Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Savanna May Santa Barbara

The Santa Barbara Harbor is one of my favorite evening walks. The shops and restaurants along the side of the harbor are always quite busy in the evenings, and the walk out on the breakwater offers a variatey of wonderful views on the city. This was one of the last shots of the evening on one of those walks.

Friday, May 3, 2013
Windrose Sunset

Sunset on Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara is a wonderful experience. This day even more so than usual. This compass rose (or windrose) is out near the end of the wharf, past the buildings where there is nothing around you, not even railings to seperate you from the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

Sunday, October 14, 2012
Alice Keck Park Evening Lamp Post

Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens is beautiful any time, but at twilight it becomes almost magical. This was from a nice evening walk a while back. Looking at this image I can almost hear the sounds of the wildlife settling down for the evening. The ducks seem to like to stretch the evening out as long as possible in the park. Trolling the lake for a last snack before bed time.

Friday, August 3, 2012
Panoramic Santa Barbara

Panoramic view of Santa Barbara from Santa Barbara City College. On the right you can see the Santa Barbara Harbor and Stearns Wharf. All the way on the left peeking out from under the fronds is the Santa Barbara Courthouse Clock Tower.

Friday, June 29, 2012
Carmel Church of the Wayfarer

This is one of my favorite spots in Carmel by the Sea. Every time we get into town we stop at the Carmel Bakery then take a walk around the beautiful city. More often than not we end up at the benches in front of the church to watch people go by and enjoy our coffee and macaroons. Of course I always have to wander around their beautiful garden with my camera afterward.

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.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Happy Holidays From Santa Barbara

Yes I know the Holidays are over, but the flag was still up when I took this (Look closely to the left of the light.) and we just took our tree down. ( I really like to make the most of the holidays ) So lets just say I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are having an amazing new year!

Sunday, January 8, 2012
Winter Sunset over Santa Barbara

There are many beautiful things about our city any time of year. But the winter sunsets are a spectacular backdrop for an already gorgeous scene.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Silvergreens Sunset

Our winter sunsets are absolutely amazing. Yesterday I was down town running some errands. I had plans to try to catch the sunset, but I knew it was going to be tight so I just brought my camera along for the ride. I was really glad I did. Fortunately there are an abundance of great perches in town to find new angles.

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.

Friday, February 13, 2009
Mission Portico 360° VR

This is an image that took a while to process. One slice of it was a previous photo of the day. But I wanted to finish the whole view. This is standing on the portico (long patio behind the archways) at the Mission Santa Barbara. This is a series of long exposures just after sunset. It was a beautiful evening to get a little different perspective on the Mission. With a little luck I'll get some time in the next week or two to spend some more time in the mission gardens to get some shots for an upcoming project. If I do you'll see them here first!

Friday, January 30, 2009
Lamp at the Church of the Wayfarer

Today we tried to stop at the Carmel Bakery after getting to Monterey for the weekend. But we got there ten minutes too late. Bummer!

While we were driving around looking for a parking space (which I'm thinking took just a bit over ten minutes!) my wife pointed out this beautiful lantern as we passed the Church of the Wayfarer. I just happen to carry my camera almost everywhere these days so we had a nice walk and got a few night shots of the Church and had a great time anyway.

Monday, December 15, 2008
State Street Spiral Stairway 360° VR

Well it's been a busy holiday season. The photo of the day has been the photo of the month lately. That's not to say I have not been working on the site at all. There has been a lot of behind the scenes work one of the results of which is the new "browse" link at the upper right. And, at least I have been pretty happy with the few images that I have been working on. Most of them have been massive 100+ image panoramas like this one. It takes my computer more than a day to stitch them together after I do my work. But no more excuses!

This is a shot that I got one night when I was taking a break from the Joe's Cafe shoot. My wife and I were wandering on State Street a few blocks up from Joe's when we passed this cool entryway.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
La Arcada 360° VR

This is a nice little shopping center called La Arcada where I've spent a bit of time in the past with my camera. It was a fun night of shooting. I got so many shots it is going to take days to sort and process them all. I hope you like it, 'cause you'll probably see more! The response to the evening Santa Barbara shots has been very good lately so I'm betting that won't be a problem.

