Yes, I'm very proud right now

The three shots below tell most of the story.

This is my youngest at his graduation ceremony last Thursday.  Somewhere between this shot and when he met us after the ceremony, he ended up losing his tassel.  Not a big deal in reality since he'll have a more important tassel in June 2017 when he graduates from college.  Then again, it's not really the tassel that matters.  I, for one, could not tell you where my high school or college tassels are.

He'll be heading to UC Riverside in the fall to study Physics.  His older sister bought him a couple of Sheldon Cooper t-shirts from the TV show, "The Big Bang Theory," which is a favorite of ours right about now, as a graduation present.  He claims not to want to emulate Sheldon, but figures if he's going to be anyone in the show, he'll be Leonard Hofstadter.

This shot is of my middle son at the Santa Cruz Wharf last Labor Day.  We had wandered over there after cleaning out his apartment in preparation for him to move back in the dorms for his last quarter at Santa Cruz before he went to study abroad in England beginning last January.  He came home from England Saturday evening and my wife and I met him at the gate after he cleared customs.  

Since his graduation from college happened while he was in the air coming home from England, he missed it, but he's a college graduate, nonetheless.  I chose this shot, mainly because it's a favorite of mine, but also because I like the fact that the pelican seemed very patient, even though we had it surrounded.

This third shot is from Friday evening.  My daughter had her Masters degree conferred upon her by Santa Clara University that evening.  She has a Masters in Education now and even more importantly, a district in Milpitas thought highly enough of her that she's going to be teaching 4th grade for them next year starting in the middle of August.

We are very proud of all three of our children and all of their accomplishments and we look forward as they continue to strive to become all they can be in the future.  I'll sign off now as a proud dad.

Time in a bottle?

As I have continued to rummage through my photos, I stumble across some gems that have special meaning to someone or I just like.  This photos happens to be one of them.  These two shots are the two favorite shots I have of all three of my kids when they were young.  

I took the first shot of them at Cedar Breaks National Monument back in 2001.  Obviously, the composition needs work, but I don't really care about that. This shot represents the last time that all of the kids went camping with me.  My daughter decided after this camping trip that it wasn't for her and my older son followed suit four years later.  Only the youngest still camps regularly with me.

This upcoming summer, it looks like all of them are going to go camping with me again.  I'm really looking forward to this and yet, at the same time, haven't planned anything out.  Back then, things were planned out pretty much to the minute so they wouldn't get bored.  Now, we'll just enjoy the hikes, get some geocaching in and just enjoy each other's company for about a week in a variety of spots in California.

The second shot was taken in 2000 when we camped in Yosemite National Park.  I took this shot after we had finished hiking all the way up to the top of Vernal Falls and back down again.  You can see they were tired.  The youngest wasn't quite five in this shot and he walked the entire way up the Mist Trail to the precipice of the waterfall, 3 miles round trip.

As I look at these two shots, I realize that these photos were taken during their age of innocence.  A lot has changed in the last 12 years.  My daughter was just hired by a school district up in Milpitas, California and will be embarking on her own teaching career, starting with a 4th grade classroom in the fall.  

My older son graduates from University of California Santa Cruz, but will not go through the ceremony.  I believe it actually happened last week.  He didn't go to the ceremony, because he's studying abroad in England right now.  He comes home this Saturday.  I'm looking forward to seeing him again.  I suppose he'll be spending most of the summer with us while he looks for a job.  Eventually, I expect him to move out on his own as well, much like his sister has already done.

My youngest will graduate from high school this upcoming Thursday.  He's on the brink of adulthood and will be studying Physics at UC Riverside in the fall.  He'll be living in the dorms there, so essentially, we'll be "empty nesters" although he's not fully gone yet.  All three of them are getting ready or have already started to create their own lives away from my wife and my life.  That's the way things work in this world.

You can't save time in a bottle, but the memories live on in these images. 

Fullerton Arboretum

This past Tuesday, I went geocaching in Orange County.  I  only found two geocaches, which doesn't seem like a whole lot for a 6 hour tour behind the "Orange Curtain" but there were extenuating circumstances.

