Thursday, December 25, 2014

New Release, "Hoku-Noho-Aupuni" by Bodhi Smith


New image entitled, "Hoku-Noho-Aupuni". The name translates to the term used to describe the Milky Way in Hawaiian.

All I can say is that here are gorgeous stars and night skies in Hawaii. The beauty of this island does not disappear when the sun sets...

This image was captured in Kihei at 4am, a couple hours before sunrise

Camera Settings: iSO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 13 seconds.

I hope this message and image find you well.

Mahalo and Maluhia,

D."Bodhi"

New Release, "Poseidon Smiles" by Bodhi Smith


New composition entitled "Poseidon Smiles" for overly obvious reasons...

This is another image taken in Corona del Mar, CA similar to the last one I put here on my blog a week ago...this has a bit of a "shorter exposure" by ten minutes at 1 min, 11 seconds...There is more emotion and movement in this compoistion, so it is quite a nice compliment to the other composition taken just after this one...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 20mm at f/8 for 71 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) and one Lee .75ND Grad filter to balance the sky with the foreground (2 stops). Image captured just before sunset.

Peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New release, "Unruined Radiance" by D. "Bodhi" Smith


This another new release named "Unruined Radiance". This composition was captured under the old decomposing pier in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The title comes from the radiantly glowing colors and the idea that this pier is in ruins .

At first glance, this pier looks like an eyesore. This pier is literally condemned to just wither away and crumble into the sea eventually. My girlfriend and I were visiting the giant Buddha at the Jodo Buddhist Mission just south of the pier in Lahaina, and I was taking a bit longer than she was with the site, So she went ahead to check out the pier...she came back and told me that she did not think I was going to like the pier because it was falling apart. But after we left the temple and went around the corner onto the beach, and i caught my fist look of the pier, I told her it was perfect and exactly what I was looking for: Ugly on top, but beautiful underneath.

The sun was getting close to setting and I promptly set up under the pier. The winds were really up and some sets of waves were coming in pretty big across the open Pacific to the east. I originally wanted to set up at the back of the pier by the break wall, but found that impractical soon after taking a couple hits from waves coming in AND banking of the break wall creating a node of intensity, This was was not conducive to taking long exposures, Plus there was a huge chance of getting me and my gear both soaked with salt water. I was going to have to set up further out under the pier away from the banking action of the break wall.

We had driven only about 45mins to get to Lahaina from Kihei, but I did not want to get wet/soaked since I did not bring a change of clothing. Simple and fast problem solving, I would just have to take off my shorts to keep them dry...go wading in my boxer briefs. It was getting dark as the sun was setting, and nobody was around under the pier, so for me it was not a big deal. It was wierd to be taking pictures under a pier in Hawaii at sunset in my underwear, but I did not give it a second thought.

I waded out under the pier about 100 feet and I anchored my tripod as best as i could in about 3ft of water. The air and water were both ultra warm, so temperature was not an issue as I stood waist deep in the Pacific ocean under a crumbling pier catching a beautiful sunset.

I thought the pier was giving way. As every so often when big set would come in, dust, debris, and smaller chunks of concrete would fall off the pier down into the water. I thought the pier might collapse on me at anytime, or at least a big slab let go and tumble down into the water as the sea continued to erode the old wretched salt and weather beaten concrete. Later, my girlfriend told me that there were idiots walking around on top of the this extremely unstable pier while I was shooting, which was what was causing the cracking and dust to fall of the pier...still, they could easily have fallen through at an moment while I was shooting...

I shot several longer exposures of 4 mins plus, but could not keep the tripod from moving during these more lengthy exposures because of the larger waves hitting me chest high (any movement of tripod = blurred images = trash). So, I had to settle for what the conditions would permit, which were much "shorter" (for me) exposures of 30 seconds where I could keep the tripod stable in between the bigger waves rolling in at intervals of about every 50-60 seconds or so.

The colors of the decomposing concrete were luminous and radiant, especially in the red light waves of the sunset...mix those colors with the crystal blue Hawaiian waters and what you see here is the result, I hope you enjoy it, and the impression i want you to feel when looking at it ...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 48mm at f/8 for 30 seconds using one Lee Proglass .9ND Filter and 2 Lee .75ND Grad filters inverted at 90 degrees to bring down each of the bright sides of the pier compared to the underbelly of the pier. Image was captured just as the sun had set at 6:05pm.

I hope this message in image find you well

Mahalo and Maluhia,
D."Bodhi

Friday, December 19, 2014

"The Afterglow" - New Composition by Bodhi Smith


This is a new composition entitled, "The Afterglow." It was captured well after the sunset, but the ambient light was still glowing in the sky and sparkling off the waves...hence, the image's name.

We have been getting some very nice clouds here in Southern California with the numerous weather systems that have been blowing in off the Pacific Ocean the past couple of weeks. For almost every night this week, I have been on the beach at different locations (dependent on the best location for sunset each night based on the tide heights).

On this particular evening a few nights ago, there was a low tide. So, me and my trusty companion, the Dude, headed up to Laguna Beach, CA for sunset. Victoria Beach in Laguna is a spot I often go to as Victoria's Tower located around the north point of the beach can only be reached at tides lower than about 2 feet. Often I can be found here on nights like this, as a stellar composition of the tower itself has repetitively eluded my capture for well over a year now, and I keep going back when the conditions are right trying to finally catch it.

This composition is an example of how sometimes we go after something that we though we really wanted, but something else much better finds us instead. I was on this beach in Laguna on this evening to capture Victoria's Tower, but I instead got this more fascinating composition. Go figure, eh?

For this image, I really ventured deeper into the world of impressionism. I really feel like I am "painting" an impression here with my long exposure techniques combined with my use of selective focus. The long exposure played with objects in fluid motion along with the light to create a unique smooth glow around the rocks in the ocean and the clouds in the sky. My choice of a big aperture at f/2.8 blurs and softens the rocks in the foreground (and thus de-emphasize them) so as to draw your eyes towards the wave glow around the rocks at sea and the sunset. All of this really makes me feel like I truly created a painting here and not a photograph, and I think the results back up that opinion. But do not be overly fooled, this is a photograph...

Btw, Catalina Island (60 miles away) can be seen in the background of this picture on the horizon...this shows how clear this evening was at the beach...

I hope you enjoy this unique perspective of the night's fading light out over the ocean...I really like this one.

