The end of the year!

The end of the year is upon us! And I have quite a bit of calendars left to sell! I would love your help!

If you are interested in getting a 2011 La Jolla calendar from me, I can have it sent to you long before Christmas! The cost is $20, and I am asking for an additional $5 for shipping and handling. And if you are local, the San Diego area, I am SO willing to deliver in person, just tell me which Starbucks to meet at! :)

I went on a line, and ordered a LOT of them, and now that I am out of work for a few weeks, I no longer have resources to sell as if I were at work, dealing with lots of people.

They make great Christmas gifts and as a matter of fact, there is a total of 13 months in this calendar, it starts December of this year! What a bargain! Above is 12 of the 14 images used for the calendar!

To order one, please drop me an email:

Cuteasabugonarug@gmail.com

I take PayPal and cash, if in person of course.

I hope every one has a wonderful and safe Christmas season!

2011 Calendars are IN!

I am happy and excited to announce that my La Jolla, 2011 calendars, are in! I have MANY and I want to sell them all! There is a part of me that feels as if I have ordered too many! And another part of me that tells me, "I can and I WILL sell them ALL!" I know, its always best to listen to the "glass is half full" side of me, but I cannot help but wonder, will I be stuck with innovatory at the end of the year?

Enough self doubt! Of course I will do fine. After all, the subject is La Jolla, and who does not LOVE La Jolla! And if you have never been there, you gotta go! One of the most beautiful places I have ever been too, bar none!

Here is how you order. I am now a proud owner of a PayPal account. And, its the first time I have done anything like this. If I am correct, all I have to do is give you my email address, and that can get you "in" with payment on PayPal? Any one out there who does this often, please correct me if I am wrong. Like I said above, this IS my first shot at this. And at the end of the end of the year, I hope to have dreams of doing this for 2012! With your help of course!

And NOW is the time to buy! I will be having a procedure done on my right shoulder, and will be out of the game for at least a week, so if you wish to not have a delay, email me right away!

Any further questions, please feel free to email me at:

Cuteasabugonarug@gmail.com

This is, by the way, the email address that is connected with PayPal.

Thank you all for your support and I hope I can provide for you a beautiful calendar for 2011!

Why do the stars curve like that?

So often, I get questions. Questions of how I do this or why does that happen. I love it when people ask questions like that, and I love it even more when I know how to answer! And once in a while, I know the answer, but there are others who can answer it all better then I can.

For this question, about this image, I can answer, my my all knowing about stars sister, Karen, well she can answer so much better! Fact being, she was the one to originally told me the whole left to right, north to south answer to began with. So, here we go. Why do the stars curve to the left AND to the right?

"What are star trails and why do they look like that?

As the Earth spins around on its axis, the background of stars appears to move from East to West. Over the course of one day, the background of stars will have aparently moved 360º, a full circle. Stars closer to the North and South Poles do not move as rapidly as those closer to the Equator.

Timed photographic exposures or stacked exposures can be done in one of two ways: tracked counteracting the movement of the Earth (no star trails) or the camera kept still, moving with the Earth (star trails). In exposures that show star trails, the stars closer to the poles make a tighter circle around each of the poles. These stars are called "circumpolar" and most latitudes have circumpolar stars or constellations. They are visible through the night and the year. A couple of examples of this for the Northern Hemisphere are the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia.

Therefore, stars in the Northern Hemisphere arc toward the North Celestial Pole (Polaris) and stars in the Southern Hemisphere arc toward the South Celestial Pole (which doesn't have a pole star). Stars closer to the Celestial Equator do not arc either way, but appear to move in a straight line.

Karen I. Meddows-Carey

Harford County Astrnomical Society

Harford County College, BelAir, Maryland

One People - One Planet - One Sky"

The basic translation of this is: The stars that curve to the top left of the image, are over the Northern Hemisphere, the stars that curve to the bottom right, are the stars over the Southern Hemisphere and the stars that are straight, they are over the Equator. The whole thing is pretty cool, if you ask me. The way Earth turns and how we all stay on!

Putting together the calendar!

For 2011, I am putting together a calendar! Yes, I have mentioned it before, but now, I am starting to see it come together. Today, I got some images, in print, so I can see which will and will not work. Because printing something, is FAR different then just viewing it on your nice and bright computer screen. So, that all being said, this has been A HUGE challenge. And I really have not even gotten started.

Now, I am finally ready to assemble the calendar together. I have chosen at least 10 out of 13 images. And I have set the price point. I am thinking that putting them together and sending in the order to have them printed. I have even located a high quality printing company that only deals with calendars. I am getting excited! All I really need to do is find the buyers! So, I guess to sell outside of my home town, I need to set up PayPal account and let the show really get started!

Now, if this is something you would be interested in, feel free to contact me at Cuteasabugonarug@gmail.com and I will be more then happy to get the details out to you! I am excited to see the final project and I am excited to print a lot and sell ALL that I print, wish me luck! :)

Here is one of the images I have chosen and I hope you like it! Please enjoy!

I always want to do better

Through out my first year of photography, I have learned many things. And the one of the most important things I have learned, I want to do better and I know I can do better. Actually, when I first started to shoot, I thought I did OK and I had no idea that getting better was an option, but life goes on. At that point, it was all about passion. And drive I guess. Now that I am wrapping up the first year, I realize that I did get better! And, I still want to do even better. How do I get there?

