Photography lost

I lost all of my photography....
I lost one of my cd wallets while travelling..I wasn't so worried about it, didn't really care..I lost games, music, a lot of misc files..but I forgot that I had left the only copy of my photography in that wallet. . . . .I had recently formatted my computer, and was bringing the cd home to show family the pictures I had taken.
I'll get over it..but it's quite a shock..it's really really horrible :/

At least I have some backed up on a webpage, but those are smaller versions then what I was saving..and well..there were many more pictures that I had that I didn't bother uploading. .
so sad..to lose so much that I put so much time and travel and thought into... but I guess I should think of the years ahead of me..and the pictures I will take..and hope that they will come out better..

*sigh*

I hope the small versions of the pictures on my website are enough to make good sized prints with.
..I posted a message in the lost and found section on boston's craigslist... I don't know what else to do :(

Dreaming of taking pictures..

I keep having dreams about taking pictures. I wonder what that's all about. Wasn't long ago that I got into photography, but I've wanted to take pictures for a long time, I just didn't have the means to do it. So now that I am doing it, I have dreams about taking pictures ALL THE TIME. It's really insane. Sometimes I'm having a normal dream, then all of a sudden I either yearn for my camera, or I pull it out and start taking pictures. I think I must be in love with photography as much as I dream about it.

All photo's up..again

My photo's are finally all up. The new pictures added, from Highway 1 and on, are all new updates. And I still have 1.13 Megs of space left. I think I'm going to have to host my pictures elsewhere soon. I'm only using this one instead of angelfire because of bandwidth issues.

Website update

Accomplished half of my photo project. Highway 1, Lafayette Take 2, and Conservatory of Flowers are all edited and ready to post. So step two will hopefully be finished today, and I hopefully will have the pictures up.

Conservatory of Flowers

Went to the Conservatory Of Flowers in San Francisco today. That was nice. Took lot's of pictures of flowers, and TRIED to take some of butterflies. I kept having to go back and delete pictures because I kept running out of space. I didn't bring my laptop, and I don't have the "x drive" yet, cause I'm getting it for christmas. Now I'm falling behind with my photo page. Haven't put any sunset photo's up (I don't think), or these new ones. I've got work to do, but I don't know where I want to start. See pictures below.

Half Moon Bay, Highway 1 Sunset Trip

when I woke up, I got ready to go on a photo trip. The photo trip was GREAT...for the most part anyway. :)

So started with me and the other guy (again same guy as last photo trip), going to get a new girl, then from there we got caught in a traffic jam going to Half Moon Bay. But we had a chance to talk and get to know each other, so it was nice..

First stop was the Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival. Took some pictures of it.
Below are pictures of the entrance, and the "most beautiful pumpkin".




Nothing really that special. Really the most boring part of the trip for me. The good thing was, we went around to a lot of the photographers booths and we got to gawk at how good some of those photo's were. Did I just say that? Yeah..so anyway.

After that we went to the store real quick, then went on to a beach. Not sure the name, or if there even was one, but it was near this motel or resort or something. It had a pretty cool beach..




This tree caught my eye. I like being able to see the roots, and the red..



Then we went down to the beach. I saw these rocks, and the water playing over them. I started to take shots, but the water chased me away. As we were leaving the beach, I noticed these bubbles, and thought they were cool for some reason.



When we went back up the stairs to leave the beach, and we went down the other path that led down the opposite way from this beach. We were heading toward the hotel. Took a few pictures near the hotel (see above for one).

After that, we finally moved on. We ended up going to the corn maze. It was right next to gregario beach!! I took a few more pictures, then my card was full so I went back and deleted what looked to be bad pictures, took a few more, then we left again.



This time we were finally headed to the beach to take sunset photo's. WONDERFUL. My very first sunset photo's. See the sunset pictures below:





Ahh..so yeah...those were the lovely pictures I took tonight.