My friend Jim and I had decided to come down and get some caches and play a couple of other GPS games that we play from time to time.  We scored points in the other games, plus found one cache before lunch, then headed over to the Fullerton Arboretum, located on the campus of Cal State Fullerton.

Cal State Fullerton isn't a well known school unless you follow college baseball.  They are quite often in the College World Series, as they are again this year.  I attended the school for a year and a half while I was getting my teaching credential in the early 80s.  The campus was smaller and looked a lot different than it does now.  New campus housing, a new baseball stadium and the arboretum are all new additions to the campus in the past 30 years.

I don't know why I should be surprised about this, since my own school, Humboldt State University looked a lot different when I visited there several years ago.  Change happens.

The cache we were looking for in the Arboretum was a 5 stage multi-cache.  That means we'd have to find four different points, gather clues from each point, which would then lead us to the final cache.  We also needed to bring a QR reader along because the clues were in the form of QR codes.  I had a QR code reader on my iPad, so I brought it along.  With my cell phone, iPod, iPad, camera and GPS unit, I was a well geeked out techie on this little hike.

Once we got over to the first stage, we started looking around for the first QR code.  Unfortunately, we didn't find it, so we could have been done for the day, but the cache page gave us some other clues that gave us an idea of what we were looking for so we started walking through the Arboretum.

We weren't really sure what we were looking for the first time around, so we ended up wandering.  We actually walked right by the cache and one of the clues, but didn't spot them on the first time around.  We were actually enjoying ourselves with the butterflies, hummingbirds and the large expanses of native vegetation.  There were large displays of Mediterranean type vegetation as well as areas devoted to desert environment and African savannah.  Pretty much any plant found in California was represented here plus several other areas as noted above.

After walking all the way around the Arboretum once, I think we both figured out what kind of signs we were supposed to be looking for, so we tried some secondary paths that we hadn't walked on before but we still came up empty.  Needless to say, I was getting frustrated.  My friend Jim wasn't nearly as frustrated and kept persevering suggesting we go back to the beginning again and check out some things that we might have missed on the first two go arounds.

Once we got back to the first stage, I found something that we hadn't noticed before: a magnet on the back of a sign.  Now why would there be a magnet unless it was meant to hold something?  The something that this magnet was supposed to hold wasn't there, but it gave us a glimmer of hope that we were at least on the right track.

We took another path that we hadn't tried before and I spotted one of the signs we were looking for about 12 feet from where we had walked a couple of hours earlier.  The QR code was attached to the back of the sign, which was read by my iPad and it told us where the final was supposed to be.  We'd bypassed stages 2 and 3.   We hiked further up the trail and found stage 2 as well, but without a QR code, so we decided to head back to the final and see if we could find it.

It didn't take too long to find the final cache, so although we didn't do the cache as intended by the cache owner, we'll take credit for the find, since we did find the final.  Overall, it was a fun cache.  It got us into an area we hadn't been to before, so that was a good thing.  If all the codes had been where they were supposed to be, we probably wouldn't have stayed there as long as we did, so in a way, that's also a good thing.  Hopefully, the cache owner will see our logs and replace the missing QR codes so others can enjoy the full experience.  

As it was, we never did find one of the stages, but we found the stage that counts.  In other words, sometimes, you're good and sometimes, you're just lucky.  In this case, I'd say it was a little bit of both.

New photo challenges

For those of you that didn't see my post on Facebook, I just completed my 30th year of teaching, 29 at the same school.  It's getting to the point that I've been around so long that I've been teaching longer at my school than three of the other teachers have been alive.  It's just something that I've noticed that I have many more years behind me in this profession than I do in front of me.

I'm in the first week of summer vacation and I've accomplished a whole heck of a lot of nothing so far.  Well, not really, it just seems like it.  Friday, the first day was pretty much spent sleeping.  The recharge on my batteries was something that I really needed.  For the most part, with a couple of errands, mowing the lawn and other "honeydoos" that I've accomplished, I'd say this summer is a smashing success right now.

I haven't picked up my camera much so far, but I know that will change.  Near the end of last month, I ended my 365 Project.  For the first two years, I made sure I went out every day and took at least a couple of shots with my camera.  I used the best one of the bunch to post at 365 and sometimes posted others in my reserve album.  The third year, I used the reserve album as my main album, but  I decided that I wasn't going to be so uptight about it this year.  I wanted to post great photos every day, not just average stuff I'd taken on a particular day, so I resorted to filler shots when I either didn't pick up my camera, or didn't like what I'd taken so far.