Camera settings: ISO-100, 70mm at f/2.8 for 420 seconds (7 mins) using one Lee Proglass .9ND filter (3 stops) and one .75ND Grad to balance the brighter sky. Image was captured at 5:55pm, about 1 hour and 10 minutes after the sun had set

I hope this message and image find you well.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

Thursday, December 18, 2014

"Under the Kukui" - New Composition by D. Bodhi Smith


Here is my newest composition entitled, "Under the Kukui"...This is another new image from my recent trip to the Hawaiian island of Maui. There are so many beautiful waterfalls on the island, that it could take years to capture them all with a lens in a way that did them justice. I hope I did that for these falls.

The waterfall pictured here is one of the more famous and better known called "Twin Falls" located a few miles east of Paia alongside the road to Hana via a short hike of about 1.5 miles. The falls are on private property, but the owners run a fruit stand and permit people to access the falls if they stay on the trail and "behave" themselves.

When I woke up in Kihei, I went outside and saw that there were no clouds, but this is not a problem for a photographer on Maui because there are several micro-climates on the island. Kihei is on the Southwest corner of Maui and is easily of the driest places on the island with a climate similar to what I am used to here in my native San Diego. But the opposite side of the island, the Northeast, has rainforests and it actually rained on that part of the island every single day we were there.

So I decided to drive at sunbreak to Twin Falls and try my luck. And it worked, except I got a little more weather than I had bargained for. It started raining about 1/2 an hour into the drive just outside of Paia, which is about 10 miles from the falls. By the time I got to the trailhead, it was really raining. So I put on all my wet gear and headed off down the muddy trail to see what I could capture.

After a very easy gradual uphill hike of about 1.5 miles is where the trail ends into the stream that has the falls upstream. It had rained pretty hard for the past couple of days here, so the water level was pretty high and very cloudy. I used my tripod as a probe to check the depth of the water and thankfully it never got deeper than my shoulders. (But I imagine that many people would probably turn around and not got the rest of the hike to the falls because of this small pitfall).

I made my was across the stream to the opposite bank and then made my way through the forest to the falls. At first glance, they are quite breathtaking and eternal in their fall. I walked all the way around and under them to scout out the best angle for me to shoot. The spot I chose (the vantage in this image) was right underneath a Kukui tree--which gives the image its title. There were fallen nuts all around, so I guess I fit right in ;) Btw, I love kukui nut necklaces, and I own close to 20 different ones, many of which I brought back from Hawaii on this trip. Simply put, I believe that they bring me luck, so I frequently wear them.

Because of the rainfall over the past couple days here, there was much debris of broken tree limbs in the pool beneath the falls that I has to clean out before I could shoot. Some of the limbs were pretty damn big, so it took me about half an hour to "tidy" up my scene. I figured that all the tourists who would end up shoot here later in the day would never know how cluttered it was, so I guess i did a nameless and thankless job that other benefited from.

I really had to fight with the rain for every exposure i took, especially the longest ones with keeping my filters dry and unfogged. Man, was the rain coming down...but even though I was soaked to the bone, I was really never cold, which is a cool thing about being in the rain on a tropical island I guess.

With the downpour from the heavens and the earliness of the morning, I had the place to myself for almost two hours, which was very tranquil and special considering that this location gets pretty packed with tourists every day. I had plenty of time to capture the images I wanted. So when the first group arrived, a party of 4 who showed up to swim under the falls and film themselves with a GoPro, I was done and ready to head out.

Of course, right then as I was leaving, the skies opened up and the rain stopped. Go figure.

On the hike back, which always seems longer than the hike in, I walked by hundreds of people headed up to the falls. It was like a dam of people broke open and they were all flooding to Twin Falls. Crazy amounts of people, of whom half must have asked me "Is this the right way?" and "How much farther are the falls?" To which I gave the same response, "Yes, you are almost there" no matter how far away I was getting from the falls. In a world where everything is relative, they were all almost there, no matter how far down the trail they were in reality.

Camera Settings: ISO-50, 24mm at f/22 for 610 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) and one inverted Lee.75ND Grad to stop down the brighter pool of water 2.5 stops. I chose a f-stop of f/22 and an ISO of 50 so that I could get a longer exposure without having to put another filter on the holder and have to fight with an additional filter getting wet. Btw, to qualm my obsession with numbers, this image was exposed for 10mins, 10 seconds and captured from 10am until 10:10am...

I hope this image and message find you well.

Mahalo and Maluhia,

D."Bodhi"

Friday, December 12, 2014

New Composition entitled, "Winter's Prophet" by Bodhi Smith


Okay, looks like i am on a roll...so here is another new composition entitled "Winter's Prophet." Next weekend on December 21st marks the official start of winter with the solstice, and I am hoping this storm is a prophet of good things to come. And right now, it looks to be true as it appears storms are lined up to hit us every few days over the next couple weeks. I guess I named it this because I am hopeful for this winter to bring us some needed rain to SoCal and in the process give me some excellent clouds to photograph above the ocean over the next few months.

So with the approaching Pacific storm hitting us here at low tide, I chose one of my favorite low tide spots on the coast. So me and my pup and muse, the Dude, met up with a friend and made our way to capture something special of this great place just south of Newport Beach and just north of Crystal Cove, CA

This long exposure was captured at Arch Rock in Corona Del Mar. This location can only be reached at low tide, unless you are one of the multi-millionaires with one of the three private homes on the cliff above the arch's alcove who have staircases down to the beach. You can get to it from "Little Corona" Beach and just start walking south about half a mile under the cliffs and along the rocks and reefs between the cliffs and the ocean. Rocks are slick and some are quite sharp, so caution is always a must with never being in a hurry literally taking it "one step at a time." Almost never is anyone here, and it is really a magical spot. I have been shooting this spot for months now, but until last night I have had nothing to show for my efforts. Again, proving my point that patience is necessary, along with good planning, and a bit of luck thrown into the recipe of success (I will be publishing a book called "Planned Chance" soon detailing all the methods I use to capture my impressionist photography).

I love the cool blue and silver tones in the image created by the sun dropping below the cold cloud deck on the horizon which was the start of big Pacific storm blowing to the north and coming ashore...the same system that is pounding us with wind and rain here in San Diego as I type this...

I also decided to make this composition prefect;y square with the length the same as the height (1x1) for reasons only known in my strange working mind...

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 18mm for 671 seconds (11 mins, 11 Secs) using 1 Lee 3.0ND Pro Glass filter to bring down the light 10 stops and one Lee .75ND Grad to balance the bright sky with the darker rocks in the foreground. Image was captured about 10 mins after sunset under clouds and quickly dimming light at 4:55pm

I hope this message and image finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

New release by Bodhi Smith - "El Matador"



This new composition is entitled, "El Matador," and was captured recently in Malibu, CA at El Matador State Beach. The image simply gets its name from this gorgeous beach just along CA Highway 1.

