Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Courthouse Sunken Garden Clouds

The sunken gardens at the Santa Barbara County Court House is the location of many community events and festivals. There are few places more recognizable as a local Santa Barbara landmark.

Sunday, December 16, 2012
Candlelight Christmas Carols at the Santa Barbara Mission

The candlelight service on the Saturday before Christmas at the Santa Barbara Mission is one of the most beautiful events of the Christmas Season.

Monday, August 6, 2012
The Law Offices of Buynak and Fauver Evening Mountain View

This is another shot from my recent work at the offices of Buynak and Fauver. This one is an outtake. It was taken later in the evening and although I really love the view, it didn't fit well in the final tour. But you can see it here. The rest of the tour, including an Easter Egg, which no one has found without being told where to look, can be seen here... their site: http://www.buynakfauver.com/virtual-tour/.

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Sunday, August 5, 2012
The Law Offices of Buynak and Fauver

An evening view overlooking Santa Barbara from the El Paseo Building overlooking De La Guerra Plaza. This is the view from the patio of the Law Offices of Buynak and Fauver. They have an amazing office, and it's not just because of the view. Their workplace is one of the greenest offices in Santa Barbara. Because of their efforts their employees and clients have an incredibly safe work environment and they have greatly reduced their building's impact on the environment. If you would like to take the full tour be sure to stop by their site: http://www.buynakfauver.com/virtual-tour/.

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Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Santa Barbara Unitarian Society in VR

The courtyard behind the El Paseo restaurant in Santa Barbara is one of thoes little jewels just off the beaten path in Santa Barbara that most people walk within 50 feet of without ever knowing it's there. This is actually an older shot that was originally published as a still image because the fountain itself was so beautiful. But sometimes it's fun to go back and play with the images a little and make something new.

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Wednesday, July 25, 2012
El Paseo Fountain

The courtyard behind the El Paseo restaurant in Santa Barbara is one of thoes little jewels just off the beaten path in Santa Barbara that most people walk within 50 feet of without ever knowing it's there. This is actually an older shot that was originally published as a still image because the fountain itself was so beautiful. But sometimes it's fun to go back and play with the images a little and make something new.

Controls from left to right:
+ Zoom in;
- Zoom out;
change the way the view moves when you drag;
toggle full screen

Sunday, February 19, 2012
Santa Barbara Historical Museum Panorama

In the middle of downtown Santa Barbara there are some amazing spots. The Santa Barbara Historical Musuem is a place where you can see the classic spanish architecture that our city is famous for right in the middle of the city.

Sunday, January 29, 2012
Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens, Virtual Reality

The sunken gardens at the Santa Barbara County Court House is the location of many community events and festivals. There are few places more recognizable as a local Santa Barbara landmark.

Controls from left to right:
+ Zoom in;
- Zoom out;
change the way the view moves when you drag;
toggle full screen

Sunday, December 18, 2011
Christmas Carols At The Old Mission

Every year on the Saturday a week before Christmas, Saint Barbara's Parish has candle-light Christmas carols on the steps of the mission. At the end of the carols they bless the creche (nativity scene). This is one of the few times that the mission is even more beautiful than usual.

Friday, July 8, 2011
Mission Sunset Time Lapse

Time lapse of the sunset over the Santa Barbara Mission from the Mission rose garden. The Mission is my favorite place to try out a new technique, so after an evening of driving around trying to find an interesting spot that might have some interesting clouds I ended up here. And I wasn't disappointed.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Mission Sunset Glow

The Santa Barbara Mission is an amazing local gem. It is one of the places I go just to play with my camera. The evening I took this however, I was on a mission to get a nice long exposure, evening shot of the mission. I almost turned around when I saw how thick the fog was getting, but the light coming through the fog can do some interesting things. Once I got to the mission I could see that the fog was cooperating nicely rolling in behind the mission but still giving me a clear view, with the beautiful sunset colors filtering through in the background.

Sunday, October 3, 2010
Courthouse Twilight Garden Panorama

The architecture of the Santa Barbara County Courthouse offers no end of enjoyment for a photographer. This view looking over the sunken gardens just after sunset shows the amazing lighting that so perfectly accentuates the features of this wonderful local treasure.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Courthouse Twilight Garden

Santa Barbara County Courthouse at twilight from the sunken gardens.

Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunset Clouds Over The Clock Tower

This is a little bit different angle on the Courthouse from the sunken gardens. Of course the main star of the show was the amazing sunset clouds. They were moving very quickly and the light was changing fast. In only a few minutes they were gone. But I'm very happy with the results!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Mission Sunset Fog

Click on the main image for a larger view.

Once again we are having a fire in the area. Fortunately for us here in the city it's a little further away this time. Of course that's not much consolation to the over-worked firefighters on the front lines.

As always, the fire is making for some nice sunsets. And I had a project specifically looking for a nice wide straight shot of the mission. This looked like my opportunity, but I thought the fog was going to roll in too thick to get the photo. In the end the fog swirled right behind the mission with the beautiful colors of the sunset making for an amazing backdrop.