Plans for next photo trip

Today I have to get in touch with the guy I took pictures with last weekend. He wants to go to half moon bay, or santa cruz or something. I tried calling his number, and he didn't pick up, so I just left him an email. He wants to take sunset pictures. I would LOVE to do that. Should be swell, my first try at sunset pictures. I wonder what it would look like if I set the shutter speed.. Maybe I'll take a look. I dunno. Around 7 pm. I want to take some pictures too. That's when the sky is a really nice blue color at this time of year.

Hakone Gardens

Another photo adventure complete. I posted the new pictures up on my picture site. I'm getting much quicker at editing and adding my pictures. Tried out two of my lenses today, and also was using my UV lens for a lot of the day. I noticed that the wide lens, though is pretty cool, wasn't working very well :/ I don't know if it's just because I don't know how to use it, or what. See below picture (edge isn't as clear as center):




The guy that I went with was OK with me bringing a friend, so we carpooled and picked her up on the way. It was really nice there (Hakone Gardens, Saratoga). A lot better than the Japanese Friendship Garden I found. It's sad, I took a picture of a lizard that was missing a leg. I don't know how it happened, but I felt bad for it.

I came back home to work on my pictures. That is now done! I might go out yet again tonight, and take picture of the industrial area near my house, finally! I'm not getting my hopes up though. Every time I'm about to go there, something comes up.

Website Complete!

My project is finally complete! For the time being...I'm so pleased with myself =) I finally uploaded all the pics I'm going to upload. I feel silly having posted some of the pictures, since they're really poor quality, but I'll live with it. At least I'll be able to learn from the page. I'm already running out of room on that website and I just started it. In the future I might have to be picky with what I post, or maybe I'll end up going back and deleting some..no matter..I'm tired.

Quick photography update

I decided to change my photography page. Changed the layout so that it was a bit easier to navigate. Still have a ways to go. I didn't even get to start the zoo pictures, but at least I have a template that works now.

I think I own enough books on photography now..

I just got two more photography books in the mail today. That makes for a total of 8 that I've bought in the past two weeks. I think I'll stop now! I have decided that my photo books will be a just in case thing, rather than a, I'm gonna study photography thing.

So far, I've just gone out and taken pictures, and as I come back in to edit them, I see things I need to change, and I work on the things that I need. I don't want to take photo classes, I don't want to study photography books. If I have a natural talent, it will come out as I adventure around in the world of photography myself. I don't need a book to tell me how to do it, I can learn on my own. If one finds themselves strongly interested in a particular subject, one is bound to explore that subject until they know it in and out..

I also got another battery for my camera, it was pretty cheap and I have run out of battery power, so I figured it was necessary. I need to stop spending, and start saving for trips. Why does money have to be so important?

Finally looked into setting the timer for my camera. I feel like such a beginner, but I still am, so it's cool. The excitement of running out and taking pictures once I got the camera is now turning into a "hey wait, I want these to look good". A little bit of studying the manual first. I'm going to be a very slow but steady learner I think. The excitement of just saying "I just wanna shoot now" is always there. Now I know how to set the timer I feel I won't need to learn that much for awhile now haha. There's a 2 second and a 10 second. Now I don't have to worry about a cable release. When taking a picture of something that isn't moving, I'll just set it on 10 seconds, and POOF! A picture will be taken without any shake, unless it's windy, but you can't help that anyway.

Now that I've learned something, I can't wait to go back out. At least I know now, if I get bored, I can just learn something new, and then I'll want to go out and take pictures using my newly learned ability.

Filter kit

I won the auction, woo. A little over a hundred. I should be getting the kit next week. It'll be fun to play around with.

Japanese Friendship Garden

I got woken up by a friend who wanted to take pictures with me today. That's one of the only ways I can be woken up and not mind waking up for. I'd never been before, so I drove around looking for this place (Japanese Friendship Garden), just to end up going back to my house because I got lost. Apparently it wasn't my fault, where the directions said "arrive at 1300 Senter Rd." it should've said TURN LEFT at Senter Rd. I ended up not paying attention and driving right by it the first time. The second time I found that there was a road called Senter, and thankfully you could only take a left on it.

