing my son all these different fish that were caught and were now for sale.  I took a few shots of the different fishes that were available.  This was my favorite from the bunch because of the framing and the many fish showing the abundance of sea life that could be bought there.  I like the colors that came out in this image.  The blues, silvers, grays, and yellows showing make the image look crisp and the seafood look freshly caught.

[118/365]:: Sea Shells at the Sea Shore.  My goal for taking and processing this image was to try and make it look like it was taken at the beach by the seashore.  It was actually taken in my dining room with a hot shoe flash and shallow depth of field.  I muted the colors a little bit in post processing and played with split toning to get a beach tone to come out in the image.  I think I was able to achieve this effect.  You can almost believe that the bench cushion I used could be soft white sand and the ocean is far off in the distance.

[119/365]:: I Am Ironman?  This is a little toy that I got for my son of a Super Deformed Ironman figure.  It was a pretty cool toy bought from one of those deluxe gumball machines for $1.  There was a display showing the different toys that could come out of the machine and my son said that he just wanted the Ironman figure.  I told him that we might not get that exact figure, but we took our chances anyway.  He was elated to find out that we actually did get the Ironman figure he wanted.  I let him play with it for a little bit and then I took it from him for a quick photo shoot.  The restaurant we were in had the perfect colors to compliment the figure.  I placed him on a granite-topped table in front of a red wall and snapped this shot of the figure with its reflection.  Then I gave it back to my son to play with.  I don't even know where it is now.  It was buried between some couch cushions the last time I saw it.

[120/365] :: Flower Girl.  I was fortunate enough to help some friends shoot a wedding.  I was hired on as an assistant/3rd shooter for the wedding, so I was charged with carrying and setting up all the gear as well as shooting anything that I thought was interesting and that the 2 main shooters may have missed.  It was my first paid wedding gig and I was very grateful for the opportunity.  The job was definitely a little grueling, but I wouldn't hesitate at the chance to shoot another one.  I have a great deal of respect for photographers who take wedding jobs on their own.  This little lady was the flower girl at the wedding.  The main shooters were busy directing the groomsmen in different positions while the brides maids were off to the side waiting for their turn.  The flower girl was standing patiently along side the brides maids when I snapped this image.  She had this calm look on her face like she'd done this kind of thing before.  I took a couple shots of her in this pose and this is the only image that came out without the wind blowing her hair all over her face.  The background highlights are a little blown out, but I found it acceptable as long as I was able to capture my subject clearly.  You can view some of my other shots from this wedding on my Flicker set.  I hope to get more jobs like this in the future to get better with this type of photography.

:: Project 365 - April Slideshow ::

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Hawaii and back...again.  I've still got hundreds of photos to edit of my recent family trip back from Hawaii (again), but I have been able to get the photos for Project 365 completed. 

Check out the photos and my words below.  Enjoy!

[099/365] :: Chinatown. The day before our flight to Hawaii from LAX, we made a pit stop in Chinatown.  We ate dim sum in the morning then strolled around and perused the different shops and vendor items.  These Chinese lions caught my eye.  There was a pair of them that guarded the front entrance to a bank.  I was walking around with the Canon EF-S 10-22mm wide angle lens and used it to shoot this image.  It was pretty hard getting the correct exposure for the subject and the bright sky in the background, but I was able to correct it in post to get the look I wanted.

[100/365] :: Sand Between His Toes. Our first day on Oahu and one of the first things we did was hit the beach in Waikiki.  This is one of my son's first footprints on the beach.  He actually loves playing by the shore and and getting in the water with me.  This was also shot with the 10-22 lens so I could get in close and frame the shot the way I wanted it.  I used this lens a lot on the trip closer to the 22mm range to get that 35mm look on my 7D crop sensor. 

[101/365] :: PukaDog.  This is the first time we've been able to travel to Hawaii as a family with another child closer to my son's age.  If you've followed my previous posts, you'll know that these two guys are great friends.  My son looks up to his god brother and tries to copy everything he sees him do.  I caught these guys posing for the shot while we were waiting for their keiki pukadog orders to come out. 

