Landscape

Filters – Why do we use them?

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
– Mohandas K. Gandhi

Filter is a must! Some might argue with me that filters diminishes the quality of your photo and I agree to some degree. However, it is only noticeable when you are more than 100% zoomed in! It is not really noticeable unless you are shooting directly at the sun or a light source that is huge enough to create glare. Other than that, you can’t really tell the difference.

I use a UV filter to provide extra protection to the front of my lens (water, dust, scratches, etc). Filters are cheaper to replace than lenses! I’d rather spend $50 on a filter than replace my entire lens for $1,000.

These pictures were taken at Salton Sea using a circular polarizer:



To show and demonstrate different types of filters and how they work, please watch the video provided below:

 

I hope you learned something.


Salton Sea

Salton Sea

This place is beautiful weird. You’ll know exactly what I mean when you visit! From Wikipedia: ”

The Salton Sea is a saline, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault predominantly in California’s Imperial Valley. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink in the Colorado Desert of Imperial and Riverside Counties in Southern California. Like Death Valley, it is below sea level; currently, its surface is 226 ft (69 m) below sea level. The deepest area of the sea is 5 ft (1.5 m) higher than the lowest point of Death Valley. The sea is fed by the New, Whitewater, and Alamo rivers, as well as agricultural runoff drainage systems and creeks.

The lake covers about 376 sq mi (970 km2), 241,000+/- acres, making it the largest in California. While it varies in dimensions and area with changes in agricultural runoff and rain, it averages 15 mi (24 km) by 35 mi (56 km), with a maximum depth of 52 ft (16 m), giving a total volume of about 7,500,000 acre·ft (9.25 km3), and annual inflows averaging 1,360,000 acre·ft (1.68 km3). The lake’s salinity, about 44 g/L, is greater than the waters of the Pacific Ocean (35 g/L), but less than that of the Great Salt Lake; the concentration is increasing by about 1 percent annually.

Anyway, the sunset here is spectacular! I’ve never seen anything like it before and the sea meets the water and it constantly changes colors from purple to pink to red to blue to orange, you name it! If you’re ever in that area, stop by and you will see what I mean. It’s a photographer’s heaven!


Oregon Trip

“If you show somebody their future, they’ll have no future.
You take away the mystery, you take away hope.
Wow, it’s been a while since I blogged. I’ve been really busy with other things that I didn’t get a chance to update my blog. I guess that only tells one thing… I spent less time in front of the computer and more  outdoors. That’s right!!! It’s summer! The sun doesn’t set until 8:30PM, I will take advantage of the sun as much as I can. Well, let me start talking about my trip to Oregon. If I were to describe Oregon in one word in the month of March, I would say….”FREEZING”. But I enjoyed it since I don’t really get to experience 12inches of snow and zero degrees temperature. 
I am not sure if I can remember every single detail that happened during the trip but I’ll try my best. The trip was scheduled from March 30 – April 3. The night of March 28th, I looked in the mirror and had the urge to shave my head. I stared in the mirror for a few minutes and finally opened the cabinet, grabbed the hair clipper, a mirror and began cutting my hair. But of course, something had to go wrong!!! I couldn’t line up the back of my head. Here’s the bad news, the bad news is that the time was around 10:30PM. The barbershops were all closed! The good news is… I just saved a bunch of money by switching over to Geico! LOL.. Here’s the real good news, my friend Jeff was still awake and he agreed to fix my hair! So I drove to his place so he could fix my hair. It looked really nice except I looked like a thug from the projects. Even I got scared! LOL. But that’s not the point of this blog, so I’ll stop talking about my hair and begin talking about my trip.
– The night of March 29, Richard and I drove up to San Francisco.. Okay, I’m not gonna lie, he drove! lol. 
– We left at midnight and arrive at his brother’s apartment around 7AM. We had a few stops.
– We rested for about an hour and got in the car and off to Oregon.
– The drive was about 7 hours but I slept most of the time.
– We got a little lost but after about 30 minutes, we finally found the place we were staying. I forgot the name but it’s something that ends with Creek. lol
– We started unloading and we decided to checkout the little restaurant across the street from the cabin. Their pies were amazing! Richard had Boysenberry pie (He got it because it started with Boy. LMAO)
– We checked out the creeks around the cabin. I felt at home! Lots and lots of trees! I like the great outdoors so I really feel relaxed when I’m outside surrounded by trees. 
– After about an hour, we decided to head back to our cabin. 
– Our cabin had no cellphone reception! No Internet! at least most of the time!
– The next day, we decided to go snowmobiling. I’ve never been on a snow mobile so this was really fun!
– At first, the guy renting out the snow mobiles didn’t want to rent it to us since it’s a bit dangerous. The weather was unpredictable and the snow was really thick and mostly powder. He was scared that we might end up in the lake. So he told us that the only way he’ll rent out the snowmobiles was that if we had a tour guide. So we all agreed since we were already there and wanted to get on a snowmobile. 
– Our tour was about 3 hours, I think. I can’t remember but I know it was pretty long! (that’s what she said!. lol)
– Our tour guide was really good! He allowed us to free play in the meadow for about 40 minutes. He also let us borrow his snowmobile. That thing hauls! I went all the way up to 50mph. I was scared to go any faster since it felt like I was going 100mph. The snowmobile can go up to 120mph.
Here are the pics of our snowmobiling adventure!

Oregon Snow Fun

This is getting pretty long so I’ll have a part 2 of this trip 🙂


View from Mulholland Drive

“You will get there but it is up to you and you alone. It is what you are willing to do and how you are willing to get there. It has to be relentless, you must never deviate, and pursue at all costs; so that one day, you will bring your dreams to life”

Every time I go up to Runyon canyon to run, I see a lot of tour buses going up Mulholland drive and stops at this one particular location with a parking lot that fits maybe 6-8 cars. Around May of 2009, I decided to bring my camera to snap some pictures. I really didn’t know how to work my camera that well at that time so my pics came out over exposed. Fast forward to two nights ago, I decided to bring my camera at the same place and took some pics. Here’s a pic I took two nights ago:

and here’s a link to my old Flikr album: Click here to see my old pics


Malibu Creek Hike

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the things I look forward to on the weekend is being able to spend time outdoors (hiking, walking, running, biking, etc.).  Spend more time with mother nature and less time in bed so I can appreciate the things that surrounds us.

Before I ask you all to view the pics I took yesterday, here’s a quote from Miss South Carolina: LOL

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children”

Here are some of my favorites: 
 

Click the album below to view the rest of the pics:

Malibu Creek Hike