Photo Inspirations by Maria

Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego

2010-03-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Gosh, I haven't posted any photos for such a long time but I have been taking photos. I've been indecisive on what to do with this blog. My focus initially was to post photos I've taken and really not much else but I've decided that in order for me to want to post regularly on this blog, I have to add to it a bit more.

I'm still debating on what I'll be adding to this blog. The focus will still be of photos I've taken but maybe elaborate more on the story behind the photos. I'd like to talk about my life living in California. For those who don't know me, I'm originally from Hawaii and moved to California 5 years ago. There's so many things that I need to do and see here California. . .it's such a big state compared to Hawaii. I think if I have a purpose or mission, such as taking photos of my town and other surrounding areas, I'll be more motivated to post on this blog. We'll see how things will progress.

In the mean time, a weeks ago, my daughter and I decided to drive up the coast of San Diego and visit the Old Point Loma Lighthouse located at the Cabrillo National Monument. My purpose of going there was to take photos of the ocean, the park, lighthouse as well as the sunset. Unfortunately, I arrived there too early in the afternoon to be able to wait for the sun to set. We decided to sit at the edge of a small cliff overlooking the ocean. It was beautiful. I did take more photos than what is posted here but I'll post them on another day.

Dream

Happiness

Serenity

Peace

Beauty

Mystery

SCS Photo Challenge #40 "Up"

2009-07-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

I took these shots for the SCS Photo Challenge #40 "Up". The challenge is to take a photo by looking up. . .in the "up" perspective. My photo is of a palm tree.

This photo was taken with a higher f-stop in AV mode so the whole tree is in focus.

This photo was taken with a low f-stop in AV mode with the upper half of the palm tree in focus and the lower half blurred a bit.

Water Fountain Photos

2009-07-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Just a water fountain at the mall. Nothing special about the fountain but I like how it looks in the photos.

This was taken with AV shot with low f-stop.

I lik adding color to my photos by changing the hue. Th color of the water is sort of dirty green in real life. . .kinda like pee color. LOL!

I took this photo in TV mode with a low shutter speed.

I was playing around with Photoshop. I added a bit of blue/aqua hue.

Mural Perspective Shots

2009-07-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

The mall where I live have a bunch of murals on the buildings and I thought they would make for great photos. They made for great perspective shots!

I like this shot. . .it looks like my daughter is standing in front of the barber shop.

I wanted to give the effect that my daughter was standing in front of a real store. I love the door area. . it's a painting but the depth makes it look like a real door.

A Few Perspective Shop of the Mall

2009-07-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

My Christmas wish list is a wide angle lens. I think the wide angle lens would have created better shots of these images. I used a 18mm - 55mm lens at 18 mm for most of these shots except for the close up shots.

Macro Shots of Flowers

2009-07-24T14:37:00.001-07:00

All of these photos were taken with a 10x macro 58mm lens. They were taken in low light with flash in AV mode. I took the photos when it was close to sunset so I needed to use my flash. I like how using the flash with a macro lens created a dark background but lighted up the flowers.

I played around with photo shop a bit. I used the magic wand and changed the hue of parts of the flower.

It was really difficult to capture photos of the ants. . .they kept moving around and I could not take a good macro shot of them. This was the best one I took.

I like this photo.

Okay this photo can be seen indescent depending where your mind is at! LOL!

SCS Photo Challenge #28 - Fill The Frame

2009-07-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

To help me come up with photo ideas. . De of Bella Luna Photo Inspirations and I decided to play along in the weekly SCS Photo Challenges. For this week, we have a few challenges we decided to tackle. The first challenge that I decided to work is the SCS Photo Challenge #28 - Fill the Frame. The challenge is to take photos that fill up the photo frame with little white areas or space around the image.

I decided to stop by the wineries near wear I live and take pictures of grapes. LOL! Unfortunately, the lighting was terrible and I could not take nicely colored sharp photos. They sort of turned out softly focused for some reason. Maybe I'm just very critical of my photos because I want my photos to look like the "pros". Ugggh! Oh gawd . . .how I wish I was a good photographer but I have to remember that many of the spectacular photos were taken with expensive lenses and sometimes a bit of Photoshop.