I had to make a trip up to Santa Barbara close to two weeks ago during the Sunday after Thanksgiving--an awful day to travel, especially back into the LA basin from Santa Barbara. I had just ended my association with Oreana Winery and needed to pull my artwork off the wall and take it home to distribute to other venues for sale.

Having to drive on this notoriously ugly travel day on the roads here in California, I definitely wanted to make my efforts pay off more than just picking up my artwork and going home. So, I decided to drive the PCH-1 out of Oxnard along the ocean towards Malibu and Santa Monica, take some pictures and kill time, and let some of the nasty traffic diffuse....the traffic on the 101 was getting all constipated badly anyway in Ventura and Oxnard so it was a brainless decision for me.

It was raining off an on, and at times was very heavy. So heavy in fact, that I was one of the last vehicles to go through before they closed the PCH-1 down north/west of Malibu due to mudslides. When I went through, there was plenty of rock debis everywhere and a couple pretty muddy water falls flowing out onto the highway gaining in depth (looking like Willie Wonka's chocolate river). But I threw my Xterra into 4WD and had no issues what-so-ever navigating through the mess.

As I approached Malibu, I could see that there was going to be a bit of a break in the weather, and it was getting close to sunset, so El Matador SB pretty much chose me. This is a VERY nice beach to shoot, full of little arches and sea stacks of all type and characters. Normally a pretty easy climb down to the beach below, but the rains had washed out a large portion of the path above the staircase and made things very sticky-muddy. Took me quite a bit of time to get all of the packed mud off my shoes and my feet (I had to take my shoes off because the mud got too caked on them).

Once down on the beach, I did my usual survey of all the elements for about 20 mins and I chose this little alcove to shoot--only issue was that it was high tide, and to get the angle I wanted with the sun setting, I had to stand pretty deep out in the water and take a beating from the waves.. I managed to anchor my Dolica tripod very well into the rock/sand beneath the surface of the water--so well, that it never moved once despite the battering waves. And amazingly, my gear never took a single splattering of salt water (but plenty of salt in the air, of course, that would require quite a chore of camera cleaning later). I, on the other hand, got soaked from the waste down of course.

I chose to shoot an extremely long exposure of 10 minutes so that I could smooth out the violent seas and create the effect I wanted...I think my decision for this composition worked well for the conditions, but I really want to go back soon at sunset and a low tide to shoot this spot.

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 22mm for 610 seconds (10 mins, 10 Secs) using 3 Lee ND Pro Glass filters to bring down the light 15 stops (.6ND, .9ND, 3.0ND) and one Lee .75ND Grad to balance the bright sky with the darker rocks. Image was captured about 10 mins before sunset at 4:35pm

I hope this message and image finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Thursday, December 11, 2014

"Kihei Kiss" ... Newest release 12-11-14 by Bodhi Smith



Wow, with my shows happening last week and next week I have been very busy, it seems like I have not put anything new out here in a while...but ahoy, despair no more! Here is my newest composition, entitled "Kihei Kiss."

This was the best sunset we saw during our week on Maui, so it is my first release (of many more to come ranging from waterfalls to ruins to sunrises and stars)) from my trip to this beautiful Hawaiian Island. Btw, the image gets its name from the Hawaiian town where it was captured (Kihei - pronounced Key-Hay), along with the fact that the solitary rock in the composition looks like a Hershey Kiss.

This long exposure capture (sort of a "short" one for me recently) was taken with my Nikon D800 using a 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens... Image was captured a few minutes before sunset on the main beach in Kihei while me and the girlfriend enjoyed some local Maui brews together. Really one of the easiest and most relaxing compositions I have taken to date. I truly had to do little to capture this scene other than walk across the street from our condo and just be present on the beach while the sun set. The beer was smooth, the company was phenomenal, and the scenery was exquisite. We were literally in our own little Corona commercial that says "find your beach." Fyi, the two smaller Hawaiian Islands of Kaho'olawe (left) and Lanai (right) can be seen at the edges of the composition.

The only thing really missing from this image was that my muse, The Dude, could not be there with us to share this special and beautiful moment in my life...the Dude does not fly well, but he was extremely well taken care of by the owner of AMC pet services who was house sitting and watching the Dude and our cats for the entire time were were on Maui.

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 34mm for 111 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND filter (10 stops overall) and one .75ND Grad filter to bring down the brightness of the sky two and a half stops Image was taken at 5:36pm, about 8 minutes before sunset.

I hope this image and message find you well.

Mahalo and Maluhia,
D."Bodhi"

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

New release called "Haunting Peace" by D. "Bodhi" Smith


My newest composition, simply entitled "Haunting Peace" because of the two words' dichotomy. One one hand, the effect of the long exposure creating a mist among black and blue tones of the pier just as the sun was setting last night in Oceanside, CA created the strong impression of being eerie or "haunting" (especially with the added effect that ropes in the rafters were moving during this exposure to create ghostly shapes)...but at the same time, it has a tranquil and calming peace with its smooth cool colors...

Last night I was in northern San Diego County running some errands, and I noticed the clouds were starting to roll in as a sort of a gray glaze...I have been after a nice light-diffusing cloud bank for some time mixed with a moderate high tide of 3.5ft-4.5ft. I have had a vision in my mind for a while to capture an image under the Oceanside Pier that is similar to one of my top selling images which I took last February under the Fort Baker Pier in San Francisco. I am from Oceanside, and being its native son, I really wanted to capture an image for me of my personal favorite pier, a pier that I have not shot a lot of recently these days, but have always had in the back of my mind to catch this impression you see here.

Last night the conditions were just as I wanted: A diffusing cloud canopy overhead right at sunset with a mid-high tide of 3.75ft. If the tide would have been too high, I would not have been able to have my tripod in the position I wanted on the sand--I would have been up in the rocks instead; if the tide had been too low, I would not have been able to capture the depth of this "tunnel" of pier posts out to the "door" at 200mm. And if the clouds would not have been present in the manner they were to diffuse the smaller wavelength colors, and at the same time not make things too dark, the blue tones and shadows as you see them here would not have been possible. And if it had not been sunset, the color tones in the "door" at the end of the pier would not have been present and the shadows would have had too much contrast for the camera to capture their details.

As many of you out there know about me, when one of my titles carries the word "Peace" in it, the image was captured selfishly for me, nobody else, and for my piece of mind...if the image happens to sell, then that is just a little bit more icing on the cake for me. I, of course, really like this image and have a strong personal affinity to it with many good memories happening for me in this very spot...