[102/365] :: Mad Hatter.  We were on our way to the Polynesian Cultural Center and decided to take the long way around the island to get there.  This is the windward side of the island in Kualoa Ranch Park with Chinaman's Hat in the distance.  We made the pit stop at the park so the Mendoza family could check out the little island and I took advantage of the situation by snapping a few portraits.  It was a little hard getting Devin to pose for me, since all he wanted to do was play on the beach, but his mom got a hold of him and posed with him for this shot. 

[103/365] :: Fan-cy.  We had planned to spend the whole day on the beach today, so I decided to leave my camera in our room with the intention of taking photos when we got back at night.  Well, we got back pretty late and I wasn't no feeling up to going out again and roaming the streets of Waikiki for photo ops, so I got a little creative in our condo and took photos of different items inside our unit.  The ceiling fans caught my attention while I was laying on my bed.  I wanted to capture their movement and delicate satin finish of the center section.  I had to lay on the floor directly below the fan and hold my breath to get the shot.  I had to remain as still as possible because I was using a slow shutter speed of 1/15s.  Lucky for me, I ended up with a shot that didn't have any camera shake to use for this project.  The fan remained in good focus and the movement was captured just as I had envisioned it.

[104/365] :: Wanna buy insurance?  I read a really cool article on the plane about island geckos on our last trip to Hawaii.  The article had a lot of cool photographs of the lizards on the islands.  I didn't run into any geckos during that trip, but I finally did see one this time around.  We had just entered the gardens of the Dole Pineapple Plantation when we saw this little guy posing for us on top of some bushes.  I had just mounted my 85mm lens on my camera (the longest focal length I had for this trip) and was able to take some shots of the gecko from a safe distance without scaring it away.  It just sat there for a few minutes before it decided it was done with it's modeling career. 

[105/365] :: Shaka! Still inseparable.  They play together.  They eat together.  And they hang loose together! It's gonna be scary when they start going to bachelor parties together...

[106/365] :: Duality.  My son can get a little vain sometimes.  He'll see his reflection and start making faces and playing around with it.  This was taken just before he goes wild and starts dancing for himself.  He must have been excited about finally hitting up a Zippy's on this trip.  I had used a wide aperture to get a shallow depth of field.  Bumping up the fstop to f/5.6-f/8.0 would have given me both my son and his reflection in clearer focus.  Instead, I kept the aperture wide open at f/1.4 to have just my son's profile in focus while his reflection is slightly off focus.  This way you can easily distinguish the reflection from the real subject.

[107/365] :: Across the street from Matsumoto’s Shave Ice.  I don't even know what the name of this building is.  I guess it's a church of some sort.  It's a building we're used to seeing since it's situation right across the street from Matsumoto’s Shave Ice!  I think the cactus type plants lining the archway wall is dragon fruit.  I used to have a couple stalks of this plant and they can grow like weeds if they're not properly maintained.  I went really wide with this shot at 12mm using the 10-22 lens to get the building framed in the archway.  I also made sure to get that coconut palm in the frame at the top of the image to add some island charm to the image. 

[108/365] :: Question!!!  This kid cracks me up!  He and his parents devised this system where he has to answer a question before taking a bite of his food into his mouth.  All you hear from his while we're eating is "Question!!!" and it's usually followed by an answer to whatever question someone asks him.  Most of the questions are about spelling or math.  We expect him to rock those subjects in school in the coming years.  This was shot at the Honolulu International Airport on our way back to the mainland.  There was actually a sign directly in front of him that said "No food or drinks" allowed.  He ignored it and happily gobbled down a chocolate haupia pie anyway.

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I'm kicking April into gear with a strong start to my Project 365.  There are a few more techniques and fun things I've been trying out with my photos to see if I could add a little bit of flavor to them.  The whole point of doing this project is to learn more about photography, so continually trying new things should keep me in line with that objective.  Check out the pictures below to see what I've been trying out!

[091/365] :: Yo Gabba Gabba!  If you have kids, you know what Yo Gabba Gabba! is all about!  My son loves the show and knows all the characters and songs.  My wife and I decided to get him a set of toys from the show.  This is his collection of characters so far.  He's missing one more figure, but the toys are pretty rare and quite expensive, so it may take a while to complete his set.  I wanted to capture this picture of them while they were still minty fresh and before they get lost under the couch or chewed on by some young mouths.