We found our way there, and get out to try to find it. It's SO hot. We end up going to where there is a sign. There's a birthday or something going on in the middle of the park, so we go to the "museum entrance" just to be weirded out and realize this doesn't look right. We ask some woman and she points to way in the back of the field. I don't see an opening from where I am, but I guess there is, so we walk that way.

We get there, and the opening to the place is beautiful. I even see a little chipmunk with a piece of acorn in his mouth..a black squirrel too (never seen a black squirrel before). We decide to go right instead of left (everyone was going left) We walked around, and the initial excitement of the opening scene, left me. Then I was just surrounded by bleh, with moments of "oooh that's cool". I guess it was alright. Left kinda early cause it was so hot out, and my brain wasn't functioning because I needed to eat.

I love going out and finding things to take pictures of, but the worst thing about photography, is the picture sorting. I hate being a critic of my own work. I end up deleting a hell of a lot. I guess it's probably a good thing.

I'm starting to think I use my tripod too much too. When I was first starting, I didn't use one, and I feel I got better shots..was more versatile or something. I guess maybe I should only use it if I'm zooming in past 3x. And I have to learn the timer thing. I still haven't decided to learn how to do that, and I'm sure it's very easy. The timer will be like the release cable I can never own.

So I'm sifting through the Friendship Garden pictures, there are so many images floating around my systems, it's crazy. I need to stop so many projects at once. The friendship garden isn't what I expected either. For some reason I thought there were lot's of flowers there. Did I miss them? I don't know, but I guess I'll just check the website again. Maybe there was another park in San Jose that had lot's of flowers.




I'm proud. I did some work on my page, just fixing the links at the bottoms of the pages, but it was work. I finally put up the final Muir Woods page, wonder what took me so long, it took me less than 10 minutes. Oh well. Also getting the zoo ones sorted a bit more. It's going to take a little time, but I'll handle it, and at least I'm getting some where.

Haven't done much work on the friendship garden, because I decided to go back and fix the older stuff first.

I'm tiiiiireed. I have to work at 1 tomorrow, and have to wake up before that because the auction for the lens kit that I want ends tomorrow morning, and I HAVE to win. Yes have to.

Lafayette Street San Jose, CA

I feel slightly disappointed, but not too much .. knowing that the area I was going to shoot tonight, will still be there tomorrow.

After work today, I had decided I wanted to go to this "industrial" part of town. So I called a friend, not wanting to go alone. I bring us to the part of town that was talked about from one of my co-workers a day or so ago. As I'm driving through it, I can't wait to get out and take pictures. We pass a few street people, and my friend says "don't stop there". So I finally find a place to park, get out of the car, and get my tripod. I'm about to set off, and she's like "Uhhh...I don't feel comfortable here." I had specifically told her I had wanted a guy along for this very reason. And I also had asked her numerous times while we were driving through and she was making comments about it being a "bad part" of town. Oh well..

So that idea was scrapped. Then I didn't remember the other place I wanted to go, but I remembered it being a better neighborhood, so we went back to my place, got directions, then headed back out. This place was very easy to find, and was really nice.

I didn't get to take many pictures, due to fences and the fact that people were working. I just took some shots, then we left.
Here are some pictures:

And yet another update...

I have been emailing Canon's tech support for a week now, asking about different things. The last email they sent, told me that my camera didn't have any add on lenses or anything like that. But when I check ebay, it's a different story. In fact, the lenses I've been meaning to get (they were going to be a total over $200 not including shipping), are now all together as a package, and so far under $100! I'm going to have to buy the lens kit if It's under $100. I'm watching the auction anyway, it's got 15 hours left. I hope it stays under $100.

I was thinking about going to an "industrial" zone on the way home from work, but I didn't want to be there alone in the dark so I didn't stop... but one of these nights! Industrial zones and lens filters..