And, as always, It was ultra nice to see a couple of members of the IEPC join me for a very nice sunset last night in Oceanside...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, f/8 at 200m for 4mins, 44sec (284secs) using one Lee ProGlass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) captured right as the sun was setting here on the westcoast just north of San Diego last evening at 4:45pm.

I hope this composition and message finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

New Image Release from Bodhi Smith: "Rastaban"


This new composition is entitled, "Rastaban," and was captured two weekends ago when friend and fellow photographer, Chip Morton, and I went out into the Anza-Borrego desert in Southern California to shoot the metal sculptures of Ricardo Breceda under the canopy of the night sky. Pictured here under the stars is one giant sculpture that Breceda created north of the town of Borrego Springs that has the impression of of being part Serpent and part Dragon that serpentines underground and above ground (with the appearance of going under the road)...

This image gets its name as a reference to the prominent Draco constellation in the northern sky which is the constellation of a dragon/serpent. Arabic in origin, "Rastaban" means dragon's head and is the brightest star in the dragon's head part of the constellation of Draco.

Btw, Chip worked "extra" hard to help me with this shot--he set up the lighting for me and then went back to the Xterra to catch some extra zzz's and slept until I was through... :0

To keep the landscape orientation and eventually make the composition almost square, I used Adobe Photoshop to PhotoMerged two landscape images, one directly above the other, to permit for extra starry sky above the image that could not have been captured within a single frame without losing resolution.

Camera settings: ISO 1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds taken at 11;20pm on 10/25/2014

I hope this message and composition find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Monday, November 3, 2014

New Image of Scripps Pier entitled "Idelisa's Sunset"





This image is entitled, " Idelisa's Sunset" This is my newest release of the Scripps Pier in La Jolla, CA. I have taken so many compositions of this pier that I am beginning to think it is like an old girlfriend or something...and every new capture seems to be a new emotion of this favorite pier of mine here in San Diego, CA.
With this image, you can honestly see the influence which the Expressionist/Post-Impressionist Artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries have had on my photography--especially Paul Gauguin.

Anyway, this is a panoramic impression of this scene with very bold colors from a sunset we had hear in Southern California a few nights ago. I honestly think I will never get tied of shooting this pier, I am drawn to it like steel to a magnet...it never lets me down, and I always capture something very different from the previous one...

This composition is created from two images stitched together. I chose to do this to create the panoramic composition without losing any resolution from cropping a single frame down to a panoramic. This method actually permits me to increase my resolution by 75% and give me the ability to print this image huge if a client so wants it to be that way.

Combining two images is not easily done when shooting 3.5 minute exposures. To create the composition, I needed to shoot two landscape orientation images side-by-side, and then blend them together into one long composition. The left side was captured first with the sun setting on the horizon, then the right side was captured directly after. The clouds were moving mostly horizontal (north) which allowed me to keep the sky pretty even even thought the two images were captured three and a half minutes apart. Plus, with the pier being almost in the middle and not moving, I permitted to easily stitch the two images together to create a 1:3 ratio panoramic composition using PhotoMerge in Adobe Photoshop CS6. Had the pier NOT been in the middle of these two long exposures, there would have been no possible way to create a seamless composition as this, or at least not anyway I have figured out yet.

Camera settings: ISO-64, 20mm at f/8 for 213 seconds (3 mins, 33 secs) (both images)

I hope you enjoy this new "emotion" of this pier as seen through my vision, my eyes, and the lens of my camera.

I hope this message and composition find you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Friday, October 31, 2014

New Release, "Panther at Play"



This is my new release entitled "Panther at Play"... pictured here are the beautiful Panther Falls in southern Washington's Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

This area is really super super wet much of the year as practically a true rain forest, so everything is extremely green and soft looking. Panther Falls are very powerful and have numerous cascades coming down about 100 foot cliff into a ravine below. There's a nice view from the top of the falls via a wooden observation deck. getting down to the deck is very easy once you find the trailhead, which is basically an unmarked trail from the road. The entrance to the trail is marked by spray painting on the pavement "PF -->" in blue...you gotta look really closely just to find it.

For me however, the vantage point from the deck doesn't really show the power of these majestic falls, so I wanted to make my way down the cliff to the base of the falls. Looking down, you could tell human traffic had been below in the canyon by the falls as the moss next to the stream was trampled a bit. So there had to be a way down somewhere, somehow. Of course, I found out that there's no easy or safe way down, at least not from the observation deck. I scouted the area and managed to find a treacherous little natural staircase winding down the cliff's face for about 20 feet to a more manageable slope that had a rough trail others have used. These super narrow little natural rock steps were very wet and mossy, but there were pretty good hand holds and foot holds using trees, roots, and rocks down this small portion of the cliff located south and above the observation deck. I muscled up some courage and told my self I could do this climb if I take my time. So when I did climb down, I made sure to maintain three points of contact at all times as I slowly make my way down with handholds and footholds that were slick but stable. This was a path that has been obviously used before, but probably not when its real wet like when I went down on this day.

With this being a short weekend flight to Portland, my dog and my muse, was unable to join me on this trip (and his presence was truly missed). This is one of those cases where if the Dude (my pup) had been with me, he would have moderated me as I would not have gone down this way because he would not have been able to follow me safely. I guess in this way, he sort of looks out for me...as I always look out for his safety, and in doing so, being safer comes back to me. Part of the way down this small cliff, I even had to throw down to the trail below my tripod and my waders that I was caring...I had them attached to my camera backpack and they were snagging things making the climb a bit more dangerous than it already was. By tossing them down, I was able to better balance out my pack and make myself a little bit more agile in the tight spaces.

So, I did make it down safely, however this was probably not the smartest and safest way with me being alone. Had something happen to me, who knows how long I would have been there before someone would have found me for this is a very remote area. Once I was down, I did manage to find a better way out that climbed up to the road about 2 tenths of a mile south of the "trailhead." Not exactly calming and safe, but definitely a much better way in and out...still quite steep and very sketchy, but much smarter and safer than scaling down a 20 foot cliff in the wilderness in the wet and so forth. I will visit these falls again in the future, and this will be the route I will choose, especially when the Dude is with me.

At the base of the falls, there was tons and tons of mist being thrown off from the falls. Extreme wetness in the air. So there was no way I would be able to do a long exposure here in the ravine at the base of these falls. I did some tests, and it seemed like no longer than about 10 seconds was possible with all the missed hitting my lens. So I opted for about a 3 second exposure, which is the time for the composition that you see here. I had to clean my lens after every shutter release, it was that wet out. This image is actually a composite of two images stitched together using Adobe Photoshop PhotoMerge since the area is impossible from the bottom to shoot with just one frame. So I had to shoot two frames and put it together and make a 1:2 ratio image which is what you see here.