[092/365] :: Flying High.  We were at the park for my god daughter's birthday party and my son immediately wanted to go to the playground.  He's getting a lot more independent and braver around the playground sets these days.  This was the first tme I've seen him ask to get on the swing and then ask to be pushed back and forth.  He used to be uncomfortable just hanging there, but he was having a blast this time and even urged me to push him harder.  I set my camera's focus priority to AI Servo so I could track him while he was swinging and get this shot.  That's probably the highest he got from the ground since I snapped it at the height of his back swing. 

[093/365] :: Spilled Berries.  These are decorative berries that we have sitting in a vase on our dining table.  My son and his cousin were playing around the table so I decided to lay the vase down before they got a chance to knock it over.  I liked the different lines and the contrast in colors that I saw with the berries laid against the table, so I grabbed my camera and tripod to get the the shot.  The shot turned out a little darker than I wanted and the colors were a little off because of the flourescent lighting in the room, so I fixed the white balance in post processing and played with split toning to get the desired look I wanted in the photo.

[094/365] :: Ear Deco.  This is a pair of earrings that my wife keeps in the car.  I was sitting on the passenger seat and trying to come up with a shot to take for my daily photo when I saw the sun light cut through the dashboard.  I grabbed the earrings from the center console and hung them on the air vent to see what the light would give me.  I think I was able to capture some interesting colors from the sunset reflected on the dashboard and earrings.  I might have had a better effect if the earrings were shiny and more reflective.  The colors turned out just right anyway and the composition was exactly what I was looking for in this photo.  This photo is a foreshadow of things to come in terms of reflectivity.

[095/365] :: Reflection Eternal. This shot was taken at Maryjane's at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego.  It's a pretty cool venue with great lighting throughout.  My family and friends were having a meal there before heading off to Petco Park for the San Diego Padres opening day festivities.  My son discovered this surgar container on the table and decided to turn it around and use it as a vanity mirror.  He was doing all kinds of funny faces on it.  He even grabbed my shades and I put my hat on him to complete his look for this shot.  I did my best to polish up the chrome on the container before taking the shot.  I use a 10-22mm wide angle lens so I could focus in close to the subject.  I think a fish eye would have been a better choice to exaggerate the reflection a little bit, but I don't have that lens in the bag.

[096/365] :: Hi Stranger.  I got home from work today and the little guy suprised me with a new haircut!  His hair had been getting in his eyes and was really bugging him, so he was long overdue.  We had dinner and shopped around the mall that evening.  While we were waiting for him mom and tita at the shoe store, he found these mirrors on the bottom of the seats.  He just comfortably plopped himself down on his tummy and started saying "Hi!" to his reflection in the mirror!  I quickly made my way behind him and snapped his shot of his reflection to capture the moment.

[097/365] :: The Multiplicity Experiment.  This was a fun little experiement I was reading about on DIY Photography earlier in the week.  I told myself that I would try it out on the next rainy day.  Well, it rained in the evening and I didn't feel like leaving the house with all my gear in the rain, so I set up this shot in our living room.  Lucky for me, I have a glass top coffee table that I was able to use for this shot.  I place the picture upside down a few inches below the glass and made sure to clean the glass of any dust before adding drops of water to it.  I knew I didn't want to have completely round water droplets, so I just scooped the water up from a cup and let it drip down my fingers onto the glass.  I had to try a couple different lenses to get the framing and DOF just right for this image.  This was shot with my 135L with a fairly modest f/4.0 aperture to capture the images on the water droplets and more of the background image.  I used a flash to light the shot and bumped up the ISO to 400 to get a little more light in.  And lastly, I set the exposure to 1 full second to let even more light in.  I got the desired result and cropped it a little in post to get the composition I wanted.  It turned out to be a pretty cool shot without having to do much setup or cleaning afterward.

[098/365] :: Window Shopping.  It was raining again today, so I decided to take another indoor shot when I got home from work.  I wanted to do another gear shot because I hadn't photographed any of my photo gear in a while.  This is my Sigma 85/1.4 lens photographed with my 135L on my 7D.  I wanted to get the reflection of the window blinds across the lens surface for the shot to echo the lines on the lens' focus ring.  I got close.  The angle was really tricky because I wanted to make use of the available light coming from the window.  It turned out to be a really clean product shot of the lens.  The 135L is just amazing for shooting anything.  I'm going to have to take it out of the bag more often.