Friday, August 29, 2008
Carmel Doorway

When I was taking this photo last week I was thinking of the last time I took pictures of this doorway. I was really surprised to find out it was more than three years ago. I need to get out more often!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Solar Pathway Lantern

One of the things we learned from the recent fire is how truly dark it can be outside when the power goes off. My dad who was far ahead of his time taught me the virtues of solar energy when he was able to power our whole house with solar panels twenty years ago. Unfortunately there are less options for renters although we keep trying. When we tried these small solar path lights a few years ago they did not last very long. But these days they have small LEDs in them so they last all night this time of year. So we replaced all of our landscape lighting with these and some nice spotlights on the plants. Next time the power goes out we'll at least be able to get around without falling over all our plants.

I'm sure it's wonderful for the environment too, but personally I'm not convinced that buying a bunch of stuff just to save energy is a terribly responsible thing to do unless the things you are replacing have outlived their usefulness and need to be replaced anyway. I'd rater telecommute and keep my old jeep that I drive about 10 miles a month, than buy an overpriced hybrid that had to be manufactured somewhere. Personally I think a large part of the current save-the-world movement is an excuse to make you feel good about buying things... eco-consumerism! Save the world with your credit card!

Friday, August 22, 2008
Carmel Lamp

As if you couldn't tell already, I'm still going through the photos from our recent trip to Carmel. This was actually across the street from yesterday's photo of the day. They like vines there. And I can't blame them, it's a beautiful place.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Theresa Ann

Another shot from our recent wanderings at the Santa Barbara harbor. It's a nice peaceful scene, but just to my left was a popular restaurant on a balcony overlooking the harbor. There were lots of people around waiting to get in and having a good time. Next time I'll get an image that includes the restaurants.

Monday, December 3, 2007
Sunset Wharf Walk

The clouds in the distance are actually our "Marine Layer" (fog) that rolls in to the beach in the evening. It was a good night for a walk on the Wharf.

Sunday, October 21, 2007
Courthouse Glow

Sometimes its nice to take a closer look at something beautiful. This is a gateway into the Santa Barbara Courthouse. The building as a whole is amazing, but as I am so fond of pointing out I really like the details. There is some incredible craftsmanship there that I don't think you would find very easily today. Perhaps the only thing that will make me stop sounding like my grandfather now (WHYYYY, IN MY DAY... !) is to point out that it was probably pretty rare to EVER find this kind of creativity!

(Unless of course, it was actually one of my perfectionist German grandfathers doing it! :-D At least I come by it honestly!)

Sunday, August 26, 2007
Courthouse Light

We are getting some unseasonable moisture from the hurricane that went through the Gulf of Mexico last week. The days have been really humid, but the clouds have been a nice change. Seemed like a good time for some evening shots of the courthouse.

This is actually a combination of about ten exposures in a technique called a High Dynamic Range Image. Takes a little work, but a normal long exposure would have blown out the image around the lantern and you would still not have been able to see the clouds and stars.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Fisheye Sunset at Savoy

I have been preparing more photos from an old shoot for one of my favorite clients. This is a beautiful restaurant on Figueroa Street in Santa Barbara. It is run by a really nice couple who grew up around here. With all of the huge corporations setting their sights on Santa Barbara in recent years it is really nice to see a good local business thrive!

They have really nice photos on the walls too! :-D

Saturday, March 3, 2007
Canon Perdido

I never really noticed the streetlights around here before I started taking my evening shots of the city. They are actually very interesting and add a lot to the photos. Now I try to get them in the shot whenever I can.

If you look closely to the left of the streetlight on the sidewalk you will see a couple of black smudges in the photo. Those were actually people walking on the sidewalk. The exposure was almost long enough for them to disappear completely because of their movement, but not quite.

Friday, January 13, 2006
Courthouse Detail

I always appreciate the kind feedback I have received when I have displayed my photos. I particularly love the stories I get from people when my images make them think of something near to their hearts. Many times I leave with a much deeper appreciation for my subjects.

I was looking through my recent images for a good Santa Barbara image for Mary Ann, and this is what I came up with. The day I took this was a bit overcast so the wider "city" images are not as exciting, They are more "ideas" that I am building on for future images. But the detail in this image reminds me of another person that stopped by the La Cumbre Art Walk a couple of times. She told me about her Grandfather who worked on the stone detail at the base of the Courthouse. If I remember correctly, some of his work is near the fountain. I have always loved taking detail shots of the courthouse especially since there's already a wide variety of angles on the bigger views out there. Now, every time I look at these details, I think about the incredible talent that went into creating them, especially by one particular grandfather.