This spot had rampant beautiful mossy greens everywhere, dotted with some fall color...and there was low light filtering in from Sun which was about an hour from setting. This made for real nice soft colors and allowed me to hold a three second exposure at f/22 using no filters whatsoever.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 30mm at f/22 for 3 seconds taken at 5pm on Saturday 10-18-2014

peace,
D."Bodhi" Smith

Photography of Mine on Display through 02-01-2015 at the SD Natural History Museum

F.Y.I. for those interested: tomorrow (Saturday November 1, 2014) is the artists' reception of the Best of Nature show at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

The reception is free to the public from 11am-2pm tomorrow and is in the Abe Ordover Gallery on the 4th floor of the SD Natural History Museum.

Awards are going to be presented during the reception. I have been honored with three of my photos being selected to be on display in this international show. And no worries, If you cannot make the reception tomorrow afternoon, my work as well as the works of the other photographers in the show will run on display in the gallery through February 1st, 2015.

The three compositions of mine pictured here are the three works of mine juried into this show...

"Moody Three"

"Venturing Cobbles"

 "Formal Inequities"



Hope to see you there.

I hope this message finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Thursday, October 30, 2014

New Impressionist Photo: "Fall Four Ward"


This new image is an impressionist composition of mine entitled "Fall Four Ward"... this is a composite of two images and I created this image to compliment the green aspen, "Moody" series of images of mine created the same way. "Moody Three" in that series is currently on display at the San Diego Natural History Museum:



Anyway, this new fall scene composition, "Fall Four Ward" is actually a composite of two images taken back-to-back. A pan-head tripod mount is need for this technique. The first image is shot at f/8 and is as sharp in focus as I can get the camera to go; the second image begins at the same identical framed scene, but it is blurred by panning the camera upward (with moderate consistent speed) directly along the y-axis enough to cover the entire scene.

Next, the two images are layered together in a Adobe Photoshop document with the blurred layer on top with a layer mask. Using the dark brush, I bring through visible only the sharp points of the image that I want from the bottom layer. In the case with this image, only the four trees in the foreground were brought through...

This same effect can be achieved with some success by using the motion blur filter in Photoshop, but the problem with that is the entire program is linear and will not adjust for curves. Whereas my in-camera method will blur over curved shapes very nicely.

This composition was captured about two weeks ago during my trip to Portland. I drove out about three hours east  of Portland to a massive poplar tree farm near Boardman, Oregon and was able to catch a few nice shots.

The image title is another play-on-words around the term "Fall Forward" which is often wrongly confused as the saying for what we do with our clocks in the fall when practicing daylight savings time (we "Fall Back" of course). Anyway, is is an image of fall trees, four of them in clear focus, all forward in the foreground, all in a big ward of trees.

Camera settings: ISO-1250, 64mm at f/8 for 1/25th sec with both images taken back-to-back about 10 mins before the sunset under a canopy of orange glowing poplar back-lit by the setting sun

I hope you enjoy this unique photograph of mine.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Smooth Sunday Sunrise on Coronado Island: "Promise"



This is a new image entitled "Promise"... like Coronado Island where it was captured, this compositions has its own "Je ne sais quoi" (for those of you not well versed in French, this phrase means: "a quality that is hard to describe")

The image you see here is inspiring on many levels for me personally and hence the composition's title. Some of those are:
  1. Sunrises at the beach always promise the start of another beautiful day here in SoCal...and I spent all day this past Sunday roaming the beaches of San Diego County with my dog--just does not get much better than that in my book.
  2. This is my first released image taken on Coronado Island (San Diego, CA), so there is definitely a promise of more to come. This image may be the start of something beautiful.
  3. A wonderful couple commissioned me about one month ago to create an image for them close to the spot this composition was captured. It is a special place for them on Coronado Island--they met, were engaged, and were married all at the same spot (pretty romantic, eh?). They know that is might take months for all of the conditions to be right for the composition I have envisioned in my mind for them; and on this morning all of the conditions (especially the tide) were not right for what I needed, however, I did manage to capture this marvelously peaceful composition. This showed the couple the promise of this area and gave them a taste of what I will create for them as soon as all the variables align to permit me to do so.
  4. Scenes like this make me reaffirm the promise I mad to myself to be in as many spots (such as this) at the right time to be able to share my vision, emotions, and memories as I live my life and walk the path I must follow...

This image was taken on the rocky reef that protects the beach in front of the famous Hotel del Coronado here in San Diego. Coronado Island is one of the many neighborhoods that make up San Diego Metropolis, and this small community definitely has is own "Je ne sais quoi." It has beautiful beaches and a very nice dog beach as well. It is a bit more upscale and has some fine dining and shopping. However, up until recently with my commission, I have never had this location on my radar for my photography. So this image may be the start of something beautiful. :)

What caught my eye at this spot was way the ebb and flow of the waves were mixing the sea water in the small pool in front of me. The way the waves were crashing into the rocks out front, they would lose all of their force and back off into the ocean...but some of the sea water was still managing to just trickle through the cracks between the rocks and rapidly fill in this small pool in front of me and then recede back into the ocean with the waves. It would repeat this cycle in 15 second intervals, so I determined my exposure time should be around 2 minutes. Honestly, I cannot tell you definitively why 2 minutes and 22 secound was the time I selected for this image, and why not select 5mins? 10mins? (but my OCD creates the 2.22 from 142secs). Through my experiences, I just know and feel it with the effects I want to create in the scene before me. Many times, I can actually see the long exposure in my minds eye before I even capture it...

When shooting long exposures as I do, waves crashing into things usually create a misty effect (which you can see evident here). However, it is really difficult to ever get any sort of a  reflection that transcends down into the mist. In this composition, I was able to capture the rocks reflecting in the mist because of the relative calmness of the water in the pool, even though it was all bubbled and constantly moving around from the force of the relentless waves hitting the reef. Combined with the soft morning light, this misty reflection really creates a soothing scene that I really dig...

Camera settings: ISO-64, 24mm at f/14 for 142 seconds (2 mins 22 seconds), captured about 45 mins after the sun had risen under a canopy of morning clouds on Sunday October 26th, 2014.

I hope you enjoy the tranquility of this smooth morning impression...

peace,
D. "Bodhi"


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

"Quietus" a new image taken in the Anza-Borrego Desert


This new composition is simply entitled, "Quietus." This term is often synonymous with "a release from life or death" but I have always associated with meaning "anything that eventually ends"... I apply this term to what happened to the dinosaurs and hence my choice for the title of this image...especially since the metal dinosaur sculptures pictured here under the Milky Way look to be in a firestorm.