Eventually, there came a point where I decided that the process behind 365 was done in my mind and I ended the project.  This doesn't mean that I've stopped taking photos.  On the contrary, I'm just posting them in a different format on Flicker now.

I'm involved in several different projects over at Flicker.  One project is a 52 week challenge.  Take and post a photo each week based upon a theme.  The tomato shot above is this week's entry into the "Smartphonography" challenge for this week.  Not having a smartphone, I got explore my iPad a little bit and use some of the camera settings on it.

I'll continue to work on my 100 Strangers Project.  With 37 stranger shots taken in 10 months I've been averaging 3.7 strangers per month.  When I first started, I figured I'd have that project done in less than a year.  Well, it just goes to show you that taken shots of strangers is a much more difficult task to undertake than I realized at the time.

I'm also involved in a monthly blogger photo challenge.  Last month's challenge was a night time challenge.  The month before was all about transportation.  This month, the theme is Bridges, so expect to see some bridges near the end of the month.  And, as always, there will be my weekly entry for the Sharpshooters International Photography Club.  As you can see, I'm still quite busy, photographically.

I've been going through some of my archived shots and dealing with them.  I've already looked at several PhotoShop tutorials on things that I want to try.  If you click on the Flicker link above or here, you'll be taken to my photostream.  Feel free to add me as a contact so you can follow along there.  

Photo Blogging Challenge (May 2013): Night

I've been out of commission for a couple of weeks mainly because the last two to three weeks of school are just incredibly busy that I don't have much time for anything else.  This is only my 3rd post this month, by far and away, my lowest monthly total for this year.  Now that vacation time is hear, I have more free time to explore other things and that also includes blogging more frequently than I have been this month.  

As noted in the title, the photo blogging challenge for this week was night.  I have several different shots, but some that are very similar as I did a lot of night time photography this month.

1.  Jellyfish

A couple of weeks ago, I made a quick trip down to San Diego to go to Sea World.  They had a deal for teachers that if you went to the park on a voucher they provided for you, you'd get in free, plus get a year pass good for the rest of the year.  I couldn't pass that up.  

Most of the jellyfish exhibits I've seen at aquariums are always in simulated night environments, probably because jellyfish are more deepwater creatures so they don't need or get a whole lot of light in the first place.  If you ever get to one of these exhibits, you can get mesmerized by these floating disks of jelly very easily.  It's a very peaceful and calming thing to view if you crowd out of your mind the stinging tentacles that most jellyfish tend to have.

2.  Evolution

In the town where I live, we have a new shopping area completed just a couple of years ago, including a very nice movie theater.  In the center of the square, opposite the theater's entrance is this nice fountain, complete with stair step waterfalls cascading down to different tiers in the fountain.  At night there are lights under the water that illuminate it.

Included in the fountain are what look like salamanders, eels and fish, slowly evolving and coming out of the early "primordial sea" of Earth.  Several of these creatures are also reading books.  I chose to process this one in B&W.  I liked the flowing water, but I wanted the attention to also focus on the salamander reading its book.  With the light in orange and red, I think that would have drawn the viewer's eye away from the salamander and to the lights and the water.

3.  Heavenly bodies


I had about 20 seconds to set this shot up.  Our church fiesta was in full swing and I had been walking around taking shots of the various amusement rides at the fiesta, when I spotted the crescent moon just about to drop behind the trees.

I had the camera on the tripod already, so it was just a matter of setting it up, composing the shot and triggering the shutter.  The ride was slowing down, so I had one chance to get the light trails before the moon disappeared behind the trees.  As a bonus, I also got Jupiter shining brightly above the moon.

4.  The movie theater

This is the marquee for our movie theater.  To get to the theater, you have to walk under the marquee, between several restaurants and past the fountain I described above.  I've taken shots similar to this before, but that was back when I didn't have as good a working knowledge of my camera like I feel I have now.