Well, that's a hefty update for the start of April.  It might be a while before my next post because the family and I are going to Hawaii again!!!  Check back here for pictures from the trip when I get back!

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I've always been interested in street photography.  I guess it's the rawness of the pictures and the candidness of the subjects that interests me the most about the art.  These are some examples of some shots I've obtained while walking around with my camera.  It's a modest start to the genre, but I'm sure I'll be able to fill this part of my portfolio with more practice.  No more words.  Just pictures.

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I am finally setting aside some time to get an update out for my Project 365.  This is a ten day update, so there are a lot of pictures to view.  Have fun checking out the photos and reading some of my comments about them.  This is also the last batch of photos for the month of March, so make sure you scroll down to the end of the post to view the slideshow. 

[081/365] :: Depth.  I really love shooting with my prime lenses.  I like how I can isolate my subjects from the rest of the image.  This picture is a great example of that type of isolation.  I used my 50mm lens with an aperture of f/2.8 to get enough of the flower in focus.  A wider aperture would not have been enough at this distance to keep the whole flower in focus.  I had to get really low to the ground to get this shot and used live view on my camera to frame the image.

[082/365] :: Attached.  This is another shot with my 50mm, but I decided to use a wide open aperture of f/1.4 and positioned myself further from the subject to get a greater depth of field.  The three of us took a walk around the neighborhood this day.  My son got tired after a while and decided to cling onto mommy for the last half of our walk.  He turned a 15-minute walk into a 30-minute walk.  We had a lot of fun anyway and got plenty of exercise out of it.

[083/365] :: I Smell Food.  We really love our neighborhood.  There are places close by where we can go to hang out and things to do there as a family.  This is from the koi pond I had posted a picture of on Day 39.  We make sure to bring some quarters with us when we go here so my son can buy some food to feed the fish and the turtles living in the pond.  He throws the little cereal O's one at a time and watches the animals scoop them up.  He threw this one O that struck the turtle's shell on the left and landed between the two.  We waited a while for either one of them to move and grab it, but it never happened and they eventually just jumped back into the water.

[084/365] :: Lighting the Dark.  This was shot in a restaurant lobby near our home.  I brought along my camera with us to dinner since it was getting late and I hadn't yet taken a photo for the day.  I didn't like the results I got from photographing the food we had for dinner, so I was getting a little anxious to find something to photograph.  As we were leaving the restaurant, I stopped in the lobby and took a couple minutes to look around for something interesting.  I'm glad I looked up and saw the light fixtures above our heads.  The liked the color image a lot, but I think the image is much more striking in black and white. 

[085/365] :: Keep Your Fingers Off the Glass.  This is one of the sharpest images I've ever taken with my camera.  I used my 30mm at f/1.4 to capture the scene.  The most remarkable thing about this image is that there is about a half inch of glass between me and the lizard.  The wide aperture I used was able to blur out the glass in the foreground enough to make it appear as if it wasn't there.

[086/365] :: Cooling Off.  The sun has been shining in San Diego and we took this opportunity to spend a family day at Mission Beach and hang out at the Boardwalk.  My son was only tall enough to ride a small boat ride at the amusement park nearby.  The other rides will have to wait a few years before he can get on them.  Since there wasn't much for us to do around the amusement park, we strolled over to the boardwalk along the beach and purchased this huge soft serve cone to share amongst the three of us and help us cool off.  This was the perfect opportunity for me to practice backlighting exposure with the sun shining behind my son.  My first couple shots turned out properly exposed for my son, but the background highlights were too blown out and lost a lot of detail.  I was finally able to dial it in with this image with a properly exposed background and subject.  I also started to experiment a little bit with split toning in my post processing work.  I think it works like the temperature sliders in most processing software, but this allows me to work with various tones in the image to give a different color and feel to the scene.