The famous dinosaurs ruled this earth for over 100 million years before their reign eventually ended and they suddenly died off. Many theories exist as to why a massive extinction happened on earth about 65 million years ago that caused the demise of most life at the time.

The most popular theory rationalizes that a huge asteroid crashed into the earth causing a massive fire explosion that generated such a cloud of dust around the earth that sunlight was blocked out for almost a year, killing off plants that needed the sunlight to survive. A large scale domino effect of animals that lived off those plants subsequently could no longer survive and died off, followed by predators that lived off of those animals dying off, etc. The dinosaurs were so large that they needed the most food to survive, so their fate was sealed, and they all died off as a result. Smaller animals, such as the mammals and birds, made it through the tough times and exist as what wildlife we see around us today.

So, this is another new image captured in the Anza-Borrego desert last Saturday evening. It is highlighting two metal T-Rex sculptures by Ricardo Breceda that are facing off under eternal stars and the Milky Way that appears to be afire.

To tie in with my title of "Quietus" and the demise of the dinosaurs,I wanted the impression of fire to be in this image along with the emotion of the dinosaurs, so I took the artistic liberty of changing the colors of the Milky Way here to be more red-orange and flame-like. it was quite easy as the lower part of the capture was already yellow as a result of the light pollution from the San Diego Metropolis to the west.

I need to give Chip Morton a call out and thanks for helping me to light-paint the sculptures correctly in this image...to get the lighting just the way I wanted, it was a two person job, and I would not have been able to do it by myself.

And Chip paid a bit of a price of pain at this spot when we were originally setting up for the shoot. As it was dark, and as it was in the desert, by accident, he walked briskly into a cactus (close to the T-Rex sculpture on the left) hard enough to get his lower leg impaled with a numerous cactus spines. He was making all sorts of crazy noises of pain, so much so that originally, I honestly thought he was joking around. of course, he was not (for a change)...One of the quills drove in pretty deep, and I had to help pull it out extremely cautiously to make sure it did not break off in his ankle--which would have cause numerous complications that probably would have ended our evening early. So I guess you could accurately say on this night, Chip took one for the team...OUCH.

Camera settings: ISO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds captured at 8:45pm on Saturday 10-25-2014.

I hope this composition and message finds you well.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

"Faith" an image captured in the Anza-Borrego Desert of Southern california

This is my newest image simply entitled, "Faith." I really wanted a simple name for this uncomplicated composition that would really describe the emotion depicted here...




So here is the skinny on this composition...Last Saturday night, fellow photog and good friend of mine, Chip Morton, and I headed out into the Anza-Borrego desert to capture some night scenes with the famous metal sculptures of Ricardo Breceda that dot the landscape all around Borrego Springs, CA....there are over 130 various scuptures by Breceda in the area: dinosaurs, birds of prey, horses, tortises, big horn sheep, a scorpion. a serpent, and numerous others including this Spanish friar.


However on Saturday night, the sky did not cooperate as I had planned and hoped. There was some strange film/inversion layer hanging over the valley which really cut down on the luminosity and clarity of the stars. And it seemed as if this strange hovering film got worse as the night rolled on instead of blowing away. Bummer, but as a landscape photographer who is at the mercy of the weather conditions, I have made do with the hand dealt to me by mother nature.


Heading out driving into the desert Saturday, I would never have thought that the first picture i would process from that night would be a metal friar carrying a huge cross and rosary....but something in the color range of this image really attracted me to finish and release it first over the other more obvious and dramatic compositions i made. Btw, I have maybe 2-3 more images that I will release from this same night over the next few days...


One little thing that will make this image capture you are now looking at much, much more memorable was actually a tiny little creature that was abundantly present this past weekend in the San Diego County desert: the scorpion. These nasty little buggers were everywhere, and they were freaking me and Chip out because you definitely do not want to get stung by these little guys.


We both carry Ultraviolet LED flashlights for just this reason of spotting scorpions when shooting in the desert and other arid places like the Owen's Valley. The UV flashlights are usually used by forensic specialists to help detect residual bodily fluids at crime scenes...but for a photographer out in the field, these things are the best equipment to spot scorpions from many feet away. A scorpion literally glows in the dark like a Whamo frisbee when even partial espied by a UV light. They very much stand out as there is nothing else that lights up except the scorpion. And to the naked eye, these wicked little beasts are almost undetectable, even in broad daylight. The are so well camouflaged that when we turned the UV lights off and instead shone a flashlight directly on the scorpion, we could not see it even though we knew it was there. Turn on the UV light and that little sucker becomes the brightest thing for 15 feet around. And dreaded scorpions were glowing everywhere Saturday night in Borrego Springs. So bad that the Dude was relegated to stay in the truck all night. He hated it, but it was for his own safety.


They usually sit there and look almost flat and lifeless, seldom moving or even showing any signs of life--but do not be fooled. I am a curious sort, and when we come upon this friar to shoot it, there was a pretty decent sized scorpion glowing right next to the sculpture. It really did not look like it was alive, so I threw dirt on it, enough to half bury it. It did not move or even flinch, so I threw more dirt on it to totally bury is and extinguish its glow. To be certain it was dead, I stepped hard down onto the spot it was buried...that damned thing came flying out FAST and started jutting and darting all over the place until it finally calmed down and came to rest in a spot back behind the friar...this tiny little bug scared the sh!t out of me and Chip. Those things move FAST. Luckily neither he nor I got stung by my stupidity, but I did learn the lesson never to "F" with these dangerous little arachnids. Assume they are alive and well and do not disturb them.


So because of the aforementioned scorpion still lingering in the shooting area around the padre here, I was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking-chairs for the entire time I was shooting this friar...and truly uneasy for the rest of the night at other sculptures we would try to capture.


Partially because of the lack of deep clarity in the stars on this night and partly for the effect of creating a stronger emphasis to the friar, I tried something a bit different with this composition. Shooting at f/1.4, I decided to keep the friar is sharp focus and let the stars bokeh out a bit to bring more focus to the padre and less of a focus on the beauty of the sky in the backdrop. My favorite thing about the composition is the way the colors balance very pleasingly together, complimenting each other quite nicely...


Anyway, I hope you enjoy this composition, even though it is an image of a religious Christian monk taken by a long-haired Buddhist hippy. ;)


Camera Settings; ISO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 15 seconds. Image was captured at 10 mins after 10pm on 10-25-2014.

I hope this composition and message find you well.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

Thursday, October 23, 2014

New Release, "The Poplar Clique"

This is my newest image entitled, "The Poplar Clique."