This shot was a matter of timing.  I had to watch down the street and wait for cars to come by.  Just leaving the shutter on washed the shot out very quickly as the lit marquee is surprisingly bright.  Just a couple of seconds of open shutter was enough to get a good image on this shot.  I would have preferred to have continuous streaks of both headlights and taillights, but traffic was light last night when I was taking those shots, so I had to take what was given to me.

5.  The Statue

There's not a statue in this shot, but if you look in the lower right hand corner, you'll see a man in an orange shirt who is remarkably in focus.  This photo is an 8 second exposure, which is why I call this shot the statue.  

I've actually used this particular shot in another challenge set up by P.J. earlier this month, but I wanted to include it in this five shot set, because of this guy.  During photography's infancy, it was common to have most people's photos taken when they were sitting down so it would be easier to control movement.  Most exposures lasted 30 seconds or longer, so many of the chairs they sat in actually had neck braces to help the subject hold their heads still.  A photo of a Civil War battle is incredibly rare although I know at least one does exist.  Most of the Civil War photos were taken after the battles were done, mainly because dead bodies tend not to move.

I think the reason why this guy is actually so still is he wasn't aware I was taking his photo.  He probably would have been self conscious had he known and swayed slightly, making him a blur much like the other guy standing in front of the ride.  Looking over some of my other shots taken with this one, I'm still amazed at how many people really do stay fairly still over long exposures.

Once you're done, head on over to PJs place to see other bloggers interpretation of the night.

Lastly, I would like to apologize to the other bloggers who posted photos last month.  I never was able to get around and look at your shots and I will make that up over the next couple of days.  I look forward to seeing your interpretations of the night.

Fiesta

Our church has its annual fiesta every year over Mother's Day weekend.  The past couple of years, we've been attending all three days since my wife works one of the booths.  I end up walking around quite a bit taking photos of all of the different things that happen at the fiesta.

One of the things that I've practiced over the last couple of years since starting my 365 project is long exposures.  I've had varying degrees of success catching the different amusement rides with all of there colored lights.  Some that look very interesting don't turn out as well once they've been shot with a long exposure.

I think part of the reason is most of the rides now have long fluorescent light tubes as opposed to individual lights.  If they don't have a constant movement, like this ferris wheel did, the light becomes a very large blob and doesn't look very appealing.  It becomes very experimental while you're trying out different angles for shots.  

Yesterday, during the day, I scouted out spots where I wanted to take shots, then forgot to place my tripod at one of the spots I'd scouted out.   Not much to worry in the long run because the ride I wanted to take a shot of didn't work very well in other shots, so I'm pretty sure it would have turned out quite similar from that spot as well.

Because I've also started the 100 Strangers project, I was looking for possible stranger shots as well as general "Street Photography" type shots to take.  I think I did well with both aspects as I was able to take a photo of one of the concessioners talking with someone.  The tattoos on his arm, spelling out the word Knoxville worked really well in this shot.  He was very successful in plying money out of patrons' hands most of the evening.  The lure of winning a stuffed animal was big in a lot of people's minds and he played right into the lure very easily.

Overall, I was very pleased with many of the shots I took this weekend.  I have several other light trail shots on my Flicker account.  I also met Curtis, one of the concessioners at the fiesta.  He became my 37th stranger yesterday.  If you'd like to check out some of the other night time shots I took this weekend, check out my Night Photography album at Flicker.  I'm hoping for one more nighttime excursion before the end of the month to possible get some star trails as I'm in a blog challenge to take photos with the theme Night for the month of May.  I have a pretty good start on that challenge after this weekend.

Flashback Friday

When I hit the flashback button tonight, I was really pleased with the image that showed up this evening.  We've been having warmer weather than normal this past week.  Our daytime high hit 98˚ F today and with those kinds of temperatures, the butterflies have come out in force.  

Most of them seem to either be very wary of things larger than themselves, as I have not been able to get many, if any shots of the larger species around here.  I have been able to get quite a few shots of skippers, like the one posted here.  They just seem to want to pose.  

I spotted this skipper and bee back in July of last summer, right near the end of my summer vacation.  I think if I were to post this shot today, I'd do a slightly tighter crop to get the vertical stick out of the frame on the left hand side.  Why that didn't get cropped out the first time around is very perplexing to me.