Beauty can be....

Beauty, or let's just even say interest, can be found in even the most mundane things. I recently had to do a photo shoot at school with the theme being "Close Up or Detail". As you guessed, 90% of the class presented photos of flowers or grass or things of that nature. Pun most definitely intended. I instead chose to focus on the more mundane. Things we would just normally walk by, the common place. But when looked at from a different perspective, I hope their beauty is made apparent. Or at least how I choose to define beauty, beauty being something that captures the eye and incites further interest.

The next few days, look around and see the beauty in the world you might normally pass by.

X Marks The Spot

For too long I've ignored watermarking my photos. I always figured that announcing they were copyright protected and having my metadata in originals on my external hard drive would be enough. Enough to win a court case if for some reason one of my photos made another party money they weren't sharing with me. It's not easy to make money off your photographic work, so why make it easier for someone else? Here we have some photos of recent day trips with my watermark on them, from fall themes to vertigo inducing perspectives. Really the stairwell one made my legs quiver so much I had to sit down, still got my shot.

B&B

Beauty and Beast. Each of these images has been in some way enhanced in photoshop, CS6, from mild to no-so-mild.

Zombie School

What better place to do a Zombie themed shoot than a school? I mean, they eat brains right? Oh, it's an old abandoned school? Even better!! Model before:

Model after:

Make up by ariana.fabulous.hair@gmail.com Photos by yours truly.

Before and After

And this is why you should move out of the Auto mode on your DSLR. With it on Auto: And with it in just Aperature mode: See the difference in warmth? Tone? Take a risk, turn some knobs. You can always take extra and hope for a happy accident.... Or even just watch some youtube videos even!

It's all in the timing!

This is why I try to keep my camera within the same room as me at all times. This is last night's sunset from the back of my house.

Animal Style.

While trekking in South America I saw tons of animal bones. This one was laid out perfect and was right next to the trail. Of doom. No, it was a great trail.

Wally.

The San Diego Zoo is such a tricky place to shoot. So many people, glass, bars, uncooperative animals. I'm really happy to find a shot that I like after a trip there.

Air. Sky.

Set your GoPro to video mode, put it under a jump and hope you can pull a decent still frame out of it at 48fps. The final version was cropped and rotated slightly.

Self Portrait

Timer. Tripod. Action. A self portrait of me bouldering at the beach north of Children's Pool in La Jolla.

Classic

I think every photographer in San Diego has taken a variation of this picture. Scripps Pier.

Creature

This was shot mid morning off La Jolla Shores. I'm the subject and I captured the photo with a GoPro Hero3 camera with it set at 5mp per photo. I had to swim down about 20' but it was worth it.