This group of poplar trees is located about 3 hours east of Portland in Boardman, Oregon. This is an enormous tree farm spread over thousands of acres located just a few miles south of the I-84 freeway at the junction of US 730. If you find yourself visiting Portland, Oregon, then this place is WELL worth the drive. I just cranked up loud and jammed to some old late 80's tunes in my 2015 Nissan Altima rental car, sang along to U2, INXS, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Yes, the Scorpions, Van Halen, etc. as loud as I could to the steering wheel, and before I knew it, I was there...

I have been wanting to visit this place for the better part of 6 months now, and during my visit this last weekend, I only barely begun to scratch the surface of all the photo opps for this vast forest. So, you can bet this will be a spot I will be returning to many times over the course of the next couple of years...

I spent most of the late afternoon until about 1/2 hour past sunset roaming around scouting, making notes, and taking test shots. But at about 1 hour before sunset, the trees facing into the sun (backlit by the low angle of the sun) we just glowing yellow-orange-red under their canopy of fall colored foliage. I cannot really accurately describe how overwhelming this glow was for as far as my eyes could literally see...the best I can do is present this picture to give a bit of a semblance of what my eyes actually witnessed. And I hope you enjoy my efforts to try...

The title is another play-on-words using the similarity of the words "Popular" and this tree type of "Poplar" and the word "Clique" (meaning a tight group who hang out together) to create meaning paralleling the idiom, "The Popular Crowd."

Camera settings: ISO-75, 16mm at f/2.8 for 1/60sec

Peace,
D."Bodhi"

Friday, October 17, 2014

Fall Image entitled, "Monet Aspens"

This image is entitled, "Monet Aspens" and is one of my many images currently hanging on display at Lorimar Winery and Vineyards in Temecula Wine Country...it is also my favorite fall composition of my own to date, and I hope to capture a few better than this over this weekend in Portland, OR.


This image was captured early in the morning in October 2012 beside a small fishing lake a few miles east of Bishop, CA just before the tiny berg of Aspendell, CA up in the Buttermilk Range of the Eastern Sierra. This picturesque scene of colorful aspens mixed with evergreen pines is just a few feet away from the main highway, and it is ironic that most people obliviously drive right by this spot on their way up to Lake Sabrina and/or North Lake to go check out their beauty and actually miss something more exquisite in the process...

Anyway, I leave for Portland here in a few hours at 6pm this early evening...and the good news for me is that it appears so far from the weather forecasts as if ma-nature is going to cooperate with me for the most part to help me create some visions I have in my mind that I want to capture with my camera. Wish me luck...This weekend's focus is going to be on waterfalls and trees wearing their fall foliage...

Peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Revist to a Favorite Place in Portland, Oregon

This image is simply entitled "The Tree" because as I was shooting it, literally everyone walking by asked me if this was "The Tree"...



This composition was captured in the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon late last April 2014 and it is a short exposure for me, but very colorful as the tree was wearing its spring colors...

Btw, this is a repost of this image of mine here on FB...I wanted to refresh it for the reason that I will be revisiting this exact spot this weekend (October 17-20) and try for a composition almost identical except in colors as the tree foilage will be more brilliant red instead of soft orange as it was on the spring...

This particular composition of this tiny-in-statue little Japanese maple tree was made famous by another famous Aussie photog we all know and love to whom my photography often gets compared ;)

Hope you enjoy viewing this image; it is definitely one of my personal favorites of all time, and I hope to "one-up" it this weekend...

Settings: ISO-50, 18mm at f/8 for 1/6th sec...using two .75 ND grad filters inverted to each other to bring the center of the exposure out and the rest down 2.5 stops...

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

New Adventure and Image Release, "Ambient Lemmings"

This is my new image entitled, "Ambient Lemmings" and was captured this past Sunday morning (October12) just as the sun was rising in Ventura, CA...
It is very difficult to call this place a beach with so many cobbles strewn all over the place, but I guess there is some sand here and there. It is quite the long and laborious hike across these big and small cobblestones to get to this point from the closest parking lot by the county fairgrounds, but is worth the effort in so many ways. 

Saturday night, the girlfriend, me, and the dog all stayed the evening in a hotel by the Ventura pier. I woke up about two hours before sunrise, and me and my trusty muse, The Dude, made our way to this spot, one that I have been scouting for the right conditions for about 6 months now. This composition needs a high tide, and on Sunday morning there was a substantial high tide. And the weather patterns looked good the night before for a little bit of an eddy to hang overhead to provide me with cloud cover, but in dealing with so many fluid conditions at the beach, you just never know sometimes how much the weather (especially the clouds) will cooperate, until the sun rises and the scene is illuminated. Dealing with the weather directly at the coast is like the saying from Forest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get."  However, on this morning, I lucked out and ma-nature rewarded me and all my efforts with some nice breaks in the marine layer to give the sky in the composition some character and color...and the ambient lighting was absolutely glowing for me.

The waves were BIG on this morning, and the tide was coming in just as I wanted and planned. Surfers were starting to arrive in droves to play on the big waves, so a longer shutter speed was going to be necessary to "erase" them from my captures images. To get this composition, I had to set up right at the line of the high tide where the waves were crashing into the cobbles. I really worked at anchoring my tripod in deep in the cobblestones, taking about 15 minutes of disgruntled bitching and moaning until I finally got it situated right to my satisfaction. So the main reason why I shot with my Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 and 80-200mm f2.8 lenses was so I had the option to change my focal length without having to move my tripod and go though anchoring it in the cobblestones again.

But the waves were large enough to move even the bigger sized cobbles, and many of my long exposure compositions ended up being blurred and ruined because the camera moved ever so slightly during the exposure time resulting from the endless battering of the huge waves on the rocks. The rocks would shift under the pressure from a wave and move and the camera would move a little as well...and jiffy-presto, what you get is a double image in the exposure which creates an ugly blur whose only remedy is the delete button.

And of course, one of the risks of shooting beside the sea when it is rough is getting bitten by the fury of the ocean. About an hour after sunset, I took a direct hit shooting up the beach at 150mm as one extremely huge wave broke right on the shoreline behind me and barrelled over top of me, soaking me and all of my camera setup...which is a pain in the ass to clean-up at the beach because of all the salt and sand in the water. Salt and sand will scratch filters and lenses, especially after it dries. Salt will also cake up buttons and camera controls. I was using four stacked filters and water got in between each of them along with a direct hit to the camera body of my Nikon D800. Not something I like to happen, but unfortunately is inevitable when shooting in the waves so I must always be prepared to handle the situation when it happens.