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunset Over the Rose Garden Bench

Usually when I'm in the Mission rose garden I'm focusing on the Mission, or even the roses. But this time was something special. I was there to get an image for an anniversary gift. You see, one of the rose garden benches is where he chose to propose to her. He came to me looking for just the right image and had just about selected one of my older panoramic Mission Photographs. But listening to his story, I thought I could create something a little more fitting. Of course, it's not all up to me. I had to hope for just the right backdrop. Wednesday evening I saw my chance!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Queen of the Missions Fountain Test VR

This is the rest of the image from my lens test at the Mission Santa Barbara the other day. Actually, most of the recent photos of the day have full 360° panorams to go with them that I will get online soon. Usually the panoramas start out based around one nice shot. Of course the challenge is to find a point of view on that nice shot that also looks good in all directions.

Thursday, April 23, 2009
El Paseo Courtyard

So after the Mission the other day I was pretty happy with the new lens I was considering. But I like to get my money's worth out of a rental. I had it for two evenings, and when I went out last night I was a little disappointed by the overcast sky. It looked like it was going to be a very grey evening with low fog. But I figured it was worth a try. Fortunatly, my art director (my wonderful wife) suggested going to the El Paseo restaurant. As the sky got a darker blue there were a few minutes where the sunset colors mixed with the blue sky and the reflected city lights on the low fog to creat a wonderful purple color.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Santa Barbara Historical Museum

I was looking through some old shots for some photos that I remembered taking, but did not remember how they turned out. (Sometimes I take more photos than I have time to process.) This was one of the ones I was looking for. It's always a nice surprise to wander back through my photos and try to find cool things that fell through the cracks.

This was just after a particularly beautiful winter sunset. The wispy clouds are still reflecting the glow of the sunset and the lights of the city making the beautiful colors in the sky.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Queen of the Missions Fountain Test Shot

Last evening I rented a lens to try out for some upcoming panorama work. I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted, but it was worth taking it for a spin first. When I'm trying out new equipment I like to go somewhere familiar. I couldn't think of anywhere better to start than the Santa Barbara Mission. This is only one part of the image. The final image is a full 360° panorama. But my computer is a little overworked at the moment, so I thought I would get this much online.

As for the lens, I was so happy with the results that I was ready to buy it before the rental was up but it turns out I'm not the only one who likes it, it's on backorder everywhere I called. Oh well, there is always the rental! And whenever I have rental equipment it motivates me to go out and get my money's worth.

Sunday, March 15, 2009
Misty Morning Courthouse

This is another image from my recent Courthouse shoot. When I posted my previous courthouse shot I thought that was the one the client chose. But they are leaning toward this one now. A massive panorama taken in the first glow of the morning. The fog was so thick when I was driving there I thought I would not be able to get the shot. But it actually made for some interesting lighting. The light on the left cast shadows up from the building through the fog.

A few projects have been taking a lot of my time lately. To top it off, my main backup drive crashed. With just under a Terabyte of images on there I'm feeling pretty lucky at this point to have everything safe with the exception of one large image that I was working on at the time of the crash.

I did find an interesting thing though. When your backup drive crashes it is very nerve racking until you find a way to get everything backed up again. Of course, the only way to backup a terabyte of data fast is to put it anywhere and everywhere there is space.

I started posting this image on the fifteenth, but it's taken me a week since the full size image is 2.6 gigabytes. But I finally got things moved off onto new hard drives so I actually have some scratch disk space. TWO terabyte backup drives so everything is double backed up. With every drive crash I get more paranoid. But it's a healthy paranoia that keeps my favorite images safe.

Sunday, February 22, 2009
Courthouse Evening

This is another image from my recent Courthouse shoot. In fact, it's looking like this will be THE shot that the client likes. They were only looking for one cover shot, but since I was going through all the paperwork to get the permit I made it a day long event. Good thing too, this is not really what the client was asking for in the beginning, but they decided they liked this one even better than the requested image.

These were some of the first shots with my new camera, and so far I am very happy with the results. It's not like me to buy camera equipment anywhere but eBay, but once in a while it's nice to have a shiny new toy... oh I mean shiny new piece of business equipment. Besides, my 20D took it's 40,000th shot just before this project. So it's time it had some reinforcements just in case that shutter decides to give out in the middle of an important shoot.

Thursday, February 5, 2009
Quatrefoil and Clocktower

The Courthouse is one of the most photographed buildings in Santa Barbara. Still, the building itself sits on two sides of a city block. If you take a closer look the details could keep you busy for weeks with a camera. I can't imagine the effort that went into creating them.

The small window beneath the clocktower on the Garden side is one of those details that you might easily miss. If you look around you can find these Quatrefoil or "four leafed" windows all throughout the architecture of our city but I think this is the most ornate and beautiful example you'll find.

Monday, January 5, 2009
Mission Arches

I've been spending a lot of time at the mission lately. This evening it was to try to catch the animals in the Nativity Scene before they went away. I was too late! But it was such a nice evening I stuck around anyway and I'm glad I did. It turned out to be a beautiful sunset. As I was trying to get some new angles on a building that has been photographed thousands of times (many of them by me). I was thinking it may be time to get all my mission shots together in one place.

I received some really nice feedback recently which always makes me want to revisit a great subject. I appreciate all of the kind words! That is one of the things that makes my photography so enjoyable.