This was from a work trip to San Francisco in 2008. I was walking along in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, and this car was parked on the side of the street. Even though it was in the late afternoon I had to take a couple pictures. I like the way the sun reflected off the headlight and the  blue sky is visible in the highly polished chrome. Still amazed me that it was parked on the side of a busy street!

This also was an entry for the Wasatch Camera Club Competition in January. 1st place in the Assigned category (Planes, Trains, and Autos) of my division, it received a 6 and 8 (0-9 scale) from our judges that night. One judge remarked on how he liked that even though you couldn’t see the whole car, you knew that it was a really nice expensive car.

This one was on a curb across from the street going up to the Arc de Triomphe. I took several shots trying to get one with a nice balance of lights on both sides which proved difficult with the traffic lights.

This also was an entry for the Wasatch Camera Club Competition in January. While it did take 2nd place in the Assigned category (Planes, Trains, and Autos) of my division, it didn’t get great marks with the judges (6 & 7). There were some really fantastic images in the other divisions, feel free to check them out here:

http://www.wasatchcameraclub.com/html/competition/application/competitionResults.php?competitionID=15.

I had to laugh when someone from the Camera Club asked me if I had any more Paris pictures, seems I’ve entered a lot of them in the past several competitions. I’m afraid the answer is yes, I still have a few more

I shot this one night in Paris. I positioned my tripod in the center of the eiffel tower at the bottom and pointed it straight up. It was an OK image in color, although I didn’t like the blue coming through in the sky on an 8 second exposure, so I like the black and white rendition better.

I also entered this one in the Wasatch Camera Club Competition Open Division and it received a 9 and 8 from the judges (scale of 0-9).

Another one from Paris. I entered this one in the Wasatch Camera Club competition in the Open division and got high marks from the judges. It took 2nd place in the Master Open Division, both judges gave it an 8 (on a scale from 0-9).

This is from our trip to Boston. Lisa and I rented a car for the day to drive down to Cape Cod and it was quite a day trip. The sky was murky and didn’t make for a great color photo, but after converting to sepia tones, boosting the contrast, and adding a vignette it turned out to be a nice image. I submitted this one also in this month’s camera club competition and took first place in the open advanced division.

Post processing done in Adobe Lightroom.

This is a shot from a February trip to Bryce Canyon. One of the days we went on a bit of a drive to see Devil’s Garden in Grand Staircase Escalante State Park, we got there just before sunset. I took several exposures and used HDR and other post processing to give a more accurate picture of what it looked like when I was there.

I entered this in the Wasatch Camera Club competition in the assigned category “Foreground Framing”. It took first place, and Best in Show award (a first for me). I’m pleased the way it turned out. Another image I entered in the open category also took first place, I’ll post it another day.

This was one of the images that I submitted in the assigned category “Out of Place” in the competition this month. And I confess, this was not really a picture I loved, but it was the only one I could find that fit in the assigned category.

This one was I took this one in New Jersey at the winery last fall. This critter was hidden back under some leaves, and so I used off camera flash to try and brighten it up, unfortunately because of the angle it looks like on camera flash (which I don’t care for). It was pretty hard to get the right shot since he moved around a lot.

This was one of the images that I submitted in the assigned category “Out of Place” in the competition this month. And I confess, this was not really a picture I loved, but it was the only one I could find that fit in the assigned category.

This one was fish food for the walrus at Sea World in Orlando. Nothing fancy, but for some strange reason a strong smell is recalled when I see this photo .

Another submission for competition that didn’t place. But this was a very interesting spider. One night at my parent’s house, we found this spider out in the front that put up a huge web. My dad and I took some pictures, trying to figure out how close I could get and trying different flash angles, it was a fun experiment.

The next morning I went out to take pictures of the spider with some early morning light and it was gone, web and all. Oh well.

First place! I’m a member of the Wasatch Camera Club and we meet in downtown Salt Lake City once or twice a month.  We also have competitions every couple of months and this past Thursday was one. I submitted this picture and took first place in the advanced open division. I’ll upload the other pictures I submitted also over the next few days (even though they didn’t place).

This image was taken in the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park at Fisherman’s Wharf. They had some very neat old ships that were mostly closed by the time we got there so we didn’t pay the fare to get on (the one remaining open ship). I found this chain very interesting. Particularly I liked the lighting, the texture, and how the webs are intermingled with these strong chains.

Post processing done in lightroom (black and white/vignetting) and photoshop to remove a disctracting string and light spot. Original here, scroll down to Advanced category, and you can also see some of the other winners of the night.