The Pacific's sea water was very warm this time of year (for us here on the left coast) , but the air was cold and windy. I was really chilled from being damp and cold and could not really accurately clean my equipment the way I need to with my hands shaking so much. The boardshorts I was wearing were doing their job of keeping dampness off of me, but the evil criminal was my salt-water soaked cotton t-shirt...so, I had to discard the shirt and put on the thermalite windbreaker I keep in my camera bag for just this sort of occasion. Aaahhh, warmth again. About 20 minutes later, I did manage to get all of my filters and camera clean so that I could continue shooting some more, but I went through every single dry microfiber cloth I had in my bag.

For those of you worried about the Dude, no worries, for he was safely up the embankment of cobblestones about 8 feet above me out of the reach of the waves where he found a nice flat cozy spot that he could curl up in and chill while I did my artist thing...and in fact, I think he was laughing at me after I got mangled by that one bastard of a big wave.

Back to the actual composition: I really like all of the different colors and shapes of these cobblestones, and the fact they all appear to be headed into the ocean one after another just like lemmings going for a morning swim all lit up exquisitely by the ambient light under the marine layer (hence the title).

Another cool thing in the photo (something that will make more of a noticeable mark when this image is printed large): if you look in the background at the horizon on the left side, you will be able to spot some balanced rock stacks creating various shapes (with the shape of the cross column being the most prominent)...a local homeless man created a small city of these stacks at the far north end of Ventura Beach just beyond the city limits, it is very impressive and worth the look-see if you are in this area anytime over the next couple weeks...I helped the man out with some money for his efforts with the hoped intent that he would use it to get a warm breakfast on this beautiful morning.

Camera settings:  ISO-100, 70mm at f/16 for 222 seconds using one Lee 3.0ND ProGlass filter and one .75ND Soft Grad resin filter to bring down the sky exposure even with the cobbles...

I hope you enjoy my efforts here to capture this nice new seascape image.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

Friday, October 10, 2014

A SUCCESS! The Rancho Damacitas Charity Event Last Night...

I would like to personally thank all of the great people associated with Ranch Damacitas children's home in Temecula and all of the people in Southwest Riverside County who came out to the charity event last night at Ponte Winery in Temecula wine country with the intent of making art purchases that would benefit the children of Rancho Damacitas.

I would like to announce that I have donated 25% of my sales to this worthy charity from the sales of my artwork last night...in raw numbers, I will be giving Rancho Damacitas a check for $550 to help the children!

The big seller last night was this composition of the sunset in La Jolla under Scripps Pier last spring, entitled, "The Magic Door: Trans Scripps." 30x40 Image was framed in white rustic driftwood and sold to a very nice and happy lady for $1750.



These images also sold last night as unframed smaller metal prints:


Captured in Page, AZ...  "Regal Guardian" 12x20:


Captured in the ghost town of Bodie, CA..."Decaying Duality" 15x20:


Captured on the Left Fork of North Creek north of the town of Virgin, Utah... "Soft Cascade" 15x20:


Captured just east of Big Pine, CA in Death Valley National Park..."Eureka" 15x20:




Thank you from the bottom of my heart for those that purchased my work and enable me to give such a nice sum of money to such a great cause.

I hope this message finds you well and you enjoy the weekend ahead.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Our La Jolla sunset Last Night was Spectacular

This is a new image that I am calling "Simon's Cliche." 



Last night we saw a beautiful sunset as the red light reflected off the high clouds which were overhead because they were blowing off the top of the Tropical Storm Simon to the south of San Diego in Baja California. 

Last night in la Jolla (Hospital's Reef) was yet another memorable sunset full of color and clouds that I got to spend with my dog, a couple visiting from the Netherlands on a photography tour of the California coast (Berrai and Bianca), and a cool surfer named Kevin who sort of inspired me to create this composition which is a bit different from my recent norm.

Usually, I do not like using surfers in my images, well, I gave it some thought on my drive home from the beach last night and decided to process this image from last night. A surfer climbed out of the water in front of me right at sunset last night, and I knew I had captured a pretty nice ghosted shot of him with the sun on the horizon just as he turned his back on me and looked back over the ocean and the other surfers before deciding to make his way off the reef onto the beach.

So, after talking with Kevin at length, while I was shooting with my dog at my side, and the tide was coming up and over the top of the reef at about 5 feet soaking my lower body and The Dude (my dog), I was inspired to go with this composition after deciding to go outside of my norms...
Btw, it is seldom, if ever, that I process an image taken the night before on the next day for print, but with this composition being a bit different for me, I think I wanted to get it out there and see other people's reactions...let me know what you think...

Camera settings: ISO-100, f/2.8 at 24mm for 13 seconds captured at 6:26pm as the sun was setting and the tide was almost high ...for the in-camera effects I wanted, along with limiting my depth of field (using f/2.8), I used one Lee ProGlass ND 3.0 filter (10 stops) to permit the 13 sec exposure with a large aperture and one Lee .75ND Soft Grad (2.5 stops) to bring down the brightness of the sky even with the rocks and the surfer...

Btw, the name comes from the Tropical System, "Simon" and the fact that putting a surfer into a seascape photo is very "cliche"...

I hope you like this one...it is a bit off-pace for me.

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

Monday, October 6, 2014

Evening of Art in the Vineyards

Image above courtesy of (c) Chip Morton Photography

This Thursday Evening (October 9th, 2014) from 6-9pm, Rancho Damacitas is sponsoring this charity event hosted by Ponte Winery in Temecula Wine Country (35053 Rancho California Rd Temecula, CA 92592 (877)314-9463)

I am proud to announce that I will be one of the local artists invited to participate in this event, and I will be donating 25% of all my sale proceeds to helping Rancho Damacitas  provide for children in needs of special care and treatment (mission).

If you have the free time available this Thursday evening, please come out to wine country and support my artwork and this fine organization with your presence and/or donations.

I hope this message finds you well AND I hope to see you there.

peace,
D."Bodhi"

Saturday, October 4, 2014

San Diego Natural History Museum "Best of Nature Show 2014"

I am proud to announce that this year three (3) of my images will be hanging at the San Diego Museum of Natural History: "Moody Three," "Formal Inequities," and "Venturing Cobbles" will all be featured in the Ordover Gallery on the 4th floor in the museum during the "Best of Nature 2014" photographic exposition from October 25th through Feb 1st, 2015.

I would be honored if you would like to be one of my guests to come out and support me and the other artists at the exposition's premier opening reception from 11am-2pm on Saturday, November 1st, 2014. Please use the contact me at the bottom of the block to RSVP if you would like to stop by the museum (there is no cost of admission for guests of the artists).


"Moody Three"

 "Venturing Cobbles"

"Formal Inequities"

peace,
D."Bodhi"