[087/365] :: California.  In-N-Out is classic California.  Your favorite burger may not be from In-N-Out, but most everyone agrees that In-N-Out is as close to the perfect classic burger as you can get.  I took this picture and immediately knew I would play around some more with split tones to get an old school classic look to the image.  I basically just played around with the sliders until I got the desired tones I wanted in the picture.

[088/365] :: Ambient Lights.  This was a shot I captured while we were strolling through the nearby mall.  I didn't want to use the flash on my camera, so I asked my wife to stand next to a brightly lit directory sign with our son.  I used the light like a big soft box to illuminate my son and snapped a couple pictures.  Experimenting with this technique really makes me want to buy some studio lights to set up at home.  I've always wanted a beauty dish to play around with, but this example has broadened my want list to include some soft boxes as well.  A set of studio lights will have to be one of my goals to obtain this year.

[089/365] :: 3D Flower.  I don't seem to remember what location I shot this image at, but I do remember the lighting was really good for that time of day.  I tried to shoot these flowers a few times with my 85mm at f/1.4, but I wasn't getting the depth of field I needed to get enough of the flower in focus so I stopped the aperture down to f/2.0.  The flower and surrounding leaves immediately jumped out at me through the image.  The background bokeh blurred out nicely creating a good separation from the foreground.  The sharpness that came out of the image was very high with the pollen and flower petal "veins" in perfect focus.  You can even see the little fuzzy hairs on the stems and flower buds. 

[090/365] :: Staring at the Sea.  I wish I could say that my son poses on queue whenever I take pictures of him, but that's not often the case.  He's actually staring past me in this image.  We were at the beach on this hot spring day and he had just woken up from a two hour nap to find himself in front of the Pacific Ocean.  The beach was very crowded that day so I made sure to use a wide open aperture at f/1.4 to isolate him from the crowded scenery.  It's just him and what ever he's fixated on in this photo.  He's got that Mona Lisa-like stare going on that makes you wonder what's on his mind. 

Maybe he's looking ahead to next month's photos because March is officially in the books!

:: Project 365 - March Slideshow ::

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It's that time again and I'm back with a blog update!  This was a really tough week for me being sick and sidelined, but I pulled through and kept up to date with my daily photos.  Despite the hardships, I'm really pleased with the quality of the photos that I've been producing the past few weeks.  I'll definitely be posting albums on Flickr from some of the events I shot.  For now, I'll have to settle with sharing my one photo for each day.

[073/365] :: Emotional. This is a funny picture of my son watching one of his TV shows.  We were just hanging out in the living room and he gave me one of these faces.  It's a good thing I had my camera nearby to capture the moment.  He gets really into his shows.  The night before, he woke up from a nightmare screaming "No Thomas! No!"  I can only guess he was talking about Thomas the Tank Engine.  I had to chuckle a little and he quickly fell back to sleep.  I wish I could remember what we were watching during this photo.  I'll have to pay attention next time we're watching TV and he makes another face like this.

[074/365] :: Spit-Shined. I was walking back to my car after dinner and noticed this peculiar looking...thing...sticking out the side of the hotel.  My guess is it's a place to attach a fire hose because I didn't see any fire hydrants around.  I may not know what it is, but it made for a good subject for my photo.  It caught my attention because it reflected the surrounding ambient light really well.  It was an easy subject to photograph because of the light reflections and the ambient light.

[075/365] :: High Five. Outside for a walk with my family.  My son was asleep most of the time, but he woke up towards the end and was very happy to be out.  We had really nice light, so I decided to start taking photos of him while we took a break.  I think being in his stroller really helped to block out the direct sunlight and kept the ambient light even and soft.  I'm really happy with the sharpness I got out of his eyes.  I could actually see my reflection in them when I expanded the photo to 100% on my screen.  That's the kind of sharpness I'd love to have in all my portraits going forward.

[076/365] :: Lucky Charm. St. Patrick's day was filled with lots of food, fun, and friends.  Good times.  We had cupcakes from Sprinkles that had these clover toppers on them to commemorate the holiday.  I had my godson hold this candied clover and snapped just this one shot with shallow depth of field.  That was the only shot I could snap off before he quickly popped it into his mouth to add to his sugar high.  I wish I would have had him lick that little bit of icing off the top before the shot, but I had to work with what I had at that moment.