I decided to add a bit of color by adjusting the hue on Photoshop. I also added the original unedited version so you can see each "Photoshoped" photos in their original state. It was fun adding the purple color to the photos.

Perspective Photo through cropping

2009-07-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

Just playing with cropping my photos. I wanted to give the landscape below the illusion that it's a real bridge but I don't think I achieved that effect. The bridge is acutally a little bridge at the top of our backyard waterfall.

Do you see the bridge in the background? That's how little it is by comparison to the waterfall so in realty the bridge measures less than 5 feet in length and 2 feet high. With this photo. . .it actually gives the bridge a smaller appearance. In person it's actually looks larger than in the photo but at the angle I took the photo. . .the bridge looks farther away than it does in person.

Expressions

2009-07-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

Just a few photos I took of my daughter making different expressions.

Shaka!

Happy

Devilish

Peace

Serious

Cheeeeeeese

Rrrrr

Okay

Profile

Random Shots at Disneyland 07-04-09

2009-07-17T17:56:00.001-07:00

Just a few random shots I took of Disneyland. I've been to Disneyland so many times, I wasn't really motivated in taking too many photos. While waiting around in the long lines, I took photos of a few things around Disneyland. I don't like how my photos look on Blogger. It's much clearer when viewed on my computer via my photo editor. Blogger seem to distort the photos somewhat.

Just a flower I took somewhere in the park

I snuck in this shot of the Haunted House. You're not allowed to take flash photography so the photo didn't turn out too clear. This is the entrance before you enter the ride. It appears you are moving down but actually it's just the ceiling rises up.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Downtown Disney

Disney Adventure Park

28-105mm Lens AV Mode

2009-07-15T11:11:00.001-07:00

I took these photos with a 28-105mm lens. Even at close proximity, the photos turned out quite clear and picked up the skin tones very nicely. I set the camera on AV mode with a low f-stop

UV Filter and Macro

2009-07-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I have uploaded any new photos for a while. I haven't taken any photos that I really liked. I decided to use my UV filter and see how it effects my photos. I should have taken one with and without the UV filter to show the differences. I didn't think about it but I'll take a few more photos this week with the UV filter and post it later this week.

The photos are not as crisp as I would like them to be. The wind was blowing and the flowers kept moving while I was taking the photos so it was difficult to take a clear photo of the flowers.
I used a 10x macro lens on macro setting. I was going to take the photos in AV mode but because the flowers kept moving around, it was difficult for the camera to focus on the flowers so I used macro, which made focusing a little easier.

I like this one because the camera focused really well on the one bud.

Random Photos

2009-04-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't taken any photos for a while and these photos were from the batch I've taken on my husband's birthday a little over 2 weeks ago. We were sitting waiting for our food at the winery and while waiting I took a few photos of the candle and our drinks! LOL! The restaurant was so dim that I really couldn't take any other photos without turning my flash on which I didn't want to do.

I'm not exactly happy with these photos but decided to post them any way. I'm not going to give the specs either. I'm just posting the photos for fun but I did take the photos on AP without flash.

I'll see if I can find a good subject for my photos this week.

I like this shot because you can see my husband in the background. I don't like how the candle look. . too bright and not very focused but I like the photo set up with the 2 drinks and my husband silhouetted in the background. I like the composition not necessarily the photo. What do you think.

I was thinking of changing service. . .like Typepad but I don't want to pay for the service. I like that Typepad allows larger photos without having to modify the size. With blogger, you have a set size and when you modify it by dragging the size, the photo gets distorted which I don't like. I guess I'll stick to blogger until I get better with taking photos.

Low Light Night Shot

2009-04-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Can you tell I'm in love with these photos? LOL! There's no editing with these photos and I think they came out better than I expected. We went over to the winery last night to celebrate my husband's birthday. While there, I decided to take photos of the entrance to the restaurant.

I took several shots but the sequence of these photos is showing the same object from a distance and closer shots with each photo. Don't the photos look like paintings? I love them!