Practice and gear! Practice, yes, I shoot every day. I might not post what I shoot, because I would rather post quality rather then crap, and not everything is great! And gear, there are some new filters that I want that I KNOW will make a difference with my sunset shots, I KNOW IT! I would not be able to shoot into the sun without the filters I own. I know they make a difference. And the new filter that I am getting, will help with the sunsets and NOT add the color cast that I so often get. And when I get the new filters, I will keep the old ones, because the color cast does work out for me at times. Right time and right place for everything! Right?

For this image, I did use an ND filter, the B+W ND 106, which is a 6 stop filter. As well has my Cokin hard grad filter. This does seem to be my most favorite combo of filters right now. It gives great blockage of light as well as toning down the intense light of the horizon. And then of course, the time and fun spent in LightRoom3. My new favorite tool to get the job done! I KNOW I have to sept it up when it comes to post processing. I have this calendar hovering over me for 2011 and I need to make sure it looks pro! LR3 can make it happen for me!

For now, I hope you enjoy this image and all of my images for that matter! And feel free to take a look at my photos listed on Flickr! Please enjoy!

Time, time, time....

....thats all I have is time on my hands! I have spent 35.75 years of my life working hard and now that life is slowing down, it feels good! I need the rest, physically and mentally! And now that time, I am feeling so much better! :) And I can spend more time with what I love to do, photography. Now, due to location, I cannot spend all day at La Jolla! Man, that would be too good! But when I have running around to do, I make sure to have some beach time when out!

But I would like to share what I have been doing, because thats what I love to do the most. Shooting long exposures! And I am not sure I really have any lessons on this one like usual! I would be posting more if I had more ideas, but I don't. So, for now, I will just "promote" myself. Which is the reason why I started a blog. So, lets talk about my up coming project.

I am working on a calendar. I did this last year, I sold 10 calendars at $25 a piece, and the biggest surprise of all, is that was my cost, including shipping cost. This year, knowing that I actually want to go pro, I actually want to sell more and hopefully make a bit of a profit! The profit would go towards more gear of course, lol! Not looking for much, just enough to show I can do this, now that I have more time on my hands, I need to get moving on this! PRO BABY! Hahaha!

Of course, at this point, input is helpful! Any image you have seen that might look good for my task, feel free to say something. I have 40+ images that I am thinking about using, I need to weed that down to 13. (I need one for the cover too!) And, I also need a supplier to make the calendar. I do not want Mpic, even though I use them for printing, I am not happy with there prices and other details. I did find a supplier a while ago, but forgot what site it was! So, any suggestions there, please let me know! :) Until then, please enjoy!

Geek talk:

One thing that I have been doing lately on my Flickr post, is adding my "geek talk." What exactly is "geek talk?" Oh, I bet you already know the answer to that, quite rhetorical! The thing is, I have noticed a lot of folks thanking me for the geek talk! People actually telling me "thank you" for adding the information on how I captured what I captured. Thats pretty cool! Cool enough to make a blog entry? Not sure, but here it goes! :)

The thing is, my sister on her FaceBook asked when she was going to get a moment to stop and breath. I let her know a few more years, it took me 35.75 years to get there! And eventually she will too! But her question was rhetorical too and I bet she did not want that from me! And why do I say 35.75 years? Because its almost my birthday! So, I am more then 35.5 years old! And, I have realized that now, and only now, have I had a chance to stop and breath! To relax a bit and slow down and realize there is a life outside of frantic fury! And why does this apply to my blog? Because I have actually HAD the time to blog! But I have no topics in my mind to blog, which is why when I thought of "geek talk" I was ALL over it! Because I want to blog, I really do! I now have time! So, I want to do something with my time! I would shoot more, but I would rather shoot at the beach, and I really live no where near the beach! I have to settle for mountains instead of flowing water, moving in and out with the tide! Not my pace. I did shoot today, where I live, and I am not going to post any of them! LOL, because I just did not like them! It is what it is!

So, back on topic, "geek talk!" Almost all the time, I now add on my shots, my geek talk, which is, as I said above, the information on how I got the image I got, people dig this! So, I keep it going. Is it repetitive? Ya, and I use to worry that folks would get tired of me using the same words over and over again! But what I think and what others thing are two different things! Yes, people do tell me, thank you for adding the geek talk! So, thats why! Boy, this is starting to sound like the first paragraph! My writing skills might not be the best tonight! :)

So, an image, with the geek talk!

For this image, I used the Tiffen ND8 (3 stop filter) and held over that, I used the Cokin hard grad filter! I had the tripod hanging over the separation of rocks. One leg on the right and two legs on the left. I had to manually hold the hard grad filter over the lens, because the adaptor ring for the holder is "stuck" on the 6 stop filter and I cannot get it off! And, at first, when I started shooting this, I thought I did put on the 6 stop filter, but was mistaken and only put on the 3 stop. In the end, I am glad I did, because the sky was getting too dark for the darker filter! And, when I got home, I processed this one using LightRoom3. And that would be the extent of my geek talk! OH ya, f/8 for 30 seconds on ISO 100. But I don't type that information out on Flickr, that is reachable on my exif data! :)

Please enjoy!