I've been looking at an "x drive" so I don't have to use my laptop to transfer pictures when I run out of space. It'll be cost effective for me to buy it (it's a little under $100), rather than buying a whole lot of flash memory cards. I have deleted pictures on occasion (most likely really bad shots anyway), and don't like having to do that.

I have so much to learn, but it's good that I started my photography group, and that I'm a somewhat active photographer. The more I go out, the more I'll learn.

I really wanna take some "industrial" pictures. For some reason, every time I drive by industrial factory type places, or places that seem to be falling apart, I don't want to peel my eyes away. I wonder what this mysterious attraction is about. I HATE pollution..I guess it's the architecture that I like. I need to find someone with patience to go with me to these types of places. I have a few places in mind already, down Lafayette there's a place. Someone at work told me there was a place that was cool right between my home and work. Technically before I go to work I could drive through that area and take pictures.

The thing that bothers me about taking pictures, is that I can't do it during sunset unless it's Friday or Saturday because I work all other nights. For some reason I haven't pushed myself to go to any areas to wait for sunsets and such.

Also, I'm slightly upset that the camera I bought can't do a lot of things that I want it to do. The lenses I can buy for it are limited. I can only use specific lenses that can be used with an adapter which attaches to the tripod. And of course there is no cable release attachment.

I guess it's alright because I'm still a beginner. I can learn on the S50. It's a very good advanced camera. I can move up to an SLR when I'm ready, then I can get all of the lenses and goodies, and spend far more than I should probably. Hah..

Another update

If I ever wanted to sell a photo with people in it, I wouldn't be able to without a model release form. Now I think I'm going to print out some model release forms for those just in case moments.

Sorting through pictures and music and fixing a few things on my Photo pages today. It's good to be able to sit here and do nothing, but still get something accomplished. Put up a new page. I think I have more pictures on my laptop, but I can't get to them right now. When I have a bit of extra time, I'll start uploading pictures to my servers again.

Since I don't have a networking cable, I have to transfer some of my zoo pictures to a web page of mine. Didn't get very far with that :/ Tried to view one, and it said that my site had exceeded it's limit. Guess it may take awhile. I guess I should edit some of the pictures before uploading.

I really want to get my photo's organized. I had them all nice and perfect for awhile, but ever since Muir Woods.. I think I'm going to take a weekend off from going out and taking pictures. Or perhaps I'll go to the Friendship Garden. I've been meaning to go for awhile now, and it's a very short drive.

San Francisco Zoo

Lovely day at the zoo. Was a bit hot at moments, but ten times better than San Jose. I guess going to San Francisco on really hot days is a good idea.

So my photo friend was nice. We spent from 10am to 4pm checking the whole zoo out. I took over 100 pictures. It's going to take me forever to go through them all, but it'll be fun. While we were taking pictures, these people were interviewing this lady. All I got from it was they were interviewing her because she was into digital photography.

Later on we were taking pictures of...rhino's maybe? They walked over to my photo friend and asked him if it's digital, he says yes. They ask if we're together, and if I shoot digital too, I say yes. So they ask if they can interview us. We decide to, they ask us a lot of questions, and I get into talking about my "photo adventures" group, which they perked up when I mentioned. Then after they were initially wanting to talk to him because his camera looked more impressive (yes this is why), the interviewer seemed more interested in me, my S50, and my idea. Well, it made me feel like I was doing something, and getting somewhere. And the interview went really well. They gave us $10 each for the interview.

After the interview we went on to take many more pictures...yes...much editing and posting I must do. What a time consuming project this will be. I hope the pictures came out as good as I think they did. I used a tripod for all of them, except the first few.
Photo adventure 2...a success...

Quick Update

I still haven't sorted through all the pictures, but I'm getting there. Deleted a whole bunch. I guess I've learned what not to take pictures of in the future. However, the picture that I knew was going to be my favorite, was indeed my favorite. At least I knew it was going to be a good picture, now maybe if I only find those types of shots to shoot, I'll have lot's of good pictures. Was interrupted many times during the process..it was fine though..it was getting to be a lot of work anyway. The choosing of the pictures, and figuring out if I want to keep them is hard enough.