Photo Details:

Shutter Speed: 1/15 sec

Exposure Program: AP

Aperture Value: f/4.5

ISO Speed: 1600

Focal Length: 34 mm

Photo Details:

Shutter Speed: 1/13 sec

Exposure Program: AP

Aperture Value: f/4.5

ISO Speed: 1600

Focal Length: 34 mm

Photo Details:

Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec

Exporsure Program: AP

Aperture Value: f/4.0

ISO Speed: 1600

Focal Length: 27 mm

Photo Details:

Shutter speed: 1/10 sec

Aperture Value: f/5.00

ISO Speed: 1600

Focal Length: 39mm

Exposure program: AP

Dog in Play

2009-04-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

You're probably wondering what the significance of these photos are? I had told my husband that I felt that people looking at my photos probably wonder why I post them on my blog and he told me that people may understand them better if I told the story behind the photos. It may explain the significance as to why I posted them in the first place.

Why these two photos? Well, as a person learning photography, sometimes you see something in a photo that makes you say "wow, cool". Well, I felt this way when I looked at these photos. We were at the mall, a few weeks ago and we saw a few puppies at the pet store inside a glass display.

There were 3 dogs; two were playing and biting one another and the other just standing there watching them. What I like about the photos is that I was able to capture both the crazy movement of the two playing dogs and the stillness of the one lone dog. Typically, the photo of the still dog would be blurry but with these photos, my camera was able to focus really nicely of the still objects and still capture the movement of the dogs rolling around biting one another!

Now do you see why I like these photos? Believe or not but these were taken on "auto mode".

Poor pup, he looks like he is wondering what has got into the other two dogs. I think that labrador is one of those "thinking" types. . .LOL!!

I have a few more photos to upload so be sure to return some time today!!

Photo #2 details:

Exposure: Auto

No Flash.

ISO: 400

Aperture: f/3.50

Shutter speed: 1/13

Focal length: 22mm

My First Depth of Field Shot Using the AV Mode

2009-03-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'm rather proud of myself. . .my first "depth of field" shot using the AV Mode. Taken at f/2.8, shutter speed 1/160 sec, ISO 1600 and 28 mm. I had taken this photo with my 28 - 70mm lens and had the darnest time taking a good shot because of the dim lighting of the restaurant and my lens inability to focus at close range.

I tried taking the photo in auto - macro and the flash kept popping up. I wanted to see if I could take a similar photo using macro but was unable to do so without the flash. I didn't want the flash because it would reflect on the glass.

Taken at f/3.5, shutter speed 1/160, focal length 42 mm and ISO 1600. This one was taken with a closer shot. Thanks De of Bella Luna Photo Inspirations for the tutorials . . .she's my partner in crime. . .well, as far as learning photography that is! LOL!

I think I could have taken a better shot if I had used my 18 - 55mm lens. I read that wide angle lens work best with depth of field shots. I don't know. . .I'll test it out tomorrow. I was at a restaurant and I had my lens in the car and didn't want to be switching while eating lunch at a restaurant. LOL!!

Past Photos of Scenary Shots

2009-03-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

This is a photo I had taken last May of my neighborhood. My husband had just bought me the camera for my Mother's Day Gift and just took a few random photos playing with my camera. I didn't upload the photo to my blog because I didn't think there was anything interesting about my photos. My husband recently told me to just upload photos and tell a little story about the photos that I've taken. It may not be significant to anyone else but it may be to me so I'll start posting photos here. . .just like I do with my cards on my card blog and sort of record my progression with my photography. Who knows. . .I may look back and see all the improvements I've made.

Considering I just got my camera and the photos were taken on auto focus. . .well the photos aren't bad. I think they are actually beautiful. This photo was taken at the winery in Temecula. It was in May so the vines were full of grapes.

Here's another shot of the winery last May. I love this photo and to think I took this photo was taken in full auto focus.