[077/365] :: Salted Caramel Chocolate Pretzel Squares. These were so good!  It was a new recipe that my cousin was experimenting with.  It tasted great and afterwards, we discussed what she could do to improve it even more!  I shot this with the Sigma 85mm and focused on the guts of the dessert to show off all the yummy ingredients.  I used this angle so I could show off the cut lines and the angular lines created by the caramel.  I can't wait for the next version!  I'll have to shoot that when it gets done, too!

[078/365] :: Pinks.  I really love shooting outside and using natural light.  It's not as complicated as trying to figure out what flash settings to use and where to place my light source.  That's all something I still need more practice with, so I'm always happy to shoot in natural light whenever I get the chance.  The flowers in this shot were really colorful.  With the lighting and the subject just right, all I needed to do was point the camera, aim, compose, and shoot.

[079/365] :: Vintage Rider. My son is really starting to get into bikes and trikes.  I think he's due for one when his birthday rolls around in a couple months.  Here he is playing around with a vintage trike last weekend.  He wasn't quite big enough to reach both peddles to right it properly, but he didn't let that stop him from being all over it.  I let him sit in the seat and pushed him around the yard.  He was trying to peddle the whole time, so I think he gets the idea.  Once again, this is all natural light.  I'm really starting to get really comfortable with the Sigma 85.  I also have a good feel for the distance and DOF I need for my subject - at least for my son. 

[080/365] :: Orange Dream. Another natural light shot.  The difference with this is that it's indoors using light coming through a side window.  I like the different angles created by the lines in the foreground and from the reflection in the background.  The color is also an important element in this photo.  I didn't shoot a lot this day, but I'm happy to have captured this shot to share with everyone. 

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This has been a long week, but I've been shooting a lot of photos and I've selected the best from each day to share with you.  During the selection process at the end of the day, I begin to realize that Project 365 has really forced me to focus on the quality of my work and really scrutinize the photos that I would consider share-worthy.  I should probably create an album of the other photos that did not make Project 365.  I will probably post them to my Facebook for fun.

[066/365] :: Padded. This is the same table that I shot under for photo [055/365].  I left the kid out of the frame this time and used the bench and table as my main subject.  I was just looking for a different perspective to shoot from, so I used the low angle setting on my tripod and found this shot.  There's some sort of cool geometric thing going on in this shot that I really like.

[067/365] :: Tagger.  This was shot at a park across the street from the New Children's Mueseum in Downtown San Diego.  We've got a family membership to the mueseum and take advantage of it whenever we have the opportunity.  All the writing on the wall is chalk art from students and teachers that were there previously.  I had my son lean up against the wall for the picture.  He looks a little guilty standing there.  I only wish he was holding a stick of chalk in his hand to complete the image. 

[068/365] :: Sriracha. You say it!  I love this stuff.  It's my go-to hot sauce for a lot of the dishes I eat.  I was shooting with the Sigma 85 this evening at a restaurant.  It's a pretty long lens to be shooting indoors with on my crop sensor so I pretty much knew I'd be taking a lot of close up shots.  I took a couple snaps of my godson sitting across the table from me before recomposing for this shot.  I wanted the focus on the Sriracha bottle and have all the other condiments on the table blur away.  My godson added his smile at the last second.  I really like that he did that because it makes the image less boring and puts me in a happy mood everytime I look at it.

[069/365] :: Pogi. I packed my family up in the car and headed towards the beach to buy some wax for my surfboards.  I used this opportunity to get some shots of the sunset with my son as my model.  I captured a lot of pictures of him in fun poses that I'll have to share in another post.  This is his "pogi" pose.  My sister taught it to him on our last trip to Hawaii.  He makes a pea shooter gun with his fingers, lifts it up under his chin, and cheeses big for the camera.  :D  I really like the colors and the lighting in this image.  The sunsets in San Diego are always a fun time to shoot. 

[070/365] :: Golden Arches. It's out of focus, but you still know where I'm at right?!  This logo is iconic.  No matter where I am in the world, you know that an order of large fries is nearby when I see these golden arches.  If I were in Hawaii and they were in 'season', I'd want a fried haupia pie!  Other iconic logos that come to mind are Nike & Apple.  It's just cool to see something and instantly recognize it even if it's not completely in focus.  This was actually the drive through sign outside.  The bokeh lights in the background are coming from the traffic lights and cars on the main road.