Muir Woods

Early this morning I got up and went to Muir Woods to meet up with a photo guy that is in my group. Had a nice 4 hours looking around, shooting pictures, talking about photo's and such. Really nice...can't wait til the group gets bigger, then I'll be able to pick more brains. So it went OK..these trips are mostly for learning, but sometimes nice pics come from them which is cool.
The first picture reminds me of a deer. (Note from today: Looking back, I think I may have to find a stream and play with the shutter some more. I love moving water pictures.)

Storms can be fun

Everyone wants me to go outside now. Apparently they want some footage of the lightning going on outside..think I'm gonna be headed to the parking garage heh.

Well that was fun, we went out for almost 2 hours. Tried to get some good pictures of lightning, but not many pictures came out. I took some video which I haven't looked at yet though. Maybe there's something salvageable there too. There is one really strange picture..





I mirrored the image because I couldn't move the camera at all for the shot. It's so unpredictable when the lightning is going to appear, and where. I just had to guess and set the shutter speed at 10-15 second intervals. I missed out on a lot of good pictures, but it's alright. Even though that picture is mirrored because I wanted to make it more complete, it was totally worth my going out. It's kinda scary, to me it looks like a duck with goggles haha and a shirt with a stripe on it. Went up to the hospital parking garage for these.

Short update

Sat at my computer fiddling with pictures and web pages again today. Much fun. I finished it for now at least. I feel I've accomplished something by getting the page up though. I like having a place to showcase my work, even if very few people see it.

Hoping to go to Big Basin tomorrow or the next day, but I really don't know if it's going to happen. I'd really like for it to happen tomorrow, but Sunday would work too. The only problem is I don't know who else it'd work for.

So much to do, so little time.. Was planning on getting all of the pictures up yesterday, but I don't know what I was thinking. I'd like to finish today. I just wanna get it over with so I can go back out..hopefully to Big Basin, and take more pictures. I've been thinking about it, and I really want to go down to San Diego to take pictures at the zoo. The only thing that bothers me about taking pictures at the zoo, is that I'm taking pictures of animals that aren't in their natural habitat. I think I should go to the one in San Francisco first, just to see if it's worth it. I want a zoom lens before I go, that way I'll be able to get close up shots. I wonder if anyone will have enough patience to watch the animals with me. I could sit there all day and watch them.
Guess I should get back to work on my photo page.

Oregon Continued

I had a great time in Oregon. It was nice to go out in the wilderness and take pictures. I found that what I most enjoyed, was taking pictures of the chipmunks that we kept running into at Crater Lake.





I guess I'm more of an animal photographer than a landscape one.. but this is ok. I will continue to do both. Hopefully one of these days I can get over to Africa and take some nice pictures of lots of different animals. I'm still sorting through all of the pictures. Here are some below:






Transferred all of the flash card pictures over. Sorted through them, saved the ones I wanted, deleted the others..there were a lot that I saved. Started editing some of the pics, but then realized it would take too long, so I decided to just save em and edit them later. I was interrupted a few times, but now at 10:41 I've finally got the start of the website done. The pictures are all minimized because I want to show the page to modem users and I don't want it to take forever. Was thinking about putting a link to it in my photo group. Not much up yet, but will probably work on it a bit more before I go to sleep. The pictures I took at crater lake and Newport are immense. It'll take me awhile to sift through them and selectively choose which ones to put up on the site. Ah well..maybe I'll just sift through it quickly.

I have to network the laptop soon and transfer those pictures over to this computer too. It was really nice having the laptop.. I love being prepared. The only thing that I'm missing really, is the lens filter kits. When I can save up enough money to feel comfortable buying those, I will. I have to go back to work next tuesday, so I have plenty of time to go on a few more little trips around the bay area and take pictures. It's great to have a hobby, and one that I've been meaning to incorporate into my life for such a long time.