I took this shot last month in February. I was playing with my 70 - 300mm zoom lens that I received as a Christmas gift from my husband and I wanted to take a photo of the snow capped mountains. Temecula don't snow but the mountains in the distance are always covered with snow every winter. Just a great contrast between the green landscapes and the snow capped mountains in the background. This was taken at the winery near wear I live. See the difference between the previous photos. . .the grapes vines are bare but in a few months it'll be filled with grape vines and even grapes.

Just a close up of the grape vines. . .basically, there is none right now. Only the stakes that hold the vines are present. I'll take photos when the stakes are filled with grape vines and grape in a few months

Just Photos I've Taken in the Last Week

2009-03-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of my dog Dakota. He is a crazy nutty dog that will jump up and down for his treats. Because he's really greedy, he'll continue to jump this way just so his brother Phoenix can't get at the treat. I took this photo on auto - action mode. I took the following 2 other photos of Dakota in burst of shots so I could take photos of him jumping for his treat. He's really talented in that sense.

Fly Dakota fly!

This is a photo of Phoenix in auto - action mode. He was running back and forth and again, I took a burst of shots with him running. With this shot he was running - mid air. I love how it turned out!

Just a random shot of my husband and daughter sitting in the backyard playing game boy. LOL! Just their routine stuff they do every afternoon while the dogs play in the yard.

Not exactly the best scenery shot but I took this photo while I was at the top of a hill at a subdivision in my town. I live in Temecula. ..a city of a population of approximately 200,000 combined with a adjacent town called Murrieta. Temecula is primarily a suburban town mixed with ranches. Temecula is north of San Diego, just bordering the county line.

Here's another shot taken of Temecula, again taken at the top of Morgan Hill, a housing subdivision in town. I took the photo with a 70 - 300mm lens at full zoom

Just a photo of my daughter taken right after she got her hair done (hair cut and highlighted). Just a random shot.

Photos of the Day 03-14-09

2009-03-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

I love this photo. . .it's the bud of a plant (the ones that look like grass). I shot it with 58mm macro lens and when I uploaded the photo. . it looked like a bug walking on a tight wire. LOL!

This is another macro shot of the plant. I like this macro shot. It shows the pretty details of the plant down to the fuzzy top.

This is another type of plant. . .again taken in macro.

My assignment was to take photos and show movement. . .sort of blurred and in slow shutter speed but I didn't do very well. I had forgotten how to set in slow shutter speed but it still shows some movement. It shows some parts blurred and others sharp so I'm satisfied with this photo. What do you think? Can you tell that the wind was blowing?

This is just a group shot at my daughter's Key Club bake sale at a bicycling racing event, an invent sponsored by the community

I really like this photo. . the picture is of a medic car for the bicyclist. Can you see the Key club in the background through the window?

This photo was taken in slow shutter speed (I think) but I accomplished what I had set out to do. I wanted to show movement by having the bicyclist blurred and the rest of the image sharp. I just wish that the image of the bicyclist weren't so blurred and there were some form to their image. They were racing right in from of me. . .they were actually moving really fast.

Here are the bicyclist taken as they rode in front of me. In this photo, again they were riding in fast speed but this was taken as a regular photo.

Desaturated Photo

2009-02-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

Just playing around with more photos. With this photo, all I did was desaturate the photo. Here's is a quick tutorial:

Click on "Layer" at the menu
Click on "New Adjust Layer"
Click on "Hue/Saturation"
Click on the saturation bar and moved it to the left to reduce the amount of color to the photo.

I reduced the color but not all of it. As you can see the shirt still has some blue color to it and the background is slightly green.

Blurred Background

2009-02-15T13:01:00.000-08:00

I wanted to create a blurred background for this image. I followed this tutorial. It was really quite easy to create the very blurred background. I could have blurred it further but when I overblurred the background, my daughter's image looked pasted on.

Click Here for the tutorial.

There are several ways to create a blurred background. This method was fairly easy. This is a great method to blur selected areas of your photo.