[071/365] :: Sparkly Feet.  I complimented my friends daughter on her shiny shoes when we came over to visit.  She asked me to take a picture of them when I brought my camera out to take some pictures.  I thought it was funny how the whole image came out in skin tones.  I toned down the shiny-ness of the shoes a bit to get rid of some hot spots and upped the contrast to make them pop a little from the carpet.  I only get this one shot of the shoes because all the kids quickly bolted out the door to play outside after I took this image. 

[072/365] :: Eat More Beef.  I like staying close to home with my family whenever we go out to eat.  We've got a lot of great places to eat and shop just a short drive away from our home.  This spot has a cool bronze pig statue that I wanted my son to see.  The pig statue actually has some history after being stolen and returned a few years ago.  My son came right up to it, gave it a pat on the head and proceeded to make snorting sounds like he was talking to the pig.  HAHA!  Then he said 'bye-bye' and we were on our way.

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March!  It's a new month with new photos to share.  I'm really happy with the quality of the photos I've been putting out for Project 365.  I want to continue to push myself and my photography even further by exploring different ideas and getting out of my comfort zone.  I am gathering inspiration from a lot of different photographers and artists.  You will probably see my photos take on a different look or style and hopefully raise the bar to where I would like my photography to be. 

[060/365] :: Transformed.  This firsts photo is a good example of getting out of my comfort zone.  I don't think I've ever done a setup shot like this.  This was basically shot in the dark with the only lightsource coming from a flashlight that was shined on the toy to create the ominous shadow on the make-shift gift wrap background.  I had about a two foot square space to work with to frame the whole picture.  I think another two feet would have given me a larger shadow and a more imposing image, but I had to make due with what was available to me at the time.  I manually focused the image with the room lights on.  Then I turned them off and shined the flashlight on the figure to illuminate it and get the shadow to look just right before taking the picture.  I think this is the first Transformer I've photographed for Project 365.  I'm a HUGE Transformers fan and toy collector, so you can be sure this won't be the last of my toys showing up for this project. 

[061/365] :: Peek-a-boo.  I have been surfing a lot lately and I'm always noticing this flock of birds hanging out by the shoreline after my morning sessions.  Most of the time, they're just standing around like you see in the picture.  Sometimes, they follow the receding waters out and pick at the wet sand for little critters to eat.  I decided to take my camera out with me after my session to snap a few shots of these birds.  These guys just stood there and stared at me with one leg tucked in under their wing as I knelt down to take their picture.  Their heads are turned around at almost 180 degrees and their long beaks are hidden under the feathers on their backs.  They almost didn't care that I was taking this picture just a few meters away from them, but quickly moved away and made sure to keep that distance when I got up and took a step closer.  The moment was gone, but I got my shot and didn't bother them anymore.

[062/365] :: The Eye of Sauron.  I didn't mean to shoot birds again for a second day in a row.  These pigeons perched up next to me as I was sitting on the beach wall waiting for some surfers to pass by with their boards.  This pigeon gave me the most evil eye I've ever seen.  It reminded me of the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies.  This little bird gave me a look like this was his turf and I was not welcome to sit on the wall  with him.  I quickly snapped this shot of the bird and his evil eye before getting up and leaving.  I swear he would have swooped in on me if I had sat on that wall any longer. 

[063/365] :: Lighting the Trail.  I set out just before sunset with a light trail shot in mind, but I had no idea where I would take it.  I didn't want to travel to the usually San Diego light trail spots, so I decided to keep it close to home to see if I could find a creative way to get the shot.  Luckily, I have a lot of walking trails along the foothills near my home and close to some major roads with plenty of traffic.  I found this trail just a couple blocks from my house to shoot my photo for the day.  I took a couple different approaches to the shot.  At first I was shooting in the other direction, towards the sunset, but there wasn't enough ambiant light to properly illuminate the landscape so everything in the foreground that wasn't lit up was dark.  It was difficult to expose for because the sky would get blown out if I tried to properly expose for the foreground.  I ended up turning the tripod around and shooting east.  The lighting was perfect and the shot of the walking trail along side the automotive light trail created a very cool juxtaposed image.

