Balboa Park

Balboa Park is in the middle of downtown San Diego.  It's filled with museums and beautiful buildings.  My dad, brother and I took a little walking tour through the place just to get out of the house. Even Santa was there. We hit up the Fleet Science Center for the Hubble IMAX movie.  It included admission to the main museum so we tooled around for a while. More on the way.

People I’m related to

This week I'm in San Diego visiting with my dad and his family and my aunt and uncle that live out here.  It's rare that I make it all the way across the country (8 hours of travel!) so I try to take advantage whenever other circumstances send me this way. Here are some people I'm related to: My little brother and sister are a very talented pair of individuals.  Not content to play just one instrument or sport each, they are constantly taking up new pursuits.  Like unicycle. My oldest brother is an auto mechanic that lives in the Bay Area.  He fixed my stepmother's Jeep.  That was nice of him. Now ponder, if you will, the Cassandra-like fate of the photographer hanging out with her family, or even, in most cases, her friends.  Imagine the ability to see fantastic, amazing, beautiful, flattering light and becoming ecstatic at finding said light.  Imagine for a moment this photographer is so thrilled to find such amazing light, and wants nothing more in that moment than to make a beautiful picture with the beautiful light.  She has a temporary flash of a lovely bride in a long white dress, carefully styled hair and classy, understated makeup standing in the very pool of light, positively radiating in the bubble of soft, amazing light, complete with just the right twinkle to throw catchlights.  And then this photographer must turn to her brother and ask him to smile.  And she must be satisfied with this (on the left).  Woe to the photographer!  My dad is positively mocking me. More from San Diego to come - Balboa Park (the best place for portraiture I may have ever seen - damn you San Diego wedding photographers!) and even a hotel self-portrait from the U.S. Grant.

The “kit”: D3, 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8

You'll have to forgive me this post because it's probably going to get very technical.  This weekend I've rented what I consider to be the "wedding kit" - a full-frame body with excellent low-noise high-ISO capacity - here the Nikon D3.  This combination of lenses totally blows me away compared with what I normally use.  I have a nickname for my regular gear, too - my "bang around" stuff.  Not that there is anything wrong with the Nikon D80.  In most cases, you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between the two cameras.  It's when things get tricky that the camera really shines.  Like here: ISO: 3200!, 1/25 s, f/2.8, 70mm This image would probably not happen at all with my D80.  It's just too dark in my apartment hallway to get something sharp. 70mm and 24mm of the same scene: I walked the camera around.  It's cold out! And yes, I can't help myself.