As you can see the background is blurred compared to the original photo

Portrait Shots

2009-02-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

My daughter and I went to the park earlier today and I took a few photos of her. Just playing around with my camera. I used a 28 - 70mm lense for these pictures. No major photoshop was done on these photos except to desaturate or lighten/darken pictures that I thought were a bit too light or dark. I took all of the photos in auto focus and portrait setting. My daughter don't wear make-up but she still looks so pretty!! Still trying to learn more about my Canon Rebel features.

I think I'm going to play with Photoshop and edit a few of these photos. I'll repost a few of them with a before and after photos in a future posting.

I took this photo with the "portrait" setting but although it suppose to be for headshot photos, I don't like the faded look to it. This setting suppose to result in a better skin tone color. I think it looks faded and the colors are not very vibrant. I think I'll play with Photoshop with this image!

I think I'm going to edit this photo. It's a bit fuzzy looking. The photo was taken exactly as it looks. I didn't crop it but I don't like how the color turned out!

Swirly Beauty

2009-02-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken with my wide angle 18 - 55mm lense. This is how it actually looks.

Using my 58mm macro lense, I took a close up shot.

I took a third photo again with my 58mm macro lense. None of the photos were cropped. The macro shots are exactly how I took them with my camera!! I love how they turned out!!

Macro Shots of Flowers In My Yard

2009-02-13T13:35:00.000-08:00

A bunch of photos I took of flowers in my yard. The super close up photos were taken with a 58mm macro lense attached to a 18mm - 55mm lense and 3x close up lense. They were taken in

Program AE setting. The regular shots were taken with my 18 - 55mm lense on auto focus macro setting.

Desaturation and Fade Desaturation Tutorial

2008-08-02T23:17:00.000-07:00

I really love the look of vintage photos with a touch of color. Here is an easy way to create this effect on Photoshop:

Rather than reducing the saturation using the percentage scale under the saturation option, click on "image".
Click on "adjustments".
Click on "desaturate". This completely desaturates (remove all color) your image at 100%.
Click on "edit".
Click on "fade desaturate". Using the scale, reduce the desaturation and add color. You also have additional options on the type of fade desaturation you want.by clicking on the "mode" drop menu.
With my photo, I used "normal" mode and fade desaturated at 50%.

The photo was taken in auto-focus and the portrait setting under direct sunlight.

Direct Shot of a Sun Setting

2008-06-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken on auto focus. No editing was done on this photo. Isn't it interesting that the sun looks more like a large star than a sun? When I took this photo, it was still quite sunny but because I pointed the camera directly at the sun, everything in the surrounding turned dark and distored the amount of brightness of the environment. This photo was taken with an 18 mm lens (wide angle shot).

Lens Flare and Changing the Color of Parts of Your Photo Tutorial

2008-06-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

Click Here for the Tutorial

I decided to look for a tutorial online and see if I can create something cool from something ordinary. I found a tutorial that provides steps on how to give clouds a vintage look and add a flare lens to the photo. Rather than recreating the tutorial, I decided to just link the tutorial because it's a great tutorial for a newbie like me.

Although my photo is not a picture of a cloud, I decided to see if I can use the tutorial on a photo with running water. The photo is of our waterfall in our backyard that I took a close up photo of. With this tutorial, you can change the color of select areas of your photo as well as add a lens flare (the circular bright light).

I love how it turned out. The modified version reminds me of some sci-fi sort of scene. . .like a different planet. LOL! What do you think? Anyway, try the tutorial out and see what you can come up with!!

Sorry I've been MIA

2008-06-26T19:53:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I haven't blogged any pictures for a while. I've been busy with life and my card making. I would like to take the day to take some great shots . . .I need to be inspired. I think I'll take the time next week to drive to the coast and take some beautiful pictures. I actually drove to the coast last week but I forgot to bring my camera. It would have been a perfect time to take a photo. I'll be sure to take the time tomorrow to take a few photos!!

Not to worry. . .I'm still here!

Sunset Photos

2008-06-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

On Father's day, I took this photo of the sunset while I was in the car. Considering the car was moving, the photos came out great. I never thought I could take a nice sunset shot here in Temecula. It's not like we're near a sea shore or in a tropical setting. Temecula is in Southern California and no where close to the coast.

