Major Changes

There have been some major changes to my blog since my last posting back in July of this year, most notably the layout and design. For those that have been following my blog, you've probably noticed that the background color has changed from black to a dark gray (graphite), and that I now have a custom header with navbar that matches my website.

The second thing you may have noticed is the wider margin -- I did this with the idea to be able to post two or more pictures side-by-side. Please let me know what you think of this new layout/design.

A big THANK YOU goes out Denise Goldberg, a fellow SmugMugger and DGrinner, for her great patience in helping me out with the HTML and CSS coding to get my blog to match my website -- without her help, this blog would not exist. Please take a moment to check out her beautiful pictures and leave a comment or two in her Guestbook.

Oh, yeah. Did you catch that in the previous paragraph? I mentioned that I have a website. That's right, I've finally made it official and have put my photographic services up for sale. At this point in time, however, I haven't found a clear niche that I want to specialize in -- heck, I'm having so much fun doing a little bit of everything, I just might keep it that way ;-) You can visit my website, Runfola Photography, by clicking the link. If you need a photographer for a special event (except weddings), you can find my contact information on my website.

So, what I have been up to since my last posting? Well, in August I enrolled in a creative photography course recommended to me by my good friend Bob Cacho. After seeing how much Bob had learned, I decided to check it out for myself and enrolled in the not-quite-beginner course. Because I've been using cameras since the age of 10, I felt I had a pretty good grasp of the techniques and terminology, which really helped me a lot in this course, but I couldn't have been more wrong about my knowledge of techniques -- it turned out that there was so much more to learn!

The great thing about this course is that I learned to think outside of the box of traditional photography that dictates that everything must be perfectly exposed, perfectly sharp, perfectly centered or to always use the 1/3 or 80/20 rule. Who said I can't shoot into the sun? Who said never to shoot at high noon, and that the best light is in the early morning and early evening? You'd be surprised what great shots one can achieve when one decides to break these mindsets! Keep a look out for some of these pictures which, if they aren't already, will be posted soon.



Fire Hydrant


Dripping Pipe

Until next time,

Chris

I'm Ba-ack! (Originally posted 7/12/08)

I'm Ba-ack!

Actually, I never left. It's been a while since I've updated my photo blog (about four months) and Bob has been giving me heat about it, so I thought I'd better post something just to get him off my back (just kidding, Bob -- you know I love ya!). The pictures posted below are just a few of the many that I took within those four months and are in no particular order. So, without any further adieu, here are a couple of pictures that I've taken in the past four months (please leave comments):

Gena and Anthony

A lily at one of the local parks.

A friend of a friend's daughter at her Quinceañera
-- I was asked to take pictures.

A Great Blue Heron flying across the pond at the Barona Indian Reservation.

I saw this scene near a baseball field and thought it would make an interesting picture.

Adirondack chairs beside the Barona Indian Reservation's pond --
I would love to build one of these on my own...

One of many frequent visitors to the Barona Indian Reservation's pond.

I liked the look of these stairs.

Me swinging from a rope suspended over a creek in the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve.

Some girl riding a boogie board on the WaveRider at Belmont Park's Wave House
where Gena's company held their annual picnic this year.

Whispiness (Originally posted 3/08/08)

I took the picture below in December 2007 and only today decided to post it. The clouds had an interesting "whispiness" to them which I thought would make a good picture.

Color-to-B&W Conversion Study (Originally posted 3/07/8)

I was discussing photography with a friend from work; he enrolled in a photography class and has learned quite a bit and is taking some really great pictures (check out "Bob Cacho's Photo Blog", or click on the link to the right). One of his more recent assignments was to photograph in black and white using different filters and noting their effects. I mentioned to him that I converted a color picture of a cactus into B&W for a friend some time ago, and that I would post it here for him to see. So, Bob, here is the original color picture I was telling you about (scroll down for the B&W's):

This second picture is a basic, run-of-the-mill B&W conversion (notice how "blah" everything looks).

Finally, here is the final product. Unlike the previous picture which had simply been converted to grayscale, the image below is still an RGB file with a layer mask applied in Photoshop. I then adjusted the red, green, and blue channels in the Channel Mixer to get the results you see below.

Google Docs Blog Test (Originally posted 2/21/08)

Okay, so here I am again, but this time I'm using Google Docs to attempt to post to Blogger. Obviously, my attempt at using Word 2007 to type a blog and upload pictures as well failed miserably, and I wasn't able to find clear instructions in the Blogger Help Groups, either. I did, however learn that I could publish to Blogger using Google Docs, so here I am.

I've inserted a coupld of close-up pictures of some blossoms from our nectarine tree which started blossoming this past weekend. Using Google Docs, I resized the images to a more manageable size, only because Google Docs won't accept anything over 2MB. Additionally, I've right-aligned one picture and left-aligned the second, both with "wrap text around image" turned on (not sure if this is gonna work with Blogger, but we'll see).

So, if you're able to see two close-up pictures of nectarine blossoms, then you'll know that Google Docs works for publishing to Blogger.

Office 2007 Blog Test (Originally posted 2/18/08)

This is a test of the Microsoft Office Word 2007 Blog feature, which is supposed to allow me to create and publish to my Blogger account using Word 2007. I'm not sure if it will upload the two test images I've included in this draft, but it apparently has the capability to do so. We'll see… The two test images above show a ceramic before and after MEMS chip attachment. Although it is difficult to see, the image on the right has already been wirebonded.

Some Older Pictures (Originally posted 2/11/08)

After posting the last set of sunrise pictures, I was reminded of some sunset pictures I had taken early last year shorty after purchasing my camera. Up until that point, I was shooting everything in Auto mode. It wasn't until recently that I started shooting mostly in Manual mode, with the occasional photo taken in Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority (I haven't really explored Program mode).

The picture above is of my son taken in the backyard as the afternoon sun was setting and casting a warm glow on everything; it's one of my favorites.

The next two pictures were taken on a different day. I was hoping for a nice orange glow, but got a lot of brown instead. It was until later that I realized that I was metering off the sun -- a big NO-NO! -- which resulted in underexposure of the images. Nonetheless, they still turned out rather interesting, don't you think?

My First Blog! (Originally posted 2/6/08)

The Runfola's

Chris, Gena and Anthony

Okay, so, here I am creating my first blog and I have absolutely no idea what to say. Let's start with a simple question: why? Why have I decided to create a blog? Well, I was inspired to create this blog after seeing my friend and co-worker Bob's photo blog, as well as his nephew, Blaine's (you've absolutely gotta check his pictures out). I really liked the look of their blogs and the simple fact that I can customize the layout any way I want. Currently, I have several photo sets posted to Flickr, but Flickr doesn't give me this level of control.

Bob and Blaine's blog have also inspired me to go out and take more pictures! Since I purchased my Nikon D80 nearly one year ago, I haven't really taken as many creative photos with it as I had hoped to -- but I have taken nearly 4000 photos in that time!

So, with that out of the way, let me start my photography blog with these two sunrise photos which I took this morning through our slighty fogged up bedroom window (it was too cold to go outside in my jammies -- I know, I know: I've gotta make sacrifices to get those postcard photos).