[064/365] :: The Lime Light.  It was a family friendly Carnaval weekend in San Diego's Little Italy.  I brought along my Sigma 30 and Speedlight 580EXII to help me shoot some colorful night photos in the streets.  The sun was quickly setting and the scenary was getting lit up by all the different color lights.  I wanted to capture the colors and the lights and I added some more color and texture by focusing on the limes in the foreground.  I had to play with the flash power settings a few times before getting the correct exposure on the limes and prevent them from being blown out in the photo.  The colors came out great and I got the shot I was looking for.  Working with strobes is still very new to me and I've got a long way to go before I can be truly comfortable with them. 

[065/365] :: Levitation.  Some friends came over and brought along their kids for a play date and some fun with the Kinect on XBox360.  I had my tripod set up in the corner of the room and an off camera flash to light the scene.  Disclaimer: The Kinect does not cause kids to levitate! HAHA!  I timed the shot at the height of his jump to get that levitation effect.  I dialed in the flash settings before the guests arrived to make sure it wasn't overpowering the rest of the ambient light in the room.  This allowed me to concentrate on just the camera settings while the flash sat on the mantle.  It was a fun experiment and I'd like to get some modifiers like a beauty dish or light boxes for more off camera flash tests.

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Well, we're now at the end of February with two months of Project 365 down for the count.  I think I'm making some pretty good progress with my photography.  I'm really getting to know my gear and know how and what to use during certain situations.  I've still got a lot of learning to do and I hope to show off more of that in through my photos in the coming months.  Here's short update of how I spent my last few days in February and a slideshow to summarize my photos for the month.  I know I don't get too many comments on my blog, but I do appreciate the feedback I've gotten through email, twitter, facebook, face-to-face, etc.!  Keep them coming!  Let me know what you like and where you think I can improve.

[056/365] :: Star Light.  Cool star, right?  This is a decorative star (duh!) that was hanging off the ceiling at a restaurant I had lunch at last week.  There were a lot of them up there, but I was able to isolate this one star for the photograph.  The color reflections coming from the lights and banners in the restaurant were reflected really well on the star's surfaces.  Without them, it would have made for a more monotone image.  I like the splash of color and light on the pitch black background.  It really makes the subject pop out of the picture. 

[057/365] :: The Stare.  I brought the family to the Children's Pool in La Jolla last weekend to check out the seals and sea lions on the beach.  There was the usual crowd of tourists making for very crowded surroundings.  Unfortunately, it was really cold and windy that day, so I didn't have a lot of opportunity to get many good shots.  I got a few shots of the wildlife and a few of the family.  This is a shot of my son staring at me through the lens.  He was probably tired of me pointing the camera his way again.  I could just picture him thinking, "Really, dad?  Again?  REALLY?"  HAHA!  I actually took a photo of his mom for my Project 50 last year with a similar expression on her face.  It was uncanny when I was comparing the two because you could just tell they were thinking the same thing as I shot the image.

[058/365] :: Choo-Choo.  Our family visited some friends for dinner at their place this evening. Their son had a big lot of toy trains to play with and my son decided to commandeer these two trains for himself.  I captured this image with my Sigma 30mm wide open at 1/50s and ISO 400.  The image came out very dark, but I was able to lighten it up in post processing and get back a lot of the detail that was too dark to see before.  Our friends are also professional photographers and you can probably just make out the equipment we were playing around with in the background on top of the bookcases.  It's pretty cool to chill with other photographers and try out each other's equipment.  We'll have to do it again sometime with more of a photographic purpose in mind.

[059/365] :: Nutty.  Monday night is usually when we do all our grocery shopping for the week.  I brought my camera with us and just started shooting all the fresh produce and other items in the store.  This is a shot inside a barrel of nuts.  I'm not even sure what kind of nuts they are, but I'm really happy how the shot was framed and the depth of field I achieved.  The focus was on the nut sitting in the scooper.  I think it came out a little dark on Flickr compared to my laptop screen, but the effect isn't lost in the upload. 

And that ends February!  Take a trip through the month with the slideshow below!

:: Project 365 - February Slideshow ::

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