I took this photo in auto focus at a wide angle. Not bad, huh! There were no editing other than cropping the photo with these photos. I took more sunset photos but decided to just post these two. Hope you like them!!

Photoshop - Changing Specific Colors of Your Photos

2008-06-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

I was playing around with the RGB feature of Photoshop and changed part of the color of my photo.

As I learn to use Photoshop, it's made me more aware of the fact that many photos that you see may not be what they really are. . .they are edited.

To some degree, I think programs that are so good when it comes to editing, such as Photoshop, have some negative aspect to it. You no longer can take photos at face value. . .now a days many photos are edited to the point you don't know what photos are real or Photoshopped.

Anyway, here is the photo edited. I changed the orange flower to a peach flower. I like the flowers in peach.

The process of changing the color of the flower is very easy. If I have the time today, I'll create a tutorial to show you how to do it.

Photoshop Tutorial - Stitching Photos Together Using Photo Merge

2008-06-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

Click Here for the Tutorial

Hi Everyone! Today I was looking for a tutorial on how to merge or "stitch" photos together but I actually wanted to do something more advanced. I wanted to actually "blend" the photos together. As I was looking for the tutorial, I found a "basic" tutorial on how to stitch photos together so it'll be one single piece or single photo. My daughter had given me photos from her camera so I could create scrapbook layouts with them and I wanted to create a layout with 3 photos side by side without having to print them and cut them individually.

Well. . .this basic Photoshop tutorial uses the "automerge" feature to stitch photos together!! I love it because it's so dang simple.

Levitating! Action Shot and Blurred Background Editing

2008-05-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

I was playing with my the "action" feature on my camera. I had my daughter jump up and down while the camera took a sequence of shots. I chose this photo to post because it looks like she is levitating in the air. I thought it was such a cool shot. The background in the original photo was actually sharply focused but I didn't like that it didn't really show her with her body floating. I blurred the background using the lasso technique. When I have the time, I'll post the tutorial. . .maybe sometime this week! Although this shot was taken with my daughter actually up in the air, with Photoshop you could probably have a photo like this without the person actually up in the air when the original shot was taken. Now a days, you don't know what shots are actually real or edited.

Reduced Saturation

2008-05-30T23:19:00.000-07:00

To create this "partial black and white with a touch of color" image, all I did was reduce the saturation but not completely. By doing this, I was able to add a little color to the background. I also changed the hue to "red" as opposed to its original yellow hue. This photo was taken originally in color.

I created a scrapbook layout with this image. I should have changed the hue to blue but I didn't think about until after I had created the layout.

The photo was taken at a restaurant at the winery that we ate at during the Memorial Day weekend. My son was sitting down looking distant after his father had talked to him about his plans for the future after graduating from high school this year.

Layering Photos on Photoshop

2008-05-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Considering this is my first time to layer images and text, as well as blending the images, I think it came out really nicely. When I have the time . . .maybe this weekend, I'll post the tutorial on how I did this on Photoshop.

This is a photo of my daughter during the Memorial Day weekend. . .we visited the winery and the photos were taken while we were there. The winery had a lot of pretty landscaping that I felt it was a great opportunity to take the photos!!

The start of a new hobby and blog!!

2008-05-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!! I'm starting a new blog for my photos. On Mother's Day, my husband bought me a new camera - the Canon Rebel XTi and I'm slowly learning how to use it. I'm also learning how to use Photoshop!

I didn't want to post all my photos on my card and stamping blog sites because I'm not sure if readers for those blog sites want to see my photos.

I love learning new things and I think I found a new hobby. It's always a good thing to learn something new.

Photo details:

Taken on autofocus with no flash, I took a picture of my daughter with the intention of taking a photo of her looking like she is holding the sun but it did not work out that way. The sun was shining to brightly but where I was located, I could not take a picture of the sun when it was closer to setting.

The top photo was edited by cropping the original photo then reducing the gamma. This caused the foreground to darken and brighten the sun's rays. I like how it turned out. The second photo is the unedited version of the photo.